Infinite Possibilities

The gallery had been having a grand old time roasting its owner when a single post flipped the mood on its head all over again.

Nobody knew who Lizelia Anna was supposed to be, but the post uploaded by Liz — the registered user who'd been getting roasted within an inch of her life — sent shockwaves through the entire gallery. The content itself was simple: the air she'd obtained through barter was no ordinary item. And not merely unusual — it had been revealed to possess a broken, overpowered trait called Infinite Restoration.

In the evidence video she attached, a perfectly transparent, empty rectangle sat alone amid Red Fog so thick the world a few feet ahead was nothing but a blur. On screen, she first summoned the air, took a few slow breaths while she waited, then realized something was off and activated her Appraisal skill.

With that single video, the atmosphere here shifted in an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠instant.

Everyone reeled at the never-before-seen marvel, hunting for the source of this oxygen and arguing over how it even worked. Some people just sat there slack-jawed, too stunned by the absurd spectacle to do anything else.

First it had been the trade. Now it was the oxygen itself. I didn't have fans or haters to my name, but I was the superstar who'd left everyone stunned all the same. And right now—

"What the… that's so cool."

I was staring, dumbfounded, at a sight that shouldn't have been possible. I mean, it was generating this jarring sense of otherworldliness right in the middle of the fog, like a window into a different world. If there were a fantasy movie where a bright gap to another realm opened up in the heart of a dense mist, I definitely would have fallen over in shock. I saw it with my own two eyes, and it was genuinely amazing.

It wasn't as if I was unaware that most things from the Backrooms carried a trait like Infinite Restoration. This place was built that way from the start — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no matter how badly you trashed it, everything reset to normal within a few minutes. But the only things I'd actually been able to watch restore themselves here were food, the walls, and water. In a Backrooms with nothing in it, I didn't even know how you'd go about polluting the air, and even if I had, there wouldn't have been any reason to try.

Her video confirmed it beyond any doubt, and at the same time showed me what happened when matter from the Backrooms crossed over into another world. Of course it was fascinating.

On top of that, the fact that this person was a woman caught me completely off guard. It wasn't that I'd assumed she was a guy, exactly. I'd just figured she was a run-of-the-mill attention-seeker — and then a cool-beauty of a girl came bursting out of nowhere, and I didn't know what to do with myself. Her clothes were worn and tattered, and she looked grimy enough that she clearly hadn't had a proper shower in a while, but she had this air about her. An aristocratic quality, I guess you'd call it. That pale pink hair and those aloof, half-lidded eyes made her look like a young lady of the nobility.

Fascinating. And convenient. That was about as far as I assessed the whole situation.

The truth was, infinity was a far more extraordinary thing than people tended to think. Some would argue that the root of every problem humanity had ever faced was the finiteness of energy — that's how much infinity could solve. And in an apocalypse where everything was in short supply, that necessity shone even brighter. Before the collapse, people rarely died for lack of resources. After it, they overwhelmingly did.

Even so, the most important question was always the same: infinite what? Even in a ruined world, most places still had oxygen to spare — more than enough to go around. Liz's case was different because she'd been trapped in the special hell of a poisonous fog, which made this more vital to her than anyone. Honestly, infinite clean air just wasn't that big of a deal.

So when I found out the air I'd sent her had the Infinite Restoration trait, I figured I'd file it under "neat" and move on. Except for special cases like hers, infinite air was a pretty lukewarm proposition.

Their reaction, however, was nothing like what I'd expected.

Fleeing from a virus. Breathing underwater. Healing ruined lungs. They were even saying you could use it as a makeshift sterile room and perform actual operations. Uncontaminated air. That one thing alone spawned countless new ways to survive and erased threats that had been hanging over people's heads.

It was different. These were people who'd been grinding through apocalyptic worlds where everything was scarce for years on end, and it showed — they thought on a completely different level from me. Tell a room full of apocalypse veterans that you'd provide them with infinite garbage, and they'd probably leap for joy.

That said, it wasn't as if everyone here was a genius.

Even in a situation like this, there were plenty of people who were just here to have a good time. Fair enough. That was that, and this was this.

And the person who'd caused this whole situation in the first place was starting to flex. She really was a superstar — the kind who drove fans and haters alike completely insane.

Not that the flexing was particularly effective. Watching her celebrate like a little kid over a single box-sized volume of infinite air was honestly kind of heartbreaking. Let's all try to live with a little gratitude for the simple fact that we can breathe.

That was when one particular comment caught my eye. On the surface, it was an ordinary conversation about item grades. But the phrase that snagged my attention was I haven't progressed far enough in the Main Quest.

Wasn't checking an item's grade just a quality-of-life system feature? I hadn't expected the available functions to be locked down that hard based on Main Quest progress.

My own Main Quest was currently set at five Entities — or five hunts. I'd originally thought it was just five of them, but with the restoration trait in play, there was a real chance it meant five times. Ideally they'd just vanish when I killed them, but I also wouldn't mind if five Entities never decided to chase me all at once. Either way, whether I could actually hunt them was still an open question.

But wait. Didn't I have something I was supposed to be doing related to all this? The reason I'd opened the community in the first place was…

"Right. The Magic Stones."

I'd come here to ask how to use them. The mood seemed to be shifting from memes toward actual discussion anyway, which made it the perfect environment to ask a question.

A comment that jabbed at my conscience, just a little. I waited it out with a dead-eyed stare until a kind soul showed up and started explaining.

I immediately dug through the pinned posts, found the Magic Stone usage compilation, and read it cover to cover. The announcements had even the most trivial details written out, so in practical terms, almost everything that mattered had already been in that comment. The only points of real importance were that the potency of the effects varied from world to world — so you had to check for yourself — and a few tips on how to actually break the stones.

"So… if you don't have anything sharp and hard enough to break a Magic Stone, you take the sharp part of another one and strike the flat face…"

I set one stone on the floor and gave it a simple downward crack. A fracture split across it almost immediately. The hardness was a bit above glass, but it broke this easily — apparently Magic Stones weakened when they struck each other.

I widened the crack just a little, and a faint shimmer stirred in the gap. At the same time, something like fatigue drained out of my body. The pinned guide had been telling the truth — but there was something more important to test.

"Wedge another Magic Stone into the crack…"

An explosion. Nothing would give me a better read on these stones' practical value. Of course, the blast would render both stones useless and flatten everything nearby, but that hardly mattered. I could supply myself with as many Magic Stones as I wanted just by selling air, and the surroundings would restore themselves automatically. I could even do it right here, right now, as long as I put enough distance between myself and—

"…The sound's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠going to be loud, isn't it."

If it was loud, it might draw Entity aggro. The odds were probably low, but there was no harm in being careful.

"Water."

Water poured from my inventory. Three summons later, I had a pool about a meter deep. The Backrooms floor that wouldn't budge no matter how hard you pressed it would warp the moment it met water, and that remained a genuine mystery.

"Combine the Magic Stones, set them at the bottom of the pool…"

I climbed out and started putting distance between myself and the water. Even underwater, I had no idea how big this explosion would be, and I wasn't about to watch from up close. It was absolutely not because I was scared an Entity might hear even an underwater blast and come looking.

I stretched the gap at a pace somewhere between a fast walk and a light run, and before long the pool had shrunk to a small enough shape in the distance.

"They said one or two minutes, so it should be about…"

Right then, the water began to churn.

"Ohh…!"

I'd been trying to see how it would play out when the sudden abnormality in the water kicked my perception into overdrive. The water rose in an instant, rounding itself into a sphere like a ball. The sight was more than a little unnatural, but the water rapidly lost its shape.

A droplet of water flicked against my cheek. From this distance, just enough to dampen my clothes a little. Only then did my sense of time snap back to normal, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as if the world had remembered how to move.

Water filled the crater once more. It wasn't being purified. It was being restored — and that was a sight I was seeing for the first time today.