After a short retelling of Fang’s- Perumah’s story, Aloran also caught him up on why he decided to name her that, essentially calling her a Blood Queen. Out of everything he knew about Perumah, it was fitting to say the least.
“Now that you’ve been told things from Perumah’s perspective, let me answer your previous question- you asked what it meant for Connection to permeate your body, yes? Well, there are many benefits, some surface level, others a bit more complex, so lets get the immediate effects out of the way. To start, Fendrascora was correct in her assessment that you’ll prove rather hardy against other spirits, as well as more damaging to them in kind. Think of it as you entering a new weight class of spirit, where you have more weight to throw and use to resist the strikes of others. This, also like Fendrascora said, will end up marking you as a valuable treasure. Spirits that devour any part of you will be able to increase their own weight, attuning themselves to the higher concepts of Leviathans. I have no doubt that, should you enter the Spirit Realm and other layers, you must be ready. You’ll terrify the weaker spirits away, but act as a beacon for the stronger ones. I wouldn’t suggest going below the fourth layer, as the spirits there only tend to reach the eightieth level mark. As a rule of thumb, every consecutive layer increases the level cap of spirits by around twenty levels. First layer has levels zero to twenty, the second has twenty one to forty, so on and so forth.”
Dei nodded. “I think I’m starting to see where this is going. The Mother had some kind of innate control over Fang, over all monsters if I’m understanding her role correctly. For tying myself to Connection, I’ve given Leviathans a level of control over me somehow?”
“Correct, but not just that. Firstly, I want to tell you not to panic about Leviathans forming a link to you. They’re neutral beings, and are unlikely to call upon that. The benefit to you, however, is that you now have more of a right in certain things, and your will is more difficult to contest. Leviathans are powerful beasts, if you follow in their footsteps, it’s like the universe itself will recognize you as being worthy of a bit more than others.
“This effect is probably the most important you’ll receive from your new Solidity Skill” Aloran said, and reminded Dei that he still needed to open it and look over the changes. “It helps when fighting against others in everything. Having better rights, better claim over yourself, makes it so you are harder to touch in every way. Some things will be considered below you, and it’s a universal effect. Someone wants to slash you? If they have less right, it’ll be slightly harder. Someone wants to burn you? Again, less right, less effect. The physical component is so negligible that it might as well not exist though, as it only really shows its effects when fighting Gods and the like. That’s not what it is for though, as the combat aspects of it dont even hold a candle to the higher components.
“When negotiating with Gods and affinities, they must pay closer attention to you, they must give you certain benefits. In bargains, whether mediated by the System or otherwise, holding a stronger Right to yourself puts you in a better position, even if it’s not perfect. Let’s once more look over Perumah’s story.
“When The Mother wanted to decide Perumah’s name, it had a very strong Right to do so, because it had established ownership over all monsters. It is a God, who innately hold strong rights, and a Primordial Child, who are well-respected cosmically. It had every advantage in the situation, which meant that it should have been able to overpower Perumah’s right to her own name. The issue is, though, that it’s not absolute. There is no way to ever fully remove one's rights, you can only narrow what they do.
“With infinitely smaller rights, Perumah had no wiggle room in the bargain with The Mother. She had to resist The Mother with every fiber of her being, never doubting her actions even slightly, or be forced into the deal. Now, if you were in that situation, you wouldn’t need to fight as hard. It might have been only marginal, but you would be allowed to harbor the slightest doubt in your heart, and still resist an attempted naming, as Perumah had.”
Dei nodded along with each of his points, and thought of rights. Though Aloran posed it as something divine in nature, it was clearly an underlying aspect of reality. A law of physics.
Greater beings had more right to themselves than others, but why? Why did a Leviathan hold greater rights than him? It couldn’t just be because they were Gods, because Dei himself had earned a good portion just now, albeit by following in their footsteps.
Dei had a thought about how to earn more right over himself, but he didn’t need to theorize. He just asked. “You make it seem like having a Right to something is divine in nature, but is that true? Do I have to borrow from the Leviathans to get more Right to myself?”
“No, not at all. It’s a measure of how impressive you are objectively. Doing impressive things will earn you more right to yourself. Achievements, leveling, and even widespread popularity gives you more Rights. As you prove yourself, the universe responds by bending certain things in your favor. Following the path of higher beings helps fast-track that because ‘If you closely resemble something impressive, then you must also be impressive’ in the eyes of the universe.”
Dei grinned. In that case, he probably already held a significant level of rights. He’d done a lot of things that were completely unheard of in most situations, such as shocking the System with a declaration or traveling the Void unassisted.
This was almost definitely something that he’d already taken advantage of, making him both harder to kill while giving him an easier time of killing others. Aloran said that the physical aspects were so negligible as to be nonexistent, but they were there, and he truly had no idea just how many Achievements Dei had. Sure, he knew what Dei had done was impressive, but even he couldn’t guess all the things Dei accomplished. Nor would Dei tell him, unless it became relevant.
“Just to be sure,” Dei said, “If I have more Right than my opponent, I can more easily damage it, yea? You said it would protect me, will it make it easier to hurt them too?”
“It will, yes.”
“And I take it this becomes more relevant at higher levels too, yea? If someone like the child of royalty is given a lot of help as they level then when they reach, say, level three hundred, it will be obvious to others at their level? After all, even if some royalty who had everything handed to them has the same stats as a peasant who clawed their way to the top, wouldn’t the peasant win in a battle?”
“Firstly, it should be recognized that Royals are innately born with at least a little bit higher Right than others. Second, absolutely correct. Despite the initial boost, most of the time high level nobles lose out simply because they are not as impressive as others their level. The universe doesn’t respect a curated path.”
“Interesting… this also means that if I want to kill a divine being- not you- I’ll need to do some crazy impressive feats in order to damage them because their rights would innately protect them.”
“Also yes. Becoming a God gives a rather large boost to one's Rights, meaning that it’s almost unheard of for mortals to actually succeed in killing Gods. Of course, they would first have to find a way to actually battle the God, as most of them only exist in the divine planes, and you do not want to go there as a mortal. The only way I could see it would be if you either convinced a God to manifest in one of its followers- bad idea because they’re still strong- or you found a God who was weak enough to stay within the Physical realm- better idea because they’re both weak and can’t escape.”
“You’re walking me through how to kill a God, thanks for the trust?” Dei laughed.
“Eh, you’re no danger to me specifically, and I’m rather invested in your survival. I don't know what you’ll be doing over the next few years, more information can only help you”
Something else occurred to Dei as well. He eventually needed to ascend to Godhood in order to take the first step in completing his System-granted unofficial quest.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Though his life had mostly been preoccupied the last few months, he hadn’t forgotten what the System wanted from him. Dei needed to, eventually, ascend to Godhood, then beyond to become a System Administrator. Doing so would supposedly allow the dead System of Earth to reboot, bringing it back online.
Right in front of him was a God more than willing to talk about all the most hidden aspects of Godhood, he had to take advantage of this opportunity.
“Speaking of Gods, how do you become one?”
Aloran laughed. “It’ll be a long time before you reach that, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to indulge your curiosity. Becoming a God takes two simple and nearly impossible steps. Step one is to surpass level five hundred. This brings you a half-step into divinity because no regular mortal could ever do so, and the level five hundred evolution overcharges every aspect of yourself, tearing you apart and rebuilding you as something greater than the sum of your parts.
“The second step is to find your domain, something that perfectly defines you. You must find your absolute purpose, something you wouldn’t mind doing for the rest of eternity. Again, simple in words, almost impossible to actually do. It involves shaving away all the unimportant aspects of yourself, and living for that singular goal. You just went through your first evolution, one where you became a Slaughterer and cut away some of the weaker aspects of yourself. Stepping into Godhood is like that, times a million. You have to give some stuff up to become a God.”
“I see… I see… You said that I would have to find my domain, does it have to be an affinity? I imagine so, because otherwise, how would you be a God of Refuge and have Refuge mana exist. Seems a bit too big of a coincidence. Unless there’s infinite affinities?”
“Ahh not so. There can be Gods of anything, but there are only a limited number of affinities. Originally, I was a god of Protectors, but there isn’t a Protector affinity. I was happy to stay that way, but I was approached by the Refuge and Guardian affinities. Both made offers to me, requesting permission to slightly alter my domain into their affinities and, in exchange, they would give me some stats, Achievements, and Skills. I ended up taking the Refuge affinity’s deal, and I’m now a God of Refuge.”
“Wait, there is a limited number of affinities? How? I thought they were like… the embodiment of concepts, and there are limitless concepts. How many affinities are there?”
“Hmmm… that’s a hard question to answer, as few millennia or so there are records of some affinities appearing while others become less common. I think the current estimate is around five thousand or so?”
‘FIVE THOUSAND?! That’s so fucking few! How? Why? Who decides that?’
At almost the exact same time, he thought of the System, and his [Dammit] Achievement. There was one clause specifically that made his eyes go wide.
[The knowledge that it cannot be fixed in your lifetime due to the nature of the bug, an oversight in the pacts between The System and various affinities.]
More specifically,
[Pacts between The System and various affinities.]
The System formed pacts with affinities. Aloran said that every few millennia, some new affinities would appear while others would become less common.
Instead of new affinities being born, was the System blocking a significant amount of affinities? Making them impossible to manifest within its domain if they didn’t play to its tune?
If I go to another System, will the affinities be different? It can’t just be that though. If there were an infinite amount of affinities, surely there’d be hundreds of thousands of affinities permitted in the System.
Maybe the System just picked its favorite affinities, so it didn’t have to give many concessions?
Still, Dei wondered where the affinities came from. They clearly had minds of their own and desires to spread their message. That wasn’t the behavior of something that originated from nothing as just another “Law of physics” so to speak. He didn’t even necessarily have to wonder, because the answer sat within the main topic of his conversation with the System in general.
Ascenders. People who surpassed Godhood and went a step further, potentially becoming System Administrators if they so desired.
Dei had to ask himself, where did they go? And the only thing he arrived at were affinities. Aloran seemed to think affinities were higher in the cosmic hierarchy than Primordial Children, so did someone become an affinity when they ascended?
He didn’t think it was so simple, affinities simply did not act like they held any roots in mortality. They were true embodiments of their message, with everything else cut away. If someone had to become an affinity to ascend, Dei couldn’t imagine people striving to become that. Dei wouldn’t want to become a singular concept, giving up all else.
At the same time, he didn’t think he was far off either. Aloran shifted his domain to match an affinity, was there any reason not to do so if it simply awarded power? No, there wasn’t, unless you were interested in one day creating your own affinity.
What if affinities were the remnants of domains left behind by Gods who’d ascended? In other words, the Refuge affinity was left behind by a Refuge God who ascended higher.
There were two other facts that pointed towards people not just becoming affinities when they ascended higher. The first came in the form of System Administrators.
The System said that if he ascended, he might become one. He couldn’t be both an affinity and a System Administrator.
The second was the half-ascended God who’d drained Dei’s original universe of its System. He’d selfishly killed a System, damning billions, trillions, or more to ugly demises throughout a section of the multiverse. Someone like that was bound to be a selfish asshat, who Dei couldn’t see as anything but materialistic. There had to be some sort of tangible benefit, some great light at the end of the tunnel when it came to Ascenders.
This reinforced his original point: affinities were perhaps the domains left behind by Ascenders. When they broke past Godhood and into higher realms, shedding the divine aspects of themselves, those divine aspects would probably ring throughout the multiverse, an echo of the person who once embodied the concept.
If a God ascended, its mind would go somewhere else, while its divine body would become an affinity. As Dei thought it over, he became more and more sure of himself. Only reinforced by an incredible notification.
[Profession Leveled Up: Pondering Sage (Level 11) -> (Level 15)]
[Total Stats Gained: +20 Spiritual]
‘Aw hell yea, I’m pondering the fuck out of some mysteries right now. I will be eternally shocked with just how many stats I gain from each level of Pondering Sage.’
With these last few levels, he now had eighty nine points, and it was now by far his highest.
As he was grinning about this, he heard another exclamation from Aloran.
“Dei what did you just do?”
He sat up straight, keeping his face still. Dei having a Mythical Profession wasn’t something he wanted others to find out, and it seemed like his Profession was drastic enough to be detectable when it leveled up in massive bursts.
“What do you mean?” he tried to say neutrally.
“Dei you are so bad at lying it’s not even funny. That was such a drastic behavioral change that it’s very clear you’re hiding something. From my perspective, your soul just gained a noticeable layer of defense in seconds, something that isn’t normally possible. You might’ve formed a Skill to defend yourself, but those events are pretty loud to people at my level, and I didn’t sense anything like it. Or you randomly decided to become incredibly serious about defending your mind or blocking me out, but that’s not right either because you weren’t really paying attention until I said something. That only leaves you gaining a massive amount of Spiritual stats instantly, which is frankly absurd, but the only option. So how?”
He had two options now. Either outright tell Aloran that he wasn’t going to say, or come clean. He didn’t want Aloran to know if there wasn’t any reason to, so the question now was whether Dei would gain something from telling Aloran he had a Mythical rarity Profession.
Off the top of his head, he could think of several reasons to tell Aloran. For one, Aloran might know ways to accelerate his leveling speed. Two, it would be a good test to see how others would react to such information.
He could ask Aloran in general how to level Professions, but at this point he’d definitely be caught if he did.
Were there any reasons for not telling Aloran?
Other than his own caution, not really. Aloran was already proven to be a good ally and generally a good person based on Lani’s memories. Once more, Dei had to consider that he was Aloran’s only hope for coming back together.
Dei still felt cautious about everything, but he had to admit that at this point, there wasn’t any real benefit to withholding the information about his Profession. He only continued to do so because trusting something like Aloran, who was probably stronger than Dei, felt wrong. He didn’t like leaving himself vulnerable.
‘I have to get my answers somehow. Can’t get those if I don’t ask questions.’
