58

If an ordinary person were asked to describe Da Vinci's workshop, then most likely he would use the words "filled with trash", "chaotic" and "piling up". The word "orderly" would have never come to a person's mind, perhaps as a sarcastic thought.

Numerous tomes and books, priceless manuscripts and semi-decayed drawings, huge encyclopedias and useless books about ten pages thick, artifacts of unknown purpose and broken objects made of gold, iron, bronze, precious gems and useless glass pieces lay on tables, shelves, armchairs and even sometimes on the floor, some piled on huge pile of papers balanced so precariously it would fall when an observer looked at it - all these things filled up Da Vinci's workshop.

An ordinary person might be surprised or perhaps not even believe that the most brilliant scientist and inventor could create such chaos at his workplace, in his own shrine. Only a person of similar stature of mind to that of Da Vinci could determine that despite the seemingly macabre placements of Da Vinci' things that would seem to be scattered in an absolute mess at random - they were, in fact, exactly where they were needed to be.

In other words, instead of placing things in a certain "order", as it might seem sensible to simpler minds, Da Vinci preferred to keep things where they should have been.

Sometimes this system however, as objects balanced "randomly" is ought to do, would fall down - so Da Vinci for the third day could not find her teapot that was now probably swallowed by one of the heaps of her drawings and folios.

The rest of the time, this system worked almost perfectly. In particular, right now.

Da Vinci opened one of the many scattered books on a page only she knew a certain information she needed is, after which, finding the line she needed, she quickly ran a glance through the words and slammed the book shut, then placing it away from herself, then returning to the object occupying her table and attention.

"Ainz Ooal Gown" - the text that is in the title of the drawing sheet, which at the moment was completely covered by notes, which by the volume and randomness of the subject noted it was not possible to understand the meaning of these notes for anyone except Da Vinci.

By nature, Da Vinci was the ideal embodiment of a scientist. Not a wise old man enjoying the well-deserved fruits of his work, but a young, ardent scientist who first encountered the incomprehensible mysteries of this world and decided to reach the truth at all costs and break through the veil of secrecy over this world.

In other words, Da Vinci loved and hated riddles at the same time with equal - and tremendous passion.

And Ainz was one big ball of mystery.

Da Vinci smiled to herself, singing a melody known only to her under her nose, after which she looked at her notes, summing up her long research.

Ainz Ooal Gown. Magi.

The fact that Ainz was a magi was clear, obvious and logical, so Da Vinci did not focus on this word. She looked further.

Magician.

This was a more interesting conclusion.

Several lines and notes led to this point at once - "Supertier Magic", "Unknown Magic System", "Foreigner".

Ainz was a foreigner, this fact was easy to deduce, but confirming it took a lot of time to verify the conjecture.

Strictly speaking, the world that Da Vinci knew of was vast, not to mention the existence of other worlds - the existence of which is laid undeniable by Kischur Zelretch, the Second Magician, who travels through parallel worlds with the ease and frequency with which other people go for a walk.

On the other hand, even Zelretch was somewhat limited in his travel destinations.

Of course, the endless existence of parallel worlds and the ability to endlessly walk along the endless parallel of the endless worlds could not be called limited, but there were such worlds where even the Wizard-Marshal should not have travel to.

For example, the Outer Gods. Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath or Nyarlathotep existed in a distant reality, which could be charitably called "parallel" to this world - as well as many other possible worlds, and therefore, theoretically, Zelretch could visit them. However, Da Vinci knew that the universe where the Outer Gods existed was not the most welcoming of places among the countless realities - in addition, the Outer Gods usually showed their hospitality by destroying the mind of the one who dared to approach them. Moreover, such a horrific "retaliation" is not intentional - so there were extremely few who could withstand being in the same universe with a full-powered Yog-Sothoth

Thus, despite the fact that Zelretch could travel through an infinite number of parallel worlds - there were worlds where even the Wizard-Marshal did not dare venture to meddle.

Judging by all the information available to Da Vinci, Ainz came from one of these worlds. A world so alien that even the simplest and most logical common truths of Da Vinci's world were hardly applicable to it.

Similarly, the existence of Ainz, whose existence was like a living violation of the existing constants of this world, was logical and even expected.

His existence that is similar to that of a Divine Spirit in such a world was logical and perhaps expected. Only an existence that has reached levels of power comparable to that of a Divine Spirit - or perhaps a Magician - would be able to easily move through parallel worlds, and especially to bring part of his own world with himself to another world. In other words, Ainz was another version of an Outer God from a parallel reality.

And this harmonious theory was broken by only one fact. Ainz was a Magician.

Da Vinci placed her hands in front of her and looked at her drawings and notes.

Strictly speaking, it is impossible to say unequivocally that Supertier magic was like that of True magic, it was impossible. Maybe yes, maybe no. In the end, according to Ainz, something else could also describe Supertier magic — the "highest form of magic". A Divine Authority.

However, in this case, another contradiction emerged. How could Divine Authority be the logical progression of the usual magic system of Ainz?

Ainz's magic was just magecraft. Though strong and of unknown origins and laws, but magecraft all the same. Looking at the gift given to the Chief, Da Vinci was able to determine that the objects were the products of a spell. A very strong and complex spell, but Da Vinci could repeat a similar feat after several attempts. If she needed to develop a spell that produce a similar effect, creating a magical construct that takes shape in reality, she would have done it in... A couple of weeks, or some similar time scale.

In the end, Ainz possessed magic. The gods did not learn magic. The gods used Divine Authority.

The "magic" of a god is to create any desired effect solely by his will and strength. A similar ability is derived from the birth of the god.

On another scale is that of Spirits created by the faith of mankind and Gaia, the accumulation of mana and pure chance which took shape in reality. The embodied side of the life of Gaia herself, the very embodiment of the Earth. Due to the fact that the gods were something like a "self-developing module" of Gaia, they could control a part of it as if it is the finger of a person, with simply the power of their own will the world would change in response.

Therefore, the gods did not need to learn magecraft - they could use the Divine Authority bestowed upon them from birth from the very beginning. Considering that all sorts of magecraft from the time of creation was aimed only at mimicking divine miracles, it made no sense for the gods to study magic at all.

Of course, Da Vinci cannot deny the possibility that there could be a god so interested in magic that he would endacour to master it the same way that magis would, but Ainz did not seem the type of person to do that to her.

In that case, Ainz could simply be a simple Magician of course. But why then, did he have such a reality-distorting presence, how could he navigate the parallel realities, why did he have such an aura of power, and why would a trail of divinity stretch behind him, like a subtle smell in the air?

To make things worse - Supertier magic. What is it? Is it Divine Authority or perhaps True Magic?

Ainz appeared in all respects like a Divine Spirit, but even if such a conclusion would justify the presence of magic, it would still fail to take into account his possession of True Magic. A Divine Spirit themselves were only spirits embodying one of the many aspects of Gaia. In order to "acquire" True Magic the magician had to reach into the Root. There was no position farther from reaching the Root than that of the position of a Divine Spirit.

In such a case, Da Vinci could then call the Supertier magic as Divine Authorities, and Ainz as a Divine Spirit which studied magecraft as a passion - however, other facts would appear as contradictions in this harmonious theory.

Cainabel.

Da Vinci sighed remembering the girl. Cainabel was a contradicting factor, bringing in new information as if only with the goal of breaking Da Vinci's fragile theory.

Cainabel could also be classified as a Divine Spirit - and unlike Ainz she directly called herself a god - or a divine ancestor, the distinction does not matter. Moreover, Cainabel did not consider Ainz a god, but instead refer to him as a being apart from the gods. A Higher Being. This was her way of referring to Ainz.

But still, what is a Higher Being then?

Cainabel was a book filled with useful information - very intriguing information. However, her information rarely helped in building theories.

The Higher Being is the unborn soul from a destroyed world, who is then placed into a body by the Creators to fight the World Eater. This was not the most useful of information for building theories.

But Da Vinci took it into account.

So, Ainz. A Divine Spirit, but also a Magician. A Servant, but also a man. A hero of legends, but at the same time a normal, not particularly remarkable Master, who somehow arrived in Chaldea.

At that moment, Da Vinci smiled. This was not the first time that this list of qualities is embodied in a person.

A Pseudo-Servant.

A person used to contain a divine essence.

A very interesting project, albeit inhumane in its essence - Da Vinci would not approve of such an experiment, but still could appreciate their beauty. Use the body of an ordinary person as an anchor, and then place a Divine Spirit inside this human body. As a benefit, it became possible to let a Divine Spirit, usually a being either too strong, too immaterial or even too weak from time and unbelief, to become embodied in reality, bypassing the usual limitations of such an existence and even the fact of the end of the Age of the Gods. The downside, of course, was the fact that the new body that Divine Spirit would possess was a human, which meant a decrease in divinity, strength and ability. Although even with such a decrease in its capabilities, a Divine Spirit is still too strong to be contained in the body of a normal human, the death of the vessel is the usual aftermath.

But what if you reverse this process?

Rather than using the body of a human as an anchor but instead the body of a Divine Spirit, and to put inside of it not a Divine Spirit, but that of a person who would then take control of it, just as the Divine Spirit would took control of the human body when it is summoned?

Cainabel spoke about the history of the birth of her world, but right now Da Vinci was not interested in the story of the emergence of Cainabel's world neither in the personalities of the Creators. She will dig further into it after she can finally deduce who Ainz really is and what connects him with humanity and especially how he appeared in this world.

So, according to Cainabel after the death of the Creators in their battle with the World Eater, they committed a last act of retaliation against it and allowed the souls from the worlds destroyed by the World Eater to reincarnate in order to continue their fight. A very successful act, as Cainabel herself claimed. One of these reincarnated souls was Ainz himself, or herself. She couldn't exactly throw stones no?

True, Cainabel claimed that Ainz was not his real name, but so far Da Vinci was not very interested in such a tidbit. It seems that she is finally beginning to unravel the tangle of mysteries called Ainz.

So, Ainz incarnated in the New World. But he was not existing in the form of a simple magi and also not in the form of a Divine Spirit. But instead he is embodied in the form of the two at the same time.

A Higher Being... If we assume that the creation of these Higher Beings was an act of desperation, or perhaps spite on the part of the losing Creators, it would be logical to assume that the Creators in the end would have little power remaining to create such creatures - as Cainabel herself confirmed, saying that the Higher Beings who were newly "born" in the world were not stronger than an ordinary person - or a magi. However, they would gradually became stronger, absorbing the power of the world where they were now existing in. The behavior of characteristic to that of a Divine Spirit.

However, from their existence as a Divine Spirit, these Higher Beings received only the body - or at least what could be called a physical "body". The last action of the losing Creators was responsible for the construction of this "body". However, the created bodies were only puppets. Divine Spirits without mind. Their Mind was brought into them by souls from another world who would take "control" of the emerging Divine Spirits. Souls from the other, destroyed worlds from the wings of the World Eater.

Thus, the paradox of how Ainz could both be a Divine Spirit and man was resolved. The Divine Spirit was only his body created by the Creators. His mind and soul belonged to mankind - thus, although his body possessed all the abilities inherent in a Divine Spirit, the mind of the "controller" needed to adapt to the use of these abilities. Thus, they needed to learn magecraft first before their personal power could sustain the use of Divine Power and their mind could control it. So, the knowledge of magic gained by Ainz on the way of his growth when faced with the appearance of Divine Authority decided to call it Supertier magic. A being knowing the laws of the creation of magic who then gained the power to change the world by its whims, a terrible combination. A combination that is neither Magic nor Divine Authority in the truest sense of the word. Instead of True magic drawing its power from the Root, or Divine Authority drawing its power from Gaia, it was a type of magic that draws power from the laws of the universe. The knowledge of the laws of the universe - and the power to break and rebuild them - what could be more dangerous?

Da Vinci clicked her tongue out loud - again she was distracted from her line of reasoning!

So, within the body of a Divine Spirit, an alien mind and soul was placed. One of the souls of an annihilated world. But which world?

And now the last piece of the puzzle came into play.

Ainz knew about the impending Third World War and wanted to prevent such a thing from occurring.

When Ainz faced the Singularities, with the destruction of the world and humanity, he did not even blink in surprise. Perhaps because he had faced such a thing in the past?

Trying to determine the powers and abilities of a creature like the World Eater was a headache in itself. It was only known for certain to her that Cainabel said that the World Eater was capable of devouring worlds. But perhaps it is possible that she did not mean it the truest sense of the word.

There was a whole history behind the existence of the World Eater, the fall of the old world and of the death of the new one.

Da Vinci closed her eyes.

She could afford to remember this story.

The Creators created the world. More precisely, a tree that embodies the infinite worlds, this tree is Yggdrasil. They created the world "pure" - in other words, free from morality. Do not think that this meant that the created world was "good" - instead, the concept of "good" or "bad" did not exist in it. A wolf hunting a hare is not "bad" and a hare escaping from the wolf is not "good". They are simply animals that are not aware of these concepts. Similarly, a "pure" world does not contain good and evil.

And the Creators created an observer. One powerful observer over all the worlds. Then they named him Nidhogg.

Da Vinci repeatedly noted the existence of similar motives to this world - Cain and Abel, Yggdrasil, Nidhogg - all these concepts were known and familiar to her of course. Da Vinci even had her own idea on this subject, but it was not important to unravel the mystery.

Nidhogg was a perfect, powerful observer who looked at all the worlds from the outside. This was his strength - as an observer, he could see all the worlds at once. His weakness also lay in this - unlike the ordinary inhabitants of these worlds, he could see clearly what their "pure" existence really was. Stagnant progress, an animalistic life and neolithic existence.

Nidhogg tried to settle the conflicts between the inhabitants of these worlds - but his lessons were always forgotten, his words would be erased, and there would be no trace of his actions left. Just a couple of million years - not even a blink of an eye for the observer of all the worlds - and they all would return to their "pure" existence.

And then Nidhogg realized that the worlds that was created in this way was not viable from the very beginning. He then went down to the roots of Yggdrasil - to the Root, to the Source of all worlds and devoured it, dooming the worlds to death. He poisoned the Root with the concepts of good and evil, and worlds that have lost their "pure" existence began to perish. And then the World Eater was born, devouring the perishing worlds, becoming stronger and stronger.

This story also had a continuation, a link between the history of the death of worlds and the last battle of the Creators, there were further continuations - about the Twelve Angels of Sephiroth, about the Seven Lords of Sins, about the Five Rainbow Buddhas - Da Vinci still has not heard the full story, but she was not particularly concerned about this fact. What was important to her was different.

The devourer condemned the worlds to death by devouring the Root, and at the same time poisoned it, bringing his vision of "good" and "evil" to the previously "pure" world, as an observer the World Eater is able to see impartially of what is "good" and "evil".

In this case... Perhaps he did not "devour" the worlds in the literal sense of the word. He brought to the worlds the concept of "good" and "evil", condemning them to death. Perhaps, in this case, the destruction of the worlds were the result of its indirect action.

In particular, it is not so difficult to imagine that in one of an infinite number of worlds, people behaved just like in Da Vinci's world, on a similar planet and with similar nations. Poisoned by the knowledge of good and evil, they began to develop just like people in this world - however, without the Root, they were deprived of magic and doomed to extinction. A world like the current Earth would then die under nuclear strikes, annihilating billions of people in a matter of moments. After this, this world perished and its power would then join the power of the World Eater.

In this case, it was one of the hundreds, thousands and millions of similar dead worlds that joined the forces of the Devourer. After a long time, when the Devourer was wounded by the Creators, a soul escaped from his jaws, A soul that would later gain great knowledge and power. The soul that would later become Ainz.

However, how exactly does this soul then possess True Magic? It is a simple explanation. Souls that were born from the World Eater's wounds were already in contact with the Root, in the literal sense of the word. These worlds were already swallowed up by the World eater, which means that all the souls that were in it once touched the Root when the World Eater devoured it. And so from the destroyed world Ainz finally appeared. The embodiment of non-life and non-death. Although he was born in one of the worlds that have died without the personal participation of the Devourer, when the Devourer swallowed this world, it continued to exist - subsequently, in close proximity to the Root. In other words - if Gaia existed on Earth - the embodiment of earthly life - and Alaya - the embodiment of humanity - then, after the ashes of the nuclear fire settled, Ainz embodied everything that was left of both of them. From both destroyed pillars of the world. Ainz, the embodiment of the destroyed world, perished in a nuclear fire.

And as the embodiment of the devoured world, Ainz was one of those who wanted to get revenge on the Devourer. He was one of those who was embodied in the new reality, with a new body by the Creators in order to destroy the World Devourer.

And as Cainabel had informed Da Vinci, he succeeded.

However, even with Ainz background solved, there was one more question remaining.

Why and how was Ainz here?

Da Vinci sighed.

Answering such a thing was very difficult, it was already much more difficult to even speculate.

The theory of Ainz's existence sounded rather harmonious in her head, however, when trying to combine this theory with reality - with the Root, with the Singularities - some problems arose.

But not those that could not be easily resolved.

Although Da Vinci did not hear the full story, she knew how the story of Ainz and his accomplishments ends. Ainz was not just called the Last Being for no reason.

According to Cainabel, the world of Yggdrasil finally disappeared in the end, just as all worlds would disappear someday. However, Ainz was the last of those who remained in this world. Such facts usually mean something in the general picture of the world.

The whole world ceased to exist, but Ainz continued to live - well, how an undead can do this. Cainabel provided some information about why this could happen.

The Last Being. The one who was the last in a perishing world. Is it possible in this case that Ainz did not just survive? Is it possible that by "surviving" the end of the world that now the role of the "observer", a title who once belonged to the Nidhogg, has passed on to him?

But now Ainz was already observing another Devourer himself. After all, the Singularities, the distortions in the worlds, could resemble the actions of the World Devourer himself, when he poisoned the previously existing "pure" worlds. Such a thing explained everything.

This explained everything perfectly.

His desire and motivation to fight. His acquaintance with the principles in the structure of the Singularities, the Pseudo-Grails. His cautious attitude toward the existing world. His appearance in this reality. And even how he was able to create an "empty sheet" - the forty-eighth Master. Being an observer of the Root must go with its own set of abilities.

However, even so, one question still continued to concern Da Vinci.

"And who are you in the end, Ainz Ooal Gown?" - Da Vinci grunted out loud.

Getting the answer to this question is yet to come to her.

"AHCHOO!" Ainz clutched at his nose, trying his best to prevent further outbursts with no avail, "AHCHOO!"

"Who did I provoke that they talk about me with such intensity?!" - in between sneezes, Ainz looked up at the sky, after which he could not restrain himself - "AHCHOO!"

Skill: Natural Born Genius

Skill Strength Level: 100

Quite an interesting skill that is responsible that allows the usage of magic and special abilities. It is very interesting in that it is one of the "game-breaker" skills, opening up the use of all types of magic up to the eighth tier, ignoring any other requirements, and special abilities that are usually limited for certain classes or races. Although the strength of the abilities that can be used with this skill is not great compared to that of a player of the hundredth level, the vastness of the arsenal and its usefulness in various conditions makes this skill difficult to overestimate.