16: Routes and Many Thoughts

History.

Skills?

System.

Punishment?

Crazed.

War?

Angels.

Repent?

True dragons.

Administrators?

Elves.

Created?

Demons.

Created?

Monsters.

Created?

Structure.

Stats.

Titles.

Language.

Divine Field...

Headache

Pain.

Migraine...

Pain.

Pain.

Pain...

Ah, I'm back.

"Conditions met. Skill, 『Library of Babel』 has successfully implanted information due to the User's survival."

What...?

"By the effects of the implantation, skills 『Fate Mystic Eye LV1』and『Clairvoyence LV10』『Foresight LV10』 were acquired"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『Foresight LV2』 has become 『Foresight LV10』"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『Super Thought Acceleration LV6』 has become 『Super Thought Acceleration LV10』"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『Memory LV6』 has become 『Record LV10』"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『High Speed Processing LV1』 has become 『High Speed Processing LV10』"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『Parallel Minds LV1』 has become 『Parallel Minds LV10』"

More Taboo and another Title skill and even multiple skills being maxed out, all thinking related. Apparently, the amount of information I received from the skill could've been deadly. I think what I got from Taboo was also bad as two different information-implanting skills went off at the same time. Even now after the process and with Pain Mitigation, my headache feels as if it would last an hour.

Before that though, I activated Super Thought Acceleration and time seemingly slowed around me, much more drastically than the previous times I used it.

'Parallel minds, hello.'

:Hi:

{Hi}

[Hello]

...

10 different voices filled my head.

'Since we are the same, I'm sure you know what to do already.'

|Yes|

{Yes}

~Do we have to?~

At the questioning of one mind, we all said yes in response to it.

~Fine...~

'With that said, let's begin.'

From there, they all did what was required of them. We did have to organize ourselves slightly which we simply did through numbers but other than that, the process was simple enough. The plan was something like this for now. The first, second, and third would analyze the Library of Babel and everything it provided to me on a deeper level. We already understood it but decided to dig slightly deeper and find out how to use the information we required.

It was quite shocking actually.

Babel is considered an infinite library, with everything there is to know. This was on a smaller scale, including things only in the system and I felt even one section was excluded as well too for some reason. The skill, however, let me automatically learn this world's language. That and the required conditions to get skills and titles as well as the effects of them all. 

It even said what skills would come with each title. For example, one that caught my interest was Savior. It provided a Heavenly Virtue skill called Charity as well as Hero LV1 and the acquisition condition was to acquire a certain number of purification points. Those are from doing good deeds around oneself, such as healing hundred of people.

I also even got a deeper look into ruler skills. Apparently, the majority eat away at one's soul, which can be blocked by Heresy Nullification almost fully. They each have side effects such as feeling anger, or jealousy which is also mainly blocked by the aforementioned nullification. 

There were two more key things that I can glean from this skill though.

The first was evolution. I was able to see a tree of all the possible things I could evolve into as well as the things needed to evolve and the skills that would be gained much similar to the Titles.

The chicken had quite an interesting evolution chart. The next ones I could choose were ones that specialized in different magic attributes. Fire chicken, earth chicken, and so forth. 

I inspected each one a bit but decided not to go with any of the magic ones, due to all of their evolution paths ending there, besides the Corrosion Chicken. There were other options besides those, namely a Keythong, Axex, and Griffin. None would give any skill unlike the other evolutions but they were particularly interesting.

A Keythog has a chicken-like head with a hyena front half and a lion back half. It also has spikes on its head as well as its back, perfect for piercing. The one drawback is the loss of flight though. The build of it is approximately 3 times my overall size so even if it doesn't have the wings, it would lead to higher offense and defense.

The next one, the Axex, has a chicken-like head as well and the rest of its body resembles a deer. With wings for flying that is. It has a higher speed than the others but doesn't provide much else. And now the final option.

The griffin is a well-known mythological creature compared to the other two. It has a lion's body with a bird's head and wings. Similar to the Keythong, both the defense and offense are increased by evolving into it.

"Experience points have reached a certain point. Individual, Majicken LV10 can now evolve"

"Would you like to evolve into Griffin?"

YES

"Individual, Majicken LV10 is now evolving"

I decided to evolve immediately and look over the other evolutions while doing so. The feeling of it is strange every time and I turned off Super Though Acceleration until I would be fully evolved. It was slowed down before and felt even stranger as I had more time to asses my muscles expanding and bones shifting places.

"Kiyotaka! Are you oka- eeeeh?!"

I forgot she had an outside perspective and a first-row seat on experiencing a bipedal creature tripling in size and turning into a quadrupedal creature. That applies to Kumoko as well.

{|Of course I am. I'm the strongest around|}

She was looking away from my developing body and didn't say anything in response to a narcissistic parallel mind of mine. All of them have different personalities and it is rather troublesome. If it gets out of hand I can always deactivate the parallel mind's skill.

However, they were still analyzing Babel, Taboo, and multiple skills. I delegated 1 of them to space magic, which would apparently take 6 days to unlock to LV 10. Since six were busy, I had the remaining four asses Soulfull King Solomon to understand how soul manipulation works. The parallel mind that spoke was slacking off and since I wasn't the type to say something like that, I addressed Kei.

{Yes, and ignore my previous statement.}

"Got it. Oh, I'm going to evolve into a Pikachu right now, I'll see you when I'm done Kiyotaka!"

I'm glad that Babel allows me to check other creatures' routes too. It seems the end of the mouse line she is on is Oppaichu, and unfortunately, the image of the creature is censored by the system, as well as the description. What the hell...?

I checked what Pikachu was and apparently, it's a small rodent creature that specialized in magic and provides the skill Iron Tail, Thunder Jolt, and Quick Attack.

The first is what it sounds like and a thunder jolt shoots a ball of thunder that travels through surfaces. It can even travel through stone apparently and while the effect isn't too strong at level one, couldn't she have made a large portion of monkeys fall off the wall if she had it sooner?

Now quick attack. It allowed the user to go their speed stat times the skill level once every minute. The drawback is that the damage is a third of their initial attack. The only thing that changes upon the level of skill raising is the multiplier to speed, meaning both the cooldown and speed would remain static.

Moving on past Kei, Kumoko seemed to be evolving as well. I checked her evolution tree and she had the choice between Zoa Ele and Poison Taratect as she was a Small poison taratect now. One's corrosion based while maintaining the same size while the other strengthens poison and increases size. With her speed, I think she chose Zoa Ele. However, the description was rather off-putting.

"A small spider-type monster that is feared as an ill omen. Because few witnesses have ever seen it, it's said that anyone who merely encounters one will die within the next few days. Legend says that it will often suddenly appear behind its victim and use Rot Attack to decapitate them with its scythes"

That wasn't the worst part though. I checked the skills gain and corrosion, the death attribute, is granted at level 5 attack. However, there isn't a single resistance attached. Isn't that dangerous?

She should be fine since she has a slight resistance skill already and with human intellect, she should be able to tell. So with that said, I turned my attention back to focusing on myself as I evolved into a griffin.

The holders of the ruler skills, apparently one can exist, and I can see that said person's race. I cannot see the name if they do have one unfortunately but take the Gluttony holder. They are classified as an Origin Taractect, isn't that was Kumoko is? According to the evolution tree, would this make her the grandmother of her? Origin taratect isn't something that one can evolve into obviously so it's hard to tell.

That was all that Babel pretty much allowed. It was unfortunate that it also had the exact same information of taboo, meaning the information that was implanted in my head was double taboo's original. The information overlapped and was easy to understand, but it's like forcing one eye to look at a TV with a show and have the other look at another TV with the same show. Painful. Unnecessarily painful.

Focusing on what taboo told me, it was more so the history of this world. The system wasn't always in place here apparently, but was installed as a means of punishment for humans to repent for their actions. Their souls are trapped on this planet in a reincarnation cycle, weakening more and more. The system wasn't meant to be in place this long and that leads to the most concerning problem. This world is on the brink of collapse. It would be nice if I can avoid it, but if this world dies, I perish along with it. The only way I can think of avoiding it is to leave this world but that involves a lot of complicated things for that. No skills are made for such a thing, the closest might be Dimensional Magic, the magic above Spatial Magic. Even that doesn't have any spell that can travel that far, at least with values inside the system.

All stat numbers like HP and MP can reach 99,999 maximum, and traveling between planets may need more than that, at least for the initial time. I have an idea for such a thing but it's such a faraway thing that I can only speculate for now.

{I found a mapping function. Shows all past places visited as well as the current location. You can also pin people and see their movement as well as their status values at any time. Should I mark Kei and Kumoko?}

: Mark them hard, we don't want to lose them to some other guy:

Sure, do so.

|That's near impossible for us to lose them by the way.|

It's pretty likely, isn't it?

; Main Brain should be called Clown Koji;

: I second that:

Classifying each other like this is decent I supposed. Name yourselves or have others do so, then introduce yourself here.

~Sounds like a hassle...~

; I'd say for the one that just spoke to be called Slothful Koji;

/I think you should be Namea Koji/

; What makes you say that?;

/ I can list more than just two examples of what you did and I compiled it quickly in a 1000-word essay just to explain why you should be called that. It begins with.../

They are doing as asked but in the strangest way possible. As I was going to move to something else, Brain 6 called out to me.

|I found a monster ranking system humans use in this world. We are apparently a danger rank S right now, around the same level as this system's dragons. Kei is a C and Kumoko is a C in their eyes. This is all predicted after their evolutions take place. A Pikachu is a unique creature though, since her species hunt in packs, one rarely levels up to this point.|

That's intriguing to know. What's the status of the other minds?

[Clown Koji, we finished analyzing Babel and the other Taboo quickly. 2 of us will go assist the other mind in space magic. Two more will research plant magic, and the final two will analyze Fate Mystic Eye. We need a living target for the last one to experiment to the fullest.|

Got it, the evolution is almost over so I'll look for some opponents after. Don't call me that either, tell them to revise the name for me.

...

No response?

...

They are ignoring my last remark on purpose. I mentally sighed before my previous numb body regained feeling, as well as the announcement that played in my head.

"Evolution completed"

"Became the Griffin species"

"Every basic ability rose"

"Level Up Bonus: Skill Proficiency was acquired"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『Fortitude LV2』 has become 『Fortitude LV3』"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『Piercing Enhancement LV4』 has become 『Piercing Enhancement LV5』"

"Skill proficiency reached. Skill 『Ultimate Movement LV4』 has become 『Ultimate Movement LV5』"

"Skill points gained"

Two Stat skills and a piercing enhancement level up. Possibly due to the lion claws I have now?

I used detection to find out the specifics of the build I have then one of my parallel voices resonated in my head.

~You have clairvoyance... Try that~

The skill that came with Babel? I activated it and it felt as if my consciousness got transported into a drone since I remained still. I went farther away to asses the distance it could go then I turned towards myself.

I really am a strange-looking creature...

Not as strange as Kei who I also took a glance at

Not as strange as Kei who I also took a glance at. She was probably a foot in height, shrinking from her previous animal size. She was just waking up and rubbed her eyes with her paws. She had stubby legs and yellow fur and honestly look completely passive, like she wouldn't harm a fly. She's the size of a small dog so I suppose it's accurate. During her evolution, humanification was undone obviously, so when she started speaking and looking at me, I got confused.

"Pika pika? Pika!"

She then bolted toward me before tripping because of her stubby legs. She rubbed her snout then looked up at her paws then let out a small gasp.

{Look away Kiyotaka! I need to transform back!}

[Got it]

I turned my body and deactivated Clarivoyance. However, it's like it's flickering.

I turn it off, it turns back on. What the hell... So here I am unwillingly trying to watch Kei naked before she put on her outfit with Magical clothes.

This time, however, the outfit was actually complete. Yes, not just the usual lingerie she's been wearing. I quickly checked her status and was met with her MP only dropping halfway. Doesn't this skill use too much mana? I suppose it's understandable since clothing is a rather intricate thing.

"Phew, all better..."

I turned back towards her this time inspecting her outfit, finally deactivating clarivoyance which tried going up her shirt. The only possible thing I can think of that caused this is one of my mind. I heard bickering right now and multiple lecturing one of them, maybe that was it. It's still really intriguing though, knowing that each of my minds has slightly different personalities. However, it's kind of unnerving as well though.

Due to it being a skill and we all are aware of a common goal, they are kept in order. None can really take over my body and erase me since they all are technically me. Even then, I can deactivate the skill, and all of them disappear instantly. Still, doing this would halt the progress I could make.

Anyway, Kei was wearing sneakers with blue drawstring shorts for her lower half. For upper wear, she chose a white crop top of sorts which is probably for the best. 

Baggy clothes would only hinder her movements so anything like a jacket or cardigan is unideal

Baggy clothes would only hinder her movements so anything like a jacket or cardigan is unideal. She probably shorts as well since lately, the cave has been getting rather warm.

I can sense the heat mainly coming from a cave entrance down below. Detection is also picking up on magma near us too.

I activated clairvoyance and tried going through the tunnel but unfortunately, the range is less than detection. It appeared to be a slope going up though, does this mean it leads into another stratum?

I'll look into that soon but since I'm feeling rather hungry...

"Do these clothes suit me?" Kei suddenly proposed a question to me, prompting a response.

[Yes. Good choice.]

"Thanks..." She looked downwards and I, who felt like the conversation was over, turned away from Kei again. I then fell off the cliff, swooping down to the many anogratch carcasses below.

This body definitely felt heavier compared to my last but the speed was more or less the same. The feeling was slightly different though when flying. Previously, my arms are technically my wings, but now, I have four legs and then wings. The wings still feel like arms but the extra set of limbs is rather uncomfortable. I should adjust to it soon enough though.

I flapped my wings now, slowly lowering myself before dropping to the floor. When I landed, I gathered 2 piles of monkeys four high and then drove my claws into them, piercing through them all. Now with monkey kebabs on my forelegs, I lifted off the floor with some difficulty and flew the 100 meters back up.

Before I landed, I drew my bird front legs back a bit, before pushing them out quickly. This resulted in the corpses shooting towards the stone with a lot more bloodshed than I previously anticipated. I did not expect them to fall off that quickly. Due to that, the blood covered Kei in full red, staining the clothes she just made.

Even worse, she talked again when she saw me, so a lot of it definitely went into her mouth. If you think about it, she's going to eat them anyway so it's not like it's that bad. Actually, this is a splendid time to test something, correct?

'All minds, attempt to learn Daily Life Magic together'

/Got it/

|Understood|

~Fine...~

And so they all immediately got to work as I walked over to Kei. Water began to splash every now, along with wind but at least, not even 3 seconds on my way to her, they have already completed their task. Library of Babel gave knowledge of the skills which basically assist you in using your soul to create a technique. Due to us knowing how such a skill is made, they quite simply laid out part of the soul to fit it, then used other magic, trying to get a similar outcome to fit it.

That warped and after some trial and error, it got a certain output that rewarded said skill, Daily Life Magic LV1. While they did something similar, we successfully avoided activating Masterful Manipulation, which uses all the mana I have when controlling souls.

And now that they all went back to what they were previously doing, I used the first level spell, clean, on Kei who was about to start complaining. It went from top to bottom, almost like a laser scanning something, all the blood on her magically disappearing.

She wasn't the only one who was covered though. As soon as I came up here, I saw Kumoko awake and stretching. And while she stretched she got splattered too. As previously mentioned, I did not expect the corpses to create such a mess. In the first place, I thought a decent amount of the blood disappeared and drained from them already.

From that, I used clean on her as well who had a dumbfounded expression from the sudden splatter and then I moved away, dropping down 100 meters again. I brought up the food for them already so I began eating myself and after I ate one after the other until my red SP had a +300 next to it.

I heard some notifications from voice-san as I ate and apparently, space magic went up two levels already, and plant magic one. There were also multiple things that disintegrated around me and I learned the cause of why.

Fate Mystic Eyes.

Essentially, it can access information on people's appraisal can not, and can gather information from the past or future on that person. My parallel minds were working on appraising it and apparently, it can already see days till death at level five. It doesn't give other details about such a thing until level 10 until it says the cause of death. It was now level two though, level one showing how old the creature was, and level two representing the origin from where the creature was born.

How does this tie into the disappearing bodies?

This skill is an evolution to the skill, Annihilating Evil Eyes once it reached level 10. The corrosion attribute speeds up the time, making rotting happen instantly, and this one has some effect as well, but it's still rather shocking. Since I have a nullification for it, I'm completely fine while using it but it still uses some more mana than I would like. It's insanely strong though. I'm not sure the exact damage it does but it could surely wipe out that Fenegrad I've fought previously with just a glance.

The most absurd thing is that there is no repercussion despite the high quantity of magic consumed. I'd say 2,000 points of damage as an estimate. If that's the case, it probably can't be used on the same individual twice, something like an instant kill or just extreme damage.

I'll test it after I experiment with another thing though.

I made my way back up to the ledge and made a little divot on the floor with earth magic. Kei and Kumoko were watching with slight confusion while they were still eating. I then used plant magic, generating some organic matter that would probably die any minute and fill up the indent.

Nest complete.

From there, I entered the menu for Custom Unique eggs and was met as the griffin was an added option. That wasn't the only new one though. There were specialized magic chickens like the earth chicken, or wind chicken as mentioned prior. There also was the keythong and the axex.

The only useful ones would be the magic chickens since they have set skills, unlike the other two and the griffin.

Now as for the stats for all of them...

The Griffin stands at 400 minimum for all stats. The maximum is offense, which is 550. The keythong is more or less the same, but the defense is 550 instead.

The axex has 300 HP as its lowest stat but 600 speed as its highest. All three of these cost 500 SP each. The reason they probably aren't higher is due to the lack of skills to be gained. For example, the magic birds are 1,000 Red SP for each egg.

All the types of magic chickens are fire, water, earth, wind, space, plant, heavy, healing, shadow, light, lightning, and then ice. There are no poison magic chickens or heresy magic chickens it seems.

Each one comes with a level one skill that correlates with their name. For example, a fire chicken would get Fire Magic LV1. They all come with Magic Power Operation and Magic Power Perception, both set to level 5. Other than that, their stats are all uniform for the most part, 300 being base HP, 600 being Magic and MP and 400 being speed. The others are all the same as HP, a measly 300.

Putting some things into consideration, I would only be able to buy 4 eggs max before getting hungry again. Since I'm able to get back 250 SP per egg, I should be fine to purchase another since my current SP is 4490 + 300.

Due to knowing this, I went ahead and spawned 4 Spatial Chicken eggs in front of me, then ate them all immediately. I don't have to cook them every time after all. 

"By the effects of the skill 『Soulfull Solomon』, skill 『Piercing Beak LV2』X4『Iron Grip LV2』X4『Wing Propulsion LV2』X4『Night Vision LV2』X4 『Spatial Magic LV1』X4『Magic Power Perception LV5』X4『Magic Power Operation LV5』X4『Eggs LV1』X2 was acquired"

Wait...

"『Spatial Magic LV1』X4 has Unifed into 『Spatial Magic LV9』"

"『Magic Power Perception LV5』X4 has Unifed into 『Magic Power Perception LV10』"

"『Magic Power Operation LV5』X4 has Unifed into 『Magic Power Operation LV10』"

"Every skill absorbed due to Ruler Skill"

"Every basic ability rose"

"20% of all stats absorbed due to compatibility"X4

Due to Diverge combining, it works more favorably to get skills from other creatures but getting stats from eggs as well as them was severely downgraded. I ate enough though so even if I get one 20% of one, I get basically the full status of one added to my stats. That is still really good.

And now I spawned the last egg. I say spawn since once again, it doesn't really go through my system.

I then ate that one and from that...

"By the effects of the skill 『Soulfull Solomon』, skill 『Piercing Beak LV2』『Iron Grip LV2』『Wing Propulsion LV2』『Night Vision LV2』 『Spatial Magic LV1』『Magic Power Perception LV5』『Magic Power Operation LV5』『Eggs LV1』 was acquired"

Wait...

"『Spatial Magic LV1』 has Unifed into 『Spatial Magic LV10』"

"『Spatial Magic LV』 has become 『Dimensional Magic LV1』"

"Every skill absorbed due to Ruler Skill"

"Every basic ability rose"

"20% of all stats absorbed due to compatibility"

And now, I have gotten what I was searching for the most.

Since I got dimensional Magic, I tried it once, and the spell took around a minute to form. It would surely go faster if the other minds helped me I believe. And from there, I teleported down to the monkey's bodies. I then proceeded to eat to full hunger, 20 monkeys resulting in my stomach from the process and once I got back up, I laid a Griffin, a Keythong, an Axex, and a Lightning Chicken. This time, however, I didn't kill them.

I think it's about time I experiment with creating life, isn't it? I need to go eat more food again though. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time since eggs can't just hatch in a day. It might take a week before they do.

Just within my detection range, a sudden large scaled creature was just outside the shut-off entrance of the cave the monkeys and we came through. Whether it could tell we were here or that it could smell all the dead monkeys were unknown to me. It had stats at a higher level than mine still with a large plethora of skills as well. 

So as Kumoko was spinning her webs idly and Kei was using lightning magic on a dead anogratch corpse, I swooped downwards as the wall preventing it, crumbled beneath its own weight.

It should make for a nice challenge and test subject for my new skills correct?

: Screw it's ass:

/Don't do that./

~I agree...~

|You'll taint our very being|

[Yes. Just don't]

; Would've been nicer if you didn't say something like this HornyKoji...;

\Let's just fight it.\

{He's better off ignored.}

_Yes, let's do that._

<*sigh*, It's dragon level, we should get ready.>

...

Seriously, why did they refute the first one so much...?

:/~|[;\{_<Perfect Example as to why you are dubbed ClownKoji.>_}\;]|~/:

They really did ignore me...

~Authors Note~

Hope you enjoyed it, this chapter was more an informative one I suppose. Also, made a little skill thingy at the end! Hope you find the layout likable and I'll use that from now on, yep yep~.

Anywho, Join the discord server for updates and suggestions you may have!

discord.gg/5y7k67Pzsa