Uniqueness

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, May 1986

I took a day to cool off my head. Well, my body was also exhausted with all the transmigrating, crawling out of a sephirot, moving to the exclusion zone and then finally having the disastrous news that this is a marvel comics world with LoTM elements mixed in thrown at me. Phew, that was a tiring recap in itself but in my defence, I have only received horrible information since I woke up here. I also managed to gain a bit of food. Not ideal in any way, but it will do for now.

Now that I have a very basic idea of situation around me, I can move on to study the 'uniqueness.' Other than the chaos sea it is my only reliance at this point of time. I need to be able to gain enough power quickly before I find myself in a shitfest events. If arrodes' words are anything to go by, then an above the sequence beyonder should also be insanely powerful in this world. After all, while the mirror was flattering, it did say 'I' was above abstract entities like death or eternity. If the chaotic mess marvel has created by allowing even these beings to die randomly is put aside, they still come close to the top of marvels hierarchy. Above them would be beings like the one above all and living tribunal. So, I can move forward with the assumption that reaching sequence 0 will equal me to abstract entities and becoming an above the sequence would equal the living tribunal? I don't really know right now, but I should still be very powerful at such a level.

The only problem is reaching such a level is not easy or quick. Klein reaching above the sequence in over a year was pretty bullshit. I personally don't believe I have the same luck or ability as Klein to do the same. I also don't have the protection or help of divine beings. At least not that I know of or not yet. Most likely, raising my beyonder sequence will be very slow. And if some crazy dude smites me before that then there is no chance at all.

Finally, the uniqueness I have accommodated belongs to one of the five god almighty pathways. If it belongs to the tyrant pathway, I am doomed. Why do I think so? Because the apotheosis ritual for sequence 0 tyrant was to challenge a true god and survive among other things. If the equivalent of sequence 0 in this world is really abstract entities, chances of surviving are low. Again, don't look at all the superheroes blowing up abstract entities just because they threaten earth at random. I am definitely not that lucky or courageous. At least not now. If it was the hanged man pathway, even if you say it signifies sacrifice, it is a pretty evil pathway. Considering that heroes rule in the marvel world, the hanged man pathway would be a one way ticket to death. Too bad, it's a pretty overpowered pathway. As for the spectator pathway, I like it. By far one of my favourite pathways. It has all sorts of cool and powerful abilities. But that is only at higher sequences. The lower sequences don't do much to increase my chances of survival. I don't like the sun pathway much and don't know how it would work out in marvel. The white tower is a pretty good one as well. I hope the uniqueness belongs to the spectator or white tower pathways.

With that in mind and having rested well, I once again focused on the 'thing' in the depths of my consciousness. As I tried to touch upon the uniqueness, I felt increasingly fatigued. As if all the rest I had earlier was useless and I had an intense workout. Good thing I didn't try to look at the uniqueness in the chaos sea. Once I felt my 'spirit' (bullshit word for focused thought) making contact with the uniqueness, my vision darkened. I blacked out.

***************************

As I woke up groggily, my mind felt like a mess. My body was tired. I didn't want to do that again, but I know I most likely will have to. I stretched out my hands and looked ahead.

There was a tattered book giving of an ancient atmosphere in front of me. It had a lot of indescribable symbols on it that gave me even more of a headache looking at them. I definitely didn't know what was written on the cover of the book but my mind directly translated it to the 'Astral Book'. Probably another beyonder thing. The uniqueness of the spectator pathway was never mentioned in LotM, but it seemed to be this book in front of me. Then again, it was said that above the sequence gods could mold the uniqueness to anything they wished it to be. Like Klein changing the error pathways uniqueness from monocles to a cane.

I held the book and flipped it open. Most of the pages at the beginning were filled with the same indescribable symbols. Based on the 'automatic translation' it held a lot of beyonder knowledge, languages like Jotun, rituals etc. If there was an original god almighty, he might have left this information for his 'vessel', most likely me, to learn knowledge quickly.

According to what was written after that, some of the pages held sealed beyonder characteristics while some of them held just beyonder ingredients to make the potions from scratch. The seals of higher sequence characteristics or ingredients would open only after having ascended to the previous sequence. As in the sequence 8 characteristics would be unsealed only after having become sequence 9. And yes, the sequence 9 characteristic available and unsealed for use to me right now was sequence 9-spectator. Meaning this was the visionary pathway uniqueness. I feel quite satisfied with the result now that I thought about it.

The next few pages contain some sealed artifacts. The one that caught my eye was sealed artifact 0-08, the quill of alzuhod. This was a sequence 1 characteristic of the spectator pathway but it seemed to be sealed in the sealed artifact section instead. I looked back again just to confirm and this sealed artifact was the only sequence 1 characteristic in the book. Meaning I don't have the other 2 characteristics required for an apotheosis ritual.

But that is still too far away. I should be content with what I have. Anyway, the quill of alzuhod is a very powerful artifact. Once I upgrade my sequence a little, I can make use of it to deal with my prospective enemies by creating coincidences like Ince Zangwill. As for its side effect of trying to plot its users death, I might be able to coerce it using my relation with the chaos sea. Similar to Klein using the sefira castle to negotiate with sealed artifacts. That's a plus.

When I finally flipped to the end of the book, a blank page popped up after the last page. As if it was 'imagined' into existence. More such pages kept popping up when you flipped the previous blank page. I once again received information from the uniqueness that these pages are supposed to be used primarily for the sealed artifact 0-08 or when I eventually become a sequence-1 author. That's pretty neat.

Just when I was about to go get the sequence-9 characteristic, the book started vanishing into my mind as I seemed to be blacking out again. My last thought before completely losing my consciousness was, 'dammit, I have to summon this book again later and black out again, f***!'.