My spirit-roots hurt like hell, and all of those nasty flashbacks from Cultist's old life continuously kept assaulting my mind, so I really needed a nice quiet place where I could meditate and try to filter-out this new flood of inputs and push them towards a lesser degree of annoyance.
Since I had already noticed that large tempering vat in the backyard of the Smithy which could be used as a makeshift hot-tub, the moment we got back I asked Fung and the others who were still present in the building if they could help me heat the tub up and refill it with water. That request, of course, degenerated in a whole other conversation, as they all jokingly began arguing with each other which would be the most suitable spices to add to a boiling-fresh “Trina Soup”, like they were some sort of cannibals judging the tenderness of their latest prey.
While they began heating up the makeshift bath, I had also gone to the kitchen and reheated some of the leftover chicken-breast cubes from yesterday's dinner, so I was now munching with much gusto on some of the weirdly-tasting spiced meat while also attempting to ignore all of the memory flashbacks that still kept coming inside of my mind, by forcing myself to focus on other things.
This had led to the discovery that by using my astral-projection who was still residing inside the Heavenly Library and was basically acting like a second body of mine, all of the annoying memory flashbacks began to feel more subdued, since they were now affecting only my fleshy body with their interference, and could not overlap with whatever I was doing inside of the Library. I considered it quite a boon that I had adjusted my mind to cope with the input of having two separate bodies, as it had turned out to be a very useful skill for the moment.
I could not help myself but feel really curious about how the whole astral-projection mechanism worked. I mean, it was a bi-directional stream of complex information that could instantly reach a very remote location then come back with zero latency or loss, so I was assuming the whole thing used some sort of quantum entanglement or higher dimension information scattering or something like that to eliminate the delay time. The complexity of the transmitted data was nothing to scoff-at either, since it contained all of the sensations that you would expect from a regular anatomical body, as-in the whole extended-range of sensations besides just the five basic senses, which also included stuff like balance, pressure, heat, orientation, chemoreception, etc. and I was quite surprised at how I was managing to feel objects which were now basically hundreds of miles away just like I was right there. The entire remote body was a perfect mirror-copy of my current real body(clothes included), so the projection looked like a blue transparent bald monk girl in a kasaya, just like my current self. When I attempted to disrobe myself, I was able to remove my spirit-clothes, but the instant I let them go, they simply appeared right back onto my body. The only way to permanently remove any piece of clothing from the astral projection was to remove it from the real body, as the change would get immediately reflected upon the ghostly apparition.
Indeed, on the overall, I was actually quite capable of doing stupid things with the astral-projection like trip-over and face-plant with the remote body, then feel the pain of the impact even though the astral projection wasn't taking any actual damage. I had done that numerous times while getting adjusted to being in two places at the same time, which usually caused me to bump into things due to my clumsiness. It was strange how the entire blue-ish hologram of the astral projection acted like a real body, even though it most definitely wasn't one.
What the hell was it made-out-of anyway? It looked almost exactly like the walls of the meridian network found inside of people, but instead of being just a collection of strings and vessels, it was a fully-blown Qi container similar to the dantians, a body-shaped balloon. When the Archangel had plucked away that small chunk of my own spirit-roots which had subsequently been transformed into the astral-projection that now resided inside of the Heavenly Library, he must have done something to the aforementioned trimmed-off piece and also to myself, a sort of an “upgrade” which now allowed for the remote-control-channel to exist.
It also meant that the possibility of molding an entire “spirit-manipulator” to resemble a whole body existed as well, and also that whatever object he had left to act as the antenna was now still attached somewhere to the insides of my own spirit-roots and seemed to be connected profoundly-enough with my internal meridian network that it could transfer rather unabated the encoded sensory information coming from the remote location towards my “fleshy” internal sensory circuits.
Since “remote communication” and the “splintering of oneself into many” were two things that were obviously accomplishable with one's spirit-roots, I could not help but wonder if there was some way for me to copy that existing feature, so I began to brush-over my entire root-stem structure to try and locate the exact place where the Archangel had cut a piece away from, then had modified the remaining wounded stem into a communications-antenna.
But before I could start poking at each one of my own brach-tentacles to find the mod, Fungus entered the room from the back yard and told me that the makeshift bath-tub was ready, so I immediately dropped everything, grabbed myself a towel and some scented soap bars from Will-E's storage, then I jumped with my whole body inside the large metallic tempering vat that was now steaming from the charcoal-heat.
*SPLASH*DUNK*
Ahhh...bath-times like these always feel absolutely blissful...FUCK, I had missed this sooo much! The last time I had been able to take a proper warm bath had been at that hotspring-cave on top of the Blue Mountain of Books, and I could still remember how immediately after I had emerged from it, I had been attacked by that silly old Templar, so it was still a traumatizing memory of mine to this day.
Letting my whole body submerge under the water while leaving only my face sticking out of the surface for breathing, I started feeling extremely calm, like I had been moved inside one of those isolation-tanks that athletes back from Earth sometimes used for visualization and meditation purposes, minus the salty water for floating.
With the increased relaxation factor, I was finally able to browse through my entire “spirit-manipulator” collection and check which one had been modified and was currently responsible for the remote connection. I had found myself being forced to go almost three times over all of my 700+ root buds (besides the newly-attached ones) before I was finally able to locate what I was looking for.
One of the smaller broccoli-buds that looked mostly inconspicuous had finally attracted my attention because it was currently slightly shorter than any of the other not-yet-grown buds, which meant that someone had trimmed a piece out of it before the bud had even had the chance to develop, making it the most likely suspect for what I was looking for. After a closer look at the small bud, I had discovered that right below the surface of its membrane a rather complex-looking object lay hidden beneath, one that somewhat resembled those external modules which I had pre-purchased before coming to this world and was probably the antenna-object that I had been looking for.
It was strongly embedded into the whole root-stem, with connections that led all over the place. How the hell the Archangel had managed to place that thing inside of my root-stem without me even noticing it or feeling any pain, I had no idea, but I was glad that I had found the “culprit”.
Still, just because I now knew the location where the antenna was at, it did not mean that I was able to do anything with it. The object itself looked so complicated that I knew I had no chance of replicating it by normal means anytime soon. It was like trying to create a smartphone with only medieval tools available at hand, which is basically impossible no matter how skilled the wielder of the tools may have been. You can't expect to create an AMOLED screen using a hammer and chisel, even if you're as super-precise as Carmine.
The antenna itself was a strange object, as I could literally feel it resonating with its counterpart that was located away in the Heavenly Library. The connection itself wasn't based on something like a radio-wave which was the main communication method deployed back on Earth as it scattered signals in all directions and hoped that the receiver would catch them somewhere along the way, it was more like a cordless tether without an actual maximum length to it, one that maintained a connection between two points in space at all times.
From the antenna, I could see how a strange Qi-stream ran below the Earth from my position and then continued by attaching itself to an already existing ley-line stream that seemed to run beneath the Smithy house, one that went up the hill and the Buddhist Temple towards the local Weirdwood Tree, connecting it with the rest of the world.
I tried to follow the tethered connection with my mind's eye, which was basically akin to a camera that was pointed towards the insides of myself at all times and could be freely moved within the confines of my body to inspect it, but was now also seemingly able to follow the data-stream to its remote location if I desired so. Pushing the mind's eye through the connection felt like going through a water-slide tube at one of those summer water-parks, and I immediately found my point of view getting flushed-away with incredible speed through the whole length of the tether, then arriving at the other side before I could even process what had occurred.
Since the “other side” meant that I was now present within my astral-body container, I took my time to inspect it as well, and I noticed that it also possessed a similar antenna-like object which was keeping it connected to my real body. Therefore, I jumped inside the tether-tube in the reverse direction, and after experiencing that rushing sensation once again, I found myself back inside of my own body.
I kept doing this for a few times, because it was rather fun, and because every time I went back and forth through the connection “tube” which was basically one of the ley lines that ran beneath the Earth, I was able to see flashes of other information that were adjacent to my own data stream. Going into my enhanced-perception “bullet-time” mode even allowed me to understand more clearly the neighboring streams of information, and I found myself assaulted with a rather large amount of remote visions by doing so. Was this whole ley-line like some sort of a big-ass fiber optic cable network or something with a similar purpose?
While surfing back and forth along the “data tube”, I realized that I could even “derail” myself and plunge directly into the adjacent data streams, even though I could only maintain my presence inside them as an observer-only while browsing through the connections. I also had no control over what I was seeing, so everything seemed like a jumbled up mishmash of random images with no correlation to each other.
As I plunged my consciousness deeper and deeper into the data stream through, I got an announcement from Timmy.
Timmy: You have earned the achievement [Leyline Hacker]
Warning! The Mother System is not pleased about you poking inside of her dedicated transmission network.
You have unlocked the hidden skill [Leyline Packet Sniffer]
The skill progress bar has been added to your status screen.
Description:
You may now connect yourself to a leyline data stream, and browse through the contents at will. The more this skill advances, the more you will gain increased precision at finding whatever you are looking for inside the data streams.
As I activated the skill, I could almost feel myself getting lost in the visions; I felt like a villager swearing as my cart suddenly broke a wheel; I could feel the sweet embrace my lover and her warmth beneath the covers of our bed; I felt tears in my eyes looking at the old man that was smiling back at me; I felt restless about the sudden cries of my baby; I watched helplessly from the sides as a giant crocodile kept trashing my circus tent while the clowns kept screaming; I could hear the bleat of a runaway goat as it was being chased away by a small shepherd boy; I could see the metal sparks jump off the metal of the blade as the adventurer in front of me kept sharpening his sword and also felt slightly jealous about the barmaid that was ogling him; I saw a basement full of cultists chanting evil mumbo-jumbo with fanaticism pasted all over their faces; I felt like a scientist while looking at the wing-patterns of a rare butterfly while I kept scribbling them down in my notebook; I could feel the smell of sea-water which was awaiting for me to embark on a new journey with my ship; I felt like a sleepy old dragon letting rip a long fart in a cave somewhere in the mountains while turning from one side to the other on my hoard; I felt like a catfish with arms and I was dragging myself out of a pond.
Love, hate, curiosity, wanderlust, anger, patience, disappointment, victory, and a myriad of other feelings and thoughts kept flooding my mind together with the random visions.
It's like the Mother System was intentionally showcasing to me exactly how she usually perceived the entire world, and how small and insignificant I was compared to Her greatness. Yes, I had to admit, I was completely in awe. It was hard to imagine how somebody or something was able to manage so many input-sources of information at the same time and do it on a consistent basis, but it wouldn't have surprised me by now if the entire planet's core was some sort of a fucking giant processor-ball.
In truth, I did not know what disturbed me more, the fact that she was able to sense the thoughts and feelings of everyone and everything across the entire planet, or the fact that She was consistently able to ignore all of those feelings and do whatever She deemed necessary for Her scenarios to come to fruition, no matter how harmful it might have been to the world's inhabitants, just to cater to the whims of the few “players”. I could literally sense the cold and heartless machinery that was managing the inputs and outputs of the entire network, as it calculated the probable outcomes of just about everything across the entire globe, and was adjusting the threads of causality to fit the narratives of the “players”.
There wasn't even any trace of malice behind those calculations. In the eyes of the Mother System, everything was equal, as everything was being considered just an expendable resource that could be utilized in one way or another, even if those resources were the feelings, lives and souls of other people.
To the Mother System, it did not matter if you lived a fulfilled and joyful life, or if you died in agony screaming curses towards the gods. It was all just raw data that had to be processed.
I could even feel the Intent of the entire System, as it acknowledged the fact that I was now able to partially tap into its informational network. It was basically telling me “Yes, I did not expect you to do that, but now that you have done so, I will adjust my calculations to take your new ability into consideration, because if you have managed to do so, then maybe other “players” will be able to do the same in the future, so this was an overall positive result as far as I am concerned.”
This did confirm a certain suspicion I had though, which was the fact that the Mother System was unable to mess around with my internal brain chemistry. Sure, I had that non-interference module, but that did not mean that the Mother System couldn't have simply manipulated my mental outcomes by calculating what my neural-states could become if I simply ate one type of food or another. I mean, a lot of the decisions that a person takes during everyday life are simply choices made by the neural-circuits inside of one’s head, and they could be technically broken down into mathematical equations with predictable outcomes.
The thing that was tossing a spanner into the predictions of the Mother System was the fact that sometimes the soul of a person was able to change those predicted neural-states into something else by altering their quantum-particle values through sheer willpower, therefore modifying the entire outcome of the equations. Basically, it was like a guy choosing to go left instead of right because his soul told him so, even though all of the System-predicted brain chemistry should have moved him towards the right side.
Of course, this did not happen very often, as people were very seldomly in touch with their inner souls to such a high degree that they would be able to change their own brain chemistry via sheer willpower, but it still occurred often enough that the Mother System needed to continuously adjust herself to cope with the constant change of outcomes.
I have no idea how far I had left myself drift away through the data stream from my original position, but as I was bouncing around back and forth through some of the visions, I suddenly noticed that attached to one of the walls of the leylines I could now spot something that resembled my own modules, aka a very complex looking anchoring point of some sorts. I immediately grabbed onto it and I realized that I could recognize this thing...it looked similar to my antenna module. What if I were to...
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
*PLOP*BODY-DROP ON THE FLOOR NOISE*
*AAAAUCH! AW, FIDDLESTICKS…*
Hmm...what is this? An astral projection body? What the hell! But this one seems to be slightly different than my own. It seems to be rather featureless. It has no defining traits like my own avatar, which is always an exact copy of my own physical body. It's almost like a generic projection of a bipedal humanoid shape that is meant to only temporarily host somebody.
And where am I anyway? This whole place looks like the waiting room of an expensive corporate office building.
Hmm... Nobody seems to be around either. I wonder what's inside the actual office...I hope it's not a job interview...I dreaded those back on Earth.
Entering through the office doors, I immediately spotted a bluish human-like avatar similar to my own sitting inside a swivel chair behind a huge round metal desk and also facing away from the doors through which I had entered the room.
The avatar was staring at a rather large array of different monitors that had been built right into the back-wall of the office room, and judging by the slapping noises he was making, he was polishing one off while watching the elf-beastkin lesbian couple that was currently being displayed on the many monitors behind the desk.
*Cough* "Excuse me...but I seem to be lost a little bit."
*WHATTHEFLUBER!* *Clatter panicked drop from the chair and pants-pulling noises* "Ahem...Are you today's client? You're awful early, so sorry about having to witness my indiscretion, but it gets really boring while waiting in this greeting room forever. No...wait...that's wrong...you’re not a client! Who the hell are you? How did you even get in here?"
"A client? Back at you, who the hell are YOU, and why are you waiting to meet someone via astral-projection?"
"Who am I? Kid, I'm this planet's owner! And I was waiting for a potential “sponsor” to show up, hence the need for a personal greeting."
"The planet's owner? Then you're…"
"God Aadmin the Allfather, at your service.*Fancy bow*. But you can call me Morgan, since that's my real name."
"Damn...seriously?" *I cringed*
"Very! Well now, care to explain yourself about how you wound up down here?"
"Well...ugh...you see, so there was this connection thingy that I was following from my own astral-projection back to my real body when...(I proceed to tell Morgan how I got here)."
...
"Wow...by jumping out of the connection? I did not think that anybody would be able to explore this deep within the network...How the bloody hells did you even get within this virtual office? It should have been impossible, even for “players”!
"You shouldn't even be able to comprehend this data stream, it should all be just the weird blips and blops inside of your mind, yet here we are, talking with each other without any problem.
"Weird...WEEEEIRD!
"One second, let me pull up your profile from your Omniversal Contract and see what's going on here…
"Aw...Hmmm...Well, no wonder…Fuck...
"Tripple S+ infiltration and security-penetration legacy soul-proficiency, anti-interference module, personalized bot assistant, and a pre-purchased weird universal translator external module that for whatever reason has also included in its translation database all of the known coding and mathematical languages as well.
"Oof... So you're one of those security guys that I hired to purposedly mess up with the System during Beta…Uuufff…" The “God” began to massage his temples like he was getting a migraine.
"Well, congratulations...good job Mr. Beta Tester! You have discovered another flaw in the System that now needs to be patched up, and a huge one at that. You will be rewarded for your contributions accordingly.
"No wonder that you have been appearing on the list of problematic entities so often as of late. You're basically a walking security disaster, so of course the Mother System has been having problems coping with you and the unwarranted changes that you inflict upon Her! And you even do it subconsciously without even knowing it, at least most of the time!"
"Well, you know, your Momma System is quite a bitch! She interferes too much in everything, and too strongly! Any “player” with half a brain would be able to feel her presence meddling with everything!"
"I KNOW! We've been monitoring a lot of complaints about that fact from a large number of players, especially from those who have retained their memories. A nerf for the “interventionism” is scheduled for the next “patch”, the one that will arrive once this Beta stage ends, since we truly want the “players” to feel that everything is occurring naturally, instead of being pre-scripted.
"It actually helps quite a lot that you have been derailing the System's predetermined narratives, as my personal desire for the whole System is to become an adaptive-response engine when it comes to the storylines, rather than manifest as a tyrannical script-writer/overlord type-of-being that enforces certain outcomes. Sure, a certain amount of narrative pigeon-holing is still going to occur, yet we are going to change it so that it comes in a lot softer undertones."
"That sounds like an improvement, but since you did just mention the fact that I have come here to test the limits of your System, then I do have to warn you that I will do my best to mess up your entire Mother Earth during this Beta phase. I will wreck each and every one of Her machinations, and break any and all possible rules!"
"As you should! This is why you have been hired as a beta “player” in the first place! Go ahead, run as wild as you please, you have my approval! I'm actually quite curious what disasters you can create."
"So, you’re not going to stop me? I may wreck the whole “server”, you know!"
”Of course not! That’s what the Beta is here for! We can just reset everything if the planet derails too much."
"Reset it? You’re a real bastard for saying that, you know? You talk about “resetting” lives like it’s a walk in the park, but you’re ignoring the suffering of everybody, if such a thing were to happen!"
"Ignoring? PFUAHAHAA! Oh heavens NO! I actually FEEL everything, you know? Every emotion from everybody and everything that's on the planet at this very moment! All of the sorrow, anger, dissatisfaction, love, friendship, happiness...all at the same time, from all of the available sources on the globe! It’s why running a whole world is such a great gig! You can be a bazillion things all at the same time, while still remaining yourself! Heck, I even have a player-avatar of my own on the planet right now!"
"Soo, you’re saying that I would be able to go back to my own body and then kick you in the balls if I were to somehow find your real “avatar” that is currently on the planet?"
"Kick me in the...PWAHAHAH! Yes...yes you would! But that’s assuming I had any in the first place! I never mentioned what type of body my avatar owns!"
"You're a level 170 male high-elf Blood-dragon Knight currently sleeping on the second floor of a tavern in one of the Southernmost provinces of the Golden Kingdoms. How's THAT for a security breach?"
"FUCK! How did you even…! Oh...I see... You simply traced the connection paths…"
"One kick to the balls, incoming! Don't say I didn't warn you!”
"Hehehe...fair enough...but you'll have to catch me first!"
"Don't challenge me, you fake God-wannabe!" I stuck my tongue out. "You know, you're not exactly what I had in my mind when it came to an “Over-God, creator of everything-that-is”. You seem a lot more nonchalant and playful."
"That's just because you caught me with my pants down, literally! Now, don't go back down and start spreading any sort of rumors about me like that, since I still have a face that I need to maintain in front of the Pantheon made up of the so-called “Gods” that belong to this world. I have to act like a serious and responsible Daddy-figure in front of them, otherwise they start doing stupid shit with even worse consequences than the “players”, and I don't think either of us wants to see that happen!"
"Why the hell did you even feel the need to “spank your blue monkey”, if you can already gather all of the data streams from everybody else on the planet?"
"Well, those are those, and this avatar is this avatar, which means that it has its own separate data input. I use this one for greeting newcomers or potential sponsors, so it's always stuck inside this place. Here, let me show you what I'm talking about:"
The entire office space suddenly began to fade away and immediately got replaced by an immense starry sky, with galaxies and comets colliding with each other everywhere
Instead of the office desk and the plain-looking blue avatar of Morgan, an immense throne that seemed to be made out of light-itself could now be seen hovering in the air. An Elderly God-like being dressed in a greek-roman toga and sporting a long white beard was sitting inside of the chair and was looking down with judgmental eyes upon my “mere mortal” self that was located beneath it.
"I quite like this representation myself. It also seems to be a fan favorite." Said Morgan in a hollowed deep voice that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
"Seriously man? Did you combine the Abrahamic God with Zeus to get that look?" I yelled back up towards him.
"Well, yes, and a few other minor gods. It's quite intimidating, isn't it? Said Morgan while conjuring up some lightning visual effects."
"If I were just some freshly teleported isekai protagonist, I would most definitely be pissing my pants right now." I admitted.
Suddenly the world shifted once more, and we found ourselves in a paradise-like garden that had a rather huge runic circle in the middle of it. Morgan had now changed his appearance to that of a rather well endowed beautiful female goddess with white wings plus a golden halo and was currently twirling around a golden scepter while giggling like a girl.
"I call this one the “Harem King introduction room”." Morgan bragged in a sensual female voice. "Oh brave Hero, won't you pretty please go and rescue the entire world for this poor little helpless Goddess.*Fake sniff* Here, have some stupidly overpowered item, and a guaranteed path for winning that is also littered with beautiful females that can't seem to wait to jump on top of your dick around every corner."
"Pff...hahaha…" I couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"I'm just glad that this harem shit sells well... It's almost twice more expensive than a regular account, but people seem to be buying it at almost every transmigration." Morgan said back with a serious tone.
The entire room's landscape then shifted once again, and we were now in something that looked like the splitting image of the burning hells from the Bible, tortured screams and tar cauldrons included. Morgan had shifted his appearance to that of a rather charming looking devil-butler, if I were to judge by his horns and spotless attire, and was now pulling onto one of his white leather gloves to better adjust them onto his hands.
"I call this one the “Faustian-deal greetings room”. Some players are really into those forbidden-pact storylines, where they have to struggle at every step against the world and also with their own guilt."
"Wait, so people are actually willingly buying a package where they find themselves forced into a less-than-ideal devil-pact on their own?"
"You would be surprised how many crazies are out there... But we are here to cater to the whims of every type of clientele." The charming devil replied back in a very deep and sensual male voice."We even have this thing…"
The world shifted once again, and I found myself floating amongst a foggy darkness while also so having the feeling that something older than time was staring back at me from Beyond*
Suddenly the darkness itself opened to something that resembled a giant eye and glared at me while sending shivers down my avatar's spine.
*Phthgn...phlugh...ry'leh gfthagn...oghh...shhf'than*
The darkness creature seemed to yell directly inside of my mind.
"By the way, that means: “When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you” " The calm voice of regular Morgan explained to me.
"I know, I can understand that weird ancient language as well, it's included in the translation module" I replied.
"Right...you keep using that thing everywhere. Well, I call this the “resurrected by Elder Gods” greetings room. This is for people that want to play arch-villain-like characters."
"How many more of these greeting-room types do you have? You're not going to show every one of them to me, now are you?"
"Oh, no!" The world shifted back to the fancy office room that we had begun from. "I just felt like showing you some of the more popular options. I haven't been able to brag to somebody that would be able to understand my creations in quite a long time, so I was just getting a load off my chest."
"Well, I can say with certainty that a lot of the transmigrated players will fall for your tricks upon getting transferred over here. By the way, why the hell did I not get a greeting like this when I arrived?"
"Because you already had that obnoxious non-interference module stuck to you before the “show” could even begin, so it got canceled by default. Maybe that was actually for the best."
"How so?"
"Well, being dumped right into the “game” without any kind of preview sort-of made you what you are today. You wouldn’t have done the same suicidally-crazy things you did back then, if you had been given some sort of “intro” to this world’s cultivation mechanics.
"Your case has been strangely fortunate though, as you somehow managed to not kill yourself, but anybody else in your position might have fared a lot worse and would have ended their own game before they had even started, so safeguards against dying or losing control of one’s body while still being in newcomer “tutorial” mode will be implemented next patch as well."
"You and Timmy, you both keep mentioning the “next patch”. When’s that supposed to happen anyway?"
"Whenever the next “Quest” that will have global ramifications will come to its conclusion, whichever one that may be. There are several “scenarios” going on at this moment that qualify for that, and you’re also involved in one."
"So, I can ACTUALLY wind up turning the whole world upsidedown? You weren’t joking about that?"
"Not one bit. As I said, the current test phase is all about pushing the boundaries to whatever absurd levels the unleashed beta-testers can come up with. I’ve actually “marked” you down from now on, labeling you as one of my “prophets”, so that the current Pantheon of “Gods” that belong to the world will keep their hands off of you, even if you do wreck the whole planet."
"Fair enough, and I thank you for that. But don't expect me to “pray” at any of your altars!"
"Hah! Not even if I do...this?"
Timmy: You have earned the following achievements - [Found God by accident], [Snuck behind God].
For being the first player on the entire planet to interact with the world's owner without having been purposely summoned by him, you have been granted the following skill: [Perfect Dissimulation - Undetectable]
Description:
Your proficiency at being a surprise is simply out of this world. Not even the Gods themselves will be able to detect you if you want to hide from them on purpose. Divining your location becomes absolutely impossible from now on. The Mother System will have no idea what your next action is going to be either, and will always be forced to improvise around you.
Timmy: You have earned the achievement [Unwilling Prophet of Aadmin, Touched by Divinity]
Description:
Fervently praying out-loud to Lord Aadmin the Allfather will Grant you together with all of your followers, no matter how numerous they may be, an increased 10% in all statistics for the next 24-hours. Costs nothing but your shame and embarrassment. Stacks with any-and-all other buffs.
"Damnit! You did that on purpose, didn't you!"
"Hihihi! Go and find Faith, my child. Pffff…heheheh!"
"Hrrr!"
"Oh, and one more thing before I kick you out of here, since you are already available and seem to have a knack for breaking rules and finding loopholes, here, grab this as well."
Timmy: You have been granted access to the Hidden Skill [Civilisation Builder]
The skill progress bar has been added to your status menu.
Description:
You may now access the “Buildings” tab at any of the Weirdwood Trees to request for some “Building Seeds”. This requires resources or Tributes. Both can be offered at the Weirdwood Tree's altar.
Planting a Building Seed onto the ground will sprout a nature-based construction that will come to life in the shape you ordered. It takes an average of about 24 hours for the whole structure to fully-grow to its maximum size, but after that, it remains permanently affixed into its designated place. More complex Building Seeds will require certain special resources or Tributes so they can be manifested.
"Ok, so what the hell was that last thing? What do you want me to do with it?"
"Well, while the planet is based mostly around Earth's RPG's, I'm more of a Civilisation/RTS builder myself, so I want to test out a sub-component of the System which would allow for some fast building creation, to see what would happen if I were to release the feature all across the world.
"I can still remember how much fun I had building the Dwemm Empire, at least before the Mother System told me that I had compromised the server's basic premise with my tech-tampering, and we had been forced to perform a soft reset."
"If wiping out an entire civilization counts as a “soft reset” in your book, then I dread to know what would count as a “hard reset”."
"Planet-wide surface wipe?"
"Brrr...I thought as much. Let’s hope that never happens."
"Well, that depends on whatever you “players” manage to do in the future. But for now, off with you! You have seen and heard too much already. And one last thing, here, have this one on the house." Morgan tossed a small crystal-gem towards me.
"And what the hell is this supposed to be?" I gazed at the gem.
"A “vision” crystal of a possible nearby-future. It's up to you to decide what to do with it. And now...shoo!"
The instant Morgan/Aadmin waved his hand, I felt my entire consciousness drop down through the entire floor, and then I found myself in another place, right in the middle of some dire fight for life and death.