The Danger That Lurks Beneath
Zach felt like he was dropped into an ocean of words and images, all of them trying to burn themselves into his mind. It was overwhelming, but his mind had weathered great weight before, he didn’t break. It took him time to adjust, to comprehend what he now understood. Knowledge came quickly enough.
In moments, he understood many things, and perhaps most importantly how his perk worked. He had access to all the things that were part of the Plane of Knowledge. He knew them, but that knowledge wasn’t immediately available, it would’ve broken anyone, but a lot of it was and he could call on anything that he wanted and knew it.
He also realized what the Plane of Knowledge actually was, what it contained. It was a record of all the knowledge ever recorded, whether it was written down, recorded, or spoken for the world to hear, it was here. He did not have access to the Knowledge that people kept within their hearts and minds, only things that the world had witnessed. That made sense, the Soul was in many ways the most sacred thing in the Infinite Realm, knowledge that was contained within the minds of people was not something that should be accessible so freely.
Zach felt like his mind had become vast, incredibly so, and already he could feel himself getting lost in all the knowledge around him. He never wanted to leave this place. He was… relieved. He had thought that this place might harm him by its very nature, if he knew everything then what was the point of his being? Of Pursuit of Knowledge.
Now he understood it better. Knowledge wasn’t the absolute truth, it was what people in the world knew at this very moment, what they knew in the past. It didn’t mean that knowledge was correct, or even coherent as he quickly realized.
With his goal firmly in his mind, the knowledge about Focus Madness came to the forefront of his mind. All the instances of it being discussed, of that knowledge being recorded somewhere.
The world knew… little about it. He could see how wrong most of the ideas were and he sifted through it all in an instant as his mind comprehended the vast knowledge available to him. Most of the Infinite Realm believed what he had been taught, that Focus Madness was a limiter put in place by the Framework, that one couldn’t push more than a single focus to its peak.
The only true, or at least what he believed to be the true understanding of it, was recorded in the Twilight Melody Sect. They had started spreading that knowledge amongst their people. He knew their reports, their ideas and the decisions that had been made. They wouldn’t tell everyone immediately, it could be harmful if they tried it without properly understanding how it had to be done. But they had already started formulating new curriculum for their schools, new ways of training their warriors. All so that they could guide them toward trying to embody a singular idea.
The state of the knowledge in the world saddened him, but it also emboldened him. He could teach others, he could spread the ideas and knowledge and empower people, show them a better path. It was part of his purpose, his calling. The dreams of his academy changing the world could become the truth.
He debated pulling out of his perk, but since he felt a lot more coherent and able to think he decided to stay and focus on some other things he wanted to know, he didn’t feel tired yet, though he was detecting a drain on his mind.
He also understood how the part of his perk that allowed him to retain knowledge worked. It didn’t allow him to retain the entire breadth of knowledge about a topic, which he knew wouldn’t even help that much. Here, while in the Plane of Knowledge, he could feel that the plane itself was helping his mind sift through and comprehend it. If he tried to stuff his mind with all the knowledge about Fire for example, he might end up with mush for brains. Not to even say anything about all the useless and wrong information that would come with it. Not all knowledge was true.
He could take a piece of knowledge, which meant one instance of its record. What was contained in a book, in a storage device, a conversation. It wasn’t that bad really, a lot could be said in a single conversation, or recorded in a single book.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
He didn’t know if he wanted to experiment with that just yet, so he moved on.
He focused on the knowledge of his Aspects, hoping to improve his understanding of them. He wouldn’t remember the knowledge, but perhaps he could retain some of his conclusions from what he would know.
He went down the list of Aspects in his Arsenal: Soul, Wind, Time, Mind, Ethereal, Blade, Protection, Space, Knowledge.
There was a lot about each one, though his knowledge seemed to be at the top for many of them. Time and Mind especially, though he now knew that some people that utilized Time were starting to figure out what had happened when he created the Way.
Ethereal was a mystery to most, few made it their focus fully.
As he continued down the list, he felt something brush past him and he froze. For a moment he thought that he had encountered another person who was touching the plane at the same moment, but as his attention turned toward it fully that thought fled his mind.
Something enormous spread out through the Plane of Knowledge, something that wasn’t alive in the same sense that Zach was. It was a mind, but unlike any he had encountered before. He knew what it was, but only because he knew the words spoken about it, he knew the things recorded in its databases. He knew its name, Atalar, the Machine Intelligence. The Machine God of the Cthul.
It didn’t know everything like Zach, but it was here, in the plane itself. And it was growing, learning, it was spreading through the plane and reading the knowledge contained within. It was seeking more, and it was growing, its purpose singular, the supremacy of its people. To reach for the heavens and grow beyond even the Framework itself.
Its knowledge came not just from the plane, but from its people, each of them fed their knowledge to it, and it learned, it expanded and changed.
And it was working constantly. Zach could read its mind in the same way that he knew himself, and knew everything else in the Plane of Knowledge, because it had no soul of its own and all that it knew was recorded within its being. Thousands of projections ran constantly, thousands of plans were constantly being made and remade, erased and made anew.
It was… hard for Zach to read deeply into it. Something about the machine felt wrong… it felt as if he was trying to peer into another mind, one that was protected. And perhaps that was exactly the case. This thing wasn’t alive in the same way he was, but it did think, that much he was certain about.
Zach knew the moment it noticed him, recognized him and made a report about it. He read through its thoughts.
CONSTANT—THE WARDEN, THREAT LEVEL SEVEN—ENCOUNTERED;
THREAT LEVEL ELEVATED—MAXIMUM.
ELIMINATION RECOMMENDED.
And then his mind was filled with noise. The Machine increased its projections, it filled them with nonsense, and the wrongness he felt before increased tenfold. He knew that it was there, he knew what it was, but the more time passed, the more he felt like that knowledge was becoming heavier and heavier, harder to hold. He felt his mind being drained.
Quickly he looked for anything about it that he could still know and he grabbed hold of it, retaining it. And then he felt his perk exhaust itself and he snapped back to his body.
----------------------------------------
Zach opened his eyes and groaned. He had a headache stabbing straight through his head.
“Zach?” He heard Naha say and felt her move closer, her hands on his shoulders.
“I’m fine,” he said slowly, noticing notifications in the corner of his eye, with a quick glance he saw that he had gained the Sage of Knowledge title and perk. It seemed that just using his new Class perk was enough to grant him comprehension of the plane. “I tried my new perk. It’s a lot.”
“And how was it?”
Zach blinked, struggling to actually explain it.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to do that again soon. It is… harder than I thought.”
There wasn’t actually a cooldown on the perk, but he felt like it had been almost too much for his mind. Somehow he knew that he had to give it chance to recover.
He didn’t remember what he had known while in the Plane, but he felt a great many things. Awe, trepidation, understanding, and even fear.
Somehow, he knew that the world didn’t know the truth behind the Focus Madness, not in the way he did. He was certain that his knowledge of it was greater.
He also understood what Knowledge was. He couldn’t quite put it into words, but he knew that it was what the Infinite Realm knew, and not the truth.
He felt closer to some of his Aspects, and… There was something else. He felt a sense of danger about… something. Then, he blinked and turned to look at Naha.
His mind felt like it finally settled, and he remembered that he had retained a piece of knowledge, though he didn’t know why. “Uh… For some reason, I have a report from the Exalted Empire about the factions they had absorbed, but that are wavering in their loyalty toward them. Which is… strange.”
Naha frowned. “Why would you retain that piece of knowledge?”
“I… I don’t know,” Zach admitted. “But I feel like it is important, and that there is danger in the Exalted Empire.”
“Well, I guess that we should investigate and find out.”
Zach nodded, agreeing.