Chapter 309

Chapter 309

Liz took a careful sip of tea as she reclined in her chair. Across from her, Judith Kanakas set her own cup down and sighed.

Youre still struggling, arent you?

I dont know if Id say that, personally, Liz responded, Im adjusting, its just weird, going from one body to well, this. Her phoenix body, sitting on the back of her chair, chirped in agreement. Im definitely past the worst of the dysmorphia, and I almost never have sensation bleed-over anymore. Sure, it can get a bit fuzzy if communication is interrupted, so I cant cross-reference my assessment as to what body a feeling originates from, but there were only three times I misjudged it in the last fight.

I dont doubt your technical prowess, Legion. Ascenders know youre probably better than we are for such things. I mean emotionally. For one, you still think of yourself in terms of having a true self, dont you?

She flinched. Ive been trying to not, and Im getting better at it, but I guess.

Its entirely understandable. You were talking to Xares last time, and he has a tendency to well, not look outside himself very much. Ironic, I know.

No, it makes sense. Hes quite introspective, Liz nodded. Its why I was working with him, after all. Out of all of you, he has the most experience grappling with your existence and all that.

That is true. But as a result, hes very fixated on our experience as a gestalt, so he overlooked the key difference that makes you different from us. Hes apologizing for that, by the way.

Liz frowned. How so? If anything, youve got so many more bodies than I do, and theyre even more different how does that make it less relevant?

Because the nature of our multiple personhood was reversed. When we first developed our human form, we were like any other hydra, all squabbling for control over a single body. Our clones, therefore, were a welcome release from overwhelming pressure, each of us finally being freed from our petty design-by-committee approach to everything before then.

That that made sense. Hydras were a fairly rare bloodline, but percentage-wise, more hydras had children in beast form than even dragons. It wasnt for their native Talents- innate [Regrow Limb] was good, especially for hydras, but not truly exceptional. No, it was because their Rank 2 bloodline ability, responsible for growing additional heads in beast form, didnt stop working if they were born a human. Instead, it simply manifested as an additional personality and mind within a singular body and spirit.

Different hydras had all sorts of ways of managing their particular split personalities, but the Kanakas had been fortunate enough to gain a Tier 25 Talent which innately gave every head their own human body while they were transformed. The only real limiter was that they had to all be within the same material universe. Because a few of them were already working with Project Breach through Group Chatter, theyd been an obvious first contact for Liz as shed been working on developing her own identity as a multi-bodied gestalt.

She shared a glance with her phoenix body and asked, So basically, whereas Im having to stretch myself to maintain multiple bodies, you wanted them naturally?

More or less. But what I was mostly going for was the fact that there was never any question about which of us was the main Kanakas. We all were, but that didnt make us interchangeable. You, meanwhile, are used to having a single human body, and for all of your truly remarkable ability to pilot multiple bodies, in different forms no less, you dont have the same relationship with them that we have with one another.

I guess?

The woman made eye contact with phoenix Liz, What do you call this body, when thinking to yourself?

Liz was taken aback. Um, its my phoenix body.

Hmmm, Judith grabbed her teacup and took another sip from it, then looked Liz dead in the eye and spoke again. And what about this body?

Thats my body. Or, my human body I suppose.

But your first instinct is to just call that my body, I see. And what about when you have multiple human bodies?

That depends, I guess. Usually Ill think about me in terms of where I am. Or what Im doing.

And theres the problem.

Liz cocked her head slightly, Sorry, Im missing something. Whats the problem, and why is it a problem?

Its possible you might disagree with me, but I think that part of why youre having trouble adjusting to permanently having multiple bodies is because you lack a sense of identity. Part of that you can blame on us, because we told you to divorce yourself from attachment to any given body, but its also because you assign temporary identifiers to portions of yourself. Imagine if you called your head the topmost part and your feet the bottommost part, but if you stood on your hands, you then called your feet the topmost part and your hands the bottommost part. It becomes confusing, both when speaking to others and thinking to yourself.

But my bodies are interchangeable, Liz protested. Unless Im in a different form, all of my bodies are equally capable, have the same buffs, everything. Theyre not like you, with different mana pools and skills and everything.

No two things are truly interchangeable, Judith countered. But if you disagree, you disagree. Something like this is truly up to what you find most convenient. But, as you said, you still think of yourself as having a main body, even just out of convenience.

Well sure, but thats because I actually have changes to that one which change my capabilities and huh.

Judith didnt say anything, taking another sip from her tea instead, and Liz mirrored the action.

After a moment of silence, Liz spoke up again. Well, Im not doing what you do, running a bunch of parallel minds and giving them all different first names while using Elizabeth as just a last name.

You have plenty of names to choose between. Immortal Legion, Torch, Elizabeth Moore, and I assume more beyond that, Judith shot back at her.

Liz frowned slightly. So like, you think I should call one body Legion, another Immortal, or Liz, or Elizabeth, or

If you think that would be a good idea. It may also benefit you to distinguish yourselves visually, for ease of communication with others.

She wasnt quite sure she liked that idea. Her other bodies and minds didnt exist perpetually, and it felt weird to assign one of her names to a specific instance of her personhood. It wasnt like they were actually different, and doing so felt almost counterproductive.

Using different permutations of my names is probably a bad idea then. If I have to specify that oh no, this body is actually Elizabeth, Liz is over there, but it doesnt actually matter because were still the same person.

Judith gave a perfectly measured shrug.

I do see what youre saying about having discrete ways to refer to bodies. It could probably help me embrace my nature more easily, she noted, taking another sip of tea as she thought.

I wonder if there are any skill mods or abilities I might be able to do if I start making a continuous distinction between bodies. If I designate one body as mostly a spear-fighter, could I somehow actually make that one better at fighting with a spear then transfer that power back to the collective? That might be an easy way to let me dabble in other specializations if I can figure something out.

She didnt know, but it might be interesting to try. Perhaps she could try and tie it in with her bloodline tree and general ability to maintain multiple subsidiary bloodlines, then connect that to her Aspect in some form Yeah, that had potential. She still wasnt sure how she felt about the idea overall, but she wouldnt say no to an additional avenue to power.

I cant do your level of customization, she eventually said. How do you think I should try and identify different bodies?

Well, that partially depends on how you plan to distinguish them, Judith replied. My mother had a skill to change her hair color and style for each of her heads, my father had a morphic outfit which changed for each of his heads, and we used to change our eyes accordingly. But you could also go with voices, tattoos, jewelry, spell effects, skin color, even nametags. If you dont mind having them be misidentified by mortals, you could just use body language, freckle patterns, breathing habits, that sort of thing.

Hmm, Phoenix-Liz jumped down to the chair of the arm, and Liz began to ruffle her feathers as she thought. I dont think I want to do anything too drastic, and most of the time when I use a bunch of bodies Im fighting, so I cant do outfits

Tattoos though

Now that had some possibilities.

Liz finished her conversation with Judith, but most of what they spoke about was less interesting. Once she bade her farewell, she began returning to her home, thinking about possibly giving herself tattoos.

She had a couple of runic tattoos already, of course, but theyd been designed to be invisible. Everyone on Team Zero had at least a few, but only Aila and Sebastian had any that could actually be seen without actively looking for them, and that was because theyd developed their Domains to support them. She wasnt that opposed to the idea, but broadly speaking, invisible tattoos were considered superior to normal ones. At least for anything other than pure decoration.

One concept that One Step Behind had spoken about was the idea of truly embodying your Domain, or Power. The more your entire identity was wrapped up in a singular direction, the more powerful, or at least the more directed, you would be. Matt was constantly embodying Endlessness simply by existing and creating millions of mana per second, and it paid off in the power which his Domain held.

That made her wonder how Uncle Waters was so strong, when he hardly came across as some kind of water-crazed villain obsessed with drowning people. How was he absolutely shattering people four Tiers above him, and yet seem to function by using an almost mutually exclusive strategy with wholesale embodying a singular Domain?This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

Now that she thought about that question, she intended to ask him, but she was sure his answer would be jumbled nonsense that no one else but him would understand.

Well, regardless of that. It was still an interesting idea, and while she didnt know if she actually thought what the Kanakas were suggesting would help, it might not be a bad idea to at least investigate the possibility of different tattoos.

Oh, perhaps tattoos were the wrong framing device. What about war paint? There were several disciplines which used topical potions to protect the face and intimidate their enemies. And if she used blood as her paint, then it would still be in-line with her overall blood warrior direction.

Shed have to experiment a bit. Her [False Wound] skill, the result of her Talent converting [Gossamer Outfit], allowed her to either make herself look more or less wounded than she actually was, and she could absolutely use that for cosmetic effect. A sheen of blood, either wet or dried, could help her figure out some good looks on her different bodies, and from there she might see about making them a permanent part of her appearance.

well, only if Matt approved. Though she knew he would. He was great like that.

For the meantime, shed do some style experiments and reference what war-paint potions and styles she could replicate with her blood alchemy. For something like this, there had to be pre-existing records, and she intended to take full advantage of everything she had at her disposal.

I see he began, then forcibly screwed his eyes shut and wrenched his glasses off his face, throwing them into the distance. Water.

His eyes shot open. I need water! Or herbs! Food! Materials! High-tier! Now, nownownownownownow. Lessgo!

He vanished in a rush of wind back towards the camp, and Colonel Galanodel popped out of existence a moment later. Matt blinked, then once again took off at top speed back towards the camp, followed by Zack and Alex, following a faint trail of ecological destruction. Flowers and grasses had been uprooted, trees had their branches stripped bare of leaves, and generally anything which could vaguely be considered edible was notably missing.

By the time Matt reached the camp, Erwin had made it to Group Cornucopia, where he was downing a glass of Tier 38 water like he was dying of dehydration. Matt didnt know every detail of the mans Talent, but he knew that the alchemist could absorb mana and essence from the things he consumed. Generally, that was potions, and it was put back out just as fast as it was taken in to raise the tier of natural materials he worked with, or to create copies of things hed eaten. But he also used it to cultivate sometimes.

It was how he was 95% of the way through Tier 32, though he never delved, and why he was desperately trying to get the final 5% before his inspiration hit. Erwin rarely kept up a veil, so Matt could usually get a decent idea of the mans cultivation, but even with a veil it seemed like Matt would be able to feel just how haphazard this essence cultivation was becoming with every passing ingested item.

It was light and airy, like mist instead of the concrete that Matts own core was made out of, but Erwin didnt care about that. All he was trying to do was to reach the peak of his Tier as quickly as possible. There was no finesse or guidance involved, just a man desperately trying to pour as much essence as possible into his cores as fast as possible.

It took him almost a full day, and he nearly ripped his spirit apart with the effort of rapidly processing the essence from the Tier 35 consumables while his Domain struggled to hold back the Inspiration.

Matt couldnt do anything to help, but he still stayed with Erwin, wanting to be there for his friend. He wasnt the only one. It felt like half the camp stopped by at some point or another, and while most didnt stay the entire time, even Allie popped by for a couple hours complete with snacks, marking the first time hed seen her in a few weeks. Melinda did stay nearly the entire time, taking notes and muttering about medical stuff with one of her mentors.

Matt even noticed Luna lounging around a few times. While others might not be able to tell, he knew his manager, and could read the flat expression which told him as clearly as any words she was getting ready to step in, regardless of the repercussions if Erwin failed to hold back the Inspiration. Not that Matt thought even Luna could stop a Tier 32s Inspiration, but she seemed willing to throw her best into the effort.

Nor did he miss the fact that at least three Tier 35s were present at any given time, and often more.

Thankfully, none of it proved necessary.

Erwin guzzled gallons of high Tier materials, but in the end, he managed to gather enough essence, even as loosely compressed as it was, to reach the peak of Tier 32 and break through in just a little less than a day.

Erwin dropped onto the floor with a sigh of relief, and the stuttering back-and-forth of his Domain and essence cores gave way. He stared blankly at the ceiling, and the resonance of his spirit quickly spread out into the surroundings, vibrating the rifts reality and even getting Matts own cores to join in at one point. The spiritual pressure grew and grew, and then it released, and like a dam had broken, essence began to flood in.

The power of the realm swirled around Erwin before it started to pour into him.

Matt watched as Erwins damaged spirit was almost magically healed by the resonance between it and the realm, while the essence rushed into his cores and compressed the essence he had used to reach Tier 33. Reaching into the compressed, allocated essence in a previous Tier was something only possible with an inspiration, but in seconds, the volume of essence that had been filled with mist like essence was now just as compressed as the rest of Erwins advancements.

Perfect in every way, like the labor of love it was.

Only once his foundation was compressed did the essence start to fill the area that would be his Tier 33 cores until they were full, and he broke through once more.

The flood of essence illuminated the building, and Erwin simply looked blankly into empty space, a look of wonderment on his face. Then, the light faded, the flow of essence stopped, and reality lost several shades of color.

Laughing, Erwin pulled himself to his feet, then looked down and poked himself in the abdomen. I cant believe I was able to game it! You hear all those stories about people getting two inspirations back-to-back, but no sirree, two Tiers for the price of one thank you very much! Oh man that felt good!

Luna vanished, but Matt was pretty sure he saw her roll her eyes before she did so.

The crowd present for the very end gave a polite round of applause, then trickled out as they returned to either their time off or their duties.

Erwin was no exception, as the moment he was freed from his boss giving him some congratulations, the newly-minted Tier 34 bounded over to Matt like an eager little puppy. Are we ready now?

We were waiting for you. Someone felt it necessary to have an Inspiration. Speaking of which, do you mind sharing what the actual Inspiration was about?

It was a question that most people would consider rude, but Matt knew Erwin well enough that worst-case scenario hed just decline. The man never thought that a genuine attempt to learn something would be offensive.

As they made their way back to the valley at a more sedate pace that even Alex could easily keep up with, Erwin tried to explain. I mean, it was an inspiration. Theyre pretty much impossible to describe. Such a wonderful feeling, peeking behind the curtain. Just wish I could remember most of it. Everyone looked to Erwin, but he wasnt Allie or Matt, and didnt keep them waiting. But what triggered it well, the fact that the BPL is understandable. Its profoundly, incredibly advanced, but its replicable. There was a Talent involved in making it, for sure. Multiple, even, and maybe from multiple people at that. But it still runs on logic, somewhere at its core. What that logic is, I dont know. I think it might actually require multiple different forms of logic, but it can all make sense. It's replicable. Repicatable? Im not sure which is the proper word.

Colonel Galanodel nodded even as her fingers rapidly tapped the air. Once you settle, I would appreciate a full write up for my own people to study when we have the time to examine the BPL in more detail.

A small, childish part of Matt wanted to say that she wouldn't be getting time to study this BPL. After all, it was a personal gift to him from a Tier 50 for completing the Path of Ascension, but he squished it. He knew that if he wanted to, he could claim it fully for his own, but that was beyond selfish, and it was dangerous to him and everyone on his team.

Plenty of them wouldnt benefit from it, sure, but the lower-Tier crafters in the rift had a once-in-a-lifetime chance at studying the effects that such a sophisticated device could have. Even some of the crafters in their tier. Matt could only regard the tool with hunger, wishing that it had been something just a bit more broadly useful, but he squashed those feelings down deep. He needed to be grateful for what he had gotten, but he couldnt hoard that gift all to himself.

That said, he would absolutely be getting first dibs on the device every time he wanted to use it.

Matt still wanted to finish this testing though. To that end, he lifted the talisman and proffered it for everyone to inspect it in more detail.

It took Erwin a few seconds to get used to his new, stronger, spiritual perception, but none of them were able to see any difference to the metal talisman plate and the mana stone. They were spiritually merged, but the BPL hadnt made any other changes that could help Matt in making his own talismans.

Activating the talismans by carving a few lines into the metal plate, Matt tossed the plate and the mana stone into the valley together while watching everything with his spiritual perception.

As the rune activated, Matt nodded as the mana stone was almost instantly turned to dust as the runes absorbed its power to unleash a jet of acid across the valley and caused some of the stones to hiss and pop.

Alex tapped at the air. That was good. A full fifty-seven percent faster than our control group activations and almost no power loss.

Matt nodded along but wasnt as excited as the crafter. Its useful, but still almost twice as slow to activate when compared to a normal talisman. Is there any way to reduce this further with the current design, or will we be returning to the basics?

Before Alex could respond, Zack nodded to Matt. Thank you for inviting me to see such a unique item, and while I believe it might even be useful for some of our tests on mana stones, I cant stand to be around such mana waste. It physically pains me to see millions of mana wasted so.

Having said his piece, Zack started walking back to the camp. Matt didnt take it personally, as he had expected Zack to do exactly what he did. His fellow Ascender hated waste, and talismans were inherently wasteful. That went double for the talismans Matt liked to throw around.

Colonel Galanodel sighed. I suppose Alex and the other talisman-making teams will get plenty of use from it, and I believe there are a few places where this can help us with repairs if nothing else. Still it's a remarkable item to even just study. I apologize for my earlier rudeness, Ascender Titan.

Matt waved off her apology. I was being needlessly mysterious. The rebuke was valid and I promise the next time I get a crafting device from a Tier 50, I will inform you first.

Galanodel snorted. If you get another item like this, you are more than welcome to pull a similar prank again. Im still not sure that what it does is possible, but it's a good thing for us. If nothing else, this will make repairing your armor far less of a hassle next time you come back with it in pieces.

No bothering to hold back his grin Matt asked, So does that mean its not as bad next time I wreck it?

Dont push your luck, Ascender.

She vanished a moment later, and Matt turned to where Alex and Erwin were making small adjustments to both the BPL and the metal talisman plates.

Rubbing his hands together, Matt learned forward. What if we change the trigger runes? I think we can reduce the time to activate by usi

They worked on the designs for another two days before they ran out of premade talisman plates, and they all turned to other projects. True to his mental word, he gave the BPL to Alex, leaving the crafter looking like he had been given a cross between a bomb that might blow up any seconds, the most fragile glass figurine, and a holy relic of ages past all bundled into one.

Even before he fully left, Colonel Galanodel arrived and took the item from the stunned man before vanishing.

Matt was excited to see what they would cook up with it.

He had another ten or so years rift time before Aster would be back in top condition and they could take missions outside without revealing Melindas talent. But now that he had been off the Path for a significant amount of time, he no longer felt like he needed to rush everywhere.

A decade?

That was nothing.

The war had just started a hundred years ago, and at its fastest, might end in another hundred years. More likely it would stretch for another two or three hundred years. Time was the one thing that Matt had in spades. He just needed to make good use of said time, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

He had a wife he hadnt seen in a few days now, and despite having all the time in the world, that had been too long.

Before he could find her, he received a message on his [AI].

Oh.