Mental World

After losing his memory while contemplating the Forbidden Knowledge skill, or rather, the thoughts of the Outer God, Yuseong never meditated again.

Though one reason was that stat increases through contemplation had stopped, the biggest reason was fear of the unknown.

Missing memories and a status window with broken text.

All kinds of evil knowledge that belittled and insulted living beings, and an unknown being that took over his body.

Like a puppy that doesn’t know to fear a tiger, he had thought of the Outer God’s thoughts as just a convenient skill for easily raising stats, only realizing how dangerous his actions had been after things went wrong.

The height of foolishness, like sticking your hand into a hole without knowing what’s inside.

While he might have continued if he hadn’t known, once he knew, he couldn’t repeat the same mistake.

However, Yuseong decided to meditate again after a long time.

It was because of the Seed of Divinity he had accidentally consumed.

‘Nothing shows up on the status window and nothing seems to have changed. This is all that’s left.’

Planning to stop meditating immediately if anything felt off, Yuseong concentrated and reached the deepest part of his inner self, only to be startled by an unexpected sight.

Originally, Yuseong’s mental world was an empty void except for the Outer God’s thoughts.

But now it was different.

Countless lights decorated what had been empty space.

It was like looking at the universe.

There was one minor issue of having the Outer God’s thoughts spewing malice and madness at the center instead of a warm sun, but still.

Facing the Outer God’s thoughts after a long time.

In that moment, Yuseong realized something.

‘…It seems smaller than before?’

Not just the size.

The malice and madness it had been constantly spewing had also decreased from before.

While observing his inner self to understand the cause, Yuseong soon realized the reason.

The newly appeared stars were absorbing the negative waves and energy emitted by the Outer God’s thoughts.

Though very gradually, the Outer God’s thoughts were weakening, and inversely proportional to this, the presence of the stars was growing stronger.

It was certain.

The stars were growing by feeding on the Outer God’s thoughts.

“Hah.”

After stopping his inner contemplation, Yuseong sighed.

While it was good that the Outer God’s thoughts were weakening, the stars that had appeared to replace them bothered him.

Though they didn’t seem particularly dangerous, having been badly burned after touching the unknown before, Yuseong couldn’t view the stars favorably.

“It would be nice to have some information…”

He had asked other users but couldn’t get any useful information.

The only thing he could learn was that seeds, fragments, and essences were all extremely rare items.

“How did such rare items come from a randomly chosen quest?”

Muttering hopelessly, Yuseong scratched his head with a resigned expression.

Whether the Seed of Divinity would be helpful or become a new headache was unknown, but with no way to do anything about it, there was nothing he could do.

At best, he could periodically observe inside to check if any changes had occurred.

After resolving one problem, Yuseong frowned at another concern that arose.

‘I need to get stronger.’

Through the brief skirmish with Harnak, Yuseong realized just how much of a frog in a well he had been.

Of course, since it wasn’t some random monster but a being with power rivaling a transcendent, he could have just thought he was unlucky and moved on, but something bothered him too much for that.

“I was too helpless.”

Objectively evaluating, he wasn’t weak at all.

Though he might be lacking in combat endurance, in pure combat ability he wasn’t far behind Three Intermediates.

But while he was taken down instantly by Harnak, Kasim and Olga had fought somewhat equally.

And that was two people – a mage specialized in ranged combat and an ability user specialized in combat support.

‘It’s not a matter of specs… right?’

The monstrous strength from Tyrant’s arms.

Infinite Origin Force that unified three energies and amplified their power.

In terms of momentary output, he should be above Olga if not Kasim.

While pondering, Yuseong stroked his chin and muttered.

“Diversity of abilities.”

Kasim and Olga had abilities that could cover various situations.

Kasim, a mage specialized in ranged combat, showed staff techniques, while Olga demonstrated flexible use of numerous abilities tied together under the keyword of cold for attack, defense, and support.

But what about himself?

Most of his abilities were specialized for close combat.

“Ha, haha…”

Yuseong let out a hollow laugh.

He had previously worried about his growth direction while organizing his abilities.

He had clearly said he would grow into an all-rounder capable of handling every situation, but before he knew it, he had naturally become specialized in one field like other users.

This wouldn’t do.

“I need to increase my ability diversity. No, just increasing the number of abilities won’t be enough. I also need to deepen existing abilities. I can’t keep fighting with just Shadow Moon Style 16.”

After organizing his thoughts while talking to himself, Yuseong left his room and headed underground.

The space where dragon corpses had been was now so filled with huge machines and equipment of unknown purpose that there was barely room to step.

“Amazing.”

“Is that all you have to say about the Great Annihilation Engine? I can’t tell if you’re ignorant or just broad-minded.”

A response came to his casual mutter.

When he turned his head, he saw Sophia with dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept properly for days.

“Great Annihilation Engine? Surely you don’t mean the one that uses antimatter?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Didn’t you read the construction status report I sent?”

“Well, I was really busy…”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure you were.”

Yuseong gave a bitter smile at her sarcastic tone.

Calling Dragonia to take down Harnak had been fine, but problems arose when the quest took longer than expected, leading to Dragonia staying in reality for an extended period.

A mysterious city suddenly appearing in the sky and bombarding the ground with pseudo-meteor attacks.

People who didn’t know the circumstances judged Dragonia as an even greater threat than the undead and immediately began responding.

At first, the prevailing opinion was that they shouldn’t provoke it carelessly, but when an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft that got too close to the city exploded after hitting the barrier, the problem grew.

In less than half a day, fighter jets and bombers were launched and began pouring missiles and bombs, and seeing Dragonia completely unharmed thanks to its barrier, people felt unprecedented terror.

‘They said nuclear weapons were seriously discussed.’

Though catastrophe was avoided thanks to Kang Changseok belatedly appearing and mediating after understanding the situation, Sophia who had been in Dragonia had to spend her days on pins and needles for a while.

“I said I’m sorry. I wanted to return as quickly as possible too, but couldn’t help it because of the time ratio.”

“If you increase the research budget, I’ll forgive you.”

“Even more than now?”

“You earned a lot from ability awakening potions.”

“…I’ll increase it by 10%.”

“Ahem, just this once. Please be more careful next time.”

Though Sophia tried to act cool, she couldn’t hide her rising cheeks.

“How’s the engine? Is it alright?”

“There were some problems with a few converters but nothing worth worrying about. Is that why you came?”

“Among other things. I wanted to hear about Dragonia’s condition and had a few requests too.”

“I figured.”

“What do you mean you figured? Your tone is a bit…”

“The times Mr. Yuseong has visited me purely for socializing can be counted on one hand. With how easily you agreed to increase the research budget too, you obviously came with some requests.”

“You’re quite perceptive.”

Yuseong took an axe handle from subspace and turned it on.

Zzzzt!

“A plasma weapon. It looks like it’s in bad condition.”

“The blade got distorted after clashing with an ultra-vibration weapon, can you tell what’s wrong?”

“Looks like the electromagnetic field generator took damage but it’s nothing major. I can fix it in about 10 minutes.”

“I’d like to not just repair it but modify it too.”

“Modify? How?”

“It’s a bit small which is inconvenient. I’d like to increase the size and do something about the plasma blade being too eye-catching. Oh, and if you could increase the cutting power too, that would be good.”

“It would be faster to just make a new weapon.”

Though grumbling, Sophia wrote down Yuseong’s requirements.

After handing over the plasma axe to Sophia, Yuseong carefully brought up the next topic.

“How far along is Alice’s body?”

Originally there was about half a year left until the promised completion date for the gynoid.

However, while hearing about what had happened during his absence, Yuseong heard something that made him doubt his ears.

“I heard Alice stopped Bruce and Kang Changseok from approaching Dragonia?”

“That’s true. When Bruce suddenly tried to break the barrier, Alice went out to stop him.”

“How? Didn’t you say it would take over half a year for the body to be completed?”

“That’s how long it takes to make a finished product. Though it doesn’t match the finished product, even prototypes can fight to some extent.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘to some extent’?”

“Slightly below the level of a Galactic Federation special combat android?” TLN: Is this Rick and Morty reference? Honestly I have no idea since I don’t watch the show, but please do correct me if I’m wrong.

“…I have no idea what that comparison means. Don’t you have an easier comparison?”

“Well, warriors and mages have too much variation in combat power even at the same level so they’re not suitable for comparison… Ah! We can compare to users. Changseok is a bit much, but about able to compete somewhat with Carlos.”

Carlos.

Though belonging to Three Weak, he was still undeniably a user.

Able to somewhat compete not with a Contractor or monster, but a user?

Yuseong swallowed dryly and said.

“Then there’s no problem deploying her in combat like this?”

“It’s possible but I don’t recommend it. Thanks to Alice’s Mana Control ability she could move somehow, but this version is too unstable to be really suitable for combat.”

“How long would it take to upgrade to a level capable of stable combat?”

“If we leave energy control to Alice, replace all unstable parts with high durability and stability parts, and work day and night balancing it, about 10 days I think.”

“10 days you say.”

Yuseong looked at Sophia with a grin.

“You know?”

“I-I’m really busy you know. Dragonia modifications are getting on track and I have personal research and so many other things to do…”

“…”

“…”

After looking at Yuseong with trembling eyes, Sophia subtly avoided his gaze.

The one who pays is always right.

The outcome of this fight was determined from the start.