Chapter 547: Discovered Truths

I’m sitting on the floor, in complete concentration, meditating. My body is floating while my vision is completely red. I’m practicing using abilities involving souls.

Now I can even see them. It’s not a skill, passive, or trait—it’s just using Mana in my eyes to see directly into the spiritual plane, allowing me to see souls, spirits, and non-physical beings.

Because of this, I can see the guardian, although its form is still shapeless and its appearance can’t be made out.

“Are you really going to stay that far from me? Pretty cowardly attitude for a guardian,” I say to the guardian, who stares at me from way over there. She’s really fast. I’ve tried to grab her numerous times, but she always runs away, and even when I set traps or try to attack things here, she stops me with barriers or escapes quickly.

After losing her arm, she’s become very cautious of me, even though she’s much stronger. What a shame.

“Tsk… coward.” Because of her, I’ve wasted time for nothing. The time I spent trying to catch her was important time I could have used to communicate with beings here in the foundation of creation.

’It’s almost time for me to leave…’ The amount of information flowing into my brain has become minimal—not less relevant, but still, very little is being inserted into my head now.

I look at this beautiful cosmic sky, seeing black holes, supernovas, stars being born. It’s magnificent.

“Time, Space, Matter, Energy, Fundamental Forces, Entropy, Information, Probability, Will, Consciousness, Meaning…” I murmur the things I can easily manipulate in the universe and that I judge to be the most important at the moment.

The foundations of creation gave me what I needed to affect the principle of everything that exists and isn’t stronger than me. I can use magic to manipulate these things without using an element or skill.

Mana shapes the universe, and by using Mana, I can manipulate all vectors that exist. Although it’s complex, if I use [Essence of Creation], I have the power to build and destroy everything that exists.

It’s truly the power of a god. Vector manipulation through Mana means I literally control anything that exists and can use it to my advantage, and since it only doesn’t affect beings stronger than or on the same level as me…

It means only the goddesses and the avatars of the primordial goddess are immune to this, but I can still manipulate the environment around them.

“If the goddesses aren’t affected by vector manipulation, it means most of them are probably immune to almost all standard concepts that govern the universe… that’s problematic…” It means that to kill a goddess, the attack has to be above powers that could easily erase a universe.

They’re more resistant than I expected, and it also means I can barely scratch a goddess’s body, since currently, at level 2 billion, I can only create attacks capable of destroying universes.

’Their strength is monstrous…’ The foundations of creation gave me a metric of how strong a level 100 billion goddess really is, and although it didn’t seem like it, they are all above normal concepts.

“Hahaha, what irony. Now, with the foundations of creation, I’m invincible against normal enemies, and not even the monsters of the abyss will be a problem anymore. But in exchange, I can barely scratch a goddess’s body even if I attack with everything I have…” I didn’t imagine a difference of 98 billion levels would be so gigantic.

Level doesn’t prevent affecting a stronger being, because abilities and strategy count for a lot. But the truth is, beings below 70 billion won’t even get close to landing a fatal blow on a goddess.

“I can say I’ve finally transcended the threshold between a mortal and a goddess, but I’m still far from truly reaching a goddess’s maximum limit… How irritating… and frustrating…” I hoped the power would come faster.

Not that my growth isn’t abnormal. My physical age is 4 years. That is, in 4 years, I became a goddess at level 2 billion—a monstrous growth. But there’s all the mental time spent that left me frustratingly stagnant.

And I haven’t reached all the strength I hoped for. I’m 45,459 years old mentally, thanks to the messed-up time in the abyss. Even though I’ve grown a lot, it’s nowhere near what I want.

’Damn it… if things continue at this pace, I’ll only reach max level in at least 500,000 years, and it could take up to 3 million years…’ I get more and more frustrated with the numbers.

And it gets worse, because my mother said that after certain billions of levels, climbing higher becomes even more difficult. So, 3 million years is a gentle estimate; it could be much more than that.

“How much risk am I willing to take to grow faster?” I’ll only increase my level through adaptation. If fighting really puts me at risk, I could keep fighting my sister, but there’s a problem with that plan.

We’re both instinctive monsters. If we start fighting seriously to force adaptation, we’ll genuinely try to kill each other, and we won’t be able to stop until one of us dies. So, that plan is useless.

“If Level were a basic concept of the universe, I could force my level to grow without effort… but it seems the primordial goddess removed any means of cheating the level.” ’Level’ isn’t just an indicative number of strength.

It’s the “maximum possible potential” of something, and that potential is a “beyond-universe” concept, outside the vectors and basic concepts that are the area I can manipulate now.

Probably, to be able to manipulate Level, I’d have to be level 80 to 90 billion, and I could only manipulate the level of other beings below me, not my own level.

“It’s really irritating to know reality was created with such perfection in certain aspects…” By the way, the fact that level is the “maximum possible potential” also explains why I surpass the level limit.

It’s because the [Adaptation] of a Tenebris Abyssus doesn’t just change its way of acting; it changes its entire biology and existence. That is, it’s as if we become a new being every time we adapt.

My mother was undoubtedly brilliant. She, who has also seen the foundations of creation, realized that if a being changes its existence, the level is readjusted to the new existence, because level is the “Future Potential,” and if a being’s existence changes completely, its future potential also changes.

“It seems I have a lot to learn from my mother. Her intelligence is insane.” I stop meditating, falling to the floor as I stretch, now having even more respect for my mother’s intellect.

It was great to learn more about my race and the universe, along with how it works. I have a lot to thank my mother for, who trusted me to obtain this knowledge.

“Although… kind of disturbing…” I murmur, realizing the absurd risk of the adaptation ability my race has. Putting this in a race was literally a shot in the dark the goddess of the abyss took.

Because nothing guaranteed the race would adapt correctly instead of just deforming into something horrific and barely functional. Proof of that was when I adapted to breathe hydrogen, and all my senses became so excessively hypersensitive that it hurt me.

Adaptation isn’t a consequence-free “savior.” It’s just a means of forcing the body to its limit, and to survive, it makes a choice that works by existentially altering the being’s body.

That’s why an adaptation can’t be reversed. It has become the “new normal” for that body, just like the Mana path, which is super hard to restore because after taking damage, it can’t be healed easily since it doesn’t depend on the body’s regeneration.

“Mom, you could have warned me, you know…” If I knew how risky adapting is, I would have been much more careful about several things I intentionally left for my body to adapt to. Knowing this makes me remember the dozens of times I ignored danger because I expected to adapt.

Literally, the only thing that prevented my body from deforming into something horrible was my high regeneration, which adjusted most of the “side effects” to be minimal.

Which also explains why my mother sought to put regeneration based on tentacles in my race, since tentacles regenerate without deforming into anything.

Since it’s a thing inspired by tentacles, my regeneration doesn’t completely prevent deformations, but it took care of handling the worst problems and reducing the negative effects to the maximum.

“I think it’s time for me to stop overthinking and prepare to leave.” Getting out of here won’t be so easy. My mind, full of information that seems endless, will reach my body with so much mental load that I could die.

The riskiest part wasn’t entering here; it will be leaving here without my body and soul suffering severe damage. That’s why I was meditating—to release some of the load on my soul.

Meditation helps the body maintain focus, discipline, and calm, helping to balance the soul and mind, which are the two most important things for me to get out of here alive, without much damage, and without irreversible mental sequelae.

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