353 Direction of Evolution (1/2)

When I awoke from my long slumber, I was unable to move. Yet I was greeted with a world no longer the same.

If a mirror were present, I would have been able to see that my eyes were different. One eye had a normal white eye and a black pupil, while the other had a black eye and white pupil. Like the opposite halves of a Yin Yang diagram, it gave off a frightening appearance.

Meanwhile, what I saw was far stranger. On one side was a world of energy that appeared like infrared lights, with red, yellow, orange and other warm colors. The other half was filled with decayed bones and black gunk, as if all the filth of the world was before me.

Luckily, when I canceled the ”Stare of the Hell God,” my eyes returned to normal. Otherwise, I would have had to find a bandage to cover my eyes, like a certain unlucky fellow who was ”imprisoned for ten thousand years…” Hmmm. Having bandages over my eyes would actually look quite cool, but going around with a naked upper body would seem quite embarrassing. And I felt that if I uttered that classical line, ”You seek your own death!”, I would collapse of embarrassment halfway through—that would be even more embarrassing. [1]1

I took a deep breath and quickly discovered that the dragon's blood in the blood pool I was soaking in had decreased by more than half. Meanwhile, some mysterious change seemed to have occurred in my body.

”System?”

I figured that now was the time to consult an expert. At the very least, her showing me my status would be able to help me understand my situation with precise numbers and words.

Unluckily for me, although I could check it, my racial talents and stats kept changing constantly in a quick blur that was impossible to read. My body was still undergoing changes.

”Ha, it would seem that it's still too early.”

My physical body was evidently still evolving. I took a deep breath and intended to place my consciousness back within my Frigidwinter Earth. However, I received a reply from the System at this moment.

[Your physical body is now entering its youth stage. Please choose the direction of your evolution. System Reminder: Please be careful about your choice. There will be no going back.]

I was surprised for a moment upon hearing this, but soon, the System gave me a great amount of information that helped me understand.

[Arbiter Bloodline. 19 Strength, 19 Dexterity, 19 Constitution, 29 Intelligence, 19 Will, 19 Charisma. Racial talents: War Angel Form, Original Sin Demon Form. Overall assessment: Double Diamond Bloodline. Recommended job classes: Order Knight, Chaos Lich King. System Evaluation: Your Arbiter Bloodline is on the border between Order and Chaos and belongs to neither faction, but it's compatible with both factions. This bloodline with both foundational powers that are so different created a miraculous physical body for you. Perhaps it's not the strongest body, but it's by far the one with the most potential.]

I had always found it quite strange. Even though I clearly possessed a Double Diamond Bloodline, it never performed anywhere near as well in battles as the Titan Giants' Semi-Diamond Bloodline. In fact, I felt like it was far weaker than even Little Red's Immemorial Dragon Bloodline. It was only now that I understood what the problem was.

From a certain standpoint, the System was just like me. Although she never lied, she would often be intentionally misleading with her words.

This time, the part that made me suffer was the final sentence of her explanation, ”Perhaps it's not the strongest body, but it's by far the one with the most potential.”

Whenever a teacher praised a student for having potential, there would typically be an unstated sentence behind it: ”This student is currently not that great.” And so, what the System gave me was basically an infant's body. How far it could develop would depend on my path and the choices I made.

And so—intentionally or unintentionally—the System dug a pitfall for me. At the very least, what she gave me wasn't a complete Arbiter Bloodline, but an infant Arbiter Bloodline, instead.

This was also why my physical body was stuck in a juvenile form. For a young child who had just finished his earliest years of education, whether he became an athlete, artist, musician or whatever in the future would depend on his future studies and practices. Someone at such a young age would first learn to run and speak.

The world was forever unfair—no matter the world. In my previous world of Earth, people gifted in athletics or intelligence could accomplish feats no ordinary person could, no matter how hard the ordinary person worked. For example, in certain sports, Africans were far more skilled than the Chinese, no matter how much the Chinese exercised. [2]2

There were even larger differences between the species in this world, with more obvious imbalances. The beastmen were naturally talented at physical combat, the elves were born with talent in archery and magic, the dragons were skilled at both physical and magical combat but had slow growth rates, and the undead possessed a natural affinity for negative energy. The only race that had balanced skills in all aspects, the humans, were literally the representative of ”Jack of all trades, master of none.”

The physical body with the most potential? The path leading to the strongest? Nobody would know what power would be the most suitable for them, or what type of fighting style would lead them down the ultimate path. What power you wanted was the same as the so-called greatest potential: giving you a choice to create the physical body and natural talents you desired the most.

[Discard a minimum of two of your racial natural talents and elaborate how you wish to strengthen yourself. The more detailed you elaborate, the better. System Notification: Congratulations on your graduation from elementary school. It's time for you to become a middle schooler!]

”As an infant, my growth was balanced. Now that I'm a youth, it is time to make a choice?”

From the information I received from the System I knew that the Arbiter Bloodline was akin to an insect's metamorphosis. Upon breaking through a bottleneck, this bloodline would evolve. And now, it was time for me to make a choice, one based on my rich experience.

”Choice? Choice? Choosing a path also means choosing something to give up. If something's the most important, then there exists something that's not as important.”

Indeed. While I would have wanted to be as agile as the elves, as strong as the beastmen, and to have an undead's natural affinity for negative energy so that I could use negative energy as I pleased, together with an angel's natural affinity for positive energy, my desires were no good… Even if my ridiculously unreasonable bloodline was able to give me all these traits, the special, unique advantages of each would be lost, and I would only seem ordinary in comparison—nothing would stand out. It would be more of a loss than a gain.

[…War Angel Form, Original Sin Demon Form, Sword of Order, Titan Body, Feet of Ethereal Shadow, Divine Child, and Chaos Barrier. I'm going to have to discard a minimum of two of these abilities? And strengthen the others? Which should I strengthen?]

These were the natural talents my body currently possessed. I was mulling over which were the most useful to me and what fighting style I should adopt in the future. However, I was now stuck in a quandary. All of these abilities were excellent ones, but if I looked at my past uses for them, there were still obvious differences.

I absolutely had to keep the War Angel and Original Sin Demon Forms. No matter if it was in practical combat or the power of Creation within Frigidwinter Earth, they were both incredibly effective. Besides, I felt that since they were the first two abilities that came together with this physical body of mine, I shouldn't make the choice to discard them. Divine Child was an ability that made it easier for me to perform God's Descent with Wumianzhe, which was one of the aces up my sleeve, so naturally I wouldn't choose to discard Divine Child.

In that case, let's start the process of elimination with the natural talent I used the least. Of course, planning was always better with more than one person, so I decided to ask the living library Harloys for her advice.

”Feet of Ethereal Shadow is the natural talent I've used the least out of all of them. This is the ability for me to escape to the Shadow Plane, which can help me escape from any dangerous situation. However, it also means that I've transported myself to another plane, and that I would need to figure out a way to return to the mortal plane afterwards. It won't be easy for me to return in any short period of time, which is why I've never used it at all. Still, it's a lifesaving ability, which means it might come in useful in the future…”

”…Is it even possible for you to consider escaping? Even when the Titan Giants were right before you just now, weren't you raring for battle? I think you should just face your true self and change your job class to Berserker.”

”Hmph, that's because it wasn't a life-or-death battle. Otherwise, I definitely would have fled to the Shadow Plane.”

As a mage, fleeing when you couldn't win was completely normal. Mages had far slower growth than other job classes to begin with. For any mage who wanted to go out adventuring, preparing two or three specialized ”tactical retreat” spells was absolutely necessary. Harloys telling me to change my job class to Berserker was a veiled insult—she was basically insulting me by calling me a brainless barbarian.

”No. I feel that as long as you're forced to the brink, you'd just enter your insanity mode and try to drag your opponent down with him. Back when Aso was casting his forbidden spell, you could have escaped to the Shadow Plane, but instead you attempted to immolate your own soul to take him down with you. Just think about it. Over so many years, have you ever tried to run away even once?”

”…I think so—it's possible—it seems…. that indeed I haven't.”

”You really are the same as all those stubborn tin can knights.”

Now that she said this, I couldn't help but recall the teachings of Estrada, my Holy Knight teacher who was also known as the strongest Holy Knight. He would prattle on every day for more than three hours on knighthood, which was no different from brainwashing.

”…We Holy Knights shall never despair. As long as we fight to the end… even if we must sacrifice ourselves, it's for a worthy cause…”

Actually, the greatest advantage of the Holy Knight job class was near absolute immunity to any mental magics related to fear and despair. Adventuring teams were accustomed to having Holy Knights perform the most dangerous tasks. In fact, since there were far too many examples of Holy Knights who loved to sacrifice themselves, back when Beyana in her Betty form was making fun of Holy Knights for this self-sacrificing addiction problem and dragging me away, I couldn't counter her with anything at all.

Personally, I was the type who didn't believe that one's childhood education would affect that person for the rest of their life. But the truth was indeed that even if I was forced to the very brink, as long as there was still a one percent possibility I could turn things around, I wouldn't even think about escaping. The fact that I had never used this Feet of Ethereal Shadow ability even once was the best evidence.

”So you're advising me against strengthening this life-saving ability?”

”For you, it's indeed unnecessary. After all, you'll never think about running away. Besides, you're the Undying Roland. Even if you die, you can just start over again.”

Alright then. I settled on the first ability to discard. And the second ability, the one I used the second least, was…

”Apart from the Feet of Ethereal Shadow ability that's used for escaping, the ability that I've used the second least is the one to summon a 'Sacred Sword' of Order.”

I had used this ability for only a few times in the very beginning but practically stopped using it afterwards.

The Sword of Order ability was limited to being used only once per day, and the issue of the short time that the sword could be summoned was also a small one. The greatest regret about this ability was the fact that I didn't lack for weapons.

Pale Justice, the Roland Sacred Sword, and the Slayer of the Undying Warhammer were all excellent weapons which could act as vessels for Holy Light or the power of Law. Although I gave the God Equipment Roland Sacred Sword to Reyne, I was now mainly using the Ice Calamity magic sword that my silly cat could transform into ever since she had evolved to possess the powers of ”Calamity Chill” and ”Hibernation Chill”.

And as I improved in my understanding of ice magic, Erebella's passive buff to my ice magic along with the fatal time-freezing Hibernation Chill ability meant that Harloys' transformed Ice Calamity magic sword was just as powerful as the Roland Sacred Sword—reaching the level of God Equipment.