619 Difference Between Life and Death (1/2)

Holy Light, Ice, Death, and Law. Any of these four major fields were enough to take an entire lifetime to research.

Everyone would be naturally talented in different areas. A so-called genius in all areas would typically never reach the top in any area. The deeper the field of study, the more time would be needed to accumulate understanding. While longer-lived species could use their longer lifespans to accumulate more understanding, the short-lived humans didn't have such excellent conditions.

Roland's path for ability growth had been quite unique. He had reached the peak in all four areas. This seemed to break a maxim, but he actually wasn't multitasking at all.

Rather than treating each of these fields as a type of power and knowledge, Roland viewed them all more like philosophical ways of thinking.

Holy Light's path of belief. Estrada had been Roland's first teacher. Roland had thus started down the historical Holy Knights' path of protection. He had also received the favor of Holy Light, which was how Roland managed to achieve the peak. But, when he evolved the path of Holy Light into the path of Salvation, it was just as if he was using theology and philosophy to research Holy Light rather than being like other Holy Light users who simply researched Holy Light and its usage.

Roland hadn't invented any special Divine Arts for high-level priests and Holy Knights to use. As for Holy Light usage, techniques, and mastery of high-level Divine Arts, not only could Roland not compare to SemiGod rank Holy Knights and priests, it was likely that Roland couldn't even compare to a Legend-ranked Holy Knight who worked hard at researching Holy Light.

There was no need to go into detail about Law. This was what Roland sought after his accumulation from both Earth and Eich. This was also about his understanding of human social rules.

Roland had invented the Concept of Law in Eich. However, he wasn't a dedicated researcher of Law. Roland hoped that Law could change the world of Eich. However, he wasn't interested in further researching the usages of Law. Right now, the great majority of new Law Incantations in the world had been developed by other Law job class members… and Roland didn't even know how to use these Law Incantations.

Since he was focusing less and less on Law these days, Roland had also started using the power of Law in his battles less and less. His power of ice was also in a similar situation.

Ice was probably the field that Roland had the weakest mastery of. If it wasn't for the fact that he had to have four elements and had a cheat-like System helping him all the way, it would be unlikely that he would have achieved what he did in ice magic.

Roland's understanding of ice had only improved recently. While he knew more about ice than ordinary ice mages, Roland would count as nothing more than an acolyte in comparison to ice magic grandmasters… The number of ice magic spells that Roland knew couldn't even compare to a Legend-ranked ice mage who finished all his classes at magic school.

Truly powerful individuals had reached the peak slowly, step by step. Mages would need to know a tremendous amount of magical knowledge. They would analyze the foundational workings of low-level spells to obtain knowledge about magic's inner workings. Only after slowly being able to control mid- and high-level spells, achieving the peak and reaching a bottleneck, would one start researching their personal magic.

The way that Roland understood the fundamentals of ice magic but couldn't apply them practically meant that he was unable to translate his ice magic mastery into actual combat strength.

Mages who knew thousands of spells weren't only for show. Roland, who only knew how to cast ice arrows, blizzards, and Ice Aeon, was one of the ice mages in the world with the worst repertoire. That was why he would often forget to cast spells while fighting and always resort to melee, which he excelled at.

People would naturally rely on and trust what they were the most familiar with when they were in dangerous combat. In a way, this was the best evidence that Roland had put far more effort into swordsmanship than ice magic. At the very least, he trusted his sword more than his ice magic.

His only high-level ice spell, the forbidden spell Ice Aeon… Apart from the fact that his System had helped him with this, Ice Aeon was also the accumulated knowledge gained over two separate lives, along with Roland's understanding of ”Death” and ”Destruction”. The Ice Aeon spell was the end result of having a lich's body and the ability to reincarnate.

Correct—the area that Roland had truly focused most of his time and effort on, along with his being naturally talented in, was the Concept of Death.

Roland had been focusing on finding the ”truth” behind his Mist Kingdom's destruction at that time. He was in despair and insane back then. It was also the time when he desired strength more than anything.

A weakness of smart people was that they would always try to think of ways to slack off. It was also common that they would overthink things and miss an opportunity. At that time, Roland strongly desired more strength so that he could obtain revenge. He even broke all moral boundaries and directly unraveled the secrets of the soul.

”Roland is the only new Undead Emperor to appear in the past thousand years. He has reached the highest peak possible in soul magic. He is the creator of undead construction.”

This was how the dead and the mages referred to Roland. This was the best evidence of how much Roland had achieved in the area of Death. At the very least, Roland was already at the top of the top when it came to his research about the nature of the soul… In fact, the reason why he was able to master so many different powers was also because of his understanding of the soul. He was already capable of transforming belief and feelings into actual power!

His experience in the River Styx and his memories gained from truly dying and being reborn several times all helped him to far better understand the nature of death than any other existence in the world did. In fact, his understanding of death had already exceeded Creator Goddess Eich's.

Roland's true research results hadn't even been publicized. What Roland would truly be known for in Eich's history wasn't even his frightful Seven Original Sin undead creations. That was because former Undead Emperors before him had constructed even more fearsome creatures. Not only that, his Seven Original Sins were only a byproduct of his research into the soul for the sake of power.

”Roland has broken the boundaries between life and death.”

Indeed, this was truly Roland's greatest achievement. Before Roland, death meant death. No matter if you entered the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation, death was death. Nobody was truly able to come back after death.

The moment that Lisa fell into the River Styx, she had already died. Even though Roland pulled her out and gave her a new life, she was now a new individual. It could be said that Elisa's past life was as Lisa.

People were capable of becoming undead, God Envoys, angels, or so on. However, these were all alternate methods of extending life. The living were still the living, and the dead were the dead. Nobody was capable of breaking this boundary.

No matter if you were an Undead Emperor or a True God, including even the Creator Goddess and the Main Gods, nobody was capable of breaking the boundary between life and death. Roland was the only one who'd ever achieved this. He researched topics that nobody else even dared to. He also succeeded.

Perhaps, foundationally speaking, he was still that crazy lich with no limits whatsoever.

Such research results were no result of miraculous luck. No miraculous luck could bring about such research results. Roland's research had taken an obvious course.

Even though the Seven Original Sins were a product of undead construction research, they had also been a product of Roland's research into the nature of souls, along with dissecting the essence of what desires and feelings were as natural traits of the soul. As the Seven Original Sins were completed, Roland's understanding of the nature of souls had exceeded that of every other existence… That was because nobody else would be insane enough to dissect themselves, cutting off a portion of their own soul to put into an undead creation in order to observe the changes in the nature of the soul. Besides, if it wasn't for the fact that Roland was known as the ”Undying”, doing this would normally be no different from suicide.

His experience in the River Styx also gave Roland the world's only personal experience with living and dead souls (nobody else would be capable of leaving the River Styx or the Cycle of Reincarnation). By using his knowledge of souls, Roland was able to solve the foundational difference between life and death.