Chapter 74: Come With Me If You Want To Live
Zorat had dubbed Myrra’s skill decent enough for him to go through the trouble of acquiring it. He was positive it would transform into something lethally effective when he brought it to the runic level.
However, this time, he couldn’t go through the route of directly replicating her skill by fulfilling her desires.
Looking at the situation Myrra is currently in, it should be safe to assume her present desires would be something along the lines of getting to live and surviving her current predicament, even if it’s just a temporary desire, and one born of immediate need.
But her observable desires from Zorat’s perspective had no mention of this obviously very critical desire for one fundamental reason....
Zorat would be the direct cause of this desire. And Zorat cannot represent both the cause and effect to any target or subject of desire. The laws of balance, as mentioned before, that were set into his authority upon his ascension, would not permit this.
Take Kaelara, for example; her desires had always been there, independent of Zorat’s direct influence on her, and the same could be said with Erica.
Zorat was recognized, by no direct influence on his part, as the object of fulfillment for their desires, and he wasn’t directly recognized as the cause of these desires.
However, there is a loophole in this law; one which Zorat had exploited so many times before. And that is through orchestrating his machinations behind the scenes to slowly cement a need into a desire without ever being recognized by the subject, as him being the object of desire, and finally coming out to become the object of fulfillment.
It’s usually a more lengthy process that requires Zorat to set a lot of things in motion, but sometimes, it happens purely by accident. Ava’s case is a perfect example. Zorat definitely did not see that coming.
All in all, it doesn’t really matter much to Zorat that he couldn’t immediately replicate Myrra’s skill. There is a more practical approach he will be taking with the young lady.
Unlike divine skills, which heroes possess, regular skills and special skills are fundamentally different.
Zorat could not directly unearth a divine skill for the sole reason that they contain fragments of divine authority.
These skills can only be obtained or bestowed by the recursive laws of this dimension’s ruler... or, in Zorat’s case, directly replicated with his broken ability.
So even if these divine skills are left so conceptually close to the surface, and located just around the belly button region, Zorat still couldn’t directly unearth them if he tried to go that route. Only his authority could bypass this restriction.
However, regular skills and special skills are different. They are located conceptually deeper in the fabric of this dimension, but are inscribed physically still around the naval region of every denizen of this world during awakening.
The closer they are to the surface, the higher the skill grade.
For these skills, given enough time, Zorat could unearth them all freely using his own supreme insight into runes.
But it takes quite some time to complete the process. Unlike simply replicating the skill runes like his ability allows him to, this method would take a considerably longer duration.
Still, way shorter than the way it was done in the hell dimension, since, in this world, Zorat could directly infer the runic structure by observing and interpreting its code directly from the person it’s imprinted upon.
To better put things into perspective... There used to be two methods of interacting with runes that Zorat was aware of....
One was to slowly unearth them by your own design and requirements; this would take the longest time.
Two is to observe the spells or techniques containing these runes being used in action, analyse and infer, making the unearthing process that much smoother; this one is a considerably shorter process than the first.
Zorat knew of rune inscriptions on the body or whatever surfaces to achieve various effects based on the needs of the person, but arriving in this world, he saw people awakening and having these runes conceptually inscribed in them to grant basically unearned abilities, without even knowing what runes are, or the fact that they have them buried deep in their existence.
The denizens of this world were granted a cheat code that does not exist in the hell dimension.
Normally, cultivation was the norm, be it cultivation of life, death, rot, demonic, chi, qi, mana, or whatever energy source available in a plane of existence.
And doing so, you break through the chains of your mortality by cultivating this ever-present and abundant energy to higher and higher realms, until there is nowhere higher to reach.
That’s the way it usually is.
During this process, you also get to design your own spells or techniques from scratch, perfecting them through countless years of trial and error, and all this will be based on the available sources of energy in that dimension... at least, until you ascend all things and become an authority.
But here....
Everything’s been made so easy. However, easy does not translate to better.
The people here gain spells and techniques, or as they call them, skills and special skills, both weak and powerful ones, during the awakening rituals they all undergo when they turn a certain age.
They do not go through the rigorous process of designing these skills or even learning from records. The most they do is practice and recreate several weaker or stronger variations of what was given.
This simple process might look good at first, but it’s actually doing immense harm to the people, because for such people, the likelihood of them ever even perceiving the existence of runes is almost non existent.
So, Zorat pondered... was the system designed intentionally to do them this harm?. For what reason?
A similar thing happens with their growth method.
Where there should be cultivation of all kinds... they are granted their growth by simply killing and leveling up.
Zorat had actually confirmed that the raise in realm through this effortless means of growth was indeed real, but without the insight into runes that accompanies both cultivation, and understanding and designing technique and spells oneself, none of these people would ever touch upon even the realm of a grunt-level demon king from Zorat’s hell dimension. Unless there was more Zorat is still unaware of, and there certainly would be, because these people were keeping a lot of secrets.
Zorat would surely indulge in the benefits this world affords. Why go through the hard route when he could take the easier one? He would be extracting Myrra’s skill runes by directly inferring from the buried runic chain in her abdominal region.
For this, she has to come with him and be with him for a while until he’s done. What happens after would be dependent on how well she performs.
The lady’s ability was already so broken, and Zorat wondered what it would become in his hands. If it were someone else and not Zorat they had targeted, that person would have been long dead without being able to react.
Bending over and looking Myrra straight in the eyes, Zorat smiled, stretching out his right open hand to her, he uttered in his velvet voice...
"Come with me if you want to live."