Anyone who's read the original Lord of the Mysteries knows that cross-pathway potion consumption is a dangerous gamble. Losing oneself or descending into madness is the least of it—one wrong move, and it's straight to loss of control.
If the human body is like a game, potions are akin to mods. Potions from the same pathway are a compatible series of mods, safe to apply in sequence.
Adjacent pathways' potions are like conditionally compatible mods. Once you've installed the base mods (low- to mid-sequence), you can swap between them.
As for non-adjacent pathways? Those are conflicting mods. Install them carelessly, and the game crashes.
But Snow's cheat, his pathway, defies this rule. Every sequence in his pathway is advanced by consuming potions from other pathways.
The reason lies in the Source Matter called White Horse, Not Horse, which imbues potions with the mental imprint of his pathway—
It's like patching a mod for compatibility.
For instance, as an ordinary human, Snow consumed a Secret Supplicant potion to ascend to Sequence 9: Buridan's Donkey.
To advance to Sequence 8, Pavlov's Dog, he could drink the Listener potion from the Secret Supplicant pathway or choose from three other Sequence 8 potions: Unwinged Angel, Lunatic, or Beast Tamer.
However, a compatibility patch is just that—a patch. It ensures functionality, but minor bugs like texture clipping, graphical glitches, or floating feet are unavoidable.
The White Horse, Not Horse Source Matter modifies potions by injecting a dominant mental imprint, but it doesn't erase the original imprint. Thus, Snow must digest two mental imprints simultaneously when processing a potion.
This doesn't mean he has to split his psyche to play two roles at once. The Paradox Pathway's acting is mandatory—
In simple terms, it's a negative status effect akin to "forced acting." Resisting it pushes one toward loss of control.
Take his current Buridan's Donkey as an example. While acting as a Secret Supplicant to digest the potion, he's also burdened with a debuff called Indecision. When faced with two equally viable options, he must provide a reason for choosing one. Without a rationale, he's paralyzed by indecision. Forcing a choice risks loss of control, persisting until he stops or fully transforms into a monster.
Fortunately, beyond this debuff—which weakens as the potion is digested—cross-pathway consumption doesn't increase the risk of losing control or hinder future advancements. The only difference lies in the extraordinary abilities gained post-promotion.
For Buridan's Donkey, a Sequence 9, the traits include stamina several times greater than an ordinary person's, heightened intuition, basic appraisal skills, and considerable knowledge and talent in ritual magic.
The required potions—Seer, Monster, or Secret Supplicant—yield slight variations. A Seer potion enhances appraisal, a Monster potion boosts intuition, and a Secret Supplicant potion grants deeper ritual magic knowledge.
For Snow, however, these are secondary. The true power of his Source Matter lies in its higher-sequence abilities, particularly the one shielding him from cosmic pollution, true gods' gazes, and the perception of 0-08: Concept Substitution.
In terms of cost, this ability likely belongs to a lower sequence, but when channeled through the Source Matter, it gains a true god-level authority.
Such power comes at a steep price. Snow sustains this ability, capable of blocking even cosmic pollution, thanks to his fully integrated Uniqueness—One Foot of the Staff. (In a sense, Snow is like Amon, a Uniqueness incarnate, albeit without beyonder characteristics.)
As the saying goes, "A staff of one foot, halved each day, never exhausts in ten thousand generations." This Uniqueness's ability is simple yet brutal: it embodies the Paradox Pathway's authority, twisting the rules of infinite division and magnitude to produce near-limitless spirituality.
The cost? A mere half of Snow's spirituality is rendered unusable.
The only drawback is that the Uniqueness's spirituality output is capped at one-quarter of Snow's total capacity.
This near-perpetual engine allows Snow to maintain White Horse, Not Horse around the clock, shielding him from the risks posed by his knowledge of Lord of the Mysteries.
…
The headache from activating White Horse, Not Horse gradually subsided. Snow rallied, cracking the window open slightly. He placed a hand on the black kitten's head, and as the white horse image galloped through his mind, his spirituality began to drain again.
This time, the drain was minimal, just a touch above his half-meditative recovery rate.
As his spirituality ebbed, Snow found a comfortable position to lie down. The kitten transformed into a streak of dark light and darted out the window with a whoosh…
The Loen Shorthair, as its name suggests, is a native Loen breed. Its docile nature and adaptability make it a favorite across social strata. Its exceptional mousing skills endear it to commoners, and during the Age of Sail, it was even kept as a ship's cat.
In such a world, a kitten roaming the streets draws little attention, especially one moving faster than its peers.
After all, to most, cats are inherently elusive creatures.
…
In a dilapidated courtyard, on the second floor of a gray-blue house, in an unlit bedroom:
A young woman with a round, gentle face sat at a vanity, toying with a plain wooden puppet.
Suddenly, her spirituality tingled with a premonition. Instinctively, her gaze flicked to the silver mirror on the vanity's edge, deliberately scratched to obscure its surface. It showed nothing unusual.
"You rely too much on beyonder abilities," a slightly high-pitched voice remarked from above. The woman reached for a hidden pouch at her waist but froze mid-motion.
She looked up at the black kitten that had slipped into the room unnoticed, her expression cold. "Didn't I give you a way to contact me?"
"I'm not reckless enough to use a Demoness's method of communication, just as you never use your Lord's sacrificial rituals to deliver items." The kitten emphasized "Demoness" pointedly. The woman's brow furrowed, but she pressed, "I got you the notebook you wanted. What else?"
(End of Chapter)
Author's Note: The protagonist's ability to shield against true gods/Outer Gods isn't because Concept Substitution is so overwhelmingly powerful that a mere Source Matter can affect them directly. Rather, it works in a clever way to evade their perception.
His ability to ponder cosmic knowledge, know true gods' secrets, or even discuss Adam in ancient dragon tongue without drawing attention stems from Concept Substitution neutralizing the "toxicity" of these secrets before they interact with the world, stripping them of their occult influence and preventing true gods or Outer Gods from noticing.
To use an analogy: if a true god is a police officer and the protagonist is a thief, Concept Substitution doesn't lower the officer's intelligence—it erases the crime scene's traces, leaving the officer unaware a crime even occurred.
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Translator's note: What's with this names 😆