Anyone who has read the original Lord of the Mysteries knows that cross-pathway potion ingestion is an extremely dangerous affair. Losing one's self and becoming insane are the lightest consequences—with the slightest carelessness, the outcome is direct loss of control.
If you compare the human body to a game, then potions are like mods. Potions of the same sequence are mods from the same series—as long as you install them in order, there's no problem.
Mods from adjacent sequences are those that can be compatible under certain conditions. After installing the basic mods (low and mid sequences), you can switch between them.
As for non-adjacent pathways, they are naturally conflicting mods. Installing them randomly will cause the game to crash.
However, the pathway provided by Snow's golden finger violated this rule. Each of its sequences was advanced by directly consuming potions from other sequences.
The reason for this lies in the Source Quality (Sefirot) called [White Horse is Not Horse], which possesses the function of imprinting this sequence's mental imprint into potions—
This is like applying compatibility patches to mods.
For example, when he was still an ordinary person, he advanced to Sequence 9 [Buridan's Donkey] by consuming the [Secrets Suppliant] potion.
When he wanted to advance to Sequence 8 [Pavlov's Dog], besides consuming the [Listener] potion which belonged to the same Secret Supplicant Pathway, he could also complete his advancement by drinking any of the three Sequence 8 potions: [Unwinged Angel], [Lunatic], or [Beast Tamer].
However, compatibility patches are merely compatibility patches. While they allow compatible operation after installation, small bugs like clipping, skin-breaking, and feet leaving the ground are unavoidable.
White Horse is Not Horse's modification of potions only imprints a more dominant mental imprint, which means the original mental imprint in the potion is not removed. Therefore, when Snow digests potions, he must simultaneously digest two mental imprints.
Of course, this doesn't mean Snow needs to split his personality and simultaneously act out two roles, because the acting of the Paradox pathway is mandatory—
Simply put, it's a negative status that is equivalent to "forced acting" in principle. Once you try to resist, you will slide toward loss of control.
Just like the [Buridan's Donkey] he currently holds, while acting as a Secrets Suppliant to digest the potion, he also bears the debuff called [Choice Difficulty]. Once two relatively equal options appear, unless he can provide a reason for his choice, he will fall into a stalemate due to his inability to make a choice. If he tries to force a choice, he will begin to lose control until he stops this dangerous behavior or completely becomes a monster.
Fortunately, apart from this debuff that weakens as the potion digestion progresses, this cross-pathway potion consumption behavior doesn't increase additional risks of losing control, nor does it affect the potential for continued advancement. The only difference lies in the extraordinary abilities gained after advancement.
Taking his current [Buridan's Donkey] as an example, this Sequence 9's characteristics are having endurance and inspiration several times that of ordinary people, possessing certain identification abilities, and having considerable ritual magic knowledge and talent.
The potions it requires are [Seer], [Monster], and [Secrets Suppliant]. Depending on the different potions consumed, there will be certain tendential changes. For example, drinking the Seer potion gives stronger identification abilities, drinking the Monster potion gives stronger inspiration, while the Secret Supplicant potion allows one to gain more ritual magic knowledge.
However, for Snow currently, these are actually secondary. The most important function of this Source Quality(Sefirot) is actually the abilities of higher sequences of this pathway that it possesses. For example, that most important power that blocked stellar contamination, true god's gaze, and 0-08's perception for him—[Concept Theft].
From the consumption perspective, the sequence this ability belongs to shouldn't be high, but by activating it through the Source Quality (Sefirot), it can gain True God-level status enhancement.
However, powerful abilities often come with great costs. The reason Snow can sustain this ability that can even shield stellar contamination is entirely due to the Uniqueness that has completely merged with him—[The One-Foot Staff] (in a certain sense, Snow can be considered as a Uniqueness that has gained sentience like Amon, except without Beyonder characteristics).
As the saying goes, "Take a staff one foot long. Cut away half of it every day. It will never be exhausted, even after ten thousand generations." This Uniqueness's ability is simple and crude. It is the manifestation of the Paradox pathway's authority, directly distorting the rules of infinite subdivision and magnitude, capable of producing spirituality almost infinitely.
And as the cost, it merely renders half of Snow's spirituality unusable.
If there's any insufficiency, it's that this Uniqueness's upper limit for outputting spirituality is only one-quarter of Snow's total spirituality.
It was precisely by relying on this power that was almost like a perpetual motion machine that Snow was able to activate [White Horse is Not Horse] around the clock to resist the risks brought by the knowledge from "Lord of the Mysteries" in his mind.
...
As the headache caused by the activation of White Horse is Not Horse gradually subsided, Snow pulled himself together and pushed the window open a crack. He gently placed his hand on the kitten's head, and as the white horse appeared in his mind, the spirituality in his body began to drain once again.
However, this consumption wasn't exaggerated—it was only slightly more than Snow's spirituality recovery speed in a semi-meditative state.
As spirituality was extracted, Snow found a comfortable position to lie down, and the little kitten transformed into a streak of dark light, whooshing out through the window in a flash...
The Loen Shorthair cat, as the name suggests, is a native breed of Loen. Due to its gentle temperament and excellent adaptability, it is beloved by all social classes. Particularly because it possesses extremely strong mouse-catching talent, this type of cat is equally loved among commoners. Even during the Age of Exploration, they were once raised as ship cats.
In such an environment, a small cat wandering the streets was not something that caught anyone's attention, even if it ran much faster than its peers.
After all, in most people's eyes, cats are inherently elusive creatures.
...
In the dilapidated courtyard, on the second floor of the gray-blue house, in an unlit bedroom.
A young girl with a round face, gentle and sweet appearance, was sitting at her dressing table, playing with a wooden doll that couldn't be considered exquisite.
However, at this moment, her spirituality suddenly generated a premonition. Almost instinctively, she directed her gaze toward the silver mirror placed at the corner of the dressing table, but the deliberately scratched mirror surface showed no abnormalities.
"You rely too much on beyonder abilities." A slightly sharp voice came from above. The girl almost instantly reached for the hidden pouch at her waist, but in the next moment, she stopped her motion.
She looked up at the black kitten that had somehow entered the room, and said coldly:
"Didn't I give you a way to contact me?"
"I'm not careless enough to communicate using methods given by a Witch, just like you never use the method of sacrificing to my Lord to transmit items." The kitten deliberately emphasized the word "Witch." The girl's brows furrowed slightly, but she still said:
"I've already helped you obtain the notebook you wanted. What else is there?"
Author's Note: The protagonist's shielding against True Gods/Outer Deities is not because the [Concept Theft] ability is truly so powerful that it can directly affect True Gods/Outer Deities with just a Source Quality (Sefirot) enhancement, but rather achieves this through a relatively clever method that evades the perception of True Gods.
The reason he can think about stellar knowledge, know the secrets of True Gods, and even discuss Adam in ancient dragon language without drawing attention is because before this knowledge and language interact with the world, they have their "toxicity" erased by the "Concept Theft" ability, eliminating their mystical "influence," and therefore cannot attract the attention of True Gods or Outer Deities.
Using the analogy of police catching thieves, if True Gods are the police and the protagonist is the thief, then what the Concept Theft ability does is not affect the police's intelligence, but erase the traces of the crime, making the police completely unaware that a case has occurred.
(End of Chapter)
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TL/N: 1: Buridan's Donkey: A philosophical paradox illustrating indecision, named after the 14th-century philosopher Jean Buridan. A Donkey placed exactly midway between two identical piles of hay, starves to death because it cannot choose which one to eat.
2: Pavlov's Dog: Refers to Ivan Pavlov's famous experiments on classical conditioning, where dogs learned to associate a bell with food, causing them to salivate at the sound.