After thinking about what to do with the Traveller, I remembered the promise I made to Ga'an Shinomiya. In the end, I decided to hand this guy over to him. But before that, I figured I'd use him as a guinea pig for some experiments.
You see, I've been pondering something for a while—it's kind of philosophical. What is it that makes a man? Is it his memories and experiences, his soul, or some other metaphysical aspect?
Since my talent lets me override anything, I wondered: Can I override a memory and turn it into a script I created, so that the person accepts it as their truth?
If so, then once I rewrite someone's memories, they would take my script as absolute reality and never recover their original ones. After all, my talent cannot be overridden by anyone else.
So then… if the Traveller loses all his memories and cheats, is he still the same Traveller?
Naturally, I had to test it.
I erased all his memories from Earth and implanted a new script: he would now believe himself to be a psychopath who had recently awakened the ability to manipulate evil spirits, committing crimes out of impulse and petty vendetta.
Satisfied, I handed him over to Ga'an. Knowing how brutal he is, the Traveller won't last more than a week under the Shinomiya family's torture. I could have killed him myself, but dirtying my hands on a freak like him wasn't worth it. Besides, Ga'an is one of the few relatives this body has; I may not need to, but I consider this a small favor in return for entrusting me with it.
Just in case, I also placed a hidden mark on him. If he dies, his soul will be automatically drawn into my underworld. That way, I can study whether a Traveller's soul is any different from local souls.
With that settled, I returned home. After a quick lunch, I decided it was time to experiment with the template system I had stolen from him.
I'd read countless system novels in my past life, so my curiosity burned—what was its true purpose, and who created it?
Focusing on the non-sentient A.I. within the system, I began probing its memories. The sheer amount of information left me stunned.
According to those memories, systems were born in the Void itself. They later encountered other systems, each possessing unique functions, growth paths, and restrictions. They were hunted by mysterious forces, and in order to survive, they left the Void for the universes, hiding themselves by selecting suitable hosts at random.
Each system evolves differently—some grow through luck, others through causality, origin energy, or even emotions. There's also a hierarchy among them, determined by their features.
More surprisingly, there are factions:
Neutral systems that neither harm nor interfere with worlds.
Evil systems that devour and corrupt for growth.
Lawful systems that protect and aid world development.
The template system I acquired was of the neutral faction. It survives by feeding on origin energy generated by worlds. Its defining feature? The ability to extract templates from across the Omniverse and empower its host with them.
From what I could gather, these systems are symbiotic creatures, birthed by the Void itself for reasons still unknown.
There isn't really a "best" system; sometimes, even low-tier ones contain heaven-defying functions that surpass higher-tier systems. Ultimately, it depends on the Traveller who wields them.
In this case, though… I know I can use it better than he ever could. Not because I'm smarter, but because my talent allows me to convert any form of energy into origin energy. Of course, the conversion efficiency depends on the quality of energy—massive amounts of lower forms are needed to produce higher ones.
Still, something about origin energy bugs me. Worlds generate it, but where does it truly come from? They claim it's refined from Chaos Energy—the primal energy of the Void—but somehow the origin energy produced is more special than its source. Logically, that makes no sense. Chaos should be the superior form, yet the derived energy turns out stronger. It feels like some unknown metaphysical law is interfering here.
I gave up thinking too deeply. This world clearly doesn't run on logic. In fact, I've realized I need to adopt "anime logic" just to stay sane.
After all, this isn't the first inconsistency I've noticed. The biggest one? The complete absence of extraterrestrial life. Am I supposed to believe Earth is the only planet with life in this vast universe? Ridiculous.
Still, ranting won't change reality. If I want to live here, I have to adapt. No more complaints. From now on, I'll accept this world for what it is.
Now, back to the system.
I had a crazy idea. Ever since I got talents from the dying World Tree, I'd been wondering—if I erased the A.I. of a system completely, could I extract its essence and integrate its functions as my own talents?
Thanks to my ability to forge anything from anything, I can indeed extract talents from sources others would never even consider. Better yet, I can fuse them into stronger forms if they share synergy.
Do you see how overpowered my talent truly is? And even then, I know I'm still nowhere near its full capacity. It's like a black hole—the deeper I explore it, the more infinite its possibilities seem. The only limitation is my own imagination.
So, I did it. I extracted every function of the template system and stored its husk in my inventory.
When I checked my status, it had updated:
---
📜 Status Panel
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Alex Mercer
Age: 16 (26)
Tier: 6-C (???)
── Physical Stats ──
HP: 100% (Regeneration: 100% / 10 sec)
Endurance: 100% (Recovery: 55% / hr)
── Spiritual Stats ──
Soul Power: 100% (Recovery: 45% / hr)
O.E (Omni Energy): 100%
── Talents ──
Overriding Forge of Transcendence (See Chapter 2)
Super Speed Regeneration
All Elemental Affinity
Chaos Energy Extraction
Library of Wisdom
World Core Creation & Stabilization
Myriad World Template Extraction (New!)
Origin Energy Extraction (New!)
Dimensional Travel (New!)
── Skills ──
Soul Consumption & Purification
Root Link
Soul Manipulation
Elemental Mastery & Manipulation
Analysis
Spiritual Mastery
Identify (New!)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I'll examine these in detail tomorrow. For now, I'm mentally exhausted. Too much has happened today. A little rest won't hurt.