“No, it’s not time to rest yet.”
After An left, Mu’en suddenly flipped over and sat up from the bed. Ignoring his still weak body, he made his way to the table nearby.
Following his memory, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper from the desk’s drawer and picked up a quill, dipping it into the ink.
“The plot has completely deviated from the original story, which means all future events are unknown to me now.”
“The original book has no more reference value; I have to rely on myself.”
“First, I need to set some goals.”
Mu’en pinched his chin in thought and then began to write in a somewhat neat handwriting on the paper.
1. Survive.
2. Avoid the “Death by a Thousand Cuts” ending.
3. Get stronger.
“These are the three goals for now.”
Surviving goes without saying, considering he’s essentially died twice already. Until now, he still shudders at the thought of death.
Even if this world isn’t friendly to a villain like him, he still wants to live seriously.
“Next is the ending foreseen in the prophetic dream…”
With the doomsday ending now completely out of the question, it seems the worldline is inevitably heading towards the “Death by a Thousand Cuts” ending.
But…
After some thought, Mu’en picked up his pen again and added a few lines after the second point.
→ Didn’t apologize to the protagonist; might not trigger this ending.
→ Apologizing to the protagonist was just a speculation from the mysterious person in the dream; might not be a necessary condition; the worldline might still be deviating toward the “Death by a Thousand Cuts” ending.
→ The black book is unreliable.
“…”
Mu’en thought again and then crossed out the last line.
He didn’t dare to take the gamble.
“So, it’s Schrodinger’s ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ now?”
The more Mu’en thought about it, the more it gave him a headache.
“Ugh, no, there’s too little information. Thinking about it doesn’t help.”
The root of the problem was that the prophetic dream from the black book was too vague, with no other clues.
Mu’en didn’t even know if this prophecy was an inevitable outcome no matter what he did, or if it could change based on his actions.
“Forget it, I won’t think about it anymore. The most important thing now is to focus on the current goal first.”
Mu’en’s gaze lingered on the third point.
Get stronger.
That’s the most urgent point right now.
Even if this world isn’t friendly to a villain like him, it’s still a fantasy world where strength reigns supreme.
Power is the key to survival.
Without power, he could only face death head-on, with no other option but to exchange his life.
“Most importantly…”
Mu’en gritted his teeth, looking displeased:
“I never want to be trampled by a woman again!”
Mu’en recalled the painful experience of being pinned down and dominated by Celicia. While it felt good from a sensory perspective, as a man, his pride absolutely couldn’t allow it!
Even if it was Celicia!
…
…
“As for how to get stronger, as the son of a duke, there are plenty of ways, but unfortunately, they are too conventional to make up the gap with the protagonist team.”
The original owner had wasted too much time. Even though he spent a whole year at St. Maria’s Magic Academy, the only thing Mu’en could recall was a simple illumination spell.
“It’s absurd; did that guy sleep through every class?”
How could you sleep at this time of the day?
Mu’en wished he could travel back in time and slap Mu’en Campbell to give him an early taste of life’s harsh lessons.
“Fortunately, my physical fitness seems decent, at the late first-order level.”
…
In this world, the power system is somewhat complex.
But it can roughly be divided into:
Warriors who follow the martial path, cultivating battle aura.
Magicians who follow the magical path, practicing magic.
Priests who follow the faith path, exchanging power from gods through belief.
And the Divine Chosen, who are naturally blessed by deities, receiving divine gifts.
Apart from the genetically determined Divine Chosen, the above are the three basic paths, although there are many less common paths that Mu’en doesn’t consider.
For example, the assassin who prays and offers sacrifices to an evil god to gain temporary power is called the Evil Priest.
This is one of the offshoots, providing a quick way to gain power, but since it involves making deals with evil gods, the aftermath for an Evil Priest… is usually not good.
In fact, Evil Priests are just a branch of priests, except they worship evil deities.
…
If we only look at it now, the power system doesn’t seem too complex. For ease of memory and identification, before reaching the crowned level, almost all the power systems are divided into five-tier, simply with different nicknames for each system.
For example, the first-tier in the martial system is called Body Forging, while the magical first-tier is called Quicksilver.
But the distinction is superficial, just a term.
There are two main reasons why it’s actually complex:
First, in this world, there’s no rule saying that the sweet, soft-looking female priestess who heals with holy light every day can’t secretly be a hyper-muscular man who could beat a dragon to death with a holy scripture.
Likewise, no one says that the thin mage casting spells at you from afar wouldn’t suddenly pull out a bigger club than yours and smash you with it right when you approach.
Exactly, paths are diverse and combinable… there’s more than one way to be powerful.
Take the assassin from earlier—exhibited at least a tier three martial skill, utilized gravity magic, and even played the Evil Priest card at the last moment!
To some extent, a single level doesn’t truly represent how strong someone is, because you never know how far they’ve progressed on another path.
The second reason… could be considered external.
In this world, there are deities.
Righteous gods, evil gods, demon gods etc. too many to count.
Apart from steadily exchanging power through faith, these deities love bestowing blessings to those they admire.
Namely, the Divine Chosen.
In other words, the formally mass-produced ‘special gear’ by the author.
Like Celicia, blessed by the Ice and Snow Goddess.
Or the protagonist, who, in the later stages of the original novel, had a whopping double-digit number of blessings from different gods, so connected she was like a gender-swapped Monkey King, frequently borrowing aid from various deities.
Having many gods isn’t the real issue; for some reason, they can’t directly interfere with the human world, only project a little of their power.
But the real problem is, no one knows whom the gods favor, and there’s no external sign before their blessings are used. So that seemingly ordinary beggar you offended might suddenly whip out a nuclear bomb and blow you to smithereens.
