So I’m a Fish, So What?

“...Ugh…What the….heck… is wrong with me?” I asked no one in particular, but my words came out in a series of weak, non-intelligible murmurs.

My entire body felt uncharacteristically numb and heavy– especially the upper part.

Or rather, it feels like my consciousness has been disconnected from my body somehow, not much different from a regular pre-evolution state.

But this is obviously wrong since I’m in a soul only state right now.

To top it off, I’m still locked inside my soul space and the connection with my physical body has already been severed and blocked.

Separating a soul from the body is totally okay.

Separating the consciousness and the soul however? Yeah, that’s definitely impossible.

After all, the soul and the consciousness are one and the same according to my meager understanding, so separating them means you’re literally tearing a soul apart.

Yet no matter how my sane mind wants to write it off as an illusion, it remains a fact that I am unable to manipulate my soul body smoothly at the moment. 

“Sage!” I yelled out as loudly as I could with my meager strength.

“I’m here, Master.”

Huh? Is it just me or has her tone become much more humane since the last time we spoke?

…This isn’t a good sign– for my overall situation in the outside world.

It’s great that Sage is much closer to gaining an ego and all, but this means that it has at least been a month since I was locked in here.

She must’ve already finished analyzing several of the skills I listed before in order to acquire this much… EQ? IQ? Humanity? I don’t really know what it’s called.

I’m a bit worried about what manner Sage conducted my persona in while I wasn’t there though, and also about Neo’s current state.

Has Ms Oka been born into this world yet? What about Aiko and Segawa?

So many questions, yet I’m forced to put them off for the time being.

Now’s clearly not the time to inquire about those things, so I can only hope that Alexia was able to hold everything together during my hibernation.

If my current state is dangerous in any way, then I might not even live until I can confirm the authenticity of whatever Sage answers to those questions anyways.

“State….report.”

“Affirmative.” Sage complied. “Scanning physical body… No abnormalities detected. Scanning soul body… No abnormalities detected. Master’s state is perfectly normal at the moment.” She informed me.

No, but it clearly isn’t…

You know what? Forget it.

If Sage can’t detect the issue, then it’s most likely related to D.

In this case, there’s nothing I can do even if I discover the issue…

Although I’ve become wary of her after that last stunt  she pulled on me, I will at least give her the benefit of the doubt.

And this is just because she did the same when I got named out of nowhere.

Besides, my intuition says I’m safe. And if there’s anything I trust above all else, it’s definitely my intuition.

D is definitely more of a spectator than an actor– one who would rather induce the main events to occur and watch with relish rather than spare a bit of effort to actively participate.

Letting out a soft sigh, I slowly relaxed my body and began examining my consciousness instead.

And then I immediately froze in surprise.

I’ll start with my most important discovery first.

Obviously, it’s related to the uncontrollable destructive tendencies forcefully imposed upon me by the Chaos Bringer title, which are the reason why I’m here in the first place.

Despite my soul body being in an unnaturally weak state right now, they aren’t affecting me at all.

An apt metaphor to describe their current state would be that they’re now akin to the inaudible whispers instead of the supersonic explosions I had to endure before.

But that doesn’t actually mean that they’ve become weaker– just more bearable for me.

In fact, I feel like they’ve actually become much stronger than before!

The reason why I can put up with them now is because my soul itself has undergone some kind of metamorphosis.

The quantity of soul power is still the same, but the quality has been raised by several magnitudes.

It’s not just an increase in overall power.

My soul itself has matured in some form which I’m unable to detect, which is why I described it as a metamorphosis instead of just strengthening.

At least that’s what both my intuition and basic instincts are telling me.

If we’re only gonna take the quality increase into account though, then it isn't really anything special.

I would’ve likely been able to gain a similar increase in about ten years of continuous Soul Purification, so the saved time is very much appreciated.

Of course, that estimate is calculated on the basis of my current strength itself remaining unchanged, so it is fairly inaccurate.

The next discovery concerns the uncontrollable part, or rather lack thereof.

I should remove that word since I now have a semblance of control over them somehow.

It’s nothing worth bragging about, but I gained the ability to convert them into something more solid and directly use them to attack others.

Basically, I have gained another ability similar to my natural killing intent, Intimidation skill, and the effects of the Fearbringer title.

Each of those has its own unique effect, and this one’s not any different. It’s just that the way it functions is a bit different.

Unlike the others, which are aura skills that affect everyone around me indiscriminately, this one’s more like Telepathy.

I select a target, establish a connection, and use it to flood their soul with my overwhelming desire for destruction.

If their soul is stronger than mine, then they’d only get stunned for a bit before recovering and unilaterally closing the connection, effectively giving me a precious few seconds to land a critical attack or straight up flee.

If their soul is weaker though… Yeah, hard luck.

Depending on the difference in soul strength, the results would range from them going permanently berserk and indiscriminately attacking everything to straight up having their soul explode.

Scary as fuck, I know right?

By the way, that difference is calculated according to the full strength of my soul, not just the little part I can utilize with the constraints of my physical body.

Also, this attack can entirely bypass the Heretic Resistance skill and affect any existence connected to the W system, which is information that I instinctively understood from my experience with the skill.

Except for divine beings, soulless beings, creations –whether they are magical or mechanical in nature–, and undead monsters, this ability makes me invincible on this planet.

There’s a huge one month cooldown in between uses though.

Emotions require enough time to get bottled up in overwhelming quantities, if ya know what I mean.

Both of those discoveries are incredibly welcome changes if you want my opinion, but I just don’t know what the cost is.

There’s no doubt that there was some sort of price paid while I was hibernating or will be paid in the future, and me being completely ignorant of it bothers me to no end.

…I’ll have to leave that problem to future Violet though.

I’m just too anxious to escape from this god forsaken place at this very moment.

I wanna go back to the real world! Breathe actual air! Eat actual food! Give Neo a bunch of head pats!

I really miss all of that stuff, and now the lethargy in my soul body has vanished, there ain’t nothing gonna stop me from doing them right now!

“Sage, give me control of my body.” I called out.

“....Yes, Master.”

I could practically hear the reluctance oozing out of her voice, but I was actually relieved to hear it.

Even though she has already gained a semblance of human emotions and probably forged a bond with Neo, she still gives my orders the highest priority and is honestly relieving.

Wouldn’t wanna deal with any of that omnic crisis stuff inside my own body.

“Thank you for the hard work, Sage. Please resume your analysis and try to get Soul Clone and Soul Projection as soon as possible.” I ordered with a soft smile.

“Definitely, Master!” She responded cheerfully.

Judging by her voice, she should’ve understood what I really wanted her to do.

Now that I can use my body again, there’s no reason for me to waste time on analyzing those two soul abilities, but I didn’t withdraw that order.

That’s because I will leave those abilities for Sage to use in the future!

I’m quite interested in the experience of having a twin sister, hehe~

Without a moment of delay, I found myself back in control of my physical body and Sage retreated back into her place in my soul core.

Though she pretty much kicked me out of my own soul space, and violently at that, I’ll forgive her since I can feel how excited she is at the moment.

“Hey! At least pull up my status and notification logs before you leave!” I hurriedly shouted.

“Of course, Master. Here you go.” Sage hastily replied, opened a few windows in front of my eyes, and went completely silent.

Uhhh, you’re that anxious to gain a body? Just what the heck happened while I was asleep?

Anyways, I left that issue behind me and shifted my attention to the windows floating in front of me.

First, there was a window titled Skills, which had all notifications concerning my skills written in order of them reaching me.

And underneath that, there was a small TLDR section where the names of the skills that leveled up, evolved, or were newly acquired were neatly listed.

 

{Stat and Ability Skills:

• MP Rapid Recovery LV 9 → MP Ultra-Fast Recovery LV 2   *EVO*
• MP Minimized Consumption LV 9 → SP Mitigated Consumption LV 1   *EVO*
• Ultimate Magic LV 1 → 2
• Instant Body LV 9 → Ultimate Movement LV 1   *EVO*
• Fortune LV 2 → 3
• Skanda LV 1 → 3

          }

{Attack Skills:

• Outer Attack LV 0 → Outer Attack LV 16   *NEW*

          } 

{Enhancement Skills:

• Outer Enhancement LV 0 → 12   *NEW*

                                }

{Active Skills:

• Magic Divinity LV 3 → 6
• Battle Divinity LV 3 → 6
• Dragon Power LV 6 → 7
• Dragon Barrier LV 3 → 5
• Psychokinesis LV 2 → 4
• Telescopic Sight LV 1 → 3

         }

{Leadership Skills:

• Intimidation LV 2 → 5
• Cooperation LV 0 → 10   *NEW*

         }

{Magic Skills:

• Precise Magic Power Operation LV 3 → 7
• Outer Magic LV 0 → 11   *NEW*
• Abyss Magic LV 0 → 1   *NEW*

          }

{Resistance Skills:

• Outer Body LV 0 → 15   *NEW*

          }

{Passive Skills:

• Five Senses Enhancement LV 6 → 9

         }

{Other Skills:

• Demon Lord LV 9→ Great Demon Lord LV 2   *NEW*

         }

 

Holy hell, that’s a lot of fucking levels and new skills gained!

I’m honestly ashamed to say this, but I’m probably considered lazy as hell compared with how hardworking Sage is!

Despite being on land where I was unable to get any significant change in my status in nearly a month, she bumped up my entire status to a whole new level in – how much time again?

“One month, 23 days, and 15 hours, Master.” 

Yup, what she said.

So a lot of time really did pass since I was locked inside, huh? I’m glad I didn’t miss the long awaited day when the human reincarnations are supposed to be born though.

Leaving that aside, there’s one teeny tiny problem I just noticed.

Nearly all of my Enhancement, Attack, Magic, and Resistance skills were removed and integrated into four new skills I’ve never heard about before.

Outer Enhancement, Outer Attack, Outer Magic, and Outer Body– all of which have levels that surpass the maximum level for some reason…?

Also, I seem to have acquired Abyss Magic somehow?

Yeah… Something’s definitely fishy here, but I believe that my answer should be in the title window.

Let’s see, hmmm….

 

{Titles:

• Outer   *NEW*

          }

 

Only one? That’s surprising considering I acquired five new skills all at once.

A few of my other titles are missing as well.

 

{Outer: Acquired skills [Outer Attack LV 1] [Outer Enhancement LV 1] [Outer Magic LV 1] [Outer Body LV 1] [Abyss Magic LV 1]. Acquisition condition: %$!^@ErRoR. Effect: eRrroOr–Unkown.}

 

That wasn’t helpful at all!

Rather, what the hell does all of those garbled letters even mean?! Even the title description is missing.

…..Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do about that.

I can only hope that this title doesn’t make me into some sort of universal enemy.

The word Outer doesn’t really paint a good picture, y’know? I can see myself being misunderstood as some kind of invader from miles away.

Hopefully, the skill descriptions can shed some light on whatever this title represents.

 

{Outer Enhancement: Increases power or effect of all of the user's attacks within the W system boundaries. Power varies according to skill level}

{Outer Attack: Allows the user to imbue any of their attacks with any attribute within the W system boundaries. Power varies according to skill level.}

{Outer Magic: Grants knowledge of all attribute magic according to skill level. Grants access to the magic studio.}

{Outer Body: Resistance to all attributes within and surpassing the W system. Resistance varies according to Skill level.}

 

Okay, that still didn’t help at all.

I’m getting the feeling all of those skills were actually created in response to me getting the title and not the other way around.

As for who the creator is? Who else other than a certain evil goddess?

All in all, my status has actually improved significantly, and became much nicer for my OCD haunted self to look at.

And now that I’m done with this stuff, it’s time for a most awaited meal!

Sadly, it appears the time is already way past midnight, so little Neo is asleep and won’t be able to partake in this feast with me.

‘Tis not an issue though!

I will just feast twice, once by myself right now and the other with Neo and Alexia when they wake up!

Thanks for the meal!

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