《A Beholder's Path》 Chapter 1 : Hello? Hello? Anybody there? ¡­ I can sense your presence; it is no use hiding. ¡­ Are you incapable of communicating? Or just shy? ¡­ How about this, let me introduce myself first, and you will go next. How does that sound? ¡­ I am Aether, the first Beholder, a primordial demon of immense power and ancient wisdom. Impressive, right? ¡­ Still no response? Are you simply incapable of coherent thought? No matter, I quite enjoy talking to myself anyways. It focuses the mind, don¡¯t you think? ¡­If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Anyways, as any self-respecting Beholder would, I have an unending desire to learn. I can have my own opinions and a unique personality, but at my core I am just an amalgamation of an all-devouring and ever-growing curiosity. Endearing, aren¡¯t I? ¡­ Still not interested? What do I have to do to attract your attention? ... How about this? I take the form of a giant eye, measuring hundreds of meters across. I have spent the last few millennia refining my body into the most all-encompassing and precise sensory organ I could think of (you can¡¯t exactly learn about something you can¡¯t see, hear or otherwise sense, you know.) Last decade I managed to start sensing the laws of my world, which is nice, but more intriguingly I sensed a connection to somewhere else. A few years of experimenting, and Voila! Here I am, in this strange independent mind space called RoyalRoad. Any chance you could suddenly become helpful and give me a tour? ¡­ Well, to be fair there seems to be nothing here except endless white space, so a tour may not be needed. I must say, this pure monotony is quite refreshing for someone accustomed to the eternally burning atmosphere of my home world. The vast majority of demons are brimming with destructive vitality, so things are seldom quiet over there. ¡­ If you are not going to respond, I suppose it is time I get going. I may visit occasionally to rest my mind a little, but for now I will leave you alone. ... Well then, goodbye. ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Chapter 2 : A new world Hi, it¡¯s me again, Aether. ¡­ It has been a while, but I decided I would come here regularly to focus my thoughts. A lot has happened since last time, but if I am doing some self-reflection, I might as well start from the beginning. As I said last time, I am a primordial demon. This means I have been born with the world and from the world, with an unlimited lifespan and a fair bit of power, although not nearly as much as other more violence inclined demons. A beholder is curiosity incarnate, so from day one I was exploring, experimenting and learning, as well as accumulating the power needed to do some more exploring, experimenting and learning. My proudest achievement was the invention of the demonic flame. Although I was the only being in my world with zero physical capabilities (giant eyeball, remember?), I discovered I was also the only being in my world capable of interacting with physical reality using my spiritual force. This was, however, a complicated and inefficient business. I eventually figured out how to simplify the process by using the energy of the world to light up a demonic flame inside me and channeling my will through it.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. This made me much more powerful, but more importantly other demons could replicate this and gain the ability to use spiritual force. I mean, power is great and all, but how can it compare to suddenly gaining thousands of test subjects? I was acclaimed as the ¡°Father of Magic¡± not long after, which felt pretty good, but it quickly became annoying when random demons interrupted my experiments to ask for advice. Frustrated, I quickly exiled myself in some forgotten corner of the world to continue learning about the inner workings of my world. Millennia later I finally figured out how to peer into the mysteries of fundamental laws, which is when I discovered this RoyalRoad pocket space we are in now. And more recently I discovered something else, something much bigger. I may have just discovered a new world! ¡­ Your lack of interest in my newest discovery makes me sad. I know very little about this other world except there being vague signs of life, a tremendously interesting fact that all but guarantees that I will do my utmost to visit it. A brand-new world, untouched by demons, can you imagine? Perhaps there even is sentient life! Think of what I could learn from them! ¡­ Good, now that we agree we must go there, the question is how? I must somehow create a stable pathway between the two worlds to avoid getting stranded, and make sure it is safe to travel as well as discreet enough not to warn the potentially hostile native powerhouses of an otherworldly intrusion. ¡­ Well, I am going to start working on it. See you next time. ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Chapter 3 : Technical Difficulties Hi, it¡¯s me again, Aether. ¡­ Given that you have shown little interest in my glorious life, I will get straight to the point. Remember my little discovery of a new world ready for exploring? It turns out there is no connection like the one I have with this space, that other world is just really close. While this proximity is great news, lacking a clear guiding line meant I had to waste ages on actually finding the precise coordinates I wanted to teleport too, before I could even start considering how this teleporting would happen. It took much trial and error to finally develop a way to (relatively) safely connect to this other world. Unfortunately, my current solution has two major drawbacks. First, this pathway is despairingly expensive in energy, to the point that despite spending thousands of years accumulating power, I barely have enough to open a five meter wide portal. Might I remind you I am a giant eyeball measuring hundreds of meters across? The obvious solution is to use magic to shrink myself, but all my experiments point towards the fact that using magic while traversing dimensions is not something you live to regret. Because you have been unalived. By some weird and seemingly random ¡°Tides of Space and Time¡± or whatever. Which makes no sense as Space and Time have no tides. Basically, it is not a good idea. Second, this will be a one way passage. This means that when I explore the new world, either I stay stranded and make it my new home world, which is unacceptable given it might be a barren land with nothing but unicellular life, or I have to create a new passage to come back, which brings us back to the ridiculous energy requirement. If I have trouble maintaining one portal, how am I going to manage two? So, as neither problem seems to have a solution, I have decided to take a step back and change my way of thinking. Thinking about the issue of size, I realized I don¡¯t actually care about going to this new world myself, I just wish to learn everything about it and compare it to my world. I therefore don¡¯t need to send my huge body over, I can just create a smaller avatar and send it over, even if it will have negligible fighting power. This does present a problem of its own, as an avatar cannot be disconnected from the main body for too long. As such, the portal must be continuously maintained instead of it being an ¡®Open the door, cross it, and then shut it¡¯ situation. Which, once again, brings us back to the frankly fraudulent energy expenses.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Fortunately, it cost much more energy to tear a hole through Spacetime than to maintain it. Even better, I can guide the energy of both worlds to do the heavy lifting for me. This means that after the initial pathway is made, my role will change from giving energy to guiding the flow of natural energy. The drawback of such a method is that I have much less control, but that is the price to pay for playing with cosmic forces that are very much beyond my level. Going back to our second problem, the portal only goes one way. This is great to prevent a counter-invasion from natives, and, as an avatar is disposable, I do not have to worry about the return trip. I do, however, need to recover the information collected from said avatar, otherwise what is the point? Besides, if I cannot receive information from my avatar, how am I going to control it? As such, I need to be able to exchange information between my main body and my avatar. Just like last time, the answer was easy enough once I thought about it. If I cannot directly shuttle data from one world to another, I just need an intermediary stop that has no such restriction. Clever, right? ¡­ As for what is serving as an intermediary, although this sounds even more challenging than just figuring out how to make a portal work properly, I do not need to create or find it. Indeed, does this space not meet my exact requirements? So, if you have no inconveniences, I will be moving in shortly. I just have to notify some high-ranking demons so they don¡¯t make a mess of everything, and we will be good to go. ¡­ Well, if you do not voice any complaints, I will assume you have none. See you very soon, next time we will have much more time to spend together. ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Chapter 4 : D day Hi, it¡¯s me again, Aether ¡­ I did it. It took longer than expected, but I finally made arrangements for everything. A lot of time was wasted when I notified the high council of my intentions, as they started arguing over whether or not they should allow me to carry on with my project. Why don¡¯t they understand they have no say in this matter? I was only informing them of a fact, not asking for their opinion. I eventually got tired of their arguing, so I just dispelled my messenger. This presumably made them realize they had no idea of where my main body was, which meant they had no clue on how to stop me. Another time-consuming issue was to create the perfect avatar. It had to be small, discrete and have a low maintenance cost while retaining high enough otherworldly exploration capabilities. An avatar is usually an accumulation of spiritual force in a way that emulates a physical body. While this is quite sufficient for passing messages and dealing with weak enemies, it requires a constant source of spiritual force to maintain, which does not correspond to my needs. I therefore had to create something more akin to a secondary body. To keep the avatar as self-sustaining as possible, I dismissed the idea of a spiritual construct immediately. The avatar had to keep working even if completely cut off from my main body in a land void of supernatural energy, which meant it¡¯s fundamental nature had to be a physical living being rather than a magical robot. This was actually relatively easy to accomplish. As most primordial demons, I have such a high vitality and regeneration that even if you cut off a part of me, it will keep living separated from my body. This means it is quite simple to clone myself by magically guiding the growth of a separated limb into a complete body. Once I had grown a suitable body, which was basically a miniaturized version of myself, I just had to possess it and it would be ready to explore the mysteries of the cosmos! Which brings us to now. With all the preparation finished, it is time we commence operation world hopping by officially moving into this pocket space! ¡­ Are you not excited? We are making history here! ¡­ I will take your silence as agreement. Now, let us get this started! ¡­ My body is currently on a small island in the middle of the ocean. Gathering my thoughts, I focus on the demon flame quietly burning in my body. After a brief moment of hesitation (If something goes wrong it may kill me, so no pressure), I abruptly shove all the energy I have been collecting for thousands of years in the flame, which dithers and threatens to detonate.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The good news is that detonating the flame is part of the plan. The bad news is that since said flame is a link between my body and my consciousness, detonating it would kill me. Unsurprisingly, I have taken steps to prevent that, but I must admit I am still a tiny bit nervous considering the possibility of dying seconds before once again succeeding in making demon kind history. ¡­ I am sure your silence meant something deep and meaningful, but I am afraid I must concentrate on punching a hole through reality. ¡­ The demon fire inside me is at a critical state, but it lacks the final push to explode. Unable to provide more energy, I am forced to use my back up plan and start fueling the flame with matter. First I control the ground below me to burn, then the ocean around me, and finally the air above me. Suddenly, I resemble a black hole, eating the world in an uncontrolled manner. This provides more than enough fuel to the fire, but it also makes it much more difficult to manage. Before I can do anything to stabilize the situation, I feel the tyrannical pressure of the will of the world, which is understandably enraged (after all, I did create a potentially world ending disaster), crushing me. To add insult to injury, said disaster is fueled by devouring the world¡¯s body. Attracting the attention of the world is a part of my plan, but right now it made me miss the opportunity to reign in this nascent cataclysm. I have already lost all hope of regaining control, but I have a backup plan for that too. Energy always travels using the path of least resistance, so I just have to create this path. Right now all of spacetime is equally stable, so establishing a very light connection to the other world would be sufficient. All of the incredible power gathered in my demon flame would be expended in traversing the void between worlds instead of wreaking havoc at home. Hopefully. This may sound very easy (I mean, compared to all the other crazy stuff I just did), but I just expended all my energy creating this uncontrolled force, so I have none left for some minor stuff like using said uncontrolled force. Unable to rest and recover, I am forced to sacrifice my body to create a stable link. I basically make a dent in reality through which all excess power will gush, creating a rift. The best part is that while creating the rift is harmless, if it abruptly collapsed, both connected worlds would suffer a crippling backlash from the rampaging energies. This will force both worlds to maintain this rift, occupying their attention and leaving me to do whatever I want. Seconds after I managed to ram my body in the void, my demon fire detonates and successfully transforms my physical form into a stable portal. Soon after, both worlds will gather to support it to avoid any backlash. I would celebrate my stunning victory, but I am a little busy dealing with a backlash of my own. The demon flame being the link between my body and my consciousness, its destruction is usually swiftly followed by its formers death. Fortunately for me, my body has been transformed into a portal protected by the power of multiple worlds, while my consciousness is separated from reality in this mind space. All I have to do is to bear a little pain and then I will be fine. ¡­ Okay, That is a lot of pain. Please make it stop? ¡­ Well, let us never do that again. Better yet, let me wipe out the memory of this moment from my mind. Moving on, before anything unexpected happens I have to descend to possess my prepared avatar, after which I can finally start my interstellar adventure. Chapter 5 : I am Innocent This ¡°traveling through time and space¡± is taking much longer than anticipated. I figured I would jump into the portal, my vision would blur for a few seconds then I would be there. Instead, I have been shuttling through an oppressive void for what seems like years. ¡­ Since my recent stunt took out a lot out of me, I might as well take this opportunity and hibernate to recuperate. ¡­ My body trembles slightly as I stir from my slumber. After taking a brief moment to gather my thoughts I start evaluating the situation. Evidently I have safely arrived on a new land, as I am currently buried somewhere underground instead of floating in the void. My body is no longer a giant eyeball but rather a very average-size eye, which I must admit is exceedingly disorienting. I no longer have my demonic flame and must go back to micromanaging my spiritual force, but I am otherwise unhurt. My current state can basically be compared to a weak newborn demon, which isn¡¯t ideal. On the other hand, my main body is an interdimensional rift, so I am basically an immortal with my avatar being a disposable incarnation. After all, you win some you lose some. Since I have achieved my goal, I have to consider what I should do now. The priority is to gather information, and use that information to decide my next step. To do this, I start digging myself out of the ground and examining the surrounding. As my avatar is barely three centimeters tall, it could naturally not accommodate all the high grade modifications I had made to my main body. As such, I was forced to discard everything but the most basic energy sensor. Using it, I could detect just about any form of energy, from electricity to life force and spiritual force, with a very respectable precision. This had one major drawback of not sensing anything more than two meters away from me. This did not mean I was blind to anything beyond that threshold, as I could read the energy radiation of distant objects, but even this was limited to blurry outlines. It is enough, however, to do a quick survey of the environment. I seem to be in a beautiful forest of towering green trees lit by a benevolent moon sitting high up in a vast starry sky. (I know I literally just said I could not see all this clearly, but use your imagination, okay? What kind of story isn¡¯t embellished a tiny bit?) With a pleasant stream preaching peace, powerful trees promising protection, a dancing breeze urging for freedom and the infinite sky hinting at marvelous mysteries, how could this idyllic scenery be broken? By a giant apocalyptic crater tens of meters in diameter, blazing with raging demon fire, complemented by a jarring crack in reality that was glowing an ominous purple and spewing out corruptive power, that¡¯s how. The closest trees had already started morphing from a tall and elegant brown trunk reaching for the sky to a black and red hunky behemoth with a penchant for violence.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I would like to take this moment to profess my innocence here. It is obviously a coincidence that this slightly worrying scene appeared at the exact spot I teleported from a demonic world using an unrelated portal. Besides, getting in contact with your neighbors is just good manners, and whoever made this portal should be praised for creating such an opportunity to share cultures and ideas. You agree with me, right? ¡­ Once again, silence will be taken as agreement. After all, I just know you are not stupid enough to call a demon who recently became immortal a liar! This is how to preserve peace and avoid argument in a society. When I say something, you either agree or you get eaten. Simple, right? ¡­ Since we have established that this is none of our business, we have nothing keeping us here anymore, so let us hurry up and explore this land. Making my body float a few centimeters from the ground, I choose a random direction and head into the unknown. I did not realize this when my senses were still overloaded by a huge energy spewing portal, but this world is truly different. The energies circulating in this world lack the tyranny I am accustomed to, which seem to have translated into a much weaker but more varied ecosystem. During the few moments of flight alone I spotted dozens of different species of plants and insects. They were all pathetically weak, but that is already more than the grand total of 13 species my world holds. In my world, we have earth, water, fire and air, all of which contain a very high corrosive attribute. The ecosystem is limited to the thirteen primordial demons and their spawns, totaling to a few millions demons in total. Because our world energy is so meddlesome, it reacts to every demon differently and causes every demon to be unique. The closest things we have to plants are demons with forms unfit to travel, like for example a limbless eye. That¡¯s about it. No animals, no metal, no gas, just an ever burning monotony of violence. Happy thoughts. ¡­ Are you asking how I know about metal and gas? That¡¯s easy, I learned it from you. Just because you never said anything does not mean I cannot learn from you. Do you think we call our world the demon world? No, we just call it ¡°the world¡± and I added ¡°demon¡± to facilitate our communication. Communication is a two way street, so it is only fair that while I recount my adventures, you provide me with information in return. Unfortunately, although your brain is full of fascinating concepts, you know a lot of things exist but have no idea how this works. This has made the whole mind-reading venture a huge waste of time. I believe you owe me compensation. ¡­ I was sure I would get a reaction out of that. Oh well, I¡¯d better get back to finding a safe place to make a home for myself. Chapter 6 : Enchanted scene As I see it, I have to choose between safety and efficiency. Either I hole myself in a forgotten corner of this world and carefully cultivate my avatar until it has the power to explore and analyze this world without fear of consequences, or I can attempt to find sentient creatures capable of helping me on my quest to knowledge while gradually gathering power. The first option sounds wise, but I am not that concerned for my safety. If this avatar is destroyed, I just have to make a new one. I would lose all of my progress, but what is a little waste of time to an immortal? Besides, the greater issue is that by hiding away I would remain woefully uninformed of any hidden threats like mind-blowingly powerful existence who have both the desire and the ability to hunt otherworlders, and maybe even to safely destroy a world rift. The second option is much more to my liking. I would immediately be informed of the general situation of the world, and could study what methods the natives used to harness the energy of the world. I might even be able to upgrade my demon flame¡¯s design to make it handle multiple energies. The drawback is that I would be much more exposed and I could even be embroiled in troubles between natives. I do not find either plan vastly superior to another, but I will still pick the second option. I pride myself on being a bastion of logic, and I believe you should always gather all the information you can and craft a meticulous plan before taking action. Regrettably, having this belief does not translate into having the patience needed to act as such. The operation world hopping is a perfect example of both of this. I was perfectly prepared for every eventuality while opening the portal, with multiple plans and backup plans. It sounds like I followed my maxim to the letter, but that is not the case. If I was willing to spend millions of years studying and understanding the cosmic forces in play, I guarantee I could have eventually wandered across the planes and into the void with no need for convoluted plans. In short, I believe plan A to be the more sensible choice, but I am too excited to choose anything but plan B. Let''s go make a friend! ... I have to say, being so small is a lot of fun. I can zoom around and maneuver around all the obstacles instead of crushing everything in my way (which is another kind of fun). The only flaw in being so tiny is that it gives the feeling of being an insignificant and helpless insect doomed to lead a meaningless life lost into a massive unforgiving world. This of course does not apply to me (have some respect, would you?), but I wonder if somewhere in the infinite cosmos, something considers me akin to the insects I see today? If so, I should quickly strengthen myself so that I can show them the consequences of disrespecting me. Although my attempts at finding intelligent life have been so far unsuccessful, this has already been a very rewarding trip. I can now ascertain with a certain level of confidence that I am heading away from the center of the forest, as the trees have gradually become much smaller and slimmer. I am not sure if this is the correct direction, but I might as well continue forward while studying the extraordinarily varied wild life populating this world. I found no organism powerful enough to interest me, but it allowed me to make some conjectures into the general trend of this world. Apparently creatures of this world do not sustain themselves on pure energy but rather consume meat and oxygen and use roundabout means to extract energy from it. I cannot assume this will hold true for higher level creatures, but I do not understand why the local wildlife would utilize such an inefficient way of gaining nourishment.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. I tried my best to follow the surrounding animals without getting lost in my thoughts, hoping this would lead me to discovering something interesting. After getting sidetracked more than once, I eventually found that once night came, almost all animals would cease hostilities and gather around a specific tree. It was a lone tree standing in the middle of a small clearing. It¡¯s branches bent, broken and without foliage, it¡¯s roots clearly unable to get nutrients from the dried up land it sat upon, this decaying plant made any onlookers feel an acute sense of loss and lit up an irresistible desire to do something, anything to save this poor tree and let it regain its majesty. It was a beautiful, terrible picture that invoked compassion from the depth of your heart. The wild animals, temporarily forgetting their beastly savagery, came forward to pay homage to this withering plant and offer some of their blood in tribute in hopes of aiding the tree''s recovery. You should take notes and admire such a magnificent usage of charm magic. This is the delicate art of manipulating the emotions and behavior of others by shaping their vision of reality. A charmer''s nature is never to lie, but rather to embellish the truth and let it evoke your emotions. Charms are more restricted than illusions, but also much more insidious. You can usually discover an illusion by focusing on tiny inconsistent details, but as charm magic is fundamentally true, it is much more difficult to detect. The most peculiar thing about this is that although the tree possesses intelligence, it is in deep slumber and the magic is instead directed by a dozen sentient creatures channeling their magic through it. I am unsure as to why they would exhaust themselves to benefit someone else, but I will wait until they have finished their ritual to ask them. As the animals gradually departed one by one after having completed their sacrifice, I slowly moved towards the now bloody tree to attempt to examine it and it¡¯s caretakers more precisely. I attempted to maintain a dazed state mimicking the charmed animals, but was somehow still surrounded by a score of miniature humanoid creatures waving their pointy sticks at me as soon as I approached. They were fluttering in the wind, carried by pairs of half transparent blue wings. They were all clothed in exactly the same green leaf dress, making it extremely hard to differentiate between them, and they kept making sound waves with their mouths. As this does absolutely zero damage, I suspect it is a unique method of communication rather than an attack. Unfortunately, I do not understand such a language. Demons communicate almost exclusively telepathically, conveying intentions rather than words. The fastest way to learn their tongue is to read their mind and steal their knowledge. Staying completely still to avoid provoking them, I chose a random target and plunge into their mind, eager to learn all of their secrets. Chapter 7 : Predicament Prying into the outer rim of a foreign mind is usually a relatively casual affair. It is discouraged in the same way entering another¡¯s house without invitation is impolite, but it is far from a dangerous and taboo venture. This is why I was comfortable casually reading the mind of a lower level being with little precautions. In retrospect, I should have been more careful considering my status as an alien being, but if I already knew everything I would have no need to learn. Your mind is composed of three parts. At the center your consciousness sits the core, which resembles a spherical crystal (you would be surprised to see how many high grade magical stuff love to take the shape of a pretty crystal). It is widely accepted that this core is unbreakable, and it is theorized it represents your fundamental being, your personality, or what you were before your upbringing and experience reshaped your behavior. Some say it is the link to our soul, but no one has any compelling evidence for or against this. I am myself extremely curious as to what it is and what could be accomplished if I could modify it, but this is impossible for now. When I hatched a plan to tear through spacetime, I already had the power to impact it, I only needed more quantity and not quality. As I have yet to see anything having an impact on the core, I can only assume I need a change in quality to be able to start interacting with it. The core is buried on the spiritual island that represents the inner mind. If your core is radiating your personality and dictating your actions, your inner mind is a filter you built to make your actions fit the circumstances. For example, at birth a baby will start screaming when it is hungry, but as it grows up it will learn to either wait or go find food itself. This is transforming your impulse to cry for food to something you have learned is more appropriate. You never cease to build this island, and it is filled with all the things important to you, such as your family, friends, emotions and beliefs. Since a malicious entity could totally come in and modify your beliefs by altering your spiritual island, which is also called your emotional anchor, it is always fiercely protected by your will. Invading another¡¯s inner mind will always result in a battle of will, and the spiritual island provides a huge advantage, making such direct brainwashing almost impossible. Surrounding your inner mind is what I am attempting to access right now, which is the outer mind or sea of knowledge. This is where all of your general knowledge is stored, including your language, how to walk, and all the miscellaneous information you have collected throughout your life. It is considered impolite to sail on another¡¯s sea of knowledge uninvited, but there is very little danger except getting lost. General knowledge is useless if you cannot access it, so the outer mind has to keep all of the information rigorously organized, making it appear as a perfectly still lake. To recap, the core tells you why you have to do something, your inner mind translates that into what you should do, and your outer mind is in charge of how you do it. Together with your will, your mind can produce spiritual force and affect the physical realm. The image of a core, an island and a sea is generally correct, but it is just a representation of the truth, and can sometimes be changed without any real consequences.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡­ I must admit, I might have grown a little arrogant. After toying with cosmic forces, I may have started to consider mundane topics unworthy of my attention. I am practically an immortal Deity, so how can my predictions be wrong? I was confidently basing all of my assumptions on outdated and unreliable information, and was therefore unprepared for what came next. As soon as I intruded in my target''s mind, I instantly felt something was wrong, but it was too late. A flood of distorted information rushed into my mind, threatening to disorient me and make me lose my way back to my physical body. Before I could process the knowledge I was receiving, new waves of miscellaneous facts would arrive and occupy my thoughts. Instead of calmly fishing on a peaceful lake for what I wanted, I was thrust into a raging storm filled with incoherent data. I have never experienced anything like this, but I do have a solution. To avoid being distracted by telepathic communication, I once devised a barrier to filter the data I was receiving. The only issue is that such a barrier is quite difficult to build, requires a lot of concentration, and any errors can have disastrous consequences, like completely isolating your mind by not filtering information correctly. I have very little confidence in performing complex magic perfectly while being literally bombarded with headache inducing distractions, so, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to go about it in a very roundabout way. Instead of casting a single difficult spell, I can cast thousands of tiny standalone spells that each demand an insignificant amount of brain power. This makes the task easy and risk free, but it also takes time. A lot of time. I painstakingly started to build my barrier while doing my best to resist the environment. When I finally finished what felt like days of monotonous but torturous work, I had to rest a moment by doing some random mathematical calculations before I was once again ready to face the predicament I was in. Do you remember when I explained reading someone¡¯s outer mind was almost completely safe? What was the only danger? ¡­ That¡¯s right, to get lost! Now, can you guess what happens when you are helplessly swept away by a raging storm? That¡¯s right, you get lost. The good news is that there is a simple way for the experienced to find their way out. The outer mind accommodates all the knowledge gathered by a particular individual, and it does so in order, with the newest knowledge stored at the edge of the mind. The bad news is that, if you haven¡¯t noticed, this sea of knowledge is not a calm one, and thus all the data has been disorganized. This makes it pretty much impossible to find our way out, and we will very likely be forced to simply roam around until we eventually find the exit. I expect this will not take more than a year, so it¡¯s not too bad, but I am already incredibly frustrated being in an ocean of interesting data which has been rendered completely unintelligible. I can only hope we find an exit before I am driven mad. Chapter 8 : Demonic Corruption Ha! I have once again proved that I am the greatest genius to ever walk (or float) in all of demon history! In slightly less than two months, I have not only devised a revolutionary new way to orient myself in a disorganized spiritual sea based on the density and emotional fluctuations of the native will, I also succeeded in decoding most of the garbled data that I gathered. In short, apart from the tiny potentially life-threatening demonic corruption issue, all our problems have been solved by yours truly. ¡­ Why are you still not praising my divine wisdom? Are you curious about the information I received? Well, I suppose I can share it with you. A lot of the data has been lost to the demonic corruption, but I managed to save the most important part. First, I was right about those sound waves being a primitive way of communicating. Just like the native¡¯s frankly barbaric method of eating each other for energy, this way of communicating is unnecessary convoluted, and seems to have been invented solely to facilitate misunderstanding and lying. Basically, every letter is assigned a unique soundwave, and it is the listener¡¯s job to reassemble the string of sounds into a coherent sentence. Forgetting the unreliability of a method so defenseless to outside interference, how do they communicate from more than ten meters away? It seems there is still much more to learn but let us not get carried away and start discussing the truly exciting stuff. The tiny individual whose mind I am reading is a fairy. She has a very simple mind, and her entire life was basically wasted talking to and taking care of non-sentient flowers before brutally plundering their life force as nourishment under the guise of ¡°sharing the heart of nature¡±. This cycle apparently continued for years until one of her sisters discovered a dying tree. As usual, several fairies, including this one, carried out the ritual to receive the unfortunate tree¡¯s life force, justifying their action by claiming they earned this by guarding the forest. Although it was dying, this tree was still very powerful, and it must not have been ready to ¡°give back what it had received¡±, as it had a slight negative reaction. By which I mean the tree reversed the spell and devoured the fairy¡¯s intelligence and magic, becoming a sentient plant with charm magic and a dozen of living fairy puppets. The newly awakened plant then started enticing the surrounding wildlife to give up their vitality for his recovery and became the evil tree I am facing. This also explains the disastrous state of the fairy¡¯s spiritual sea, as it no longer has a core or inner mind to stabilize it. The calm lake would already have transformed into a destructive whirlpool if I were not suppressing it. This would eventually result in the annihilation of the outer mind, but according to my calculations the demonic corruption will have been taken over long before that happens. Apart from this incident, the memories hold a lot of interesting, if not particularly valuable, knowledge about the forest and its inhabitants. Most of the information is disappointingly superficial with only the outer appearance of creatures and plants memorized, but the fairy remembers meeting a sentient creature once.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. It was a creature resembling a giant two meters tall fairy without wings. The fairy was traumatized as it witnessed a pair of these creatures hunting an animal and dragging its dead body out of the forest where a group of these fellows slaughtered hundreds of trees and built strange and elaborate constructions with their corpse. The fairy could not sleep for a week after witnessing this terrible scene, which is rather hypocritical as she has no trouble watching animals hunt each other¡¯s, and she herself has killed more plants than the giants. ¡­ Well, that is all the good news I have. I found a way out, decoded some data, learned the fairy¡¯s language, learned about the evil tree and the rest of the forest, and most importantly found hints of a civilization. In contrast to this, I have only one piece of bad news. The demonic corruption. Do you remember when we saw that totally-not-related-to-me portal to a demon world? And how it was contaminating the surroundings, irreversibly corrupting everything around it? Well, I seem to be doing the same thing. Since my avatar is extremely weak, it has no perceptible impact on the physical world, but it is another story when I am invading a fragile native mind and they come in direct contact with my much more powerful will. My mere presence is causing everything to become warped, in a process not unlike the situation between the evil tree and the fairies. As far as I can see, this is due to my otherworldly nature. I obey different laws compared to the rest of the world, and it is trying to compensate for the fact. This is similar to putting an ice cube in a glass of water. The cold ice will heat up and the hot water will lose heat until an equilibrium is reached. I am like the ice, radiating my demonic nature and affecting everything around me, while simultaneously getting assimilated by the world. After a few centuries, I expect I would become indistinguishable from a native of this world, while my demonic nature would be spread out across the entire world, becoming so diluted it would be insignificant. In the short term however, it would taint and ruin everything around me. Since being a roaming disaster might slightly impede my plans of becoming an objective and unnoticeable observer, I must find a solution. Unfortunately, I am exploring uncharted territory here, and I have not yet collected enough information to devise an elegant solution. I have yet to understand how this all works, so I can only try to bypass causing any problems by avoiding direct contact with this world¡¯s alien laws. I must hide my mind inside of my avatar and cover my avatar with an outer layer suitable for walking this world. The drawback is that I will no longer be able to go around reading minds or using any similar abilities. Now that we have decided our next course of action, let us examine our current situation. The spiritual sea around me is a wreck, and it will fall apart shortly. My presence is the only thing keeping it together, and I do not have the expertise necessary to fix it. No matter, I have already collected all I could. I am worried that if I stay here too long, I will corrupt the evil tree through his link with this puppet. The death of a living being is simply unacceptable. To save time, I did not attempt my new pathfinding method (it pains me greatly to think that it will probably be years before I will be able to test it), but rather I used brute force, shattering the weakened consciousness around me. I felt my will fall back to the physical world and naturally return to my avatar. Chapter 9 : Diplomacy My avatar was always supposed to be temporary. A short-lived container to safeguard my consciousness from the unknown dangers of traversing an eldritch portal. It was intentionally designed to be as small and streamlined as possible, even at the cost of its functionality. The plan always was to use it as an intermediary to find or create a better body as soon as possible. This matter is somewhat complicated by the demonic corruption. Possessing the corpse of a recently deceased is no longer an option. Instead I must modify my avatar to isolate and hide myself from the world, while still letting me interact and explore said world. I have a few ideas, but I must first gather materials. The best option would be living bodies with no willpower to resist me reshaping them. Something like the dozens of soulless fairies floating around me. The fairies that are currently controlled by a tree. An evil tree perfectly capable of crushing a reckless otherworldly thief, even in its dying slumber. On a totally unrelated note, I am a pacifist. There can be only one reason to resort to violence, (overwhelming power,) otherwise diplomacy should always be the go-to approach. Diplomacy is a great and delicate artform I have perfected over more than three occasions. It roughly consists in tricking your enemy into willingly offering whatever you want practically for free while making him think he is ripping you off¡­ Sorry. I meant to say diplomacy roughly consists in establishing a friendly rapport and building a mutually beneficial relationship with your new associate by relying on open-minded dialogues. One might think that one of the negotiating parties being asleep would complicate the process, but they would be wrong. On the contrary, for those capable of conversing through dreams, it makes the sleeper more attune to his true feelings, which is well worth sacrificing rational thinking for. So, it is time to establish the terms of our cooperation. I wish to receive ownership to all the fairies, so I must offer something that looks to be of an equivalent or greater value. Now, what would a tree want? Magical Power? Healing? Water, sunlight or food? I can offer none of that. What can I offer? I have a lot of knowledge, but it will take a lot of work to make it relevant to this world. Instead I am going to give a once a lifetime opportunity. I am going to bless it! By letting it come into contact with the demonic corruption.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I know I have previously presented demonic corruption as a disaster to avoid at all cost, and it usually is, but it is not inherently evil. As its name suggests, corruption does not destroy, it simply taints and changes things. The issue is that those changes conflict with the affected creatures, often leading to a premature but very painful death if the creature cannot withstand the transformation. I do not wish to risk the precious life of a potential test subject in this endeavor, but the trees that have turned demonic around the portal have proved that this is possible and provided me a template to follow. I will just have to guide the effects of the corruption for it to empower the tree instead of killing it and make it relinquish its control over the fairies. When I transmit the idea of endless destructive power to our new friend, it exudes a content feeling, which I will take as it is consenting to the deal. The first step is to contaminate the plant by gradually infusing it with my power while reassuring it to avoid getting smashed by an instinctual attack. That went well enough, though I will probably have to endure a few blows when the painful morphing starts. The crippling weakness of my avatar prevents me from marshalling enough energy to provoke a significant change in one go, so I have to periodically send small amounts of energy into inside the trunk and control its excruciatingly slow transformation for a few hours at a time while I wait for my power to recover. I lack the patience required to enjoy this slow and steady process, but I supposed it is good news for the experimental subject that every change is so gradual, giving me ample opportunity to rectify any mistakes. After all, I have no idea what I am doing. It was fascinating learning about the consequences of otherworldly interaction, I just wish it were a little faster. ¡­ I was guarding against a hostile reaction from the world or the tree lashing out in pain after having been fundamentally changed, but the transformation has been so quiet it is boring. I have already planned out the rest of the process, so I will now take this opportunity to start designing my new body. ¡­ Finally, after a whole week, it is done. The tree is now much bigger than before, with its thin twisting branches supporting tongues of black flames instead of leaves. I made sure to get rid of the dying parts of the tree, in a healing method similar to amputating and regrowing. It is not awake yet, I intentionally made it sleep a bit longer, but in a couple of days it will be at its peak. More importantly, I have made use of this opportunity to sever its link to the fairies and experiment on the effects and behavior of demonic corruption. With this, I finally have all the knowledge and materials necessary to start crafting an appropriate body and truly commence my adventures. Chapter 10 : Crafting There are multiple advantages in crafting a new body out of fairy puppets. The most important one is it¡¯s perfect compatibility with this world, but that was a given. The reason I prefer the fairies over any other wandering animal, apart from my distaste to killing, is that not only have they been refined and prepared by their previous master, they are also innately talented in magic. I could find very little information on magic by mind reading because their powers are instinctual and require no understanding to work. I hope to be able to use this power as a crutch to aid me in understanding this world''s supernatural energy, as well as a weapon to keep me safe. Gaining access to those magic powers would be very easy if I were to possess their body, but we have already established this is not possible. Instead, I have to devise something similar to a weapon that retains the intrinsic qualities of a living being. The closest example I can find in your memories is a high-tech organic mech. I would be the pilot safely confined inside the cockpit, only interacting with the world by using the robot¡¯s controls. I would be perfectly quarantined and would have no more worries about distorting anything around me unintentionally. The problem is that such a robot would be incapable of using magic and would be defenseless against simple magics like telekinesis. To defend against or perform magic, I need a much deeper connection to the entire body. I would become more akin to a parasite, implanted so deep in his host as to become indistinguishable. Clearly, such a profound relationship would result in the body becoming contaminated, which would bring us back to square one. I plan to make use of both methods. I will be detached from most of the body, but I will fully take over the nervous system, providing me with a network of rootlike tendrils that will give me indirect access to the rest of the body. The nervous system would no doubt pollute nearby cells, but I will absorb and regrow the tainted components. This means I will have to regularly intake small quantities of replacement materials to heal, but consuming physical food as a substitute to pure energy seems to be the norm for the local ecosystem anyways. Having worked on the physique of an indigenous species and having examined the way it reacts to the demonic corruption for days, I have already designed my new body. I have decided I will outwardly resemble the giants, as they appear to be the most civilized species I have come across so far. Finding a quiet spot where I will not be disturbed, I excavated a large cave and began forging my treasure. I need to merge all the fairies together to make up for their petite size, amplify their magic talent and make space for some custom modifications.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I would usually use them as mere materials and forcefully reshape them according to my will, but the lifeforms of this world are billions of times more complicated than what I am accustomed to, and once again my lack of power is forcing me to achieve my goals in roundabout ways by systematically handling every little detail. With my current power I can manipulate individual cells, but I can sense that cells are not the smallest unit but rather they are themselves composed of a multitude of tiny particles I have no way of understanding. This means I cannot build or modify a cell and must make do with those I already have. The first thing I need to do is disassemble the fairies. I generate hundreds of small force fields which I then fill up with all the different types of cells contained in the subject¡¯s body. I end up surrounded by a multitude of different materials, most of which are transparent, but some, like the blood cells, have a deep and vibrant color. I digress, but the truth is that I have no idea of how this all works, and can only reconstruct the same patterns I saw within the fairies with the same cells, only the end result will be bigger since I am using more of them. I ended up proceeding layer by layer, beginning with building the skeleton, followed by the nerves, the blood, the fat, the muscles, the skin¡­ It made it very convenient to contaminate only the nerves but made it very hard to keep all the cells alive as they spent hours simply floating around in the air. I had to manually feed them energy to keep them vitalized, which was very tedious and forced me to rush through the project before I ran out of energy. All in all, this method of meticulously assembling individual parts into a masterpiece worked great but is quite dull, as it holds no surprises. The lack of time caused the task to be more challenging, but that was more frustrating than interesting. The surprise came after the operation was finished. Demons have a very high vitality, and as such, while an attempt at merging two demons together might fail, there is hardly any risk to their life. I had previously observed that the fairies were much weaker life-forms, but I was not prepared for the tiny incompatibilities in between cells to prove almost fatal for them. As I withdrew my magical support from my finalized creation, I was horrified to see it start breaking down, as various parts of the body clashed. Each fairy was subtly different from the others, but I had deemed these dissimilarities insignificant, not expecting them to react so violently to one another. Once again, I lack the expertise required to solve the problem, and can only resort to continuously healing my future body, waiting for all the cells to adapt to their new reality. The cells battled each other and got damaged, after which I would heal them, using this opportunity to discard any conflicting part of the cells. Another long and tedious process, as I had to individually heal each of the trillions of cells this body is composed of multiple times. This incident also greatly increased my curiosity about the microscopic reality of this world. Finally, after a few days of constant healing, the body stabilized and my first feat of power in this world was accomplished. Chapter 11 : Meeting As soon as I completed my masterpiece, I stepped back to admire my work. In front of me stood the vessel I would use to explore the mysteries of this world! This was a 1.7 meters tall female biped with a very thin figure. The tainted nervous system made a glowing red pattern appear upon her deep blue skin, giving her a striking ethereal air. Her back was adorned by a large pair of beautiful dark purple and black butterfly wings, with a wingspan just shy of two meters. Her straight hair was of the same color than her wings, and it cascaded down her back all the way to her waist. She had only one fiery red eye, as my avatar is going to replace the other one. Her charm magic, which had evolved to become much more powerful than what the tree was using, gave her an air of elegance and grace, simultaneously granting her the look of a powerful queen to respect and a delicate maiden you had to take care of. I gingerly fitted my avatar in the empty eye socket prepared for it and used the last of my magic to connect everything together. I am getting a little tired of having to constantly change my body, but hopefully this one will be at least semi-permanent. All these different bodies are getting confusing, so I am going to give each of them a name. In the future when I mention my body it will refer to the one I just crafted, while I will call my avatar as my demon form. As for my weird portal body, it will be named my comic form or eldritch form, because these names sound awesome. As soon as the link was established, I gained access to an additional five senses and a hefty amount of charm magic. Excitement welled inside me as I piloted my new toy around and experimented with it, experiencing this world from the point of view of a native for the first time. I originally intended to take the time to modify my body to resemble the giants I was planning to visit next, but this would require more monotonous work, and I can¡¯t bring myself to delay my exploration any more. I will just hope they do not take issue with my appearance. Worst comes to worst, I will retreat and disguise myself. I was expecting to have to wander about and search for the giants based on fragmented memories, but it was them who found me as soon as I approached their approximate location. I was lost in my thoughts evaluating the performances of my new body, when a pair of them jumped out of a bush waving their weapons and shouting at me in a language I cannot understand. The two creatures, who I can no longer call giants now that I am almost as tall as them, were remarkably similar to the elves from your memories. They have a humanoid shape, pointy ears, a brown skin with the slightest hint of green, are clothed in long robes, and are armed with a bow and arrows. Though I am curious as to why their arrows are nothing but pointy sticks when you always picture them with a metal tip and feather fletching.Stolen story; please report. I may as well ask them. Hopefully, they can understand the language I just learned. They cannot. The elves were not overly flustered by this turn of events. They exchanged a few words before one of them turned and ran somewhere in the opposite direction I was coming from. I expect he was alerting his companions. The remaining man eyed me warily, but he showed no intention to take any hostile actions. For now, I think it is best I wait and see what happens. ¡­ It only took a few minutes for the elf to return accompanied by a shorter bright green creature. The green observed me for a second before addressing me in whatever language the fairy used. ¡°Greetings, might I ask for your name and species? I am loremaster Tobin, a goblin.¡± A polite fellow, but not yet worthy of hearing my glorious name. I have no idea what species I currently count as but I wouldn¡¯t tell him even if I knew. ¡°I don''t know. I have no memories before today, not even of what what species I belong to.¡± Not the most original excuse, but one that would be virtually impossible to disprove, and one without any loopholes. The goblin glared at me skeptically but chose to move on. ¡°Really? This forest used to be the home of a host of very powerful magical beasts, but several months ago they were all spotted desperately fleeing the place. Do you know anything about that?¡± I believe revealing my knowledge of the demonic portal would only make me appear more suspicious, but I should offer some information to distract them. ¡°I do not know. I woke up underneath a sinister tree wreathed in black flames, and the sight made me so uncomfortable I chose to flee in a random direction until I was detained by the two gentlemen here.¡± ¡°You are a fairly powerful being yourself, so why did you feel so threatened by a burning plant?¡± Am I considered powerful? It is certainly a step up from before, but I still couldn¡¯t survive a day in the demon world. Perhaps this world is weaker than I assumed. ¡°I can barely control my powers and would have stood no chance against it. Besides, it felt more alien than dangerous, like something that shouldn¡¯t exist in this world.¡± That got a reaction. The goblin¡¯s gaze sharpened and his doubtful tone became more urgent and forceful. ¡°An alien feeling? Can you describe it in more detail? Where was it exactly¡± ¡°I cannot express the impression it gave me, but I can guide you to it if you want¡± The goblin grew excited, but he quickly calmed himself down and responded in a disappointed tone. ¡°Not right now. A few days of delay will not change anything, and I have learned not to rush into danger.¡± Tobin waved at the elves to surround me and started to march towards their camps, forcing me to follow. ¡°Please come with us. I have more questions I would like you to answer, and this is hardly the most appropriate place to talk.¡± Chapter 12 : Interrogation Despite my attempts to re-initiate conversation with my new goblin friend, the rest of the journey was spent attempting to minimise the amount of disturbance caused to the woods. I saw no particular reason for this discretion, but perhaps there was a hidden danger? We marched in silence until we got to the edge of the woods, where Tobin explained to me how to avoid the traps they had set up to protect the perimeter of their camp. Demons are very straightforward people, and as I have never seen or heard of a demon using traps I was unprepared for such trickery. Some were obvious like trench covered in leaves, but it is possible I could have been caught by the more innocent looking snares if my new companions had not pointed them out to me. It has been less than a day since I met them, but they have already demonstrated a way of fighting I had never seen before. I can¡¯t wait to continue learning from them! I now realise you also have some knowledge on traps, but you have to understand that our connection is too distant and bizarre for me to directly read your mind directly and instantly know everything you know. I can only glean small amounts of information each time we interact. Following the law of equivalent exchange, the more you learn from me, the more I will learn from you, and often about related subjects. Why else do you think I keep talking to you? Going back to my story, we have arrived at our destination. I''ll be honest, when I saw their weapons, I was expecting to find a towering stone castle like the ones in your memories. Instead I was greeted by a small primitive camp of a dozen hide tents thrown up haphazardly around a wooden hut. The camp was protected by a flimsy fence and trench. There were no stone constructions at all, and the camp was only large enough to house about two dozen creatures my size. As soon as we entered the fortified enclosure, everyone suddenly relaxed. I don¡¯t see what kind of dangerous entity would be stopped by a few wooden sticks planted in the ground, but apparently the natives put a lot of trust in their defences, abruptly going from cautious and guarded to excited and triumphant. Everyone started pointing at me and loudly shouting in their weird language. I saw no reason for such exuberance, so I kept glancing around and trying to understand their enthusiasm. The goblin must have noticed my bewilderment as he started to explain while leading me to the wooden house. ¡°This place has been blessed by the eyes of the gods. It may not be completely safe from outside attacks, but at least we don¡¯t have to worry that any random stone, tree or hill we are approaching suddenly revealing itself to be some kind of terrifying slumbering monster. Besides, it doesn''t really matter if the defenses hold, they just have to give us enough of a warning for us to flee. Additionally, since the power of god accepted you, it means you mean us no harm. This makes us one of the rare humans to build a friendly rapport with a fay.¡± They tested my intentions? I didn¡¯t feel anything. Are those ¡°god¡¯s¡± powerful enough to spy on me undetected? Is Tobin trying to trick me? Or did the god¡¯s not notice me under my various disguises? ¡°What are those god¡¯s you mentioned?¡± Tobin was startled by my question, answering in a puzzled tone. ¡°Did you really forget everything? A basic understanding about the gods is usually instinctual knowledge for all intelligent creatures. How can it be forgotten?¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°How am I supposed to know? I told you, I don''t remember anything before this morning. Can you fill me in on the common sense I should have?¡± ¡°We certainly have to teach you the general knowledge of this world, but for now we should focus on the situation at hand.¡± I didn¡¯t get time to argue before the goblin led me to the hut in the middle of the camp. He opened the door and pushed me inside a small dim light room. The room was very bare, with only a single glowing idol in the shape of a globe that was floating a few centimeters off the ground in the middle of the room. The worrying thing is that I could not feel what was causing it to levitate, giving credence to the idea that an unknown force is protecting the site undetected and may have already scanned my thoughts. Tobin bowed to his deity and motioned me to do the same, before sitting down on the floor. ¡°In this room, we can safely talk without fear of misunderstandings, as it is impossible to lie. I hope you forgive me for my lack of trust, but this way we can converse without concerns.¡± Impossible to lie? This could complicate things. I imagine my goals of discreetly assimilating into this world might suffer a tiny bit if I have to honestly announce my true identity to anyone that asks about it in front of a statue. I suppose the first thing to do is to test how this ¡°impossible to lie¡± attribute functions. "My name is Tadelia" I felt nothing preventing me from introducing myself under a fake name, but Tobin glanced at me knowingly, looking as if he realised this I was testing his claims. Did he somehow detect falsehood? Or did he expect I would try to lie? If so, did he conclude I lied or was not able to? ¡°You have a beautiful name, but I am afraid we will have to skip the pleasantries. I have been tasked with finding the reason for the recent abnormality of this forest, and I believe you could be the key to solving this mystery. Could you please tell me everything you remember?¡± He is acting as if he believed I had said the truth. Does that mean his spell did not work on me? Or is he playing along, lulling me into a false sense of security? Maybe he lied about his god¡¯s power altogether to destabilize me? Just like those traps outside, is he trying to trick me? He asked for everything I remember, so what should I tell him? Should I just feveal myself and attempt to awe him into submission? Forget it. I am making this way more complicated than it should be. Lies are not the only forms of deceit. I am just going to make do with misleading half-truths and leave the issue of a potential supremely powerful being watching my every move for later. ¡°My first memories in this body is of waking up under an old tree wreathed in black fire, which exuded a terrible aura of wrongness. It was sleeping and did not feel dangerous, but simply being near it was incomprehensibly uncomfortable. I was disoriented and lost, so when I felt it was slowly awakening I quickly chose a direction and fled, wishing to meet something or someone who could help me understand what was going on¡± Let¡¯s hope He focuses on the tree and not the awkward start of my sentence. I am trying to recount the story of my new body, without the additional input from my demon form. This way, I am not lying but being selective about the information I provide. After quietly listening to my stories, letting me speak about all I could think of for a while, Tobin started to ask for more details about the tree. I was glad he was focusing on that instead of my identity, but there was very little information I could share without revealing I knew more than I should. I just kept repeating myself, sometimes acting slightly confused, trying to sell my ignorance. Eventually the goblin seemed satisfied he knew all I knew, and he became very friendly. ¡°I am sorry I had to put you through that, but this could be time sensitive. Don¡¯t worry, I already know all I need, so we can move on to helping you. Tomorrow we will start investigating the patch of forest you came from, so hopefully we will find some information about you and your situation. In the meantime, I will show you around the camp and get you a place to rest.¡± Should I actively ask about the gods again? Would that make me suspicious? The gods, who may or may not have noticed, are not acting hostile, so for now let¡¯s lay low and hope they either didn''t notice or don¡¯t care.