The thought phantoms were on a generational roll. After reading the Creeds they had commanded him to create, Skullius' misgivings had been soothed sowhat. He had to admit that the phantoms had a very well-planned ambitious idea. However, he didn't allow himself to relax completely.
Even if Serenity was involved in the creative process, she didn't know everything, even when it ca to matters concerning her treasure: the Null Verse.
Skullius' greatest concern remained that he wasn't sure a physical form forged using the Hybrid Luman body, Caxellac's body and the Warmoth Progeny body could evolve properly using the trics of races from the Null Verse. Of course, the phantoms had said they sohow made it so that the Warmoth body's traits would be the dominant ones, but...
And what about the skills he was now adding to this body.
So of the combinations the phantoms had him create were genius, but would they sh well with the body?
['lding Stitches' and... and... and... and... and... are now bound to the 'Ascended Nullmancer's Unbridled Wisdom'. Fusion process begins...]
There was another combination that Skullius permitted. He had used a little more than
90,000 Creeds with a large net of links to make it all work, just like that other one he had been apprehensive about before.
['Seramoro, Oblivion's Edge' and... and... and... and... and... will now be conjoined to the... and.... Fusion process begins...]
And there was another.
The conjoinnt of the Seeds of the Fruit of World Myths to high level skills - especially when considering the purpose the phantoms assigned - was truly astonishing. If not for Skullius' apprehension about the result, he would have been giddily jumping up and down. Well, he would have been attempting to.
Skullius worked on four other skills, including - to his own shock - [Apostle's Liege], which had forrly been [Apostle Summon]. He expected more than 700,000 Creeds in total for these.
"Now we need the PHANTASMIC RETAINERS. Well, I suppose we can only create one at the mont," a phantom said.
And indeed, Skullius only had access to one, the weakest Retainer of the three he knew were possible to create.
The Retainers were created by constructing massive, eerie figures with precise volus and contours of darkness and light. The potency of the darkness and light had to be high and the movents flexible, which ant that a high affinity with these elents was required as well.
In Opungale, Skullius had managed to reach an S rank affinity with [Just Light] because of the convenience that this elent shed extrely well with the racial properties of the Luminants, which were abundant in his Hybrid Luman form.
Unfortunately, the sa couldn't said about [Evil Darkness]. Even the possessed Skullius hadn't managed to fast track the process to acquiring a high affinity with the elent. As of yet, the affinity was stuck at the B rank, but using the Bashful Abomination's affix, Skullius could bump it up to A as long as he was wielding the chipped zhanmadao.
An A rank affinity with [Evil Darkness] and [Just Light] was the bare minimum required for using the Noboboyama, Spirit of Blind Drowning. But this was insufficient for the other Retainers.
Of course, there was brighter news to be had.
The original plan for Skullius' split all those months ago, had been for Replicus to be the one focusing on raising the affinities of darkness and light so that Skullius could gain access to the Retainers when they t and fused back.
Replicus had done just that, despite the rest of the original plan falling through.
While his affinity for [Just Light] was low, his affinity for [Evil Darkness] was at the A rank.
"If we can use the Seeds of the Fruit of World Myths on our own, what use do we have for the Phantasmic Retainers?" Skullius asked his phantoms.
"Fulgardt used these to contain and activate the nine Seeds of the Fruit of World Myths, but he must have kept them busy even after he reached Divinity," one of the phantoms answered. "We are going to do so too. We are going to make the Retainers useful still. But first, we need to be able to use all of them. This might be dangerous, but I think we finally need to tinker with the Fruit of World Myths."
Hearing uncertainty for the first ti in the phantoms made Skullius nervous.
Tinker?
It seed the phantoms were planning to do more than that.
He drew the Fruit of World Myths, which had also been isolated from his body, towards him.
It was an odd, little thing. It looked like a flower, or perhaps a flower-shaped mark, dark in colour and with a bright golden cross in its middle.
"Let's see if appraising it will yield any more information this ti," Skullius said.
He had tried to pry its secrets with the guidance field before but had only managed to get a generic description and nothing else. Would it be different this ti?
[Fruit of World Myths]
The masterpiece of an item made by Fulgardt which can neither be called a physical object or a spiritual one. It is the perfect culmination between Evil Darkness and Just Light.
-Imitation%$@!-
"What the...?"
Skullius frowned.
Even his phantoms were a bit surprised.
That last tag that read 'Imitation' was new.
"Fascinating," one of the phantoms said. Its tone made it seem as though it might have been stroking a non-existent chin. "An imitation? Is this fake then?"
"Wait. Now that I think about it," another one cut in, "The more we learned about Fulgardt the more I was convinced that he probably got this thing from sowhere far from here. It even feels foreign. Did he really make it himself? I suppose he himself might not have needed the Fruit of World Myths in the beginning, right? It might have been created to allow others to use his powers effectively, outside the Labyrinth."
"Well, he claid his powers ca fr-" Skullius began, but stopped suddenly.
A sudden CRACK had resounded so crisply through the Second Layer of the Empyrean Hatcher
that it shocked him.
The ashen seed had cracked.
"Dammit!" a phantom cried.
The seed cracked again.
"I think we've overloaded it!" another phantom yelled, panicking.
"No, that's not it! It's the Blessing! The Blessing can't handle what we are trying to create, I
think!" another corrected.
Skullius would have frowned.
So, an unexpected chink in the plan ended up happening after all!
At once, he used [Neutral Maximum] at full throttle on the seed, hoping to stop its imminent
destruction.
The purple-gold light of Maximum Catalyst... failed.
...!!!
"Use [Static Limbo]!" Serenity advised.
Skullius did so. He was amazed once again that a simple thought allowed him to use skills
floating outside any of his bodies.
The seed was suddenly engulfed in a sickly, blue hue.
It stopped cracking.
Skullius and the phantoms breathed a huge sigh of relief.
That was close.
Skullius would have shaken his head.
He had been hoping the phantoms would imdiately jump to reevaluating their sche,
but...
"I can't believe it!" "Even a Divine Blessing can't contain it, and it hasn't even budded yet!"
"This is too sweet! We may need to make a few adjustnts, but otherwise, we were
successful! This is it!"
"Indeed. We've managed to create sothing that will definitely rival the peak of this
reality!"
And indeed, it was so.
Skullius could hardly believe there was cause for celebration in this.
Why were these socketholes so happy?
But well...
He did wonder.
What peak of reality were these phantoms jabbering about?
What manner of abomination did they really have in mind?
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