I Can Assimilate Everything Chapter 622: Information!

While his existence achieved a glorious new stage of power due to Assimilating an enemy in The Cavern of Existence, his other body was actually making headway in the First Sea, Abzu.

He had been going across it to try and find other entities that had been spending their ti in this Sea erasing the countless Corrupted Growths that rose up over the years. His goal was simple: to see what state they would be in and what information he could obtain from them about Tian, about Observable Existence, about the mysteries that The Groundskeeper had only partially illuminated.

The Groundskeeper was only a singular source of information, and there could be many things he chose not to say. Beings of such profound Depth often had agendas that stretched across eons, motivations that they concealed beneath helpful facades and reasonable explanations. If one wanted the truth, they could only find it out themselves by learning of the bigger picture through multiple perspectives.

If The Cavern of Existence truly gave all of these trials and tribulations to eventually allow him to be capable of laying claim to one of the aspects of the Oldest Paradox, that was great. He would continue pushing through its regions with the sa relentless consumption that had already elevated him to Interdiate Depth.

But if it didn’t deliver what it promised, if there were hidden conditions or costs that The Groundskeeper had neglected to ntion, he had to make sure that he had other plans laid out before him. And of course, the only way for him to plan was to have enough information to do so.

So his body first went through the mories of the entity that he had killed in the Second Region of The Cavern of Existence. She was an Interdiate Depth entity who had been known as THE Fastest Blade, a title that apparently referred to her speed in combat and her mastery of the weapon she had wielded.

A bunch of shit that title was with how easy she went down.

But her mories showed him how she had gone through The Blind Depths in her own ti, struggling for years through darkness that he had conquered in hours. They showed how she had fared when she entered the Second Region, the challenges she had faced, the enemies she had fought, and exactly what threats he could be looking forward to as he continued deeper.

He was basically getting a tutorial guide from a corpse.

He was hoping to get the sa thing in the Seas of Tian, information freely given rather than violently extracted, as at this mont his other body ca across sothing unexpected in the sea of Abzu!

An old man.

The figure sat upon a white stony platform that floated above the golden waters of Abzu with stability. His hair was golden, flowing past his shoulders in waves that seed to catch light from sources that didn’t exist in the surrounding environnt. His features were weathered, and his eyes held the calm of soone who had long since made peace with their circumstances.

Near him sat a blacksmith’s forge that made Achilles pause in his approach.

The forge was fantastical in construction, built from materials that seed to shift between solid and liquid states depending on the angle of observation. Flas burned within it that weren’t truly flas at all, but concentrated authority that had been shaped into fire-like form through sheer mastery of craft.

He noted with surprise that it actually burned with the Way of Blacksmithing.

One could actually raise and elevate a Civilization based on blacksmithing?

The concept seed almost mundane compared to the grand Civilizations he had encountered, Ways built upon fundantal aspects of Existence like Life and Death and Dreams. But as he observed the forge more closely, he recognized that blacksmithing at its core was about transformation, about taking raw materials and shaping them into sothing greater through application of heat and pressure and skill.

Perhaps that was fundantal enough to build a Way upon.

Near the forge, Achilles saw multiple weapons arranged with careful organization. Blades of various lengths and configurations, hamrs that seed too heavy for any normal being to lift, spears whose points glead with edges.

When he analyzed them with his current Depth, he saw that they were actually sharp or heavy enough to bypass the Depth of weak THE Surface Depth entities entirely. These weren’t ceremonial pieces or decorative displays. They were weapons designed to kill beings that reality itself acknowledged as significant!

As for the old man himself, he seed to be at the Interdiate Depth based on the weight that radiated from his weathered form. Not the hollow Interdiate Depth of THE Fastest Blade, but sothing more substantial, more earned through ti and dedication rather than desperate advancent.

Achilles floated toward him alone, leaving Rose and Eyyanah in the far distance to continue their own cultivation in the First Sea.

The old man waved his hands casually to clear a few Corrupted Growths in the distance that were rising toward his platform. The geotric wrongness dissolved under his authority with ease. His head barely turned to gaze at Achilles as he approached, golden eyes assessing the newcor with curiosity that didn’t quite rise to the level of genuine interest.

"A new entrant here? We see others few and far between over the years."

His voice was calm and unhurried.

"If you have co here looking for answers, know that I don’t have any. The best I can do is keep you company."

...!

The old man said such words with acceptance that seed entirely genuine, and Achilles landed on his floating platform with smile.

"I was just looking to understand a bit more about the region that I ca into," Achilles replied with tone that matched the old man’s casual energy. "I am Adrastia. Achilles Adrastia."

The old man nodded at him as if nas did not really matter, as if the distinctions that beings clung to in Observable Existence had lost significance across the eons he had spent in this golden Sea.

"You can just refer to as THE Old Man."

His weathered features shifted into sothing approaching a smile.

"Just soone who is far too old to have continued to do this for as long as I did. But hey, it elevated my Depth from Surface to Interdiate after all of these years, and I even had ti to constantly practice my Way without having to worry about interruptions."

He gestured toward his forge and the weapons surrounding it with pride that seed entirely earned.

"So this was a life well lived."

He paused, considering Achilles with eyes that held more awareness than his casual deanor suggested.

"If you ca here to ask about the Seas of Tian, I actually have not left this First Sea since I did not feel the need to. Everything I require is here. But if you are among those who want to socialize and talk..."

He nudged his head toward a distant region of Abzu where the golden waters seed slightly different in coloration.

"There are a few THE Surface and Interdiate Depth entities on the border of the First and the Second Sea. They sotis have gatherings and get-togethers so that they apparently do not go insane from the isolation."

His tone suggested he found such concerns puzzling.

"But how can one be isolated when they have their Way and Civilizations to keep them company?"

...!

The old man shook his head with profundity!

Achilles couldn’t help but smile at this perspective and look out into the distance where THE Old Man had indicated. A community that had ford within Tian across eons of shared labor!

That sounded exactly like what he was looking for.

Multiple perspectives. Multiple sources of information!