D.I.O

Chapter 259

“Huh. This is ridiculous. He’s entered a state of self-contemplation, which is neither meditation nor a trance… he’s just looking within himself, but he’s been able to stay in that state for three whole days?” Quiet Heaven looked at Merlin while saying the same thing that Mary, who guided Merlin during the DIO tutorial, had once said.

Self-contemplation, an advanced spiritual ability to look inside oneself, was an ability of a completely different concept from meditation or entering a trance-like state, which erased one’s distracting thoughts and allowed one to organize one’s thoughts.josei

If one had to describe what self-contemplation was most like, one would state that it was most similar to a trance state. However, unlike being in a trance where one’s sense of body awareness and time was much shorter than the actual time that passed, self-contemplation had the same sensory time flow as real time. In other words, time passed relatively quickly when one was in a trance state, allowing one to be in such a state for a longer period of time. Nevertheless, self-contemplation was a state in which beings could normally only be in for an hour at best, no matter how long they tried.

Yet Merlin was already on his third day in this state of self-contemplation.

“Come to think of it… this guy is Level 19. Could it be… Is he going to achieve some great enlightenment and reach Level 20? Is he going to enter the realm of transcendence?”

Of course, the speaker, Ellie, was gently wagging her tail as she spoke these words. She stated this aloud more as a joke than anything else.

In the first place, transcendence wasn’t a level that could be reached easily.

It took thousands of years even for mysterious creatures, commonly called spirit beasts, to reach the transcendent realm, and even that feat required the spirit beasts to overcome countless difficulties and adversities. So how could such a young human achieve transcendence in just a few years? This went against all common sense.

Of course, it was quite common for humans who received the blessing of a creation god and the protection of a planet’s supreme being to become a transcendent within an [extremely short] period of time, but even that was tens to hundreds of years. However, the ‘quite common’ was an infinitesimally small probability when considering the entire population of beings in the whole universe. Even on planets with developed superpowers, there were numerous cases where not a single being reached transcendence after a thousand years.

“But this guy is an Irregular, a one in a quintillion. Of course, it’s widely known that in most cases, Irregulars face an insurmountable wall and usually fail in reaching the transcendence realm. But seeing this guy do the things he does and in such a casual manner, I wouldn’t bet against him entering the transcendence realm soon.”

Merlin’s growth rate was absurd. It was to the point that a normal martial artist or mage would probably give up on their personal pursuits after watching Merlin as they’d feel a sense of utter loss and shame in comparison to him.

Quiet Heaven and Ellie came from planets that were in between the Third and Fourth Stages of Civilization—or basically, a Stage 3.5 Stage of Civilization. Thus, Quiet Heaven and Ellie were in a position to look down on earthlings and other lesser civilization beings, treating them as [primitive] beings. Yet after seeing Merlin and how he had developed, they couldn’t help but feel their inner spirits and minds being shaken to the core. This didn’t just apply to Merlin but also the other users who made up the Heaven above the Heavens.

Seeing Quiet Heaven quietly looking down at Merlin, Arc asked Quiet Heaven a question, “Does that mean Merlin is great?”

“Great? Scary is more like it.”

Of course, the various martial arts and school of thought studies provided by and available in DIO were truly amazing. The studies reached the limits of the Second Stage of Civilization… No, to be more precise, some information corresponded to the Third Stage of Civilization depending on the type of study material. These studies were generously provided by the DIO system, so it could be said that users were afforded and provided every convenience to the extent of being excessive. However, Merlin went beyond the civilization limitations of these studies through his own learning and development, and he produced results that would appear absurd from the perspective of a ‘more civilized’ observer.

Wasn’t all this possible because of the Golden Pill Immortal Technique and its fundamental basis of No Living World?

“I have visited dozens of galaxies and seen countless schools of thought, but no being has ever produced such ridiculous results. Does it make sense that a being with a maximum capacity of a hundred years of internal energy can output an attack of one thousand six hundred years of internal energy?”

This wasn’t something that just anyone could do. Actually, it was unheard of.

Moreover, under the accepted traditional understandings of spiritual power practices and structures, it should have been impossible for a being that had not reached the transcendent state to be able to deal with such a large amount of internal energy.

If Merlin were a member of the Union and this fact had been publicized, he would have even been invited to become a professor at Ouroboros—the best academic institution in the universe.

“Hey, Quiet Heaven. This guy… Will he really ascend to the transcendent realm?”

“Ah, stop it. I don’t know either. Arthur has ascended to the transcendent realm, albeit as a pseudo-transcendent. So I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m sure my knowledge of Irregulars isn’t wrong…”

Irregulars were very rare, even when taking the entire universe into consideration. So even though Quiet Heaven had never seen an Irregular in person before, Quiet Heaven knew a lot about them from its studies.

This was why Quiet Heaven initially expected that it would take Merlin quite some time—if ever—to reach the transcendence realm, but now, even Quiet Heaven was having doubts.

Right at that moment…

“Are you awake?”

Merlin opened his eyes quietly, without any forewarning. Arc noticed Merlin’s subtle movement and approached him.

Miho, who was just reading a magic book she had obtained from the library, also hurried over to Merlin.

“Are you alright? Your self-contemplation was unusually long.”

“I usually take this long,” Merlin answered languorously as he got up.

Although Merlin acted as he normally did, everyone around him flinched at that moment.

“Huh? What?”

“Eh?”

“Uhm, Merlin…?”

“You seem… a bit strange… For a second, it was as though…”

As Merlin got up, the air around him became calm.

Even though Merlin did not interfere with anything material, his surroundings were naturally influenced by his existence.

Sungmuk, who had been sitting cross-legged and immersed in his own meditation, exclaimed, “Oh! Your momentum and aura has changed.”

Indeed, as Sungmuk said, Merlin’s momentum and aura had changed dramatically.

A quiet, intense, and explosive momentum and aura dwelled within and exuded from Merlin.

It was an intense energy that one couldn’t help but notice, even though Merlin wasn’t doing anything special.

Despite that, Merlin just casually grumbled a reply, “My momentum and aura are currently outside of my control, so it’s rather troublesome. I guess I won’t be able to move stealthily for the time being.”

While muttering that, he took off the Wicalein rings from the middle and ring fingers of his left hand and threw them on the floor.

Bang! Sss…

The Wicalein Rings were made of mithril, an ethereal metal, but the moment they fell on the ground, they turned to dust and scattered. It seemed as though the rings had been unable to withstand the process of accepting the Chintamani Marble’s powerful spiritual power, so they crumbled and fell apart.

Woong!

Merlin focused his mind and felt the newly created planets in his No Living World—Jupiter and Saturn.

Jupiter and Saturn contained an unprecedented and unimaginable power.

Objectively speaking, Merlin’s internal energy and magic power capacity didn’t increase by a year and a tetra respectively, but his current power level was leaps and bounds above what they had been before he created Jupiter and Saturn.

“Have you become stronger?”

After hearing Arc’s question, Merlin nodded. “You can say that.”

“Did you reach Level 20?”

“No, I didn’t.”

In order to create strong qi, one needed mastery over the abilities of basic mana and absolute mana control. Moreover, Merlin had yet to fully understand, align, and connect on a deeper level with the universe, which was a prerequisite to becoming a transcendent.

Furthermore, Merlin had yet to make the decision of whether he would become a great mage or ultimate internal energy warrior. He wasn’t even sure if he should or could aim for both.

“You’re still at Level 19 even though you’ve become this much stronger?” Miho asked.

As someone who originally played the role of an NPC, Miho was deeply interested and attracted to the user’s level system.

The users’ level system—which users could use to accurately gauge and know their level and strength—was much more convenient than the NPC’s situation, where an NPC had to vaguely guess their strength in comparison to others.

Merlin shook his head. “Don’t put too much faith in the users’ level system. The users’ level system is intuitive and efficient, but it’s not absolute.”

There was no guarantee that a Level 15 user would definitely beat a Level 10 user. The compatibility of a user’s power and strengths to their skills and abilities, as well as external factors such as situations, conditions, and environments… all of these aspects needed to be considered and factored into play. In addition, there were also large gaps in the same level, so it was very dangerous to think that two users at the same level possessed equal strength and power.

Moreover, this discrepancy was even wider at the margins, such as with Level 19 users who were facing a barrier to break into Level 20—the level that denoted transcendence, which often seemed like a hopelessly large gulf for any being.

“Ah. More importantly, Miho, what level do you think you can attain without much difficulty?”

Miho tilted her head after hearing Merlin’s question. In the past, her tail would have wagged whenever she pondered about something, but since her body was now that of a [human] user, the tell-tale characteristics of a seven-tailed fox weren’t visible.

“I don’t think I’ll be as strong as I used to be—at least, not in the near term. I reached the seven-tailed fox level right before I died, but… I’m a human now, so…”

Miho had retained most of the knowledge regarding her previous abilities in DIO, and even the magic studies that she previously trained in were still helpful and valid even though she had become a human user. So Miho felt that she’d be able to reach Level 13 without much issue.

However, as she was now a being in a human body, she’d have to rely on mana instead of monster power, unlike back when she was a monster. So it was impossible for her to exert the same level of power she had exhibited before her death.

“So, what does that mean? What level?”

“Well… about Level 15?”

“Reach Level 17.”

“What? Hey, it’s not as easy as you make it out to be. I can’t just reach a level because you tell me to…”

Merlin didn’t let Miho, who was flustered by Merlin’s comment, finish speaking before he turned to Arc and asked, “What’s the highest Rank spell that you can pull off in a live battle?”

“Currently, Rank 4. If the battle lasts for more than an hour, I can probably pull off a Rank 2 spell.”

Arc had trained in the Black Yak School of Magic, which emphasized absolute stability, and applied those school of magic principles in combination with her combat. So she was able to create a completely different fighting style from Jeros, who had chosen to go down the path as a pure magic user, even though they practiced the same magic school of thought.