The most crucial symbol of an individual’s existence is the recognition of their own self.
Only when an entity recognizes their own self would they slowly be able to gain intelligence.
As night slowly fell, the border city also gradually became silent.
There are more compatriots on that side.
The mass of dust bobbed up and down, the piece of dust at the very center together with the rest of the dust that was affected by the attracting force suddenly shifted.
Apparently, the strange attracting force had sensed even more dust and became disturbed, so it quickly made a reaction.
Following the reaction of the attracting force, the mass of dust’s originally free form of movement was also altered.
Increasingly more dust was being gathered by the mass of dust; it seems that the more dust it gathered, the stronger the attracting force became, and the more information the mass of dust was able to collect. This mass of dust gradually became entangled with increasingly more dust, resulting in increasingly more reactions.
Of course, these were only reactions, at least, they were up until the point when this mass of dust came into contact with a large piece of ‘dust’.
The mass of dust slowly climbed onto the piece of ‘dust’ that was even larger than itself, using the attracting force to search over the bigger piece’s body until it eventually covered his piece of ‘dust’ entirely. More information quickly flowed into the mass of dust and caused its attracting force to become more complicated.
More and more information flowed from the larger piece of ‘dust’ into the mass of dust, causing the attracting force that could only attract dust to be greatly strengthened and also formulate into a system, dictating the kind of reaction it should make towards certain received information.
As more of this information was concentrated, they also became intertwined and eventually formed the very first thought:
Who am I?
This huge mass of dust stood up, now appearing as an unfortunate person whose entire face was covered in dust.
He appeared confused as he looked around his surroundings, more and more information began to flow into his core, which formed more thoughts.
‘Aureum’. Is this me?
The dust slowly gathered and manifested into such a thought, but he quickly recognized that a name was merely a different way to call an individual.
He continued to stand there, organizing increasingly more thoughts in his mind. The original small piece of dust had gathered and concentrated enough for its attracting force to eventually form a mass of informational energy, eventually ending up as a unique closed structure.
Then, who exactly am I?
The dust Aureum thought.
…
〖 A newborn soul 〗
Negary turned his gaze away.
The soul is a mass of informational energy created through the entanglement of an [Origin] and the world’s energy, with the [Origin] being the source of universal Truth.
Having achieved a Pathway, when Negary was doing research on [Origins], he had already recognized how to create a soul for a new life form.
By stimulating a certain physical matter through Truth, as the information contained with that Truth becomes entangled with the world, a unique form of energy would be created. Following the inward flow of information from the surrounding world, the energy will eventually form thoughts and turn into a complete soul.
However, different physical matters will lead to different methods of receiving information, which determines the soul’s thinking capabilities.
The initial piece of dust was simply lucky that it received Negary’s favor, then just happened to run into a dead body that hadn’t died for very long, thus obtaining a large amount of information on that dead body. In the end, it gained an incomplete personality as well as a barely animated body together with all of its senses and a brain to serve as its core.
「 That was also his fortune 」Yayu commented as it watched from the side.
Although Yayu had learned about Negary’s greatness through the information in its soul, knowing and seeing with its own eyes were two very different experiences.
Evolving from a piece of dust to a basically normal living being in a short period of time, this abrupt change was quite shocking to any observer.
Comparatively, it was similar to turning a mortal into a Pathway Entity. Of course, while the level difference was essentially the same, the difficulty involved was nowhere near the same.
〖 It is merely a test 〗Negary didn’t feel any bit of pride from his actions.
Any Pathway Entity who had done even a little bit of research would be able to achieve the same.
However, this process wasn’t completely reliant on the String of Truth’s operational rules, as it cost the power of Negary’s own Truth.
Meanwhile, at another location in this city, inside a certain manor, a massacre was occurring.
The black-robed soldiers were mercilessly wielding their spears to reap the lives of their fellow humans.
Dolan Ashius was currently sitting in a horse carriage just outside the manor with an indifferent gaze in his eyes, bringing no one but a few of his most trusted aides with him.
The one who obtained the Bone of God was an aristocratic collector who resided in this border city. They didn’t know the exact background of this artifact, only that it was capable of creating ‘holy water’ by putting it into fresh water.
This ‘holy water’ had very potent restorative capabilities, which made it highly coveted for Pugilists.
This aristocratic family had managed to form many relations through this ‘holy water’, but because of how limited the production of ‘holy water’ was as well as its obscured backgrounds, none of the other aristocrats found it necessary to break the tacit rules between aristocrats just to obtain it.
However, this was only a tacit rule not because it couldn’t be broken, but rather because it wouldn’t be broken unless there was enough benefit involved.
Dolan subconsciously touched the gem-ornate ring on his hand. This aristocratic family’s current fortune was entirely thanks to the Bone of God, that artifact had become their roots and the source of their success, so it would be impossible for them to hand it over in a trade.
Furthermore, Dolan also didn’t have so much resource that he would be able to trade for it in a normal manner, and silently stealing something of such significance was next to impossible, thus leaving the only choice remaining an invitation to the afterlife.
…
“Wh…y…?”
In the manor, the head of the household was completely clueless about who would openly slaughter an aristocrat in the city like this. As a border city, the New Royas military was naturally stationed all around the city.
Their family also had its own forces, but they had already been suppressed one by one. Additionally, people who were capable of such a thing shouldn’t have been able to enter the city undocumented, as it was impossible for such a force to not be detected by the military who were stationed at crucial chokepoints around the city.
As evidence of this fact, the force that invaded them was powerful but nowhere near enough to fight the military, so where did they get the courage to do such a thing?
“Go ahead and ask those questions in hell!” the black-robed man wielded his knight’s sword and mercilessly swung down.
The aristocrat’s family head was unexpectedly able to see the insignia engraved on the sword’s hilt, thus opening his eyes wide: “You were…”
With a splash of blood, the head with a shocked expression rolled down to one side. The black-robed man glanced down at his own sword, noticing the exposed New Royas military insignia engraved on it.
Dolan did not mindlessly dedicate everything the Ashius family had to become the city lord of a border city just because of an obscured piece of news. The high-treason crime of embezzling and selling off military assets required his coordination as the city lord, so it made sense for them to help him eliminate a few enemies, didn’t it?
“Sir, everything has been cleaned out” the man in front of the carriage reported.
Dolan wrapped himself inside a black robe as well and began to head into the manor under the other party’s lead.
There was blood and corpses everywhere in his sight. As he walked past the body of a young boy, his steps paused briefly before he continued forward.
The tall black-robed man also emerged from the manor’s main building, throwing a rag that was still soaked in blood to the side while unsheathing his sword. If one took a closer look, they would notice that there was a small mark on the rag that a group of bandits in this region uses as their insignia.
Never mind whether or not the bandits would be so dumb as to leave their insignia behind after causing a crime, or whether a group of bandits who could only steal from regular people would be able to cause such a massacre, wouldn’t it be fine as long as a clue was left behind?
“I’ve done what you wanted. We haven’t touched a single thing in the manor. First thing in the morning, I will be using the excuse of searching for the culprit to seal off access to the city, the rest will be up to you”
The black-robed man paused as he walked past Dolan, then led his men out of the main building, guarding around the outside manor.
Dolan slightly nodded and led his aides into the manor. They quickly found a secret room by following the traces of blood and reached a small fountain. At the bottom of the fountain floated a piece of what seemed like a kind of white mineral.
“This is it! This is exactly it!”
Dolan’s eyes were full of excitement, immediately took the small fragment from the fountain and swiftly took his leave from the manor.
In the darkness, the young man Catho Jugus clenched the Ceremonial Blade in his hand tightly, not looking at the disappearing horse carriage nor trying to follow it. In fact, if he hadn’t remained completely still and fully concealed his breathing, he would have already been discovered and killed by the expert Combatants on the carriage.
No matter what, I must regain the glory of the Jugus family!
After everyone had left, Catho carefully infiltrated the manor and quickly found the small fountain, his gaze ignoring everything else.
