Chapter 32 - Hallucination -
I never expected to have to stop my hunt because I started hallucinating. The poison from the snail is strange. It starts with boiling pain, then stabbing, itching, searing, freezing, all the painful sensations one by one, and now I am stuck in a hallucination.
I had Ammit make a breathing bag so I can relax my mind, at least from this. Lucky for me, I do not need to go back up to breathe since my stomach contains a spacious pocket of air. Stuff just floats in there, no directions. Khonsu thought we were stupid, not thinking about this, but I do not see what it is like in there myself! Now we can use it as storage, never having to carry a pack anymore.
The twin with the Bright god name is grumpy, and the one with the Dark god name is a little angel. Chuckle.
I manage to make this a rewarding experience. I am not an expert on drugs, but LSD was used to treat patients who suffered from post-traumatic disorders and deep trauma. Since my mind is split in five, that can count as trauma. It did kind of let us individualize. Native Americans used to take mushrooms and sage (salvia divinorum) during rituals to communicate with the other world. In Peru, one of the remaining rituals for extra-corporeal experiences consists of eating peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus, then being buried in the darkness for days.
You could say hallucinogens can help open the third eye. In my case, it has been sleeping with Amy. I cannot use much perception and power myself at the moment. Only Khonsu has access to my full power. I suspect he relates to some other factors, not bound by the material world. Sigh.
Amy has control of my subconscious, which means one hundred percent of the brain capacity, in theory. Though, even she has to use automatic thinking. Our brain can do a lot without our knowledge. Have you ever driven for a while and felt like you just woke up, but your eyes were open all the time, and you did not get into an accident? Doing your homework and once you are done, you feel like you are revitalized, when a second ago you were half asleep.
Anyway, it is not exactly what I am doing. In my case, I kind of got enlightened. If I forget about all the bullshit my sedated mind came up with, I also let go of a lot of knots in my heart and head. I revisit old memories and come up with a different perspective. It was a deep introspection that lasted until I got tired and wandered around in my thoughts uselessly. Once you lose this enlightenment lode, that rich mineral vein, it feels like it is now gone and you need to search elsewhere, rather than forcing any enlightenments.
I open my eyes, and I can now at least continue my journey. I want to get used to this poison, as it is the best training I can find for this type of thing. It is a poison of the soul, mind, and body. Very deadly and very insidious. Just thinking about it makes me shiver. Now, fewer things will hurt me once I am done, aside from pure physical damage, facing higher physical energy than mine, or soul power. Well, let us not be reckless. Maybe more deadly poisons can exist after all. Still, it can poison a fish a few thousand times its size in under a minute.
Luckily, I never touched anything in here except the water and the first big fish. The space in my belly does not get affected by the poisons unless I actively digest the thing. There is a shell, like Scyther's, in the mountain of the tough body parts. I warned the others not to touch it, just in case. I guess it cannot poison itself. Otherwise, I would be dead, or I would have sensed it before I ate it. Or perhaps it was dead already, so the snail poison only remains in the shell spikes.
With my vision shrinking and inflating, like in some syrupy water or Alice in Wonderland, I make my way into the other caves. Before eating my next prey, a giant sea serpent, I pray for an enlightenment like the one I had earlier. Of course, I know it is useless to pray since god is dead here.
Instead, I choose Thoth, the Keeper of Records. Maybe he is still alive. From my understanding of the knowledge he left behind, he was human and became a god on his own effort. He literally explains a way to accomplish this feat. Of course, it is all the Egyptian stuff which is outdated today. It involves things like aligning yourself to the tributary Nile and basking in the ascending sun. Today, you would simply say that when you get up in the morning, look east and circulate your energy to absorb the sunlight, following the dantian.
To me, they were great scientists that we cannot compare to. They were groomed for hundreds of years before birth. They had no self from the beginning. They had no sin, either, since they had to be judged. The heart had to be lighter than a feather. This was a godhood trial, and if you failed to pass, Ammit would devour your soul. Of course, it is interpreted by the Roman leaders as something everybody has to do, or else they go to hell.
Now in this world, it seems to me like there is no line between godhood and a regular human. It is not like heaven or hell. It is all real, factual, and present. There are Titans, Ancient Races, Fairies, Dragons, Phoenixes, Sphinxes, and heck, even talking hedgehogs. Heh heh heh.
You die, and then you come back to life, fresh and with no memories. If you did good, it is here on Yollan; if not, you end up on Dehalle. Maybe I can know how this happens someday.
I beat the sea serpent with Khonsu's help, which is practically useless, as the cost is as much as the harvest. I could not pierce the snake skin with Scyther's shell. It only got knocked around a bit, and so did I.
After the energy attack landed on the snake, it made a hole in his flank. It was nothing fatal, but a connection formed with Ammit. We could feel the residual energy which came from her. The snake was immobilized and sucked inside in half a second before it could start to move again.
(I guess if you do not put up a barrier, use your power, or do something, you are doomed to end up in my stomach.)
Luckily, even in my state, Khonsu can help me avoid getting lost and practice his abilities.
I keep poking monsters and poisoning myself for three days. Eventually, my mind could resist the hallucinations and the other effects, which felt similar to a general anesthesia mixed with rubbing alcohol. Bes told me that if I was a normal person who could not absorb vital energy, I would be dead for a hundred years' worth of lifespan. He also said my year is a lot more expensive than that of normal humans.
It feels like cultivation, but with chemistry, physics, and even technology mixed in. Let us call it Divine Bio Mechanics: Mind and soul over body and matter.
As my gonads keep being corroded and regenerated stronger, as are the seven power-related glands, I think about this new subject.
~~Warning~~ Science and Philosophy Ahead.
Sometimes, after a successful brain part ablation, the brain will cope by using its thought process to fill in the gap. You do not notice it, as we supposedly only use ten percent of the brain capacity. (Watch the movie "Lucy" with Scarlett Johansson).
As I said before, the optical nerve, in theory, should cast a dark spot in our vision since no receptors are there. However, the brain fills it in so we do not have an annoying spot in our vision. You can check this by making a piece of paper with two dots and slowly putting one dot in the "blind spot." This is the result of the ninety percent "dormant" or subconscious part filling the gap.
In my case, I can feel every part that has not been poisoned yet slowly getting corroded and regenerated in a cycle. It is like the worst cold fever. It is not only affecting the physical but the mental and spiritual aspects too. At least my Mindscape is safe. It is way too complex and powerful for anything to affect it on this level of beings.
But imagine your adrenal gland getting spooked like this. You get high, boosted, and then down, exhausted, all in a loop.
The pancreas burns, but Ammit covers that like the best antacid, preventing me from kneeling in pain.
The thymus gland is associated with "my" part of the split mind. It is like a second brain that regulates growth and a lot of other factors. Connected to the brain and heart, when burned like this, it makes you live through literal hell. The feelings of hate and despair fill your mind and soul, even if you logically cannot find the reason why. If I did not have a philosophy on suicide, I would have contemplated it. (Maybe tweaking that and taking an anger management class? Just a thought.) There is also euphoria and hope in the loop, but they do not feel good or right.
The thyroid is responsible for expressing yourself. Depression and pessimism, or hyper-excitation and optimism, can come from it. (Lots of overreactions come from it, or from blabbermouths.) It is like a mix of adrenal and thymus glands, but separated from the two. You can mix hope and pessimism, hate and overreactions.
The pineal gland causes hallucinations and is related to perception.
The last one, the pituitary gland, leaves me perplexed. It is related to and master of all, but slave to all at the same time. The DNA is giving it its form, but the essence is ageless. It is also related to the soul and the last chakra point, the crown, the soul power. Its location is lower in the body than the pineal gland, but related to the top crown chakra point. Egyptians knew these things. They were good at anatomy and geometry. Better than this.
In a normal human living on Earth, a trauma at a young age induces mutations in the glands related to the emotions or body state. This means with a nice scanner, you could detect child abuse through a scan of the body waves, hormones, shape, etc. For me, it was the heart or the thymus gland that was screwed. I barely felt love and still have a hard time expressing it. In this life, it is like the dam broke. I can certainly feel it. (My isolation did not help at first, but the girls let me feel a lot of love.)
With all this enlightening me and the intake of energy, I can feel all these points coordinating and harmonizing with each other. The poison is a real blessing in disguise. I can make a clear picture of every part of my body and their functions, only because of the deep introspection caused by the hallucinations.
Right now, I just let my mind brush these ideas and store them as best as I can. Once Amy wakes up, she will uncover more. I take frequent fifteen-minute naps to "save" the information. (Doing something new before sleeping makes you fifty percent faster at learning than in any other part of the day. Sleep and dreams are a saving memories application provided by nature. Of course, many other things happen while you sleep.)
I let the chaos and order come and go and my body adapt. This is the DNA of origin, which is in all of us. Where there is construction, there must be destruction. Entropy is the enemy of time, and time brings life and stories. Space is the medium. It can contain entropy and time, bending itself many folds to split them apart in duality, letting both exist at the same time. New Laws "birth themselves" endlessly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End of Rant.
Once I am done sorting myself, I feel lighter and more resistant. In the next phase of the poisoning, which is direct poisoning, I go through the same thing stronger, but I can prepare myself for it mentally, knowing what is coming.
After I can withstand the poison, I finally tame the snail, or Scyther. Now that my power flows into him, he can also live in my stomach space. He actually eats its species' shells and cleans up any types of poisons in there, then goes to sleep.
Now Ammit can clean her room safely! Chuckle.
("Smooth...")
Now I go back to eating. Seeing Scyther eating poison like this makes me a bit more confident in myself. Without any help, I can eat anything around, not getting poisoned in the process. I did eat some before, but nothing like Scyther's poison, which also targets the soul. I guess I did have some resistance. My control got good with space. I do not have to open my mouth to eat. I make a tiny space tunnel through my nasal cavity.
I can transport things close to the speed of light from inside and out of my stomach. However, I cannot transport myself. Within a fifty-meter range, I can wrap space around something and ignore its power level, then transport it to my stomach space. They just have to stay inside the bubble and not have space-bending capabilities above my own. Once in my stomach, food gets compressed and killed by Ammit, or Scyther if he feels like it. He is like the plague for everybody except Ammit. I wonder what her body is made from? She can create spikes out of thin air, as the space contains elements that I ate, even metals. It is like inside there, she "is" the space, but out of my body, she can only alter her own physical form.
I took care of hundreds of cubic kilometers in the cave, so this time, I ask Shelly to bring me somewhere else in the open ocean with lots of strong fish. She saw the amount that went inside me and thought of only one place close by.
We go to find whales, or whaleoid hybrids. They gather around a giant volcanic reef, which I call "The Fake Continent," to eat the microplankton that thrives endlessly here. This might sound normal, but the scale is incredible.
For thousands of kilometers, you cannot see in the water. They use their sonars to travel. Where you can actually spot them from outside the clouds of dust, you can see shoals of fish gyrating a hundred stories high. Small and huge fish, some the size of a building, seem to only care about plankton. I rub my hands in delight.
I tell Shelly to just go in a straight line while I grab onto her shell, and I eat all I come close to on the path. This time I am close to my breakthrough. Once I feel like I will lose control soon, I gather a giant ball of concentrated fish energy, Yang, and matter in my stomach. I seal it in space for later, which is easy to do but only inside of me, and then I go back to the shore.
I ate a lot of fish...
I set up a camp, then I pull everybody who can leave my body out. Shelly has a nice beach island Mindscape; at her age, it is pretty normal. So I put Gary and Barabas in there.
Only two are left. Bes cannot leave, and Amy is sleeping. But on second thought, I tell Khonsu to find my Sella Turcica, the pituitary gland's pea-sized bone cavity in the skull, through my Mindscape. This is something I did not know before I evolved and my Mindscape was not yet created. The access to my body is like a tangled mess of memories, not a 3D map of it. It is because the brain stores information in a mysterious way, touching memories while the right connections form, all while we look like a zombie walking across the Mindscape.
He finds it where I was attacked, in the limestone scar that the monster left behind. Phasing through it, he travels in the darkness for a while and finds a broken temple. In it, there is a broken ceiling. Through the hole, he can see the stars. Though, just him being here starts to repair the temple in clean, white limestone. Once the hole is closed, darkness falls in the temple. Braziers of six colors flicker around, with a seventh purple one lighting up weakly. The place looks pretty like this.
Khonsu falls on the ground and finds that he is tangible, and it feels good for him. He feels at home.
Ammit, inside my stomach, is fine there, touching the pancreas. Now, all that is part of me is there, in its rightful place. I unleash the stored energy slowly.
Crick. The sound of glass creaking.
Amy: UPDATE... UPDATE... UPDATE... UPDATE... UPDATE... HPDAHUPDHUPHPHUPHUHUHUHUUUUHHHH...
Glass shattering sound.
Amy's eyes shoot open, and she starts levitating in the center of my Mindscape.
Amy: ANALYSIS.
Buzzz!
I feel like I am being shocked by a hundred volts through my spine. She currently scans my body in various ways, primarily involving my power circulating in each channel at incredible speeds. I shake, spasm, and what have you, until the current becomes aligned with all the most sensible paths.
My mouth is open wide, drooling, eyeballs rolled back. I can feel every piece of fiber in my body. From organs, muscles, and skin, to nails and hair. Every damned cell gets connected to the third eye and resonates with the outside world. Information is being crammed in at one hundred percent capacity. Then:
Baboom!
My heart beats loudly and is like a door in space that closed with a bang, and then I am back to myself. Amy is floating, eyes wide open. It seems like she is not done yet.
I am pretty sure it is my imagination, but I feel like fumes are coming out of me, like steam from a hot towel. I am drenched in sweat, too. There is no usual black stinky stuff from the xianxia novels? Is it Ammit's doing? Hehehe.
Still, after a dip like this... It has been months since I left. I feel bad for Tenka and the company. They can deal with a lot now, but I should go back. I will find out what is what later.
I prepare my things to go back home, but suddenly, a blue panel appears in front of me.
("Welcome to your new system!")
("Would you like a tutorial?")
Of course, this is Amy's voice reading the floating text in front of my eyes.
"Yes, please!"
Amy: ("Please note that communicating out loud with me will make you look crazy! Giggle.")
("Good to see that you haven't lost your humanity.")
Amy: ("It is complicated. You could not really call me human. I am more of a High Human with no body of my own, or something else. Just like you are not a 'human' per se, but more of a High Human. Your DNA expands on the humanoid branch of evolution. Especially since you have 'special' blood to begin with.")
("I won't turn furry, right?")
Amy: ("Giggle. Who knows? Elnora looks human enough. Would you like to see your status? I warn you, we are missing a lot of intel. It is subject to change when new information is collected. I compiled what you saw in your past for now, and left any speculation aside. And yes, to answer your question, while talking with you, I have to slow myself down by nine hundred percent.")
Sam: "Sure! Show me my stats!"
Sam's Status
Race: High Human
(Note: 1 is the value of one normal human amount of power, just awakened. The first number is the current value, and the second is the potential achievable currently.)
[Physical Rating - ???]
(Physical rating is the age, constitution, strength, etc. Noted as letters instead of numbers.)
[STR - 60/180]
(How much can you lift?)
[END - 50/140]
(How long can you carry it?)
[AGI - 60/120]
(Speed, flexibility, physical part of nerve reaction. That value includes shifting organs or dislocating a member without tearing, bone flexibility, etc. Like the fish tail in the previous chapters.)
[DEX - 30/200]
(Hand-eye coordination, synapse speed, thought processing/reaction speed. Which is currently inhibited by many physical factors.)
[CHA - 20/200]
(Twenty times a normal human is sexy enough to seduce normal women, but it is not godly. People would go to war for a spot in one of the godlings' harems...)
[VIT - ~1500 years]
(Normal human lifespan is much lower.)
[Mental Rating - (F---)]
("Hey, we have a multiple personality disorder on a whole new, unexplored magnitude!")
[Alignment: Chaotic/Good]
[INT - ~500/???]
(Stored knowledge)
[WIT - ~100/3000]
(Instant knowledge)
[ME - 30/1000]
(Mental Energy "Fatigue")
[Spiritual Rating - ???]
SPI - 1000/???
(Spirit or Soul strength. A thousand times stronger than a normal person.)
WIL - 100/???
(Will power. Who would play with a poison snail that can send you to hell?)
BEL - 536
(Believers)
Others Ratings - ???
REP - 566
(How many know you by name or appearance.)
POP - :-) + 533 / :-( -33
(How liked you are.)
INF - 36
(Influence over others' lives.)
KAR - +5~
(Karma. You help people, and although killing is evil, the bad Karma holders grant you good Karma because of the potential to do bigger evil. This is the flawed rule of this world. It judges who goes to hell. Because of the constant war and influence, you need to be in the minus to go to hell, like minus five. Again, this counts the sins of five people. Of course, you could be good and still make big mistakes.)
Skills
Hell Chains: 70%
Space Compression: 50%
Pocket Space (Stomach): 20%
(Ammit) Dissolve & Absorb: 20%
Advanced Perception: 30%
Physical Energy Wielding: 40%
Vital Energy Wielding: 1%
Mental Energy Wielding: 10%
Soul Energy Wielding: 5%
Law Manipulation: 2%
(Bes) Survival Instinct: 20%
(Khonsu) Calorie Cannon: 10%
(Amy) A.I. System: ???%
("From what I see, my body is still very weak compared to my soul. My mind is also weak for now.")
Amy: ("It should be because of the time you spent between your past life and now. Who knows how long you were drifting like Elnora said?")
("Okay, not bad, but why do you say I am good? I am more like neutral. Pragmatic, one would say. And, believers, really?")
Amy: ("Compared to this world's morals, you are on the upper spectrum of the good side. You are not willing to enslave anything, even a bug, for example.")
("I might enslave Mily. XD")
Amy: ("Giggle. See, you feel bad just saying it, even though she is willing. Your biggest flaw was your laziness in your past life. Now, with this body, you do not feel tired and you do good. You plan to do good in the future, too.")
("Argh! Fine, I am good...")
Amy: ("Giggle. For the believers, this is the approximation of the number of people who I can feel positive mental energy from. Be careful. It is like public opinion; it can shift fast. I do not know the effect yet.")
("Who are all these five hundred people?!")
Amy: ("The fairies are some, and there are others. Elnora and her... friends...")
("Most of all! How are you, Amy?")
Amy: ("Not good... I am slow... in pain...")
I try to close the blue window by will alone, and it works.
("Amy, let go of the hard work for now. The first task for you, and take it slowly, is to find herbs to calm your pain. I am sure we can find something.")
I look at Shelly, pat her head, and pass her a bit of my vitality.
(-100 Red / +500 Green)
"I do not know if we will see each other again. Probably... If I am hungry again, I will come back. Heh heh heh. There should be a Guardian here, like Elnora, right? If you can find him and tell him about my appetite, who knows what he will say?"
She nods and just turns around without looking back. In her long turtle life, she must have parted ways a lot of times already.
(No worries, I can always find her...)
So, I turn around too, making my way back home.