The Language of Uzgiyesh

Walking the distance of ten kilometers with conditions becoming worse as the sun set was definitely no easy matter. The low light made the visibility of any obstacles difficult to spot, and with the outgrowing roots from all these trees around, it was easy to scrape knees after falling repeatedly. Midas and Julio found that even if a man's knees were made of gold, he still had to bow down to Nature.

At least that was before he was capable enough to conquer it.

In the meantime, Midas had been checking his Index for the details of his skills. Julio was quietly walking behind him and based on his pensive expression, he was most probably also reading through his own skills. Midas was a bit curious, but he had big fish to fry right now.

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| Eye of Judgment (Lv. 1) |

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[View the Information of all existences in Creation]

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'Hmm… Is this like the Appraisal skill that I saw in those Japanese Manga? Pretty useful if used correctly. Let's try it.' thought Midas offhandedly while thinking of activating [Eye of Judgement].

"Argh!" growled Midas soundlessly. When he tried to invoke the Skill, he felt a terrible headache throb with ten times the intensity. Could it be that he was maybe out of Energy? The skill could not be activated for now. He had to regain the energy he lost. He could only give up on activating his Skills and try after the headache subsides.

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| Divine Database (Lv. 1) |

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[A limitless database holding all your memories and knowledge, with methods that allow access and utilisation of memories in high level ways.]

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Midas now understood how he still remembered everything that happened and this feeling of having the ability to recall things at will. Of course, Midas would still wait to see if there was more to this Skill than this passive effect.

Ever since he had used [Destiny Vision], not only did he get a splitting headache, but it seemed that he somehow had no more energy for using these skills. Midas wondered why there was no visible stat for the Energy that was used to activate skills. Would that mean there just has to be some estimation from the Chosen themselves on how much a Skill can be used?

Also what is the Energy that makes Skills run? He could only use [Divine Vision] for two seconds before he almost fainted. If that was true for every Skill, then he had to find out ways to make the Energy last longer. He had to be more efficient in his usage from now on. If he found himself in a dangerous situation, one mistake could mean incapacitation, or worse, death.

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| Memory of the World (Lv. 1) |

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[Access the memory of of any Existence based on some conditions]

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'What conditions are those..? Needs to be thoroughly researched. Sounds powerful' thought Midas.

He moved on to the Authority Skills next. Midas was a bit excited to see what the Ex Rank skills were about as these could be his trump cards.

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| Eye of Truth (Lv. 1) |

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[See through all Illusions, make the Profound into the Simple, turn the big into the small, and the small into Nothing.]

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'Another Eye skill? Cool. See through all illusions, that would most definitely be useful.'

Midas wondered how all of this worked. He remembered he woke up a few hours ago in real time and ever since then everything he thought he knew about reality had been turned upside down. He felt this need to learn about how these Skills worked. He wanted to know everything about them, who created them, why, how… It was like he was back in the library again. His need to devour information was still there, now stronger than ever.

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| Hidden Divinity (Lv. 1) |

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[Hide Information from the World. Change Information in Creation. Deceive the Universe.]

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'What?? No way. This sounds way too scary for me to even begin thinking about what it means', thought Midas while trying to calm his heart rate. There was no way he couldn't be affected after reading that description. A 'low level being' like him could deceive the Universe?

What did that even mean?

Midas had no idea but he couldn't stop himself from smiling creepily at the ideas that were roving in his mind.

Julio saw the perverted smile on Midas' face and wanted to ask him what was up, but after thinking about it some more, he decided against it. He still didn't know why they changed direction in the first place. This guy was always acting mysterious. What a kid.

'Okay we already know the description for [Destiny Vision], so no need to look through it again. Let's move on.'

Midas thought about his Skills and how they could help him in the short term. [Eye of Judgement] and [Memory of the World] would be incredibly useful if they actually showed the information of existences in creation. Midas imagined that maybe he could find out if a plant was poisonous or not or an animal was carnivorous or not using these two skills. Maybe he could even use them to analyse people…

After thinking this far, Midas turned to look at Julio who was currently looking around as if he saw something.

"There is a clearing up ahead. Do you see it?" asked Julio.

"Yeah, a clearing? I think you're right. Let's hurry before we lose light.", said Midas, picking up his pace, to which Julio nodded and sped up his pace too. Midas continued thinking over the possible use cases of his skills while exploring.

By the time he was done mulling over the implications of his Skills, they had already exited the forest and entered the clearing. There was still ankle high grass everywhere in the space of a few hundred metres, but there was a monument here. A large white stone tablet stood at 4 metres with golden engravings on it.

"Whoa…" Julio stood there with wonder in his eyes. The Tablet was perfectly carved and when the light of the setting sun hit the white and the gold, the symbols seemed to almost pop out of the surface. It was an otherworldly sight.

"Holy shit. So cool." said Midas with a cool smile on his face. This was the place. This was where Destiny Vision was leading him to.

"What's so special about this place?" asked Julio, looking around. Midas had already looked and saw that other than the stone tablet in the middle of the clearing there was nothing much here. He stepped forward to touch the statue, maybe hoping for something to happen, but was disappointed to find out that there was no announcement from his Index. He looked closer at those engravings.

"I don't know… Yet.", said Midas as he began his investigations. Some thing about those engravings stood out to him…

Those engravings seem to be that same type of engravings that were seen on the Shrine. Midas' intuition was right. Previously, as he first lay eyes on the Statue, he had felt like those beautiful three dimensional engravings were a whole language. He wasn't sure until he opened the First Holy Book and saw that Contents page.

After thinking so far, Midas immediately opened the First Holy Book again to confirm his hypothesis.

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|The First Holy Book |

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Testament Zero: The Language of Uzgiyesh

ኲኪኴኲሃኳኪኡኲ ጤኡኪ

ኲኪኴኲሃኳኪኡኲ ኲየየጤ

…

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And right there, those same 3 dimensional markings were on the book. He tried to open up the second Chapter and what greeted him was nothing but obscure text.

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| ኲኪኴኲሃኳኪኡኲ ጤኡኪ |

ኒጤጣኪኳ ሀጢኴየኳ ካጤኒጤጣ ኴሀኲ ሃኳኪኲ, ሣጤኡኴኪሣኲኪኲየጣ ሃካሀጢሀኴሣሀኡህ ኪኒሀኲ. ኡየኒኒሃ የኪኑሀሣየኒሃ ሀጢኴየኳ የሀኲሃኪ ኪኡሀኳ ኳሃኲኲሀኴ ሢሃሣሀኒሀኴሀኴ. ካየሀኴ ኲኪኳጢጤጣ ሀጢኴየኳ.

ኡየኒኒሃ ኡኪሣ የኪኒሀኲ ሣጤኳኳጤካጤ, ጢጤጣኲኲሀኲጤጣ ኲጤጣኲጤጣ የሀኲሃኪ, ሃየሣኲጤጣ ኒኪሣኲየኴ. የኪኴኲሀቧየኒየኳ ጢኪኒኒኪኡኲኪኴቈየኪ ሀካ ኪሇ የኲ ጣየኲጣየኳ. ካጤኡኪሣ ጢየኒየሀኡሃጣ ኴኪኳጢኪጣ ኡሀኴኒ, የኲ የሀየኪጣጣሃ ሀጢኴየኳ ሢጣሀኡህሀኒኒሃ ኪኲ. የኪኴኲሀቧየኒየኳ ኲጣሀኴኲሀቈየኪ ኡሀቧኑ የኲ ኳሃህኡሃ ካሀሣኲየኳ የየኒጢየኲሃኲኪ.

…

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What is this? Midas found that the longer he looked at it, the more dizzy he became. That combined with the headache he was sporting made his nauseous and even more dizzy. He immediately swiped the page away.

Terrifying.

The worst thing was that there seemed to be pages and pages of this text, with millions of pages worth of text in only what seemed to be the first 'Testament'.

Testament 0 was in English though. Why was chapter 0 in English?

"The Language of Uzgiyesh…" said Midas while comparing the symbols in the First Holy Book with the symbols on the White Stone Slab.

Could it be…

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| Testament Zero: The Language of Uzgiyesh |

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Introduction

History

Phonology

Morpho-Phonology

Morphology

Affixes

Adjuncts

Referential System

Constructions

Syntax

Writing System

Symbology

Numbering System

Lexicon

Dictionary

Appendices

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Of course…

Testament 0 was an introduction to the Language, it was just a course on understanding the grammar and structure. When Midas counted the amount of content there was, he was excited to discover that there were more than 20 million pages worth of content.

How could he be excited about that… What a pervert.

Midas' mind roved through the meanings of these pieces of information.

Midas found himself in a survival situation where one misstep could lead to his death. He used [Destiny Vision], and it showed him a world of grey with the one shining light being this Stone Tablet in front of him. He found that the Stone Tablet had symbols on it, the very same symbols that were found on the Shrine and in the First Holy Book. Then finally, he found out that the first Testament of the First Holy Book was a Grammatical Description Book of the Language of Uzgiyesh, which turns out to be the same language that has its written form in the form of three dimensional symbols.

This meant, at least to Midas, there was at least one of two things [Destiny Vision] was probably telling him.

1. Learn The Language

2. Decipher the Tablet

As far as Midas was concerned, these two things are actually one thing. If he was to learn the language, he needed some writings that would make it easier for him to immerse himself in the language. As he had recently learned in the Test for the Second Gift, he learns multiple times faster when he's fully immersed.

But… Was this the right thing to do? How could deciphering a tablet give him the ability to survive this place?

Should Midas spend his time learning this language? It seems like a lot, and although Midas is intelligent, he did not want to waste time. His life was on the line, every moment counts.

Midas thought about his vision of this place. He had seen a place that he had no idea existed from a great distance away. It was no coincidence for him to reach here. This place must be special. His instincts were telling him to stay. His instincts were also telling him to trust his [Destiny Vision] and his deductions.

He couldn't be sure if this was the right thing to do at all. But he trusted his instincts. And his instincts were currently telling him that he was in the right place.

"I think I figured it out. But I'm not sure. Anyway this is an important place Julio. Why don't we set up camp here? What do you think?" said Midas while turning to Julio.

"How do you know? Shouldn't we stay in the North side? I heard there is a river there, we need water to survive."

"You're right there too, we do need water. And for that I have a suggestion… What if we created a way to collect water and carry it long distance?" said Midas with a mesmerising smile.

"You can do that?" asked Julio incredulously.

"Julio, I won't lie to you, me coming here was just based on my instincts and intuition, but I think this place is important. So I'm going to stay here. If you wanna stay with me, then we can work together. If you don't, then I won't blame you. You can go to the North side and live with the rest of them. But I would really appreciate it if you stayed. So? What do you think, my friend? Are you staying or leaving?"

Midas stood before Julio with a resolute expression on his face.

"..."

"You already know my answer Midas. You think you can find some good stuff and chase me away, you bastard!!" said Julio with a big smile on his face.

"Hahaha!"

"Pfft Hahaha!"

"Oh yeah, did you check out the other pages, Midas?"

"Yeah, the Statistics page is basically information on the Trial and what is happening inside it." Said Midas while willing the Statistics page to materialise itself.

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| Index | Network || Statistics || Library |

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Number of Chosen: 3000

Trial of Self

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| Trial 1: The Trial of Self |

Number of Chosen who Qualified: 3000

Number of Chosen who are Currently Partaking: 2977

Number of Chosen who Completed: 0

Number of Chosen who Expired: 23

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Trial of Life and Death

Trial of Vitality

Trial of Heart

Trial of Will

Trial of Mind

Trial of Being

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It effectively showed the number of Chosen in a given trial at a time. Clearly there were no Chosen who had decided to go to the next Trial yet. And apparently, there were 23 people who had their heads exploded back then. Midas still felt shivers down his spine when he thought back to that moment.

"Oh yeah, why don't we add each other on our Networks?" said Midas. He had already familiarised himself with the Index on their quiet journey here. He was going to ask sooner or later, and figured that now might be the time to use it properly as a practice on how to use the Index to build alliances with people in the future.

"I was going to ask you about that. It's great that you reminded me. How do we use the Network Page?" asked Julio, puzzled.

"Okay, as long as you can navigate to it, then you can see a page there with your Name on it right? I'll do it first while explaining it to you."

Midas then navigated to the Network page.

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| Index || Network || Statistics | Library |

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-> Midas Mira

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What he saw was his own name there. After testing things out for a bit, he realised that he could send messages to himself telepathically. He figured this might be useful as a diary of some sort. Midas mused that since the Index works with intentions, then it might be possible to send his Network details to other people so that they may be able to send him messages. He would finally test this out.

Midas then said, "Now, I think you just focus on your own name with the intent of sending it to another person, possibly like this…"

"Oh!" exclaimed Julio. In an excited manner, he then continued," I'm seeing a notification saying 'Midas Mira sent you his Network details. Accept?'"

"That's great. I think you need to accept."

"Okay, I've accepted them. Now what?" asked Julio.

"Well try sending me a message. Also do it with your mind. Think of a message, then think of sending it to the contact." said Midas with a laugh.

"Okay. I'll try to use telepathy right now… And…" Julio closed his eyes and crossed his fingers in anticipation

Midas then saw a blue panel materialise in front of him.

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| Notification |

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Julio Gabriel Morales has sent you their Network details and a message. Accept?

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Midas accepted in his mind, and then his Network page changed with the addition of Julio's name.

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| Index || Network || Statistics | Library |

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-> Midas Mira

-> Julio Gabriel Morales

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Midas was immediately astonished. He had seen way too many magical things in ths time period, and this was just the icing on the cake for him. He immediately willed the idea of sending the message "Yes, I can see it clearly, dummy." to Julio.

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| Julio Gabriel Morales |

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Julio: Hey brother. Are you seeing this?

Midas: Yes, I can see it clearly, dummy.

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And then immediately:

"Hey, who are you calling a dummy?!" said Julio in mock anger.

"What are you talking about? I never said anything." said Midas. Meanwhile, he was thinking about what else could be sent through this messaging system. It did not seem to be simple at all. He would just have to find out later.

"Pssh, fuck! You're the dummy! You dummy!"

Midas laughed and Julio giggled by himself, but suddenly Julio turned towards the forest as if he sensed something. Midas recognised this and also stepped forwards vigilantly.

"Eh… There's a clearing here too."

"Wow, it's pretty."

"Hey, what's that? A Wall?"

"There are people here already."

Five people stepped out of the woods and into the clearing, they were all women of seemingly European descent. One of them, a black haired girl stepped forward and asked while looking at the Stone Tablet:

"Hey guys, did you find anything?"