Ch 12 – Traversing the Infinite Realities

As his soul slowly slips through a different reality altogether that transcends space-time, he slowly felt his soul about to enter the reincarnation cycle that he already experimented with a few decades ago and even at the literal start of his journey in that stomach of the titan he controlled in the future to eat his past self.

He still remembers how for one split second while in that stomach acid, his body actually died and when he finally regained his consciousness as a soul, he was already about to leave the mortal plane and get reincarnated.

But in the nick of time, he uses his Load ability and returns back to his body with ragged breaths and that's when his hope slowly went back to him.

The other moment was when he changed his body from human to Eldian, the moment he chopped off his head, his soul left his body for a split second but also went back when his head lands on the beheaded neck.

And that's why he has full confidence in reincarnation, it's because he already did see proof of its existence.

'Let's hope I don't lose my memories or my cheat, but even if I did, I could keep in my mind that I never died, I just changed into another being in another life.' He thought, and as he was about to enter that other reality where souls are reincarnated, he suddenly felt a boom going off and cracks in space-time being made which made his soul get pushed off course towards one of those rifts.

'W-what's happening?!' he thought, his soul rapidly shooting towards the rift in space-time which made his soul eyes widen in fear.

And as he was about to hit load to descend back into the mortal plane, the rift suddenly widens and as his whole vision went blank, his soul enters the rift into an unknown place.

(An Unknown Amount of Time Later)

"Nobody leave, everybody stay. Nobody leave, everybody stay," a loud speaker repeats, and as the voice of a very familiar man enters a certain young boy's ear, his eyes open wide along with him profusely coughing.

"W-what's happening? F-Freidrich Braun? Titans? Going on space adventures with grandpa Rick? Argh!" shouts the boy as he slams his head down to the ground from the sheer amount of memories entering his mind, his eyes going bloodshot with his own personality being overtaken by the sheer magnitude of the other set of memories have that has lived for centuries, but more than that, the memories that being also has that he gained from connecting with a whole race of people.

And soon, the slamming stops as he raises his bruised head with a calm gaze, glancing around the area in a calculating manner.

'It seems like the reincarnation still succeeded and I took over this boy's body when he was on the brink of death.' He thought, glancing at the dead Rick in front of him, his own Rick that he went on adventures with through the multiverse.

'This man, Rick… he's a dangerous individual… But that portal gun, it might be just my one way out to new lands!' he thought, standing up with difficulty and glancing at the floating screen that suddenly appears right beside him.

Ignoring the screen, he hastily glances around the area and soon, he finds them, Rick C-137 and his Morty, the Rickest Rick of them all as he was called.

Hastily grabbing a portal gun from his own dead Rick that got killed by tentacles, he watches C-137 and his Morty jumping down a hole, and without hesitation, he rushes towards it with a perfectly calm mind.

Peeking through the hole, he watches them drop down into a cave-like area and closely listens to their voice.

"What is the Central Finite Curve?" Morty asks while they walk away from the hole sneakily, but Braun still manages to hear their voice.

'Central Finite Curve?' Braun thought, intrigued at what seemed to be something important and after another glance, he sees them far away from the hole that he drops down without making any noise.

As he follows them, he glances around the area with wide eyes full of wonder, and as he browses through his new memory that he slowly organizes to not cluster his mind, he remembers what kind of being Rick is.

'A man who has literally reached the level of a God through his own mind and science. A power I could attain without any reliance on otherworldly forces but with enough studying, if only I can find a database of their studies and save it, then I could later have that literal Akashic Records for myself that holds the universe's smartest man's knowledge.' He thought, slowly walking through the cave-like area and seeing a whole slew of Ricks wearing clothes unfitting for what is supposed to be the "Universe's smartest man".

'How ironic, to be the smartest man only to get enslaved by yourself through capitalism. But they have a vastly different mind compared to mine so they must have a drastically different worldview.' He thought, continuing to sneak around while his body worsens but he must stay as a Morty to not alert anyone, and he doesn't know if they have any way of detecting the change in space-time when he reloads his body back so he must stay as cautious as possible to Rick.

'Just being able to make a portal gun that allows an individual to travel between universes, this would take me eons to even comprehend. Just the sheer intelligence Rick must have would be much more than a galaxy size quantum computer, how does a human mind even reach that level?' he wonders, silently trailing the duo in front of him that argues back and forth about trust.

As he watches them slowly descend down a set of stairs, he uses his ability gained from countless Eldian assassins to the maximum to lower his presence and slowly sneaks to them, hearing their conversation with his ear perking up.

"I-I don't want to do this anymore if I don't get straight answers from you," Morty said as he waits in anticipation for what might happen.

"God damn it!" Rick said, and as Braun peeks over, he watches Rick put his hand on his lab coat taking out a weird pin-like object.

"Here's my fucking downloaded brain, Morty. You want to jump the shark? You want to know my stupid crybaby backstory? Knock yourself out." Rick said, and with Morty grabbing it unexpectedly, his eyes widen in surprise. "No- not now!"

As Rick shouts, Morty went to stab the pin on his neck causing his eyes to roll to the back of his mind, making Rick sigh in response, crouching down, he picks up Morty from the ground and put him over his shoulder to carry, ignoring the pin device that falls to the ground and left it alone, continuing his descent down the stairs to reach whatever it was that was down there.

But what he didn't notice was the being who has gained the memories of billions of Eldians cumulatively that managed to escape Rick's attention and looks at the pin on the ground with ragged breaths.

'T-the memories… the memories of Rick! Fuck it! I don't care if that's going to have a multitude of traps! If I lost it now, then I might as well kill myself right here!' Braun shouts in his mind, waiting for Rick to be far enough and with shaking legs, he crawls down the stairs and grabs the pin with haste, and hastily crawls far away from the stairs with dilating eyes.

'I-it's mine! I actually now have it in my hands!' Braun shouts, entering the hole on the wall that he found while crawling around and as he crouches in that claustrophobic space, he nears the pin on his neck and closed his eyes, preparing to gain the memories of the smartest man in the world.

'If what I suspect is true, then this will be more of like a video instead of direct memories that will have that disconnection, not allowing me to gain Rick's personal experience and instead gain a whole slew of memories I could learn by myself, kind of like when I gain an Eldian's memory, it's like a very realistic first-person virtual reality video. He must have done this to prevent Morty's brain from exploding and to not make Morty a Rick by overwriting his personality.' Braun thought, setting his expectations so that he can be calmer when it's all finished.

With a deep breath, he stabs the pin to his neck without hesitation making his shoulders slump down, and now, his expectations were indeed true as he was now Rick but there was still that disconnection in the back of his mind that makes these memories more of like a very realistic video where he can feel, taste, touch, all of that jazz but never enter the mind of Rick, only a video that plays through his eyes.

But even with that, Braun's mind was enlightened, reaching a genius that could be considered a once in a millennia prodigy from the tidbits of knowledge he was able to garner and gain from the memories that went on for years.

From birth to the present, Braun was able to see and experience all of that but there were many things he wasn't able to grasp like a very difficult algorithm in math that even if you try, you are not able to learn the thing after spending hours trying to understand it.

But Braun remained calm, just from the ones he did understand changed his whole worldview, and his intelligence skyrocketed through the roof, it seems like Rick didn't exaggerate when he said just spending a day with him would make anyone an apex predator of their whole planet when he said those things to the crows.

Opening his eyes, he takes a deep breath and thought to himself. 'Even if I can't understand them right now, I have already made my Braun body immortal in age through biology manipulation. And I have my cheat by my side, so this shouldn't be a problem, I'll spend even eons just to gather all of Rick's knowledge for myself and perhaps even outsmart the man after a whole eternity.'

With his thirst for knowledge set ablaze into a raging storm, he crawls out of the place and finds it strange that Rick hasn't seemed to encounter something similar to his cheat, well he did but not that similar, there were some similar powers he did find but his power was too unique compared to anything Rick has seen, to say the least.

As he crawls down the stairs, he peeks at the corner to see a spiral of golden holographic orbs surrounding the whole area and heard the Morty President talking about the Central Finite Curve, a construct made by the Ricks to literally separate an infinite number of universes where they only are the smartest man.

But as he did come from the other side, he knows the chances of meeting someone who could also travel the multiverse is slim so he could have a whole corner of the multiverse for himself once he gets out of this cage the Ricks themselves built.

As he watches the Evil Morty putting on his eyepatch and pressing it, he watches energy starting to gather below them as a Citadel's worth of portal fluid was exhausted to this one attack.

And soon, as he crawls inside the place with little to no presence at all, he watches a rift appear below them, the same rift that caused him to enter this place.

Watching both Rick and Morty run away while blood floods the pipes, he assesses the situation and knew he can't follow Rick and Morty because this would mean he would be trapped in the Central Finite Curve forever and will have to fight a literal legion of Ricks to even get a glimpse of freedom.

So with gritted teeth, he watches the Morty get inside the ship and he starts to count down with his eyes going bloodshot.

'His ship would definitely detect me latching on to it and he is a hundred percent a potential threat for me, so… I need to throw him out of trajectory and kill him while escaping the curve.' He thought, watching the ship be put inside the launch tube towards the rift below them.

'NOW!' he thought, rushing right towards the tube, and with a single grab to the glass window, he uses his Load Erasure to erase a good chunk of the glass causing Morty's eyes to widen.

With a boom, the piston above them activates and as he felt the tremendous amount of force entering his body, he grabs onto the ship while watching Morty's body get flung off the ship hatch and towards a wall, but as he expected, his suit allowed him to not die and Morty looks at him with enraged eyes.

Taking his vision away, he enters the hatch and loads back the ship to a prim condition and drives it forward while he summons a tank of clean portal fluid that wasn't tampered with by Morty and replaces his stolen Portal Gun with it.

As he nears the open rift with ragged breaths, the ship starts to unexpectedly tear down instead of it staying intact!

With wide eyes, he jams his power to the max desperately reloading it back while the strain starts to get to him.

'Fuck! The ship is already lost!' he thought, watching his save file of the ship suddenly being gone the moment he passes through the rift causing his eyes to widen further.

With nothing else but his body, he reloads back as Braun with his connection to the paths now gone.

Desperately, he reloads back his body with all his might while passing through multiple weird barriers in space-time, his body being elongated and spaghettified and going all sorts of weird states but he desperately fights back his death by overusing his cheat.

'Aahfaeah' as his mind became a garbled mess, he appears in the middle of the whole multiverse in his view, but he has no time to appreciate its beauty as he felt like his cheat was about to change, like it was about to be destroyed from the thing he was going through right now.

With nothing but his cheat that was about to die, he desperately changes his course to a gigantic spherical celestial body that was the nearest to him, his thought regaining a bit of clarity as he glances at the majestic universe in front of him.

'I… MUST… SURVIVE!' he thought, pointing the portal gun right in front of him as his cheat was on the brink of destruction.

'AHHHHH!' he shouts, finally shooting the trigger, and with his body passing through the green portal with the coordinates being set to be a world similar to Earth that is in the universe in front of him, he closed his eyes and went unconscious the moment his body passed through the portal, but as his body did pass through the portal, a golden ethereal light leaves his body while another appears and shoots through the portal just as it closed.

AN: This is 2574 words, you're welcome.

Let me explain how Rick's memories work in normal terms. It's basically like this, take Rick's memories as a sort of a very surreal video that you can experience first hand, and that's the problem for Braun, it's like a video, not a full on actual memory. So if he, let's say, wan't to build a World Cruiser, he already has the blueprints of course from Rick's memories and could just build it, or he can study how Rick did it, understand the underlying principles and gain in-depth knowledge of the thing, and now he can make any type, shape, form, of that World Cruiser without having to rely on preexisting blueprints that Rick made.

It's literally the saying: "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."

(May 19, 2022 – 176th day of writing)

Update: H-He said the thing! He said the title of the novel! It's just that it was mentioned in another novel. Hiya, it's your author from April 9, 2023 (500th day of writing) messing around again.

Wow, am I just a crazy genius because I definitely foreshadowed that this novel is going to get dropped again and be replaced by the rewrite of Traversing the Infinite Realities.