15 Reviewing and Advancement

The rest of the gathering didn't have anything Ethan thought important to think about. The only interesting thing to notice was that the young kid called The Sun was from a place called The Forsaken Land of the Gods.

Ethan knew of this place and its legends, it could be said he understood even more than most people about it after possessing James' memories.

He did get a bit surprised by the fact The Sun was from this place, and was reminded once again that The Fool, the protagonist of this world, was more powerful than he imagined.

After the gathering, Ethan returned to his small cottage in Rether village. He sat on his wooden rocking chair once again and started reviewing everything that happened today.

'It's really displeasing that I had to reveal so much about myself, but I doubt they will dare try anything when Mr. Fool hasn't given them permission. And as The Fool still has his humanity intact, shown by the way he saved me after my plea, I doubt he would do anything other than suspect me.'

'However, I can't use logic with these people. How did that gloomy man, The World, so easily came to realize that I was from multiple pathways? Maybe… He's related to The Fool, and after Mr. Fool looked at my Spirit Body, he got to know about my peculiarity and told The World?'

Being a Savant and a Spectator, Ethan's reasoning had become so pronounced it could be said he was no different from a very experienced detective.

'I think the best course of action is to gain The Fool's trust, I need to show him I mean no harm. If he can't accept that, I'll have to think of a way to kill him.' The moment Ethan thought of that he immediately stopped, trying to understand where this dangerous thought came from.

"Having broken the balance of my mind to be taken to that different dimension left me with some sequels, I should never do anything like this again before becoming a true Psychiatrist."

With so much knowledge in his possession, Ethan now knew all the Pathways names and their abilities up to Sequence 7, going as far as knowing some from Sequence 6.

'The Assassin Pathway is more problematic than I thought, how would I know that you would become a woman at Sequence 7? The Sequence 6 of the Seer Pathway is called Faceless... I should be able to change my appearance when I become one, then the problem will be resolved.'

Thinking about his future steps, Ethan looked inside his suitcase. There was a beating heart inside one of the glass jars.

"Sequence 8, Unwinged Angel characteristic." Ethan had long digested the rest of the potion, he also got in contact with some channels, asking certain people to go to the underground market of the Aurora Order in search of more Sequence 9 ingredients.

He actually got these ingredients. Using the Spectator, Savant, Criminal, one of the Melee Scholar's characteristics (Because he can't digest it instantly before Sequence 7), and 300 pounds to trade for the ingredients of Seer, Assassin, Marauder, Prisoner, Warrior, and Arbiter.

At this point, Ethan could directly concoct and drink these potions, becoming a Beyonder of 9 different Pathways.

The reason he hadn't eaten the Melee Scholar characteristic yet was because he couldn't instantly digest it, so he preferred to wait until he became a Sequence 7 and could do so.

'I need to contact that guy from the Alchemist's Hut. The Pathway I need the most right now is Apprentice, then I'll be able to rob some banks and get more money.'

The reason Ethan decided to wait up until now to start concocting the potions was that he wanted to get used to the various different imprints in his mind, or else he might just have a complete breakdown after receiving so much knowledge and information from the many potions.

"Taking the Unwinged Angel potion showed me a dark world full of corruption and madness. I wonder what the other potions will show me." Waiting a little bit for Sloth to once again recover all the balance of his existence, Ethan decided to go to one of the rooms that didn't have any windows of the cottage.

He didn't have any reason to leave this house for concocting the potions. No one would come to his little house in the middle of the woods, as the villagers just thought he was a poor old man in his twilight years waiting for death.

Entering the dark room with small candlesticks on the walls, Ethan lit them and started preparing the place for his advancement.

He took out the small stove and cauldron from one of the drawers in the room. Used a small gas tank to light the stove, he put the cauldron on top of it, and began concocting the many different potions from the formulas he had. Putting them in one glass jar each.

After two hours, Ethan finally finished everything. In front of him were six different colored potions. Picking one of them up, Ethan decided to begin with the Seer potion, as it would give him access to one of the most powerful powers there was: Divination.

When Ethan took the potion to his mouth and drank it, he felt a torrent of information flowing into his mind. And as he was a Savant, this information would never be forgotten by him.

He saw a world filled with grayish white fog, multiple colored lights, and strange and bizarre creatures floating everywhere. There were seven colored lights in the colors of the rainbow in the sky, even if something like a sky couldn't be perceived by him at all.

He was one of those bizarre creatures, a turtle with no legs. He kept living his life nicely, and had a very good understanding of his own surroundings, almost like a prediction of the future.

However, one day, the world suddenly started trembling. Every one of the creatures that existed in this strange, 'spiritual' world started perishing one by one. It was like their god simply didn't want to keep them alive anymore, and all of them died.

The small turtle with no legs was the same, it just couldn't survive the powerful light that suddenly shone upon it, breaking apart into multiple light particles that formed into ingredients.

These ingredients once again went through the process of being constantly refined and consumed by other entities, being transformed time and time again.

When Ethan came to himself, he realized he had already thrown up the characteristic. It was a dark-colored eye, full of white fog swirling inside of it, like it could only see the fog.

Having acquired the potion's mental imprints, Ethan saw that there were more non-human imprints in his mind.

But different from the cold and uncaring monstrous ones, these imprints seemed to have an obsession with the future. They maintained a state of adoring towards fate and destiny, and to an entity that Ethan couldn't yet comprehend.

They didn't have any human emotions other than the adoration and fear towards destiny and fate. Ethan noticed these imprints were very weak, incomparable to the ones from before, but they seemed to exist in a strange time, it was like an era before this one.

'Interesting… That fog covered world, I felt a powerful being living right above that world… The Spirit World…'

Ethan received extensive knowledge of different kinds of divination techniques, it could be said he was now an expert in the field.

After getting used to his new powers, Ethan activated his Spiritual Perception. It wasn't difficult at all, he just had to think about the memories he had just received and it would activate directly.

He started to see multiple floating lights around him, they were like colored fireflies that contained a multitude of information.

Ethan then recalled the process of entering Cogitation. Thinking about a sphere of dark metal filled with incomprehensible symbols.

He had seen this object in a game his son used to play, it was said to possess the powers of the 'Abyss', able to conjure all demons.

Entering cogitation, Ethan felt his mind calming down and his spirituality being rapidly refilled.

'I now have much more spirituality than before. If previously I could only cast the Flames of Hatred three times and I would be exhausted, now, even after casting it ten times I wouldn't feel much. Seers shouldn't possess so much spirituality like this… Is it another one of my peculiarities?'

Ethan also had a powerful danger premonition, but it would only activate when he was about to be in danger.

After thoroughly understanding his new powers and state of mind, Ethan picked another potion, Marauder.

Taking it to his mouth, Ethan drank it and once again experienced more memories.

However, he was once again in the Spirit World, now as a spider with twenty legs. He was a very intelligent spider, using his agility and powerful vision to steal the food of other powerful creatures.

He didn't live too long though, getting eaten by a crocodile-looking monster in just a few years after being born. After that, he kept being constantly transformed, existing inside different beasts and plants.

There was something strange that happened at some point. For some incomprehensible reason, the knowledge that should come after any entity took the characteristics of the spider was interrupted, as far as being altered in some cases.

This led many entities to die, as they did not have the necessary knowledge to fight with their powers.

At the end, it all ended up the same way, they became ingredients and were consumed by Ethan as a potion.

'Why did the knowledge that existed before, change after some time…? Interesting…'

The mental imprints of this characteristic were also not as strong as the Unwinged Angel one, only having a compulsive desire to steal things from others.

The powers he received were: enhancements to his physical attributes such as dexterity, Night Vision, and a strong sense of where valuable things were.

He also got to understand multiple stealing techniques and things like that. This knowledge didn't come from the potion itself, but from the creatures that consumed the characteristics of the spider a long time ago, before there was a change in the knowledge received by those that advanced later on.

After looking at the bloody finger that he threw up Ethan looked at the other potions.

Quickly adapting to his newfound desires for stealing and robbing others, Ethan picked another potion: Arbiter.

As he drank the Arbiter potion, Ethan saw a world consumed by chaos and order. It was like living in a place where the many laws of reality would simply change out of nowhere.

A true world of disorder. There were many other entities that existed in this world, some appearing out of nowhere. Others being transformed into something else. A few even turned into living things from objects.

It was true chaos, like there was no order in reality at all. However, Ethan was a being made from order, like an entity made from rules. He existed for nothing but to give order to this place.

Every one of his actions were imbued with the sense of creating a new law, everything was done for that purpose.

But Ethan's life wasn't long enough, the world made from chaotic laws and rules consumed him in the end, diverging his existence into many points of light. One of these points, then came to appear in the real world once more, following the same process as the other ingredients.

When Ethan came to himself once more, he found another mental imprint in his mind. This one was even colder than his current foundation, but it had a purpose: To give order to all things.

Other than that, it didn't have anything else. Ethan used the powers of Gluttony to absorb the cold feelings from this imprint, adding them to his foundation, and putting the purpose of giving order atop the pillar of coldness in his mind.

He had received three main powers once more: an undeniable charisma that would make others obey his words as long as they didn't go too much against their thoughts, a strong adaptability in combat, and a strong understanding of the many different laws.

Ethan once again threw up another characteristic, a tongue filled with golden lines. As he looked at the tongue, Ethan didn't wait much to take the next potion: Warrior.

This time, he was a giant, living inside a darkness so dark it could consume everything that existed inside of it. He was actually consumed by it after some time, being transformed into different gargantuan monsters for eons before falling into the real world once more.

Ethan once again came to himself after a few seconds, trying to understand the new mental imprint. This mental imprint was as cold as the Arbiter's and the Unwinged Angel's. It had the desire to fight, fight and win all the time.

Ethan powers this time were: a very strong enhancement to his bodily strength, making him even more powerful in close quarter combat. He also had a great understanding of different martial arts and usage of different weapons.

'These powers are very similar to what a Criminal already receives, but I was able to get even more enhancement to my body. I think I am strong enough to bend metal with my bare hands now.'

He rapidly got used to his new powers and mental imprints once more, picking the penultimate potion: Assassin.

He was a bit hesitant towards this one, but still brought it to his mouth and quickly drank it.

This time, he was a woman, but not a common one. He was like a puppet that received orders from some powerful entity. He existed in a city filled with flames and death, always killing by that entity's will.

After he failed one of his missions, he was directly destroyed and his characteristics were transferred to another puppet. This cycle kept happening until one of the puppets was killed by another powerful monster and had his characteristics absorbed.

The same process as before once again happened, the characteristics kept changing owners until they reached Ethan's hands.

Ethan noticed that the mental imprint this time had a strong desire to assassinate others, even stronger than Charles' one. Putting this imprint on top of his strong apathetic foundation, Ethan returned to normal once more.

He now had acquired quite a lot of different abilities. He had the power to change his bodily functions at his wish, even if for a short period of time, being able to make his vision sharper, his body lighter, and his blows more fatal.

He also had the power to conceal himself in the shadows, able to nearly disappear in them.

As Ethan got used to the stupendous changes happening inside his body, he finally glanced at the last potion.

He left this potion for last because he wanted to see if he could do something with it. He wanted to use the strong temperance a Prisoner received to try and make his foundation even sturdier.

Taking the last potion to his mouth Ethan once again found himself in the world of corruption and madness from the Unwinged Angel potion.

But this time, he was an artifact. A cage made from black iron, housing different monsters.

This cage did not have any feelings, it just imprisoned the many demons inside of it forever. No matter how much the demons inside flayed their limbs, the cage wouldn't bulge.

It stood there, completely still, for a time so long it couldn't be comprehended, while so short a blink might lose its existence.

The cage continued to exist, until its form started disintegrating, all of its powers being lost. The demons inside went amok, escaping from their imprisonment and destroying the rest of the cage.

This powerful artifact was destroyed, and the demons started feasting upon its characteristics. Some of these characteristics were forgotten, though. Being lost in one of the dark craters that existed in this world of madness.

The lost characteristics found themselves entering a new cycle, one of constant transformation.

They once again ended up coming to Ethan's possession, being turned into a potion and drunk by him.

When Ethan regained his consciousness once more, he found himself on the ground, with an entire skull in front of him. All his mental imprints atop the apathetic foundation were in chaos, being restricted inside a cage made from black iron.

'This… What happened…? Why did the mental imprint from the potion directly turn into a restricted cage of temperance…?' Ethan couldn't understand what was happening. Up to now, no imprint had ever acted by itself to change his mind, he was the one doing it.

As Ethan analyzed his mental state, he realized all the many desires and ideas from the mental imprints that formed his existence were now restricted, the only thing left was a strong calm, cold and apathetic mind.

'Well… At least my plan worked, I can now think more clearly than before.' Ethan's mind was now far more clear than before, he did not have as many chaotic thoughts swirling in his mind.

He could now think more easily about his future plans and decisions.

Ethan then directed his attention to his new powers. He now had a stronger body, as he received another enhancement to it, but it wasn't much stronger than before.

He also had a new understanding of many more criminal techniques, different types of explosives and how to use them, and even keener instincts.

'This advancement didn't give me much when it comes to powers, but my mind is now clear from that many different thoughts. I can't complain.'

After finishing his advancement, Ethan put all the characteristics he threw up into the sealed glass jars and stored them inside his suitcase.

He then put the stove and cauldron back in their respective places and went to the living room.

He looked at the bright afternoon sun outside, blanketing the trees' leaves with its strong shine.

"Maybe killing a Sequence 6 with my new powers isn't an impossibility."