Chapter 133: Revelations are like magic, kind of
The system spammed him with some mind-boggling statistics. His cloaca tightened, as he squinted, just to re-read the system tab, as he believed that he had read something wrong.
’I can’t be tripping balls right now,’ He thought, ’I’ve been munching on a Flesh Core, so what the hell is all this shit? I’ve never read about SQ before.’
[Once more, you unlocked a part of your evolution tree that would’ve otherwise taken tens of thousands of system points to reach, and unlock.]
[SQ, which is short for Spiritual Quotient, measures your general intelligence, or comprehension, in terms of spirituality.]
[The spiritual worlds beyond this one are vast, be it divine or demonic. A greater SQ will help you maneuver those worlds easier if you happen to find yourself within them, and of course, with a greater SQ, you can manipulate its associated revelations better too.]
"What revelations?!" He exclaimed, confused, "I’m not a prophet, am I? Where’s the God that’s supposed to give me this revelation?"
[You misunderstood. Revelations are like skills, except they’re spiritual.]
[Revelations are magic-based, basically, they’re just a different branch of magic, and that’s why you found your first revelation, The Monk’s Screech, in that Flesh Core.]
Jimmy couldn’t stop squinting. He read through the system tab several times, until he fully understood what the system was talking about.
Well, he’d like to pretend that he understood it fully, but despite his seemingly massive, associated SQ upgrade, there was still a lot about this branch of magic that he was completely oblivious about. He was even aware that he was oblivious, which was a new feeling.
’If revelations are magic based, shouldn’t my MQ have upgraded along with my SQ?’ He asked, ’Like a bonus boost, that doesn’t come from the core itself.’
[SQ and MQ, although both based on magic, are vastly different from one another.]
[For reference, a boost in your spirituality should not help you shoot hotter fireballs. You might start to understand why the divine allowed fire to exist, but still, it does not apply to your MQ.]
All Jimmy could do was nod along. Well, he also pecked at the same core, hoping it would super boost his SQ, but other than that, he pretended that he fully understood the concept. He wasn’t the best at picking up on written explanations. He was a visual creature, a crow heavily dependent on visual examples, and patterns, so it did not help him when the system’s descriptions sounded philosophical, rather than descriptive.
He had abused philosophy before, to get other crows to shut up, but now he felt like he was on the receiving end.
Pecking at the core didn’t get him anything new either. He ate one mouthful after the other, and despite his fast metabolism, at some point, he began to feel disgustingly full. He wanted to throw up, but he kept going.
He did so, up until the system popped up another strand of notifications.
[MQ: 121 points >>> 125 points]
[Mana Realm: No change]
[Mana Quality: No change]
[Mana Absorption: No change]
[Mana Quantity: 2,300 points >>> 2,400 points]
Jimmy held his breath, expecting a new revelation. For reasons that were solely based on confusion, he thought that the gods were watching him, and him alone, so every time he ate a chunk of the core, he looked up, and then around himself, like a paranoid chicken, as if he was being hunted.
He was on the lookout for dramatic events, hints that would foreshadow another revelation, such as a bush that was suddenly set ablaze, or a floating human, but of course, he didn’t see anything like that.
He sighed in disappointment.
[1:46:09]
[1:46:08]
[1:46:07]
The timer at the top corner of his left eye, kept counting down. It didn’t give him a headache yet, not directly, but he got irritated, and frustrated whenever he looked at the timer.
He thought, ’The gods are already fucking with me. What could be more foreign than that?’
The system didn’t give him an answer. She didn’t know the answer herself, as she was still forcing the strand of foreign Arcana to adapt to his body, his biology.
Frustration became the default for him. The fact that he could still think nine steps ahead, frustrated him even more. He had chucked positivity out of the window a while ago.
’Fuckass nine steps,’ He grunted, ’What use is it to me if half of my nine-step plans look stupid? Not every fucking plan is a smart one. I don’t know enough about this damn SQ, I can’t make a good plan.’
Jimmy felt overwhelmed. He ended up backing up from the cores for the moment. He felt sick, and he was close to throwing up.
The Flesh Core pieces he ate, wanted to leave his body, basically, but he didn’t let it. From the branch he was sitting on, he looked over at a nearby lake, and the surrounding, beautiful greenery, but somehow, that made him feel sick too.
’Fuckass plants,’ He groaned, ’Green ass bullshit plants. I hope the alchemist who picks you up, gets eaten by a fish, and I hope the fucking birds that eat you, die from diarrhea.’
Simply everything bothered him. If he spoke out loud what he thought, no one would call him a practitioner of anything divine.
The fact that he greatly mixed up his meals, didn’t help either, so at some point, he ended up doing the opposite of throwing up.
He took a shit.
A big one. It was hard, bumpy, and almost like a stone. Dropping from the height of over ten feet, it could easily kill, or paralyze some poor, unsuspecting squirrel below him.
When he did see a squirrel, his cloaca clamped shut. He thought it was a Razor Squirrel, and he was ready to unleash hell on it.
However, the squirrel was minding its business. It was a normal one. It saw Jimmy, and it didn’t understand what he was doing, so naturally, it swiftly leaped away, and climbed up another tree, amongst the few in the area.
Jimmy felt a little bit better. His guts started gurgling again, and within minutes, he had enough space in his stomach to turn around, and continue munching on that odd core.
He contemplated it, but he ended up deciding on something else.
’All this shit about spirituality made me forget that I got a new skill... erg, a revelation?’ He thought, ’Let’s see what this Monk’s Screech is about. The description isn’t telling me much. It just keeps repeating the numbers 3, 6 and 9 over and over.’