Mike tried to resist the urge to spiral deeper into the very act of thinking on the new questions that the new information he gained from reading through the [Titles] tab brought. Eventually though, he could no longer resist the urge.
Yes, he more or less understood why the first and second titles came about, being probable byproducts of the stunts he pulled in his battle against Chromo, that is, the Tyrant of the Symbiosis, and although he appreciated the abilities, gifts, privileges, and all that they brought, why was information on the last title censored? Why did the third title promise to turn him into a beacon and a magnet for danger? For the sake of everything sacred, he had more banes to worry about than most of those fantasy characters that his coworkers gossiped about in their extremely rare free time together, which, of course, he never ever listened to. For all he knew from his experience in this place, if the information on the title tab had any truth to it, then he was better off seeking out danger himself to spur on his growth rather than letting it lull and allowing the mysterious workings behind that particular title to randomly decide on the type of danger and level of danger to throw at him, whatever the type of growth referred to in the description of the title may be.
But most importantly, why did he have a title that referred to him as dangerous? And why was the information on it censored?
"Sigh!" Mike massaged his temples.
"I better stop working my brains to think of these things before I die of confusion or from my brain overheating."
So, pushing those frustrating thoughts behind his mind, he exited the [Titles] tab and entered the next tab counting from behind with nothing but a mental command. The [Skill] tab opened to him the instant he issued the mental prompt. While the opening of the previous two tabs had brought about a grand display of colors that tried to evoke the memories or thought of a celebration, this one was rather subdued, as whateverwas behind the mechanics of the view seemed to want to evoke a mood of seriousness in him through the colors displayed on the View's interface, which was to be used as the background.
Then, the words came, weaving themselves onto the View slowly at first, but gradually becoming faster and faster as they etched their way onto the screen, one letter after the other in a painfully memorable, grotesque, worm-like fashion.
It read:
[Skills]
[First skill: Consume to grow (unique, record-creating skill.)
This skill was created via the defiant action of eating a very unique fragment. It grants the wielder the ability to touch fragments directly. It gives an increase in the Strength of Being gained for every fragment consumed, which is directly proportional to the tier of the fragment consumed.
Note: Due to a recent upgrade of the skill, only tier twelve fragments can now be consumed through this skill. This skill works in synergy with your tier twelve skill, absolute upgrade.
Trying to consume lower-tier fragments (in the theoretically possible case of successfully acquiring a fragment without automatically triggering your absolute upgrade skill) would bring about lethal consequences.
Also note that the wielder has the unique ability to physically interact with fragments directly, either for consumption via this skill, for keeping, or for use to direct their personal growth, without the assistance of the administrator.]
"Who would have thought that randomly eating a delicious-looking fruit would net someone such a promising skill, even if I do not understand all that it does? Sigh! At least things are starting to look promising."
While no one had ever accused him of being exceptionally smart, no one had accused him of being an exceptional dullard either; no, not even he himself had dared to do that. So, even if he did not understand all that there was to the skill, the gradation of fragments into tiers, how many tiers there were to the fragments, the interaction, and the effect of such interactions of each tier of fragments with the skill, beyond it increasing the value of his Strength of Being (another thing he did not fully understand), he had felt the slight increases in strength that using the skill in the earlier days of his stay here had brought him, and thus he knew the importance of the skill and could think of innumerable ways in which this skill could be exploited to maximize the benefits it would bring him.
[Second skill: Absolute shroud: Granted to the wielder for helping all of this reality get rid of <
Mike smiled. Here in this strange reality with more supernatural abilities than he could have ever thought about a year ago—if he had had the time to do so, that is—he was sure that abilities that centered around scrying, supernatural sight, remotely attacking a target, and, maybe, divination existed somewhere in it.
[Third skill: Absolute upgrade:
This skill was granted for using the last vestiges of the Authority of the proliferating forest against it by using its very nature to turn it against its own will, making it fall from the state of being a Being, bringing it under the laws of fragmentation in the process. It automatically upgrades any fragment that comes into the wielder's possession to the absolute grade (an equivalent to tier twelve.)
Mike was beginning to see the reason behind why so many banes were placed on him, even though he did not agree with it and would rather have himself free of them. From what he had learnt from his experience so far, the entire monologue of the disembodied voice, as well as his gleanings from the flashes of memories and the information he had so far gathered from reading through the view, he had come to a conclusion which he had suspected all along to be true since his first encounter with fragments: that fragments were items that came in different classes called tiers, which ranged from the first tier to the twelveth,-with first tier fragments being those of the least importance, worth or power, - and which granted access to special and maybe unique supernatural powers, either indirectly, through aspect beasts, and, maybe, pet beasts, or directly. And even if he had no solid evidence to back up the last two claims in his conclusions, if his conclusions proved to be true, then this first skill of his, which automatically upgrades any fragment he picks up, no matter the tier, will be akin to granting him the ability to turn even the most useless stone he randomly picks up into a Zircon armament, a weapon capable of literally putting out stars, the threat of their deployment being the basis on which the Central Government back in his home world could keep a tight leash on the various kingdoms, federations, and nobilities beneath it. Even more was that he could consume these newly, from-stone-created Zircon armaments, converting them into a probable potential for power and growth. His skill, considering their power, potential uses, and benefits, and especially the uniqueness of the first one as well as the clearly glitch-level synergy the first skill had with the third skill, would have created an anomaly or an imbalance in whatsoever mechanics that this world, and by extension this reality, operated on, forcing it to find random excuses to make a shift to correct this anomaly, the shift being the banes placed on him. Even if his theory turns out to be wrong, the truth would not be far off; of that he was sure. And since there was no evidence to disprove his current theory, there was nothing stopping him from working with it, not as a limit though, but as a loose guideline. After all, since the disembodied voice itself announced to him that the path of skills had been opened to him, there was theoretically nothing stopping him from learning what skills were, how to earn them, and earning more of them to empower himself in ways that would not trigger any more shifts than he already had.
"Sigh! So many questions and so many revelations from just reading through this thing and in between the lines. I better move on and get this thing over with before this thing surprises, shocks, or confuses me to death."
… There were still more tabs to go through, though.