Evolving My Undead Legion In A Game-Like World

Chapter 1269: Difference Between Natural and Artificial Awakening [5]

Now that Arianne had officially become an Awakener, there were two major goals ahead of her.

The first was increasing her Rank.

At Level 10, Arianne had already reached the limit of Rank Zero. No matter how much experience she accumulated, she would not be able to level up again until she completed her Rank Advancement Quest.

Fortunately, the quest generated by Spirit Tamer was not especially unreasonable. At least, not by Michael’s standards.

One requirement was to personally defeat ten monsters at least five levels above her without relying on outside assistance. The second was to successfully teach new skills to her contracted spirits.

Between the two, Michael actually considered the first one easier.

For an ordinary Level 10 Awakener, that would probably sound ridiculous, since even something like a hobgoblin with a natural growth limit around Level 14 could beat an inexperienced Rank Zero Awakener senseless if they were careless.

After all, the attribute points provided per level could only make an Awakener so strong. The stronger they became, the less effect each additional point provided, so Awakeners actually needed to use methods outside advancement task rewards to accumulate stat points if they didn’t want to be the weakest at their level.

A five-level difference was already dangerous at the lower Ranks.

But Arianne was not ordinary.

Without even considering Spirit Possession, Michael felt she could already exchange blows with some Rank One creatures.

If he gave her a few Evolution Essence Crystals and strengthened her stats further, she could become even more exaggerated. Reaching a point where she alone could contend with ordinary Rank Two creatures was not impossible.

Once her spirits were factored in, the difficulty of the first advancement requirement dropped even further. This was also exactly why Michael did not want Arianne to settle for merely completing the minimum condition.

Ten Level 15 monsters? That was too easy.

If she could defeat Level 20 monsters, then she should fight those instead. If she could handle Level 30 monsters, then there was even less reason to stop earlier.

As long as she carefully selected her opponents, Michael believed Arianne had a genuine chance of pushing far beyond the intended difficulty.

Rank Advancement Quests rewarded performance. The harder the conditions exceeded the minimum requirement, the better the final evaluation and rewards could become.

That alone could shave away a considerable amount of the time she would normally need to reach Rank Two.

However, Arianne did not have unlimited time on her hands. There was another matter she now had to deal with, which was her second major goal.

The Origin Battlefield. Since Arianne had officially become an Awakener, she was also subject to its monthly requirement. She would need to enter the Origin Battlefield and spend the necessary amount of time there before the reset.

Through Arianne, Michael had started noticing differences between natural Awakeners like himself and those who awakened through external methods. That likely included people awakened through Class Scrolls as well.

On the surface, there was barely any difference. They had levels, classes, stats, skills, advancement quests, Marks of Origin. Everything looked normal.

But there was one major distinction. Arianne could not enter the Land of Origin.

This meant she only had one body. Her original body.

Michael had spent some time thinking about whether this should be considered a disadvantage.

Strictly speaking, he did not think it was one. But it certainly was not an advantage either.

Natural Awakeners like Michael gained something incredibly valuable once they reached Rank Two. From that point onward, with two bodies they effectively possessed twice the usable time.

Growth between the two was synchronized. The one thing the original body lacked that the second body had was a terrifying degree of safety.

If something happened to the body in the Land of Origin under normal circumstances, the Awakener would not truly die. They would only lose around ten percent of their total attributes and temporarily lose access to the Land of Origin.

When they were eventually allowed to return, the Origin Will would recreate their body somewhere else.

Before the existence of the Origin Battlefield, Michael would not have considered this difference particularly overwhelming. The Land of Origin had always been separated from the greater universe. That limited what the second body could actually do.

But things were changing. The Universal Cornerstone had changed them.

Michael had already created a route from the Land of Origin into the Origin Battlefield. That meant the body created by the Origin Will was no longer necessarily trapped inside the Land of Origin.

As long as an Awakener registered that body with a Universal Cornerstone and obtained permission to create or use Subsidiary Territorial Anchors, then theoretically, their second body could leave.

Michael did not think his exact method was the only possible one. Even if another Awakener could not reproduce what he had done, future Cornerstone owners would almost certainly discover their own routes. After all, in matters of the soul, likely all Rank Four Awakeners in the Fourth Layer were more knowledgeable than him.

Once a station existed, an Awakener’s second body could enter the Origin Battlefield. From there, it could potentially use another Anchor to step into the greater universe itself.

This led Michael to the advantage he discovered other Awakeners like himself possessed over people like Arianne.

What was the greatest advantage of the bodies created by the Origin Will?

Outside that their growth was synchronized, it was that under ordinary circumstances, death was not truly death. As long as some extraordinary method capable of affecting the original soul was not used, destroying the Land of Origin body only resulted in a penalty.

Once the second bodies of Awakeners could operate on a wider scale, what stopped an Awakener from hiding their original body somewhere extremely secure and allowing the Origin Will body to act in their place?

Aside from situations where the original body was specifically required, such as official Battlefield ranking matches, the second body could theoretically do almost everything else. But if that body died, the Awakener would only suffer a loss. They would remain alive.

For many Awakeners, wouldn’t that effectively become a second life?

As long as the original body remained hidden and protected, death of the clone was merely temporary. Repeated carefully enough, it almost resembled a strange form of immortality.

Wasn’t this just a supernatural version of the respawn mechanics of games?