—
Although he couldn't fully agree with Flaminika Bertr's perspective—because it seemed impossible for humankind to work harmoniously from the moment they gained intelligence, as humans evolved from the ground up into a species that naturally hoards resources—it was still good food for thought in philosophy.
At the end of the day, the most effective and efficient civilizations are often portrayed as brood or hive minds in many media series. There is no denying it.
Yet, as a staunch supporter of individualism like the majority of humans, he felt it was unbalanced when the strength of the group as a whole is heavily prioritized while the strength of the individual is rendered almost nonexistent.
So, he thought that perhaps finding a middle ground between the two extremes is where humanity truly shines—where both the strength of individuals and civilizations go hand in hand, and where individual selfishness can be satisfied while also fulfilling the collective ambitions of an entire civilization.
Although he knew it would be a very, very difficult endeavor, he also knew it was possible, taking the Old Ones from the Warhammer 40K series and the early history of the Protoss from the StarCraft series as successful examples.
Agreeing with only part of Flaminika Bertr's speech, he chose not to voice his own philosophy. Although seen as a prodigy in the eyes of others, foresight into the subtleties of human society was not yet one of his alibi.
So, while looking at the bears, he reverted to being just like a toddler again, forgetting the speech entirely and wanting only to play with these majestic creatures.
"Madam Bertr, can I pet them?"
Seeing that her speech had been so easily dismissed, Bertr just shook her head in amusement, knowing that, in the end, a child is still a child. Nodding, she said, "Sure, child."
"Uh… huh? What? My head hurts, Madam Bertr. I don't know what you're saying."
"So it's gentleness, companionship, and unity, aye?"
Chuckling at the visible black lines forming on Madam Bertr's face, Gustave snickered silently to himself, amused at Ciri, who, though fully understanding what the druid was saying, chose to act like a naive little girl just to avoid being lectured.
Shaking his head in quiet amusement, he then, after being set down on the ground, began approaching one of the bears. But before he could do so, he suddenly had a vision of his Sefirot being destroyed by grotesque, titanic bears.
Frowning at the sight of his territory on the Ethereal Plane being destroyed, he somewhat understood who—and why—this bear was able to locate his Sefirot, or, in the Common Tongue, his divine kingdom.
It was because this bear was an ancient deity of bears, Svalblood, which meant that by coming into contact with the bears, he effectively became a beacon, revealing his territory in the Ethereal Plane. And since this bear inherently commanded authority over war, cruelty, and sacrifice, it was in its nature to wage war over his territory out of sheer cruelty.
As for why his Sefirot was so easily destroyed—unlike the indestructible Sefirot from Lord of Mysteries—it was because, unlike the Beyonder Characteristics derived from the magic of his Earth, this Sefirot was not. It was purely a manifestation, a side effect of himself, touched by the magic of the Pathway and then blended with the magic of this world.
With no choice but to bite his lips at the sight of his territory being completely destroyed in his mind, Gustave let out a defeated sigh and accepted the loss. When it came to concepts and ideas that lay beyond the bounds of his known science, he could not hope to compete with these deities and gods.
Thus, seeing his ruined steampunk city no longer connected to the Ethereal Plane—becoming just another kind of mind palace, in the Occlumency sense—he sighed once again in defeat and began repairing it back to its previous state.
And while doing so, he could not help but think how, as a mortal, he was powerless to act when his territory was destroyed without delving his spirit into the Ethereal Plane. It was like a two-dimensional creature trying to contend with a three-dimensional one, where the method of attack lay completely beyond the comprehension of a being confined to only two dimensions.
If not for the Order magic of this world, which effectively confines these deities and gods from the physical universe, coupled with the fact that the Sanguinite ring on his finger protected his mind, Gustave might already have been transformed into a grotesque monstrosity, following and worshipping Svalblood as his god.
It was also thanks to the Order magic and druidic magic that he saw these bears merely twitching their ears in annoyance and going about their own business, with no attempt to maul him, after Svalblood unsuccessfully cast its gaze upon the area—unlike the Foglets, which were completely overwhelmed by the influence of the Relict gods' monsters.
Deactivating his [Knowledge] ability to deduce the mysticism affecting him, Gustave rubbed his temples and wiped the sweat from his brow in silence, hidden from the eyes of those present.
Now he understood that, before even knowing how to be a god or a creature existing in higher-concept dimensions—much like a person who has never fired a gun can only speculate about the feeling—he, too, was in the same position. Without becoming a conceptual creature, he would never truly comprehend.
So he decided to simply do the best he could and forget about carving out territory in the Ethereal Plane altogether, in order to minimize encounters with the gods and demons of this world—beings far beyond his current ability to contend with.
This encounter also made him realize that somewhere up there, a deity was trying to conceal him and had chosen to invest in him by protecting him, fending off gods and demons far beyond his weight class—much like Klein's relationship with the Evernight Goddess.
Considering that he had already encountered Lilith's avatar, Syanna, who had become a beacon for locating him, and seeing Hemdall and Kambi fighting the goddesses themselves, it seemed likely that these two Skelligan gods had been protecting him all along.
Yet something didn't sit right—why had Hemdall and Kambi been able to recognize him in the first place and protect him, despite him never having met any Skelligan people?
Thinking this over, Gustave looked at Ciri, who suddenly smiled at him warmly and motherly before returning to her usual mischievous expression. Using his [Knowledge] to deduce the situation, he now understood that his grand-great-ancient grandparents were not truly dead, at least metaphorically.
They still lived somewhere in the Ethereal Plane. Quietly thanking his ancient grandparents, Lara Dorren and Cregennan of Lod, he returned to petting the cub bear in front of him, which gazed at him adorably.
"Oh, how unbearably fluffy you are, despite your god being quite the opposite. Don't worry, little guy—I will do my best to sever the connection between you and your kin from that monster."
—
—
After playing with the cub and being taught by the Flaminikas how to feed them a little longer, Gustave finally returned to the main palace and to his own quarters at nine p.m., after saying goodbye to his brother, Cerys, and Ciri.
Entering his quarters with the help of the Cintrian palace guard to open the door, he briefly nodded to his maids as a greeting before immediately walking into his study, which had a small table and chairs for drawing.
Having just brushed off an encounter with a deity of this world, his hands itched to do something about it—even though he knew it would be pointless, as his current understanding of science was not yet sufficient to challenge the gods.
Moreover, even though he knew his life was secure thanks to his ancient grandparents protecting him from afar, it still could not calm his restless heart if he remained idle.
For the sake of his comfort and to steady his anxious mind, Gustave began drawing and building frameworks for any inventions he could imagine. He wanted to create a steam-powered turtle-shell armor for himself; the thought of absolute defense gave him mental comfort, assuring him that he would not die easily.
After first sketching the exoskeleton and joint mechanics of the steam armor and planning to continue with the rest of the frame, Gustave frowned as he soon realized his knowledge of magic was not yet sufficient to quickly design a replacement for the electric air compressor at the scale he desired.
Even though he had already built an air compressor in RDBM, it was too basic—it could only push concentrated air without any fine control of the output. The one he needed would have to compress and release air in precise coordination with the motor movements of the armor's wearer.
Because of that, he devoted all the spirituality he had into his [Knowledge] ability, attempting to read the tomes and scrolls of the Cintrian and Ofieri rune-mages bit by bit, hoping he could find a cheat-like replacement for the modern machinery his design required.
But because the tomes were far away—and because penetrating the magical Defensive Regulatory Magicon bubble the Ofieri rune-mages had put in place was no easy task—he managed to retrieve only a few pages of useless scribbles.
Nonsense that not only failed to help his research but turned out to be nothing more than apprentice mages arguing about what colors exist within Optima Mater.
The sheer uselessness of the content, combined with the inconvenience of living in a medieval world without the assembly and production lines of modern society, frustrated him so much that he felt like pulling his hair out.
Constantly wiping sweat from his brow with his blue sash, exhausted by the effort, he once again began extracting and downloading information from afar after his spirituality had recovered somewhat.
What was worse, after only a few repetitions of that process—searching again and again like trying to find a needle in a haystack—he could feel the Defensive Regulatory Magicon bubble growing stronger by the minute.
Realizing that the Ofieri rune-mage had likely become aware of his presence—or, more accurately, aware that some diviner was attempting to penetrate the magical barrier—the mage reinforced it with such intensity that Gustave began shivering uncontrollably, blood threatening to spill from his nose.
Yet his efforts still turned out to be in vain, because he suddenly sensed a second presence arrive—equal in strength to the Ofieri rune-mage. Not through brute force, as if two were overpowering one, but through a clever and insidious method, slipping in like a snake injecting venom directly into his [Knowledge] ability.
Stunned and panicking at this new opponent—whose approach felt eerily similar to a hacker or cryptographer attempting to breach vulnerabilities in a system—Gustave immediately cut off his access to the partially downloaded knowledge. In an instant, he triggered his [Recall] ability, reverting his mind to that of a true three-year-old toddler.
"Draw, draw, draw… I like to draw… Draw, draw, draw… I love Mommy… Draw, draw, draw… I love Daddy… Oh, and I love my sister too… Baby shark dododo… Baby shark dododo… Cocomelon! The wheels on the bus go round and round… round and round…"
"Ouch!"
Stepping on his own toes at the edge of the table, Gustave suddenly snapped out of his toddler mindset. Knowing he was still not out of danger, he quickly began [Recalling] every bit of memory he had and discovered an injected, encrypted memory—one that did not belong to him in the first place.
Panicking, unsure how to deal with it—because memory was a science he could not yet alter—his first instinct was to recite the ritual incantation of his Occlumency.
"By the stillness of the reservoir that flows and remembers all paths taken.
By the hunger of the scorching firestorm that heeds my command.
By the breath of the world that fills all living things, wandering to carry every whispered truth.
By the stone beneath my feet that anchors my spirit to solid ground.
I, Gustave, hereby declare this mind sacred.
I, Gustave, seal these thoughts in silence.
Let no gaze pierce them, no will bend them, no voice command them."
Entering his mind palace once more in spiritual form—though the surrounding era was in complete darkness—Gustave quickly conjured a levitating, solar-powered surfboard like the one from Treasure Planet.
Surfing across the entire steampunk city of his mind-palace divine kingdom, he finally found it: an encrypted rune composed of the five basic runes, intricately etched into the street, slowly attempting to take over that part of the city bit by bit while also trying to send out a pulsing signal to somewhere else.
Conjuring every arcane-steam creation he could imagine, Gustave bombarded the five etched runes—Stribog, Zoria, Dazhbog, Devana, and Morana—shattering them into pieces, but stopping at the last moment when he realized the signaling function had already been destroyed.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. In his spirit form, Gustave finally calmed himself after a few minutes and managed to utter a question.
"Damn… who the fck is that?"
Only able to deduce that it was likely another Nordling genius mage—this time a distant cousin from the House of Raven of Cintra—Gustave set the question aside for now.
Because, his eyes were simply too captivated by the sophisticated structure of the five basic runes he had managed to salvage from the bombardment—so unlike the street-seller runes in The Witcher 3 that could be found anywhere.
These runes—Stribog, Zoria, Dazhbog, Devana, and Morana—felt to him like glimpsing the infant form of a Beyonder Characteristic, enchantingly beautiful in their creation.
And not only that…
Giggling to himself at the sight of this scrap of Runic Magic that brushed against the essence of Power, Gustave realized that his immediate problems had just been solved—not only his lack of magical knowledge, but also the faint ray of hope it offered for resolving his mid-tier madness when attempting to advance beyond the 7th Sequence.
With this, Covinarius Tissue Memory Retention—the method Regis had suggested—might be possible after all, without requiring him to be reborn without memories.
Just as Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity with his famous kite experiment yet humanity needed another 150 years to harness it efficiently, Gustave knew these five runes would not become usable immediately.
But at the very least, they were a ray of hope—a starting point that would greatly reduce the need for him to attempt creating another Beyonder.
So, silently thanking his distant cousin—whoever he or she was—Gustave activated his [Knowledge] mysticism ability and, giggling excitedly, began reverse-engineering the scraps of the five runes he had blasted apart.
—