The Self-Risen Giant

Aside from my race shifting from Young Giant to Giant and the boost to experience gain, nothing else seemed to have changed. When I looked around, Elder Togo had raised a barrier centered on me.

Huh. Why?

"Well now, I can hardly call you a newborn anymore. You've grown into a proper little one—so, baby, would you show me that False Sky you demonstrated before?"

Newborn, baby—honestly, they felt like the same thing to me! But I supposed they looked completely different through Elder Togo's eyes.

With that thought, I lightly activated my Erosion skill and overlaid my Mental World onto reality. The moment I did, Elder Togo dropped the barrier and let out a long sigh of relief.

"Now that baby has been reborn as a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠complete Transcendent Species, if you don't keep this technique active at all times, Heaven will forcibly drag you up to the Upper Realm—or you'll face severe restrictions down here in the Lower Realm."

"Wouldn't going up to the Upper Realm be a good thing?"

"It's not going up—it's being dragged. You could get forcibly pulled into the wall that divides the Lower and Upper Realms, and only your Nascent Soul gets taken to become a magical tool or raw material, while your body is left behind down here. Still sound good?"

What the hell kind of system is that.

"Are you going to be okay, Elder Togo?"

"Isn't my Nascent Soul bound to you, baby? I'll likely be fine so long as you aren't dragged away. However, as long as you're carrying this old man's weight, Heaven will pull on you that much harder."

So he was safe because he was a captive—and because I'd taken him prisoner, I was the one stuck with the heavier restrictions!

Well, fair enough. Capturing Elder Togo—estimated level eight hundred plus—was basically a bug in the first place. Of course there'd be some kind of penalty.

I opened the skill window. The Erosion skill itself was still hovering around level fifty. If I maxed it out, maybe I could keep it running passively without even thinking about it.

"For a while, don't go out—focus on stabilizing your realm, baby."

"But…"

The level-up lock had just come off, and I'd even picked up a new Law. I at least wanted to take it out on the map and check the performance—but Elder Togo's scolding snuffed that idea out cold.

"Whether baby has a restless fate or whether it's the will of that star, I don't know—but if you go out as you are, won't Heaven drag you away? While you stabilize your realm, I'll craft a magical tool to hide you from Heaven's gaze. Wait a bit, then take it with you when you leave."

"Yes, I understand. You know I'm always grateful for your concern, Elder Togo?"

"Heh heh. Good."

And so, despite having reached the Nascent Soul realm, I found myself stuck endlessly training my Erosion skill in the Training Ground. Before long, several figures came tumbling out of the Mental World that the skill had naturally unfolded around me.

"Widen it out so we can train too, Main Body!"

"Yeah, yeah!"

"Main Body, guarantee our human rights!"

"Guarantee them!"

"Is looking the other way while we snatch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠food from the inventory not enough for you?"

"Ah—busted?!"

"Come on, we share memories anyway."

"But think about it from our side, Main Body. We share most of your memories too, you know? If all you do is sit there training, we're bored out of our minds."

"Why? You used to play board games just fine in the Mental World."

"Seong-ah kicked us all out of the mansion. Said it was bad for infant education."

I snuck a look at the shared memories and found the scene of them gambling with hwatu cards, getting caught by Yu I-seong, and being thrown out of the mansion.

Hmm. That was my Nascent Soul—well, our Nascent Soul, strictly speaking. Treating it like an actual baby seemed a bit much.

The thought that the Nascent Soul liked Yu I-seong more than me, the actual main body, left me a little glum. I went back to training Erosion—only for the Humanities to come charging in from the outer field and start clinging to me.

"Hey? Main Body, just expand the Erosion field a little."

"We can use the Status Window too, so we were going to experiment and see how far game-logic allowances go, right? But you kept putting it off because it was a hassle."

"Exactly! And we can't use spiritual power or slaughter energy anyway—wouldn't it be good if we at least leveled some life skills?"

I'd been about to snap at them for hanging off my newly grown body and shoving me around, but the proposals that came one after another were genuinely tempting.

"Fine, if that's the case. Just don't get in my way."

"Yes!"

Cheering, the Humanities poured out of the tower in the Mental World as the Erosion field widened, donned their individual bodies, and started moving about.

Their physical ability and defense were still at Mortal level—but their Spirit stat alone had clearly surpassed anything a Mortal should have, as befitting fragments of my soul. Ignoring the sight of them checking their Status Windows and running experiments, I closed my eyes again and went back to training Erosion.

At first the skill had climbed at a terrifying speed, but now simply keeping it active no longer raised the skill experience at all. It had hit a wall.

Maybe it'd be faster to go out on the map, find a Training Ground, and grind the Erosion skill level there. Even as the thought crossed my mind, I kept experimenting this way and that, hunting for a method that would still generate experience—when:

"Uh, Main Body. I class-changed."

"…?"

"Look, Status Window!"

One of the Humanities had successfully class-changed into an Alchemist.

"What? How'd you do that? Did you pick up a skill? How?!"

"I just… took items from the inventory and started experimenting with manual crafting?"

What do you mean, you just did.

"Well, for alchemy you usually use humanoid monsters, right? Because they're the most common and easiest to get. But unless it's a high-level cultivator, grinding the whole body down barely does anything."

"So?"

"But we convert humanoid monster and neutral NPC corpses into slaughter energy, so we've got a ton of materials from tougher monsters that can withstand that process. I swapped those in for the human materials, and the refining actually worked."

"Doesn't manual crafting just spit out garbage?"

"I wasn't mixing by item effects—I read the item descriptions and substituted similar ones, and it worked."

"You're just saying 'it worked when I did it' over and over!"

"RNG abuse! We tried forever and nothing happened!"

"You guys were just goofing off!"

I checked the pill in the Humanity's hand. A proper item window popped up—looked usable.

Magic grade, and those are the effects?

"Hold on—you ground up level-three-hundred trash drops from the invasion event and a Magic-grade pill came out?"

"Efficiency is garbage!"

"But if we use this, can we raise our realms too?"

"I'll test it!"

Before anyone could stop her, the Humanity next to her snagged the pill and shoved it straight into her mouth.

"Guh—?!"

With a pop, she burst and vanished.

"Sh-she's dead!"

"If you hadn't exploded, your realm would've gone up, right? Not enough effort!"

"Isn't it just RNG? Let's try one more time!"

With a roar of enthusiasm, the Humanities turned into a noisy mess again and threw themselves into human experimentation on their own bodies. I watched the chaos for a moment, then tried to refocus on Erosion training—only to grab the Nascent Soul, who had somehow climbed up and was sitting on my head, watching the whole circus.

She looked up at me with a face that said, What? Why? I tickled her and played with her for a bit, then sent her back into the Mental World through my forehead.

She was still so immature she couldn't even babble, let alone speak, so she couldn't help with seals or Laws yet—but I'd need to raise the Nascent Soul properly if I ever wanted to reach Deity Transformation. Had to take good care of her.

Anyway, I kept training Erosion, and it was only after the skill hit level sixty that I finally managed something new: consciously applying a weak layer of Erosion to my body so that the Mental World wrapped around me like a cloak.

Being able to do it unconsciously would be ideal, but getting that far would probably mean locking myself away for decades.

"All right. That means we've got three options in front of us."

Training finished, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gathered everyone in the tower of the Mental World—the Humanities, and Yu I-seong with the Nascent Soul perched on her head—and started laying out the plan going forward.

"Option one: same as always. Head out on the map and level up."

"Boring!"

"What else?"

"Option two: enter the Abyss and run infinite clears."

"Isn't it a bit early for that?"

"Maybe once we've burned through the stash of items from the hidden dungeon—but the inventory's still way too full."

"And the last one?"

"Go to the recovery event and check out the next story."

At that, the Humanities all frowned or pulled faces in unison. Of course they did—they'd shared every story I'd seen.

Just to recover a single Calamity Mountain, we'd had to face a late-stage Nascent Soul Transcendent Species.

Thankfully, being the same giant race had instantly turned him into a friendly NPC, and now he was with us—but originally, that event would have been impossible to clear no matter how many times we tried.

"If I push the Law to its limit, I can set a Save Point, so we could attempt it."

Though that would mean I couldn't use the Law of Return for a while afterward.

"Kyau!"

"What's she saying?"

"Revenge, apparently."

"Ah—revenge on the Abyss? Yeah, the Eok-kka back then was way too brutal."

"Items? Experience? More than that—stirring up chaos as payback against the Abyss? I think that's not a bad idea!"

Decision made.