No_Creative_Name
patreon
SoK Chapter 162
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 15:00:13 +0000 UTC***
Before the advent of the System, TJ wouldn’t run somewhere unless he was in a massive rush or if he was trying to exercise. Now, though, just walking was annoyingly slow. Part of that was definitely because no cars were currently functioning and walking was slow, but another part of it was how easy running was. With all his Attributes being at least 20 times higher than the peak of human performance from before the Integration, running somewhere at what had to be about 40 miles per hour wasn’t too difficult. He could feel that there was something of a diminishing return on speed, specifically, but even at the highest tiers of beings just below the “God” tiers, TJ imagined they could easily break the sound barrier.
That thought caused his thoughts to pause their racing. While he ran, he couldn’t help but ask the System, “What happens when there’s dozens, hundreds, or thousands of beings on the planet whose Attributes and Skills surpass the limits of physics? When there’s someone so strong that they could physically move the Earth through space?”
The limitations upon the physical world as well as individuals and Attributes shift in accordance with Divine Authority. As more and more individuals gain Divine Authority, those aspects of the natural world will be extended and strengthened to allow for those with Authority to wield greater and more profound power.
TJ couldn’t quite understand that. After thinking for a moment, he asked in clarification, “So… natural laws are shifted the more that people gain Authority over them? So… if there are a lot of people who gain Divine Authority over Storm like me, storms will change in nature? Become stronger, bigger, and more dangerous?”
The quantity of individuals with Divine Authority is not the sole cause for the extension of profundity and potency of different natural laws.
“Like people with higher levels of Divine Authority have a greater change over the natural environment and laws?”
That is one factor that affects the natural world. To your perception, by the time there are 1,000,000 individuals with Divine Authority of any type that reach the Silver (II) tier of Divinity, the world as it is will be wholly unrecognizable to the you from before the Integration.
TJ sighed, continuing running towards where he felt there could be some monsters he could fight—Tempe Town Lake. While he did so, he decided to clear his mind, but his subconscious screamed something that he couldn’t ignore.
“System, in every communication you’ve given me regarding Divine Authority and the effects on the world at large, you’ve only mentioned ‘individuals’. Not Participants specifically.”
True. Divine Authority is not limited to Participants, as Participants is a fluid term and those who were not initially termed as such can become Participants.
“What? How? Wha… What does this mean?”
The System remained silent and TJ’s mind raced. He was nearing his destination, and he leapt over a wall to a residence where he couldn’t hear anyone inside. As the wind brought back its mostly reliable confirmation that there wasn’t anyone inside, TJ ducked through a ruined window and wandered until he found a couch. There was one thing that the System said that would immediately benefit him and his plans, but as he fell on it and let himself think, TJ refocused on his questions. Something the System had mentioned about Divine Authority. Not remembering the specifics, TJ perked up to ask the specific question.
“You’ve said that Divine Authority is something fought over. That it’s something lost. If someone kills someone with a Divine Authority, does the victor gain some measure of control over the Divine Authority possessed by the creature they slew?”
That is a possibility. When there is overlap between those aspects and Authorities that the victor has in common with the defeated, the possibility for the victor to gain some measure of the defeated’s Divine Authority is increased. For example, none of your Skills, Authorities, or Class have anything to do with the Copper (I) tiered Divine Authority of the Cracked Stone Golem’s over Stone. Thus, even though Semi-Divine Human grants an enhanced ability to gain Divine Authority and Savage Shaman grants a flat bonus to the ability to more easily understand Divine Authority, the probability for you to gain any measure of the Copper (I) tiered Stone Divine Authority was 0.00187%.
It didn’t take long to understand what exactly the System was telling him, and that he’d somehow missed an opportunity to gain a Divine Authority, limited though it was, frustrated him maybe more than he was willing to admit. Then, forcing away the petty feelings, TJ instead, let himself think.
“If I gained some measure of understanding over stone, for example, then continued to develop my Divine Authority over Storm, and I then consumed some measure of Divine Authority over stone, then would that Divine Authority be given to me as Stone or would it merge into Storm? Could that end up becoming rain of magma or pebbles?”
For that combination to occur at the time of acquisition, it is highly unlikely for Stone, as a Divine Authority whose essence is immensely different from that of Storm, to be integrated into Storm. If you did, however, have a Divine Authority over Metal, Magma, or Soil, it could serve to broaden or heighten the existing Divine Authority and be integrated instead of serving as its own separate Divine Authority. If you had a Divine Authority which encompassed Stone, such as Earth, then the gained Stone Divine Authority would simply serve to strengthen the existing Earth Divine Authority.
TJ slowly nodded. It was making sense, even if he wasn’t sure about all the specifics. Then, knowing that his plan here was twofold, to get to level 30 in Neophyte as well as to attempt his latest test to teach himself Lightning Manipulation, he needed to use Stormcaller. But now, all alone, TJ regretted his choice to push off Sarah or Farid’s companionship. Or Molly, Tessie, Sam, or Mimi. They could make sure nobody or nothing decided to hurt or kill him while his consciousness was lost in pulling the storm into existence overhead.
Instead of continuing to lament his own foolishness, TJ turned his attention inside the house. Now that he looked at it, it was a nicer build, though not one of the cookie cutter homes that’d filled the state in the housing boom of the ‘00’s. There was a basement, he’d seen the windowwells where the required exit points were outside, so he just needed to find the path there. Maybe something down below could keep him safe enough during the required time to create a Storm that’d last long enough to get the experience necessary?
As soon as he found the door that led to the stairs, TJ searched for a place where he could hide a nearly 100 foot-long snake. Considering what his total volume swelled to be as he activated Divine Transformation, that wasn’t an easy task. In the end, he found a coat closet that was mostly empty, so he became a coatl and slithered into the space. There, he threw hundreds of points worth of his resources into pulling the Storm into being. Then, he allowed the time to pass over into 8 minutes total, giving the first level of the multiplier and ensuring that the storm would be strong enough to have a consistent electrical presence.
When the Skill was finally done channeling, TJ pulled himself back into his physical body, worried about what he’d find. What he didn’t expect to find was a trio of adult sized but still very much small garter snakes guarding the door. As he met their eyes, they flicked their tongues in a way that was somehow respectful. Then, when he didn’t say anything more to them, they decided their jobs were done. TJ Appraised them as they slithered away, and was somehow surprised when he saw that they were only Serpents. Level 8.
Pushing away any thoughts about the snakes, TJ instead turned his attention to the world outside. His plan for teaching himself Lightning Manipulation had nothing to do with him staying inside while the world remained outside, so he slithered up the stairs. That the damned snakes had somehow completely disappeared in the few seconds that he hadn’t been paying any attention to them was interesting, but didn’t matter in the scheme of teaching himself a Skill. Instead, TJ left the house and followed his nose to the scent of a lot of grass. While he moved, the lightning thundered overhead, seemingly mocking him for his pride and foolishness. He’d never get it to follow his commands!
Somehow meeting the lightning’s gaze, TJ challenged it as he came to his destination. A park with a wide, open field. There, looking around to ensure that there wasn’t anything that’d disrupt his idea, TJ saw that the nearest tree was a couple hundred feet away. So, there he held his body as straight up as possible. Somehow, he heard the lightning scoff in disgust. He was challenging it? Lightning was the punisher of the proud! The humbler of the foolish! The breaker of the bold!
And to that, TJ said, “Bring it on.”
The first flash of lightning had he laid out flat on the ground before he saw the light or heard the explosion. With his Attributes strengthened by the Storm overhead and everything else that he had, TJ laughed as he hauled himself upright once again. The lighting didn’t wait for him to haul himself up to strike down again. He could feel the energy scorching everything inside of him as his body twitched uncontrollably. Long before he was done recovering, TJ forced himself to move and stand up to the lightning.
“Just a bully, huh?” TJ grunted, forcing what couldn’t pass for a smile on his face. If he’d been able to see himself, he was sure that he’d look like an angry monster. But that didn’t matter. All he needed was to convince the lightning that he could direct it whether it wanted him to or not. He’d already created it when it hadn’t willed it, and now, it was striking through him. Yes, it was agony, and he was losing HP to it, but as he paid attention, he realized that there was a hidden benefit to the Storm-Calling Neophyte: they weren’t nearly as susceptible to lightning’s fury.
When the lightning struck him the third time, TJ rose faster. It wasn’t enough. Not yet.
The fourth time barely knocked him to the ground, even though the grass was blackened and smouldering all around him.
The fifth tried to avoid him, to strike a nearby tree instead. The lightning arced in two directions, half towards him and half to the tree. Branches shattered as he kept his position and laughed into the sky.
The sixth bolt struck him fully, the lightning a thick white scar that cut through reality and into him. TJ tasted smoke, blood, and ozone, and he laughed in defiance. His HP had fallen by several thousand, but though this strike damaged him the most, it was only a little bit more than what the first strike had done to him.
“The full fury of the heavens can’t kill me! I can pull you to me, make you strike where you don’t want to, and your rage isn’t enough! You need not fall in line, but listen, and I’ll grant you more power! I’ll draw storms with lighting and thunder to strike down foes and bring energy and power and life and fire to the world! I’ll serve as a conduit for the heavens to express themselves, to strengthen your position as all that you are!”
There was no answer but for a quiet grumbling of thunder that TJ took as assent. He waited, and waited. And then, five minutes later, after the Skill hadn’t been presented to him, he couldn’t wait any longer.
“What the hell! Didn’t I get the Skill?”
The System’s response set him to cursing.
