I Can Assimilate Everything-Chapter 622: Information!

While his existence achieved a glorious new stage of power due to Assimilating an enemy in The Cavern of Existence, his other body was actually making headway in the First Sea, Abzu.

He had been going across it to try and find other entities that had been spending their time in this Sea erasing the countless Corrupted Growths that rose up over the years. His goal was simple: to see what state they would be in and what information he could obtain from them about Tian, about Observable Existence, about the mysteries that The Groundskeeper had only partially illuminated.

The Groundskeeper was only a singular source of information, and there could be many things he chose not to say. Beings of such profound Depth often had agendas that stretched across eons, motivations that they concealed beneath helpful facades and reasonable explanations. If one wanted the truth, they could only find it out themselves by learning of the bigger picture through multiple perspectives.

If The Cavern of Existence truly gave all of these trials and tribulations to eventually allow him to be capable of laying claim to one of the aspects of the Oldest Paradox, that was great. He would continue pushing through its regions with the same relentless consumption that had already elevated him to Intermediate Depth.

But if it didn’t deliver what it promised, if there were hidden conditions or costs that The Groundskeeper had neglected to mention, he had to make sure that he had other plans laid out before him. And of course, the only way for him to plan was to have enough information to do so.

So his body first went through the memories of the entity that he had killed in the Second Region of The Cavern of Existence. She was an Intermediate Depth entity who had been known as THE Fastest Blade, a title that apparently referred to her speed in combat and her mastery of the weapon she had wielded.

A bunch of shit that title was with how easy she went down.

But her memories showed him how she had gone through The Blind Depths in her own time, struggling for years through darkness that he had conquered in hours. They showed how she had fared when she entered the Second Region, the challenges she had faced, the enemies she had fought, and exactly what threats he could be looking forward to as he continued deeper.

He was basically getting a tutorial guide from a corpse.

He was hoping to get the same thing in the Seas of Tian, information freely given rather than violently extracted, as at this moment his other body came across something unexpected in the sea of Abzu!

An old man.

The figure sat upon a white stony platform that floated above the golden waters of Abzu with stability. His hair was golden, flowing past his shoulders in waves that seemed to catch light from sources that didn’t exist in the surrounding environment. His features were weathered, and his eyes held the calm of someone who had long since made peace with their circumstances.

Near him sat a blacksmith’s forge that made Achilles pause in his approach.

The forge was fantastical in construction, built from materials that seemed to shift between solid and liquid states depending on the angle of observation. Flames burned within it that weren’t truly flames at all, but concentrated authority that had been shaped into fire-like form through sheer mastery of craft.

He noted with surprise that it actually burned with the Way of Blacksmithing.

One could actually raise and elevate a Civilization based on blacksmithing?

The concept seemed almost mundane compared to the grand Civilizations he had encountered, Ways built upon fundamental aspects of Existence like Life and Death and Dreams. But as he observed the forge more closely, he recognized that blacksmithing at its core was about transformation, about taking raw materials and shaping them into something greater through application of heat and pressure and skill.

Perhaps that was fundamental enough to build a Way upon.

Near the forge, Achilles saw multiple weapons arranged with careful organization. Blades of various lengths and configurations, hammers that seemed too heavy for any normal being to lift, spears whose points gleamed with edges.

When he analyzed them with his current Depth, he saw that they were actually sharp or heavy enough to bypass the Depth of weak THE Surface Depth entities entirely. These weren’t ceremonial pieces or decorative displays. They were weapons designed to kill beings that reality itself acknowledged as significant!

As for the old man himself, he seemed to be at the Intermediate Depth based on the weight that radiated from his weathered form. Not the hollow Intermediate Depth of THE Fastest Blade, but something more substantial, more earned through time and dedication rather than desperate advancement.

Achilles floated toward him alone, leaving Rose and Eyyanah in the far distance to continue their own cultivation in the First Sea.

The old man waved his hands casually to clear a few Corrupted Growths in the distance that were rising toward his platform. The geometric wrongness dissolved under his authority with ease. His head barely turned to gaze at Achilles as he approached, golden eyes assessing the newcomer with curiosity that didn’t quite rise to the level of genuine interest.

"A new entrant here? We see others few and far between over the years."

His voice was calm and unhurried.

"If you have come here looking for answers, know that I don’t have any. The best I can do is keep you company."

...!

The old man said such words with acceptance that seemed entirely genuine, and Achilles landed on his floating platform with smile.

"I was just looking to understand a bit more about the region that I came into," Achilles replied with tone that matched the old man’s casual energy. "I am Adrastia. Achilles Adrastia."

The old man nodded at him as if names did not really matter, as if the distinctions that beings clung to in Observable Existence had lost significance across the eons he had spent in this golden Sea.

"You can just refer to me as THE Old Man." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

His weathered features shifted into something approaching a smile.

"Just someone who is far too old to have continued to do this for as long as I did. But hey, it elevated my Depth from Surface to Intermediate after all of these years, and I even had time to constantly practice my Way without having to worry about interruptions."

He gestured toward his forge and the weapons surrounding it with pride that seemed entirely earned.

"So this was a life well lived."

He paused, considering Achilles with eyes that held more awareness than his casual demeanor suggested.

"If you came here to ask me about the Seas of Tian, I actually have not left this First Sea since I did not feel the need to. Everything I require is here. But if you are among those who want to socialize and talk..."

He nudged his head toward a distant region of Abzu where the golden waters seemed slightly different in coloration.

"There are a few THE Surface and Intermediate Depth entities on the border of the First and the Second Sea. They sometimes have gatherings and get-togethers so that they apparently do not go insane from the isolation."

His tone suggested he found such concerns puzzling.

"But how can one be isolated when they have their Way and Civilizations to keep them company?"

...!

The old man shook his head with profundity!

Achilles couldn’t help but smile at this perspective and look out into the distance where THE Old Man had indicated. A community that had formed within Tian across eons of shared labor!

That sounded exactly like what he was looking for.

Multiple perspectives. Multiple sources of information!