I left the city.
That meant no more alcohol or good food for the foreseeable future.
What a disaster.
Oh well. Can't be helped.
It's not like I could just drink in public, anyway.
Besides, if I kept indulging in that bliss forever, I'd eventually get sick of it. You only truly appreciate something after a cooling-off period.
I think I finally understand how those office workers feel when they talk about how great a beer is after work.
If I have any complaint, it's that the vampire girl still hasn't managed to learn magic. She hasn't even grasped the basics of acquiring a Skill, let alone actually getting one — so honestly, I'm worried about where that's heading.
Well, I'm hardly one to talk.
Becoming a god was great. It was exactly the result I'd been aiming for. But getting completely shut out of the System? That hurt.
To be blunt, there's a LOT less I can do now compared to before.
I can still produce thread. Thanks to originally being a spider, I can generate thread properly — not as a Skill, but as a natural ability. If anything, having broken free of the Skill framework means I can customize my thread more freely than ever before.
But everything else? I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been weakened across the board.
My magic lost most of its elemental attributes, which made it weaker — with a few exceptions. The exceptions are Darkness-element magic, Spatial Magic and Healing Magic (which never had elemental attributes to begin with), and Heterodox Magic.
Even Healing Magic, though — now that I've become a god and established a method for physical regeneration, there's no real point in casting it as a spell. So it's basically scrap.
Spatial Magic has become a bit unstable without the System's support, so that needs practice.
Heterodox — I can use it, but... I probably won't get the chance, honestly.
And some of the others are completely unusable depending on the type. So in practice, the only magic I can really use is Darkness.
Well, that's only if we're talking about actual combat. For everyday life, it's fine. I can conjure ice and make myself a shaved ice dessert, for example.
Not that I would.
I don't have resistances anymore, either. Resistances were Skills that cut elemental damage — defensive abilities granted by the System — so they're gone now. Status effects that I used to nullify? I take them straight to the face now.
So, to sum up: I'm in this inconvenient state where I can no longer do most of the things I used to.
Almost everything I lost was tied to elemental attributes, though. Spatial Magic is the only one that's a bit different.
Among the things I can no longer use, the biggest blow is Poison.
Until now, Poison and Thread were my twin pillars — the two abilities that supported me. And now Poison is gone.
All the poison in this world exists under the Poison attribute. It's not chemical poison — it's poison generated through magical processing. So calling it "poison" is actually a misnomer. The accurate term would be something like "magic attack that inflicts continuous damage."
The poisons I used to create with Poison Synthesis were just water with that effect attached. If you filter them through the System or look at them from a magical perspective, they're nothing but pure H₂O.
Poison Resistance was a resistance against this Poison attribute, so it was actually useless against poison in the traditional sense. Thanks to the System, chemical poisons can't be generated in this world anyway, so it doesn't matter while I'm here. Can't generate them doesn't mean can't bring them in, though — if I borrowed some potassium nitrate from Earth, it'd work just fine. The only one who could do that right now is Black, though.
And then there's the Evil Eye.
This one is very clear-cut — some work, some don't.
What works: Clairvoyance, Future Sight, Death Wipe.
What doesn't: Curse, Paralyze, Repel.
Clairvoyance is basically a telescope, so it was easy to use. Future Sight got a bit weaker, but it's still usable — though without the System's support, the Arithmetic Processing became insanely complex and the computational burden is through the roof, making it a pain. But it's not unusable.
Death Wipe — yeah, that still works.
Everything that doesn't work is tied to elemental attributes, so there's no helping it. Curse was heavily HP- and System-dependent, Paralyze was the Paralysis attribute, and Repel was the Gravity attribute.
Thread, Poison, Magic, and Evil Eye — these four were my greatest weapons. Of those, one is lost and two are more than half broken. That's a massive nerf.
...Just kidding. Of course not.
A god isn't going to be some fragile existence.
Okay, yes — there are fewer things I can do now. That's undeniable. But even though the variety has decreased, the quality has skyrocketed.
First: Status.
Since I've fallen outside the System, I technically don't have a Status anymore. But I'm enhancing my physical abilities through magic, so I produce effects equivalent to this world's Status. And unlike a fixed Status, I can adjust the output at will. So you could say I have even more freedom in controlling my physical capabilities.
My magic power is incomparable to what it was before divinification, and the physical enhancements it provides — if you were to convert them to a Status value — would comfortably exceed 100,000.
The Status cap is 99,999. So nobody can beat me on Status alone.
Moreover, 100,000 is just my normal output. In combat, I can push it even higher. That's all I was doing when I punched through the Demon King's Physical Immunity — I simply applied more force than his Skill could withstand and broke through. Brute force, plain and simple.
That alone gives me power that nobody except Black can match in this world.
On top of that, D's gift — the "God's Basic Course" — contained instructions on the minimum divine powers needed to function as a god. With that, I've gained combat capabilities worthy of the title, even if I am the lowest rank.
As for the Skills I lost — losing the power doesn't erase the memory of having used it. I can't reproduce the System's elemental attributes, but given enough time, I can build something close from scratch. I think I'll be able to develop similar techniques for several of the Skills I can no longer use.
The first one I'd like to revive is Evil Eye.
I've thrown that work to a split body I sent into a pocket dimension. This split body is one I created by recollecting and absorbing the babies I'd spawned for my egg resurrection. Each one is weak on its own, but it can perform something like parallel processing, so I've assigned each a specific task — having them work on replicating my abilities.
Even while the main body is off relaxing, these divisions are working tirelessly behind the scenes.
Like how a waterbird looks elegant gliding across the surface, but underwater its legs are paddling like crazy. The main body is absolutely not being lazy.
Not at all. Not one bit.
So there you have it — during my travels, I've been training in ways no one can see.
Hmph. I wish the vampire girl would take a page out of my book.