novelraw Chapter 109: The Consequences of Knowledge Overload
Chapter 109: The Consequences of Knowledge Overload
[You step up to the bookshelf and discover several books with peculiar qualities.]
[You have obtained: Book Containing Trace Knowledge x3 (Item)]
[Book Containing Trace Knowledge: A thick tome densely packed with text. The writing seems imbued with a mysterious magic that quietly draws the reader in. Using this item will increase your Knowledge by 10 points.]
At this moment, Lin Xun was possessing the Shell of Lir, the Four-Eyed Student.
The Shell skill Knowledge Extraction was active, boosting his Knowledge acquisition.
His current Knowledge stood at 90/100, just one book away from breaking the 100-point threshold.
Lin Xun had the nagging sense that he was missing something.
He paused to think deeply, but no clear answer came to mind.
With a cautious mindset, he decided to go through with it and clicked to use the item.
[You open the Book Containing Trace Knowledge, read its contents, and absorb the knowledge within…][You have gained knowledge. Your Knowledge has increased by 15 points! Current Knowledge: 105/100]
[Your understanding has surpassed the threshold. You have touched the extraordinary and are granted a glimpse of Omniscient True Knowledge…]
Omniscient True Knowledge? Could it be something akin to the Source of the Apocalypse like Corrupting Blood Sun?
Lin Xun frowned. Something felt off.
The game text didn’t describe the form of Omniscient True Knowledge…
[Chaotic, disordered knowledge floods into your soul in endless torrents. You begin to lose yourself in the sea of knowledge.]
[Reason slips away from you. Madness takes root in your mind.]
[Your head explodes with a deafening blast…]
[You are dead!]
Lin Xun wasn’t surprised by the death.
What did surprise him was how he died.
“Why is it that all those knowledge-seeking monsters just went insane, but I outright died from… a knowledge-induced brain implosion?”
[An ordinary wandering soul is reborn in the old lecture hall…]
[The ordinary wandering soul is filled with chaotic, disordered knowledge and cannot move freely.]
[Would you like to expend 1 point of Soul Strength to purge the chaotic knowledge from your soul?]
…??
What’s going on now? He couldn’t even control the wandering soul?
Lin Xun tried opening the Shell Panel and attempted to possess a Shell.
[The ordinary wandering soul is filled with chaotic, disordered knowledge and cannot move freely.]
“…”
He was completely stuck.
This wave of cursed game mechanics had completely thrown Lin Xun for a loop.
He combed back through the previous game text, searching for clues.
Then, he noticed it: before his death, the text had said ‘Knowledge flooded into your soul’, not into the brain.
Scrolling further back, he finally realized what he’d missed.
When he had first entered the chapter and examined the description of the Nameless Knowledge-Seeking Mentor Shell, it had already indicated a Knowledge gain.
But at that time, he had still been in wandering soul form!
Later, when he switched to Lir’s Shell, the Knowledge stat didn’t reset, it carried over from earlier.
In other words, in this chapter, Knowledge affects the soul directly, not the Shell.
Only now did Lin Xun begin to grasp the true terror of a Hell-Difficulty chapter.
At the moment, if he didn’t consume 1 point of Soul Strength, he wouldn’t even be able to control his wandering soul or possess a Shell.
The only silver lining? What he had to spend wasn’t Soul Strength capacity, just 1 current point.
Had the penalty been against max Soul Strength, Lin Xun would’ve exited the chapter without a second thought.
[You have expended 1 point of Soul Strength. The chaotic, disordered knowledge in your soul has been purged.]
[Current Soul Strength: 2/3]
[Your Knowledge cap has increased. Current Knowledge: 0/200]
Lin Xun’s eyes lit up.
So overloading Knowledge did have a benefit, it raised the Knowledge cap.
He quickly reasoned out its purpose.
When Knowledge overflowed, it caused insanity. So the Knowledge stat could be understood as a kind of madness meter.
Raising the Knowledge cap meant increasing resistance to insanity.
Lin Xun grinned. Now that he understood the mechanics, he knew exactly how to proceed.
[You have expended 1 point of Soul Strength to Reshape the Shell: Knowledge-Seeking Four-Eyed Student.]
[Current Soul Strength: 1/3]
Lir’s Shell still had value because of her skill, so spending 1 point to restore it was worth it.
Still, every Knowledge overload cost 2 Soul Strength, one to die, one to purge. That was steep.
He eyed the two remaining books in his inventory and began thinking of a workaround to save Soul Strength.
[You have possessed the Shell: Corrupted Theater Dancer.]
He activated the stealth skill and slipped out of the safe zone.
The corridor was once again filled with freshly respawned student monsters.
But Lin Xun didn’t wipe them all out, he silently assassinated a single student monster.
[You have defeated a Knowledge-Seeking Student of the Multivision School. Experience slightly increased.]
[You examine the dead student’s Shell…]
[Shell of a Knowledge-Seeking Student: A student whose thirst for knowledge had spiraled out of control. After absorbing more knowledge than they could handle, they lost their sense of self. For reasons unknown, their eyes were gouged out, leaving their sockets empty. Died from a precise throat stab. Compatibility: 119% (+45%)]
[Would you like to possess this Shell?]
Lin Xun tossed out the Nameless Mentor Shell, keeping only the Academic Robe and Thick Baton, and clicked “Possess.”
[You have possessed the Shell of a Knowledge-Seeking Student.]
[The Shell’s memory is fragmented and disordered. You cannot recall its past.]
The Shell’s quality and equipment were trash. It had no Shell Skills, and was originally level 15, raised to 29 via Visage of the Leader.
[Your vision goes dark. You can’t see anything. You cannot acquire knowledge through empty sockets, and must instead fumble your way through with the Shell’s strange innate senses…]
[You struggle to adapt to this unfamiliar sensation. Your movements are clumsy and disoriented.]
[You accidentally bump into a female classmate. Muttering incoherently, you quietly apologize and continue groping around…]
Lin Xun had planned to use a disposable student Shell to read books and take the Knowledge overload death in place of a valuable one, thus saving Soul Strength.
But this blind Shell operated on a strange sixth sense, rendering it unable to read, and making even basic movement difficult.
All the regular student monsters, it seemed, had no eyes.
Only special monsters like Lir retained transplanted eyes.
Too bad Lir didn’t respawn.
Lin Xun’s clever plan had collapsed before it even began…
He was just about to switch back to the Dancer Shell to continue sneaking deeper into the facility when a sudden idea flashed through his mind.
He immediately opened his inventory.
[Unknown Creature’s Eyeball (Junk) x17 – Harvested from an unknown creature. Due to poor-quality preservative fluid, this eyeball has long since lost its vitality.]
He clicked one.
A prompt popped up:
[Would you like to insert the Unknown Creature’s Eyeball into your eye socket?]