Ascension from Dual Professions

Chapter 230: Chapter 222: Cosmic Giant Eye, Brand New Talent: Chaos Body

It was a colossal, hazy eye.

With Jon’s limited perspective and knowledge, he was utterly incapable of finding words to describe just how enormous it was.

The ”lines” that merely outlined its form were entire rivers of stars, each one containing nebulae that spanned countless astronomical units.

Countless objects of all sizes, likely black holes, were packed together like an insect’s compound eye. They crushed and devoured one another, the matter they ejected tangling into a chaotic pattern that formed the pupil of this giant eye straddling the cosmos.

The moment he saw the eye, Jon’s mind simply refused to process what such an existence even meant.

Unknowable, unseeable, incomprehensible...

’This must be what they mean by ineffable...’

Fortunately, the grand voice had no intention of making Jon face this existence directly. It kindly placed a frosted-glass filter before his eyes, preventing the poor mortal of flesh and blood from being driven mad or stupid by the overwhelming truth.

But at the same time, It emotionlessly repeated the same sentence.

”Witness... Witness the end of this world...”

It was as if it wanted to carve those words—part warning, part sigh—deep into Jon’s consciousness, forcing him to remember them forever.

Finally, just as Jon’s brain was about to shut down the very function of ”thought,” the vision ended.

The giant eye turned slowly, its ”gaze” shifting slightly in his direction as if casting a sliver of its attention upon him—and his consciousness, along with the boundless, starry void around him, went out.

He sank into that state of unknowing, of unfeeling, until a voice, calling as if through heavy seawater, dredged up his consciousness once more.

”Bo... Boss? Boss! Wake up!”

”Hah—!”

Jon sucked in a sharp breath and opened his eyes, like a drowning man breaking the surface.

He saw a face leaning very close—choppy purple hair and amber eyes filled with unconcealed worry.

It was Dolores.

For a moment, Jon’s thoughts completely froze.

He stared blankly at Dolores, as if he didn’t recognize her, as if he couldn’t even be sure where he was.

The boundless, dark void of the Illusion Realm; the terrifying giant eye made of star rivers and black holes that defied comprehension; and those words seared into his soul like a brand: ”Witness the end...”

The impact of it all was so immense that he was thrown into a daze, fiercely questioning his own existence. ’Who am I? Where am I? Was everything that just happened a hallucination?’

’Or is this ”reality” the true illusion?’

This violent turmoil clearly frightened the girl so close to him.

”Boss? W-What’s wrong with you? Your eyes look so scary...”

A faint tremor laced Dolores’s voice. She subconsciously reached out to touch his shoulder but stopped halfway.

...

Jon forcibly suppressed the profound sense of nothingness churning within him. He blinked his stinging eyes hard, and his vision finally cleared, focusing on Dolores’s concerned face.

The worried questions from the girl before him, the cold touch of the stone beneath him, the cloying sweetness of plants and the bite of cold in the air, the faint sounds of Moon and Sati organizing their spoils in the distance—all this sensory information belonging to ”reality” flooded back into his brain, pulling him back from the verge of collapse.

’Right... I just entered my talent’s Illusion Realm... Then I heard a strange voice... and saw that eye...’

’That eye—!’

As he recalled the colossal, seemingly endless eye that straddled the cosmos, Jon felt his head was about to split open and couldn’t help but let out a muffled groan.

”Ugh—!”

This terrified Dolores. Casting aside any thought of being presumptuous, she rushed to support Jon.

”Boss, are you okay? Were you hurt just now?”

”Haaah... I... I’m fine...”

Jon let out a long, heavy breath, trying to relieve the tightness in his chest.

”Ahem... I just... went a little too deep in my Meditation. I zoned out.”

”Zoned out?”

Dolores watched Jon skeptically, her gaze sweeping over his face.

She wasn’t some naive fool who could be easily tricked.

The way her Boss had looked just now was definitely not a simple case of ”zoning out.”

In his eyes, there had been a fear she couldn’t comprehend, a sense of nothingness that came after being utterly crushed by a massive existence. It even reminded her of the bottomless despair her ”mother”—the one who raised her—would occasionally reveal on nights of the full moon.

But the girl was wise enough not to press the issue. She just nodded and muttered under her breath.

”Oh... As long as you’re okay. We’ve pretty much finished sorting the spoils. Sati said the quality is excellent.”

”Okay, got it.”

Jon acknowledged her, shaking his head to dispel the last traces of dizziness. He then pushed off the ground with one hand, preparing to stand up.

However, the moment he started to rise—

An indescribable sense of power surged forth from his entire body!

The feeling was incredibly sudden. It wasn’t a simple increase in Power or Constitution, but an all-encompassing, qualitative leap!

It was as if every cell in his body had been awakened, tempered, and rearranged in an instant. This was completely different from the feeling of growing stronger from [Power Harmony] before he entered the talent’s Illusion Realm!

His muscle fibers grew denser and tougher. A faint, pleasant hum resonated from deep within his bones. His blood seemed to flow faster, granting him greater explosive strength.

Even more miraculously, his perception of his surroundings had become far more acute. The drifting of dust motes in the air, the trajectory of sap dripping from a distant vine, and even the circulation of Magic Power and stamina within his body were all several times clearer than before!

’What’s happening!?’

Jon froze mid-motion, his newly sharpened mind racing.

’But I didn’t get a new talent... Could it be—?’

An incredible thought flashed through his mind like lightning, and his heart began to pound in his chest.

He almost instinctively sank his consciousness into the system panel.

And the changes displayed in the attributes column left him standing there, stunned.

—

[Attributes: Power: 40+36.6, Constitution: 122+5, Agility: 5+36.6, Intelligence: 31+36.6+1, Spirit: 32+36.6+1]

—

Except for Constitution, all of his Attributes had increased by 36.6!

And below the Attributes, in the talent section, the faintly glowing blue text for [Power Harmony] was gone!

In its place was a new line of gray text that emanated an indescribable aura!

[Chaos Body (Special Talent): Every attribute, excluding your highest, will receive a bonus equal to 30% of your highest attribute. You have a 5% chance to ignore incoming damage.]