The Shut-In Went Outside

"Oh, Fool of this era, you are the mysterious Sovereign above the Gray Fog, you are the King of Yellow and Black who holds good fortune. Thank you for your grace, allowing me to have a wonderful morning..."

The prayer chanted in Ancient Hermes echoed back and forth in the spiritually sealed room, as if turning into infinite reverberations that reached the heavens.

"Crack!"

As if some solid shell had finally shattered, Sno suddenly felt a jolt in his spirit. Immediately, the sound of illusory shattering, accompanied by a peculiar sensation, enveloped his spirituality. It felt like a ladle of water being poured over him while he was in a sauna, with vast amounts of steam beginning to merge with his body, as if endless heat was surging around him.

Without any indication, he clearly understood that his Donkey of Buridan Potion had been completely digested.

"But it seems there's still a bit of mental residue from the indecisiveness. Is it because the Donkey of Buridan part wasn't fully role-played? Or is it a side effect of forcibly implanting the mental imprint?" Sno tried to construct two options in his mind, and immediately felt his spirituality showing signs of instability again. He quickly took out a coin and tossed it, deciding to eat buttered toast that morning before his spirituality finally stabilized.

Although this spiritual instability was much better than before, when a slight choice could almost lead to Loss of Control, and it wasn't enough to truly affect his mental state, he still decided not to consider advancing to [Pavlov's Dog] for now. Instead, he would try to role-play as the "Donkey of Buridan" to see if he could digest this residual negative impact.

As for how to role-play the Donkey of Buridan...

Naturally, it's by facing many choices and making the right decisions!

With this realization, Sno ended his reclusive life, hanging the "Open for Business" sign back on his door. Then, as usual, he put on his slightly tall silk top hat and double-breasted high-collar formal suit, hiding his handsome face in the shadow of the hat.

However, this time, he didn't bring Lily. Firstly, because Lily needed to role-play as an Assassin, and secondly, because Lily was too recognizable, and carrying her around would easily reveal his identity.

Taking a rented carriage to the Chowder District, he skillfully found a residential building and changed into working-class attire of a newsboy cap and suspender pants before continuing towards the bridge district.

To put it bluntly, Backlund was a place with very clear class divisions. Whether you belonged to a certain area could be concluded with just one glance at your clothes. If Sno, who lived in the West District, went out wearing commoner's clothes, he might even be mistaken for a thief by patrolling police and taken in for questioning. Conversely, wandering around the bridge district in formal attire, even if he wasn't mugged and robbed, he would likely be stared at by countless eyes.

Because of this, Backlund had various trading platforms. For example, Mr. A's trading platform was located at the junction of the West District and the Queen's District, attracting mostly nobles and the relatively wealthy class as new customers.

Mr. Eisinger Stanton's Extraordinary gathering was held in the bridge district, which meant he faced more Extraordinary individuals who needed to take risks.

This wasn't to say that Mr. Eisinger Stanton's Extraordinary gathering was of a lower caliber than Mr. A's. It was mainly due to different objectives.

Mr. A needed to role-play as a Shepherd and develop followers, so he naturally preferred quality over quantity, hoping to attract individuals of higher status.

As for Mr. Eisinger Stanton, being a Knowledge Keeper/Detective, he needed to interact with all sorts of people. Compared to the important figures who just wanted to experience the extraordinary, those who found the gathering with little money were more likely to have extraordinary items for sale. Moreover, those who adventured everywhere were clearly more efficient at obtaining information than the noble offspring who never left their homes (specifically referring to extraordinary information).

Following the memories of his predecessor, Sno skillfully pushed open the door of the Brave Man Bar. Amidst the assault of sweat and alcohol odors, he quickly went to the counter, lowered the brim of his hat to hide his disguised face in the shadows, and placed a Soule coin on the table, asking:

"Is Casper here?"

The bartender casually swept the coin behind the counter and pointed with his chin to a corner on the side – "Billiard Room Number Three."

"Thanks," Sno nodded, bypassing the gamblers who were releasing adrenaline over a game of "cat-and-mouse," and without knocking, he directly entered Billiard Room Number Three.

Seeing someone barge in without knocking, the two people playing billiards raised their heads almost simultaneously. However, upon seeing Sno slightly push up his hat brim, the pale old man with a large nose immediately stuck his cue stick to the side and said familiarly:

"Long time no see, I thought you were dead!"

"I almost thought I was dead for sure!" Sno spread his hands, watching the other person tactfully leave the room before revealing a wry smile. "Honestly, if it wasn't for the fall of the Waltz Faction, I'd still be holed up in Tingen!"

"Then you should have come to me directly when you discovered you were being followed, instead of leaving a letter and leaving Backlund! It was something that could have been settled with a little money. I think you just didn't trust me!" Casper's tone was a bit agitated. Regarding this old man with whom his predecessor had a good relationship, Sno just shook his head and said:

"This matter isn't as simple as you think. The Waltz Faction has backing. Who knows if going through your connections would have been even worse! You also know that my profession requires connections. If my reputation gets ruined, how am I supposed to get by?"

"Reputation? Does 'Veterinarian Noble Son' count as reputation? Or does 'Lady Killer' count as reputation? Your dead father spent his whole life wanting to restore his noble status, but it seems you're only focused on restoring relationships with noble ladies, right?" Casper's words were very blunt. Sno chuckled dryly at this and skipped the topic:

"Compared to that, I wanted to ask about the gathering you mentioned..."

"Don't even think about it for now!"

Casper interrupted Sno with a single sentence:

"Although the gathering is still ongoing, the atmosphere has been a bit off. You're probably asking me because you heard some rumors, right? Anyway, let's talk about it after things calm down."

Hearing Casper's words, Sno relaxed a little. It wasn't because the gathering was still happening, but because—Casper was trustworthy.

The reason he chose to come today was because he saw the news about the Eye of Wisdom, that is, Mr. Eisinger Stanton's Extraordinary gathering, in the newspaper. As for why he came to ask, knowing the secret code, it was naturally to see if this "friend" from his predecessor's memory was truly as reliable as he seemed.

However, since the other party was offering such a warning, he was clearly a person with whom he could interact to some extent. Sno thus followed the lead and inherited his predecessor's social connections, smiling and saying:

"In that case, I'll wait a bit longer."

I don't know if there's a quantity limit for low-level extraordinary characteristics, but low-sequence Extraordinarys can be increased infinitely (actually limited, but the limit far exceeds the total population of Earth), as long as the corresponding True God is willing.

Firstly, Origin Quality has the characteristic of self-completion. This was mentioned in the original work. Although it wasn't stated whether this completion would increase the Origin Quality, it could at least increase the extraordinary characteristics and the supporting Outer Gods.

In other words, if Earth had the ability to tear apart Origin Quality, it could completely tear apart the Sea of Chaos into five parts, allowing all five factions to become Outer Gods through the newly added Origin Quality. Of course, this would lead to the division of the omniscient and omnipotent authority.

I even suspect that the initial constant splitting and rejoining was precisely to use this characteristic of splitting and then completing to achieve "growth."

Splitting, completing, and then rejoining – this might be a process from disorder to order. When all power returns to order, the Primal would no longer need to split.

Secondly, according to what the author said, the system in the West Continent is through "conferring titles" using Origin Quality, which means granting supernatural abilities through Origin Quality/extraordinary characteristics without taking medicine. This implies that even without taking extraordinary characteristics, one can still use their powers.

In other words, extraordinary characteristics might be limited, but they are sufficient to support global supernatural abilities. Even if one is willing to research, "sharing extraordinary characteristics" is not impossible. (The West Continent likely possesses this technology).

As for the protagonist's Origin Quality, this is a major plot point in the book. The publicly available information is that the protagonist's Origin Quality is not from [Outside].