"Hmm... rather than asking me, you might as well think it through yourself, though it might give you a bit of a headache..."
The crown's voice reached him. After confirming his surroundings were safe, Ed once again examined his merged soul and memories.
Soon, he found the answer in the memories of his half from this world.
The original owner had been a test subject of some organization in this disordered world. He had suffered through countless inhumane experiments throughout his childhood and adolescence, eventually awakening a special ability called [Vitality Touch Mark] through a chance coincidence.
After he accidentally revealed this gift from the world, the organization intensified its research on him, which also stirred thoughts of escape in the already somewhat numb original owner.
After a period of planning, the original owner had not only successfully escaped that hellhole, but even made off with another relatively important test subject: the [Verdant Crown].
At a moment of life and death during the pursuit, the original owner had chosen to use the power within this item to escape his predicament.
And there were only two places on his body soft enough to let its roots spread freely and restore vitality in a short time.
So the boy had furiously plunged it into his left eye, gaining the ability to turn parts of his body into plants and ultimately succeeding in killing his pursuers and escaping danger.
Then he had been ambushed by two large trees in the forest near the river. On the verge of death, he had merged with half a remnant soul from another world, becoming what he was now.
The rather heavy memories left Ed speechless for a long time. After processing those negative emotions, he poked the [Verdant Crown] in his eye socket:
"In my memories, you were just a rare juvenile plant composite. Where did all these abilities come from?"
Ed was naturally referring to the panel that could display the attributes of things, the so-called "system."
Although he could use his various abilities and talents without this colorful system, its ability to summarize and categorize seemed connected to "omniscience."
If the [Verdant Crown] had already demonstrated this heaven-defying ability to turn the attributes of things into data, Ed did not believe the original owner would have had a chance to get anywhere near such a treasure.
"How would I know?"
The voice in his head sounded brazen despite having no justification. The [Verdant Crown] explained as though it had suffered some terrible injustice:
"I didn't even have reason to begin with. If you hadn't sacrificed an eye to me, I wouldn't have become like this."
"I wasn't the one who did it."
"You've both merged into one personality, so of course it counts as you doing it."
"So you're saying this is my fault? Spit my eye back out!"
Ed had never imagined that one day he would bicker with a tree, but this bizarre thing had happened all the same.
"Hehe, I'm not blaming you, I'm not blaming you. Although everything I see through the eye you sacrificed is a little weird, it's... fairly interesting. I'm in a symbiotic relationship with you now. If you die, I won't survive either. We can only huddle together for warmth."
The [Verdant Crown] explained with a chuckle. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Ed kept feeling that this fellow had a fairly likable personality. Was that because the sacrifice had come from him?
And starting out hanging upside down from a tree (by the butt), sacrificing an eye to gain omniscience in a certain sense-why did the framework of this story feel a little familiar?
He looked around and saw neither an eight-legged steed treading on lightning nor a Maybach racing like a phantom, nor any lions. Only then did he feel reassured.
"All right, let's leave it at that for now."
Ed lightly tapped the roots inside his eye socket and said, letting it go:
"Two remnant souls have already merged anyway. One more won't make much difference. Even if we're making hot pot, we still need a pair of chopsticks, right?"
"Mm-hmm."
The [Verdant Crown] seemed to sound much more obedient. Ed thought little of it, simply treating it as something like the smart assistants from his previous life as he asked:
"Do you have a name? I can't keep calling you 'Verdant Crown' this and 'Verdant Crown' that."
"No. Let me think... how about Little Azure?"
"Doesn't sound like the right color."
"How about Little Jade?"
"That was pretty popular fifty years ago."
"How about Little Qing?"
"I'm a little scared of snakes."
"Then Little Green it is."
"No objections, but just so we're clear, my name isn't Little Blue..."
Setting aside those strange flights of fancy, Ed had resolved the issues with two of his three talents. To activate the third talent, [Otherworldly Half], he had to acquire a "territory."
The criteria seemed a little subjective, and several ideas for exploiting bugs instantly came to Ed.
But on closer thought, the odds of activating the talent by marking out land beside the river with branches might well be lower than the odds of those branches jumping up and slapping him twice.
In the end, Ed turned his gaze toward the distant castle floating in midair.
It was a Gothic building with a distinctly home-like flavor, except it had now broken into seven or eight large chunks and countless smaller pieces, moving chaotically through an area across the river.
Ed rubbed his chin and muttered to himself:
"I reckon nobody wants that castle anyway..."
Drawing on the original owner's memories, Ed knew that ownership of territory in this world was not represented by documents. Instead, rituals formed the basis for a secret pact binding the territory to its owner's soul.
And the castle opposite had been abandoned for a long time. If he could become its new owner, [Otherworldly Half] would undergo new changes.
With a destination in mind, Ed's current task naturally became crossing the river.
The river before him was only a few dozen meters wide. Although its current was slow, it was not as clear as it looked from a distance, and Ed kept worrying that something inside might be waiting for a buffet.
He was already tired of his unfortunate experiences being treated as a meal for one, so he began asking the [Verdant Crown] whether it had any good ideas.
"Little Green, I want to cross the river. Do you have any ideas?"
The [Verdant Crown]'s rather speechless voice sounded in Ed's mind:
"You know what? At a time like this, normal people would just go complete the quests the system gave them, rather than use the system for hints."
"Are you a real system, then?"
"No."
"Am I a normal person, then?"
"Doesn't look like it."
"Then why aren't you coming up with something?"
Despite saying that, Ed actually already had his own considerations. His main reason for asking Little Green was to verify whether his idea was feasible.
Ideas like making a dugout canoe or a raft did have some merit in his original world. But considering that he had transmigrated, and into a disordered world like this at that, there was naturally no need to follow conventional rules in many things.
After a full two and a half hours of practice, Ed finally waded across the river ahead on a pair of four-meter stilts.
Leaving aside whether a stunt like that could have earned him a living at temple fairs in his previous life, even obtaining two four-meter stilts was no easy matter.
Looking across the forest behind him, where all manner of demons ran wild, Ed knew there were plenty of four-meter poles in there, but very few that did not enjoy eating people. So the plan's eventual success was thanks to Little Green's help in turning parts of his body into plants and then separating them, at the cost of just two fingers (regrowable).
Ed turned to look back at the man-eating woods across the river, thinking to himself that one day he would become Bald Qiang and come clear out these monsters that dared treat him as food.
A gentleman took his revenge from morning till night!
Having finally reached the opposite bank, he was just a dozen or so meters from the steps before the castle's main entrance.
But those marble-like steps were now shattered. Only the first three were still connected to the ground, while the rest were scattered through the surrounding air.
The castle's main entrance was seven or eight meters directly above the steps. It looked difficult to reach even if he joined the two stilts together.