GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

Chapter 2313: Memory Fragments.

After giving up on the idea of gaining mastery of divine abilities by inducing mutation and trying to regain control, they eliminated some other ideas too. Eventually, they settled on two possible solutions.

Of the many possible solutions they discovered, only memory fragments and dream excursions have the best chance of success. They have the best chance of success because they are the safest options.

These two options are not perfect either. They have their side effects. It is just that their side effects are manageable for them.

In the case of memory fragments, this option is something that only telepaths can perform. Only legendary telepaths can execute the option, as they are the only ones who have the best control of the Mind Domination divine ability.

Legendary telepaths can create memory fragments by copying the memories of a target into mind fragments. Mind fragments are the shards of the minds harvested from people’s minds after killing them and breaking their minds.

Legendary telepaths like to receive these memory fragments as payment in the Mindscape. Legion learned from their research that this is because mind fragments are the raw materials that Legends use to create the lifelikefood in the Mindscape.

Actually, all of the food, drink, sex, and other pleasure services in the Mindscape are memory fragments. What Gerald and the other telepaths enjoy are just memories of foods, sex, and drinks taken from someone and distilled into a form that the mind can eat and digest.

In a similar way, legendary telepaths can distill the memories of practicing a divine ability and memories of controlling that divine ability from an expert with a high level of mastery into memory fragments for someone else to digest.

It sounds simple, but it is not easy work at all. But it is possible and has even been done to great success too. The best part is that the legendary telepath only needs a single target with a high level of mastery. Then they can copy the memories of that target many times into many memory fragments for others to use.

Unfortunately, as good as it sounds, there are some side effects. The smallest side effect is schizophrenia and dissociative personality disorder.

The disorders occur because the person who digests the memory will become corrupted by the memory. They will have memories of training a divine ability in an unfamiliar environment with an unfamiliar body.

They will also find themselves doing things that they didn’t know they knew before. They will realize that they have new habits, interests, and tastes.

Most of the damage is when they realize that they are slowly becoming someone else. The stress on their minds will eventually become so much that their minds will break down.

When Legion read about this, they were stunned to learn that it was the smallest side effect. What’s worse is that the side effect is certain to happen.

This disorder will always occur. The only uncertainty is to what extent it will occur.

In general, the more mastery gained through this method, the greater the dissociative disorder. And the more skilled the legendary telepath is at distilling the memory, the less the impact of dissociation.

But at the end of the day, dissociation is the least of the things to worry about if mastery is gained using this divine ability. The greatest risk is losing control immediately because the mind becomes too stressed instantly.

Instant loss of control usually happens because the person digesting the memory fragments containing the memories of mastery also digests memories containing traumatic events or memories containing the temptations of divine flesh.

The traumatic event and the heavy dose of temptation gained from the memory fragments can overwhelm the mind. The mind will be able to recover, but the divine flesh in the body won’t give the mind what it needs to recover.

In that moment when the mind is distracted and undermined by the influx of memories, the divine flesh will try to take over the body. Since the mind isn’t there to resist, the divine flesh will succeed, and the person will mutate immediately.

Legion-4 read this and chuckled, “To be fair, the divine flesh didn’t choose that moment to make their move. Divine flesh is always making its move. So it is the fault of the mind for dropping the ball in that moment.”

He joked about it, and the clones laughed, but they took this issue seriously. They took it so seriously that they promised themselves never to try it.

There are two main reasons why they chose not to try it on themselves. The first reason was acquired when they read about a godclad who gained the mastery of sword fighting from a memory fragment and quickly lost control after.

The mastery that the godclad had gained wasn’t even about divine flesh. It was about mundane sword-fighting skills. But the godclad’s personality began to split because the person he gained the memories from had a dominant left arm while he had a dominant right arm.

The godclad, who had lived his whole life with a dominant right arm, suddenly gained a lot of memories out of nowhere about him using his left arm to wield a sword and fight all of his life. This made him begin questioning his past and his identity.

He didn’t know which of the memories was his and which one was stolen. So he quickly lost control and mutated.

This lesson was enough to warn them off of this option. But they still had a more important and personal reason for choosing to avoid it completely.

The second reason they decided that it was too dangerous was because of their personal experience when they received their memories of their future as Legion and changed to Legion completely because of it.

This experience happened just before they became lamp bearers. It ended well, but it also taught them that their current mind is too fragile and precious to mess around with. Especially if the risk is losing control and mutating.