Chapter 979: Plenty of Column A, Very little of Column B
=…And that should be every single core currently in our store house. You really be using these more often, milord.=
“I’m aware, Logos. I plan to merge a bunch of them into more sense and powerful desires later.”
=Not like that, you know what I mean.=
“Yeah, yeah…”
After addressing his medical concerns, and sending the kaijin off to do whatever they wanted in the respective domiciles, Zhen Liu decided now was as good as time any to review his kaijin creation capabilities. More specifically, review his liquid assets.
Over the past few months of galivanting, fighting and being genuine nuisance to those who mean him harm, Zhen Liu had managed to acquire a whole mess of [Cores], aka, the thing needed to give a kaijin their version of a “soul”.
Or it was their soul?
To be completely honest, Zhen Liu wasn’t entirely sure which it was and it didn’t help that not even the kaijin seemed to understand either.
Regardless, Zhen Liu had actually acquired so many of the damn things that he actually kind of lost track of what kind of cores he had at this point in time.
However, there were a few he remembered having off the top of his head due to who they were gathered from.
For example, he still kept that [Core of Freedom] that he had gotten from Bellona on his first date.
Did it have some sentimental value to him?
Sort of, since he was now engaged with the person the core was sourced from.
Did he also not use it because he couldn’t find the right materials for it?
Definitely.
From his vague understanding on the desire of [Freedom] such things should be associated with materials that were elementally aligned with wind or water aether.
However, he technically had neither at this moment.
In terms of the former, he had nothing.
In terms of the latter…kind of, but eels and [Freedom] didn’t mesh. Neither did otters and [Freedom]…well, not murder otters at least.
“Okay, I really need to go on another material hunt…or go shopping…”
In fact, this was the main reason why he hadn’t use any of these cores yet: lack of materials.
Despite his ability to create kaijin now included items that carried [Meaning], and not just items that carried [Value], he wasn’t sure what exactly counted.
In terms of the former at least, in terms of the latter, he figured it out it was less “anything with a price range higher than a thousand gold coins” and more “anything that high tiered cultivators would murder each other for”.
That said, [Meaning], as far as Zhen Liu could figure out was…vague.
Really, really vague.
Out of curiosity once, he tried to simply walk around the family estate to determine if anything owned by his family members counted.
The results were…not as expected, but still sort of aligned.
In Zhen Liu’s head, any item with [Meaning] was anything that was old as hell but was well-cared for by its owners, i.e., the criteria for tsukumogami in his old world.
Reality, however, said otherwise.
The wedding bands used by his parents apparently didn’t count, but a wolf pelt rug they made together for their anniversary last year did count.
A stuffed animal that every single scion of the Zhen Clan played with for about a year as a child counted, but not the hand stitched plushies Zhen Liu’s mother made for his twin baby siblings.
A pair of swords used by the family guard, one that had been maintained for years by a member of the older generation and one that was recently crafted, both qualified for some cockamamie reason.
And when he got back to the library earlier that day, he had come in around the same time that Jasper and Janice had arts and crafts time (read: practicing their Chaos skills).
Jasper drew a simple cartoon for Janice, while Janice made for him a small stuffed rabbit. Both of these items had enough [Meaning] behind them that seemed to work for the purposes of Kaijin creation.
There was no consistent rhyme or reason for what was considered “meaningful” to Zhen Liu’s mind, at least by the criteria of his hand seal, so he decided to pocket that thought until he was forced to address it later.
Evidently, “later” was now.
“Alright, Logos, Pathos.”
<=Yes?=>
“What exactly constitutes as [Meaningful] for the scope of Kaijin creation? Because it appears my understanding of something being meaningful is very different from what this thing considers meaningful,” Zhen Liu asked showing off the [Seal of the Kaijin Lord] to the aformentioned curators. “Wait a minute, why does this thing seem more elaborate?”
=I suppose another way to put this is…the seal reacts to what others consider meaningful, not what you consider meaningful.=
“Okay, explain this like I’m dumb.”
=Sure.=
Given the go-ahead, Pathos proceeded to manipulate [Chaos] in order to create a…series of letters and a symbol.
More specifically, it was the first six letters of the English alphabet: A,B,C,D,E and F, and a symbol that he knew to be incredibly controversial in his old life.
And the life of a certain candy maker he knew.
Once these symbols were created, Logos began her explanation.
“Because…first six are just letters, while that last one is a symbol with a loaded meaning?”
=I thought he was busy travelling with that son of a carpenter.=
“Ominous statements aside, Pathos, you were saying?”
“Yeah…”
The letters she had conjured were initially black in coloration, but with a snap of her fingers, they had turned into a colorful spectrum with the letter “A” bring a dark blue color, while the letter “F” was now crimson red.
At the sight of these colored letters, Zhen Liu instinctively flinched for no discernable reason.
“Wait a minute, what the…”
“Oh…I see what you’re getting at now,” Zhen Liu nodded in understanding. “[Meaning] is not so much an earned quality, but the sheer emotions someone feel towards a particular object in any given moment?”
<=Yes and no.=>
“Huh?”
=Meanwhile, some other objects may have no meaning whatsoever at the beginning, but will becoming [Meaningful] over time due to happenstance, circumstance and how everyone else perceives it.=
<=Really, it all depends on the point of views of others.=>
“Oh…”
The more Zhen Liu thought over Logos and Pathos’s words, the more they made sense.
The wedding bands his parents were wearing were symbols of tradition here in Stampeding Bison, but they had adapted themselves to Roaring Tide culture. Ergo, the rings didn’t really have any meaning to them.
The wolf skin rug that they made together after hunting down a [Three-Eyed Mountain Wolf] for three days and nights, carried a lot of meaning to them.
The childhood toy that all the scions had once played with a meaningful place in their hearts, but the ones Zhen Liu’s siblings had received had yet to develop any form of meaning because the owners of it could barely understand the concept of object permanence.
This even applied to the swords, because the one used by veteran was something that had been by their side for years, while the new one represented something like their hope for the future…or something like that.
As for the crafts made by the kids, well, it was now painfully obvious.
They were heartfelt gifts exchanged between siblings that had been through thick and thin together, anything they exchanged with each other were bound to carry a lot more [Meaning] than anything they would receive from others, or even gave to others.
Now that Zhen Liu knew what to look for, he decided to do something…mildly silly.
“Alright, if that’s the meaning of [Meaning]…I think I know where to look now.”
