Chapter 96: THE SIX SOVEREIGN GODDESSES OF THE COSMOS AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

I sat in one of the mahogany wooden chairs in the corner of the Great Library of StoneBrook, staring at the thin, bright-red-covered book in front of me with an expression as flat as a board.

If any other player happened to pass by and saw me right now, my image as the deadly "White Elf" and mad explosives expert would be completely shattered in an instant. Just imagine it: a player fully equipped in Epic gear, wearing an elegant White Military Uniform, sitting with a straight back like a general... yet reading a picture book about a fat wild boar chasing a red apple.

"This is an insult to my level of intelligence," I grumbled softly, turning the first page.

However, because I had already spent 2 extremely precious Skill Points (SP) to unlock the foundational passive skill of Linguistics, I had no choice but to swallow my pride whole.

I began reading. At first, the letters beneath the illustration of the wild boar looked like meaningless random scribbles. Yet, because this game’s engine was designed with an organic growth system in which physical and mental actions directly stimulated skill development, I focused my mind. I linked the illustration of the running boar with the sentence structure beneath it.

Little by little, the translation algorithm in my virtual brain began to work. The letters gradually shifted, rearranging their forms until they formed phonemes and words that could be understood by the linguistic logic of my world.

Wild... boar... runs... to... the hill.

I let out a long breath. This picture book turned out to be fairly easy to understand. Its syntax was extremely basic, designed exactly like a toddler’s textbook. It only took me five minutes to finish the tragic tale of the wild boar that ultimately failed to obtain its apple because it tripped over a stone.

Ting!

[System: Basic linguistic comprehension increased! Passive Skill (Reading/Linguistics) rose to Lv. 2]

"One children’s book equals one level?" I muttered, my eyes sparkling slightly. "If the curve is this easy, I can exploit it."

I immediately stood from my chair and walked toward the children’s literature section. I ignored the basic animal fairy-tale books and began sorting through the shelves for readings that were a bit denser in narrative yet still used basic language.

I took several other picture books: the story of a knight who lost his sword, a fairy tale about a water spirit, until finally my eyes landed on a worn book with a dark blue cover embossed with golden stars. Its title, after I translated it with my Level 2 Linguistics, roughly read: ’The Cosmos and the Creators: The Tale of the Six Pillar Goddesses’.

"A fairy tale book about the main goddesses," I muttered, weighing the book in my hand. Considering I was currently undertaking a Legendary Quest directly connected to a divine entity named the Moon Goddess, understanding the hierarchy of rulers in the world of Second World Online might provide additional clues.

I returned to my table, lit an additional candle, and began reading.

Unlike the boring wild boar tale, this book was extraordinarily interesting. Its language style was simple because it was aimed at NPC children, yet the lore content and world-building within it were extremely deep. As someone accustomed to dissecting game mechanics from the perspective of a developer and science, I immediately sank into that cosmic narrative.

I flipped through page after page rapidly, completely hypnotized by the story, to the point that I ignored the series of system notifications that kept ringing ’Ting!’ in the corner of my vision. My Linguisticsskill level continued to rocket upward without me realizing it.

The book explained that this mortal world was not created by a single entity or cosmic chaos, but was supported by the absolute balance of the Six Sovereign Goddesses. In the eyes of my analytical mind, these six goddesses were essentially the lore manifestations of the six main engine pillars that ran the virtual reality of Second World Online.

The book detailed each of the Six Main Goddesses:

Soleis, the Sun Sovereign

Depicted as a majestic female knight clad in shining golden armor riding a war chariot across the horizon. Soleis was the representation of absolute order, justice, light, and pure physical strength. The Universal Church that I often encountered, such as the Cathedral of Light in StoneBrook, consisted mostly of her followers. From the mechanical perspective of my gameplay, Soleis was the embodiment of the Strength (STR) and Vitality (VIT) attributes. She was the protective goddess of Paladins, frontline knights, and heavy-class fighters. Reading about her boundless heat and kinetic energy, I was immediately reminded of how weak my current STR value was, halved by the system. Of course, fanatical followers of Goddess Soleis would probably regard my fragile anatomy as something pitiful.

Selene, the Moon Sovereign

The next page displayed an illustration of a beautiful silver-veiled woman surrounded by stars, holding a mirror of truth and a weaving staff. Selene was the opposite of her sister, Soleis. She was the ruler of the night, mystery, wisdom, and latent magic. The fairy tale mentioned that Selene did not grant muscular strength to her followers, but rather ’Eyes That See the Truth’ and ’A Mind That Dissects the Stars’. I fell silent for a moment while reading this section. No wonder the Guardian of Yggdrasil called my condition the ’Curse of the Moon’. My Albinism Trait doubled my Intelligence (INT) and Dexterity (DEX) until they reached the absurd figure of 152 points at Level 35, yet destroyed my physical body. Selene was the goddess of data processing, pure magic, and intellectual intelligence. She was the divine avatar of the Mana laws in this game.

Yggdrasil, the Life Sovereign

Depicted not as an ordinary humanoid figure, but as a botanical giant whose body was fused with the World Tree, her roots embracing the earth’s core and the canopy of her hair supporting the sky, exactly like the lore I had heard in the void trial earlier. Yggdrasil was the foster mother of all organisms. She regulated growth, racial evolution, cell regeneration, and the fertility of nature. Systemically, Yggdrasil was the goddess responsible for the mechanics of Health Points (HP) regeneration, the hunger system (Satiety), and of course, the Racial Evolution Event experienced by players in the Monstrous category such as Yuuki. Overflowing life affinity was the domain of her power.

Qliphoth, the Death Sovereign

If Yggdrasil was the goddess of the tree that soared upward, Qliphoth was depicted as the mistress of rotting roots that pierced into the underworld. She wore a tattered ash-gray cloak, her face covered by a veil of mourning, carried a rusty scythe, and was accompanied by a blind-eyed crow. Qliphoth was not a purely evil demonic entity, but a goddess of balance. She ensured that all that lived would eventually rot and return to the soil so that the cycle of her sisters could repeat. My eyes narrowed as I read Qliphoth’s domains: decay, corrosive miasma, and absolute dissolution. My alchemical brain immediately connected it to the extreme miasma substance in Murkwater Swamp and my Epic+ poison creation, Empress’s Malice, which could melt armor durability permanently until it was erased from the system’s existence. Did the extreme corrosive entities in this game, in terms of programming code, borrow the domain of Goddess Qliphoth?

Akasha, the Space Sovereign

The illustration of this goddess was the most abstract, depicted only as a faceless woman in a gown made of endless geometric vortices, holding a tesseract cube. Akasha was the weaver of dimensions. She was the one who stretched out the lands, created distance in the void, and separated the realms. I smiled faintly while reading it. "Ah, here she is. The Goddess of the Physics Engine and Server Manager," I muttered cynically. In the real world, Akasha very much represented Sarah and the developer team that designed the physical architecture of Chronos Tech. Within the game’s lore, Akasha was the one who created the Teleportation Crystal (Waypoint) system, the laws of collision physics, the Return Scroll system, and even the phenomenon of ’Dimensional Pockets’ or the system Inventory that allowed me to swallow thousands of steel plates into my skirt pocket without being noticed.

Aethelra, the Time Sovereign

The final pillar, depicted as an ancient female seer in a sand-colored robe carrying a giant hourglass, where the sand flowed both upward and downward simultaneously. Aethelra was the overseer of the laws of causality. Past, present, and future were streams of woven threads that she could cut or traverse as she pleased. The section on Aethelra explained that time in the mortal world often flowed extremely slowly when compared to time in the realm of the goddesses. Reading this, I nearly laughed. This was the brilliant reason the developers inserted to justify the time-ratio law of "1 day inside the game equals 6 hours in the real world." Aethelra was the avatar of the Clock-Sync system that bridged the Second World Online server with the Chronos Tech Capsule in my room.

In the final pages, the children’s book mentioned that besides the Six Sovereign Goddesses, there existed dozens of Sub-Gods (minor deities). They were manifestations of pure Elements or guardians of professions, such as the blacksmith god worshipped by Thorek the dwarf NPC, or the fairy protector of agriculture.

However, because this book was specifically for introducing theology to toddlers, it did not discuss those Sub-Gods in detail. The author reasoned that the branches of the tree were too many for a small child to memorize, and what mattered most was respecting the six fundamental goddesses.

I closed the thick blue book with a long breath, feeling far more enlightened. Understanding this divine hierarchy gave me a sharper framework of thought.

I stretched the stiff virtual muscles of my back, then opened my status interface with a small grin, hoping to see my comprehension level soar far ahead. However, the grin on my face immediately faded when I saw the series of red notifications.

Ting!

[Passive Skill: Reading/Linguistics (Novice) MAX Lv. 10]

[System: You have reached the maximum learning limit (Limit Break) for the Novice tier!]

[System: Requirements fulfilled. Perform a Limit Break using 5 SP to break through to the Intermediate tier (Lv. 11-20).]

I froze. My jaw muscles hardened once again.

It turned out that immersion and deep comprehension alone were not enough. The system cruelly imposed a Hard Cap at Level 10 for the Novice classification. Even though I did not need a ridiculous quest from an NPC or to kill a special monster to make this breakthrough, the system still held me at gunpoint with a price of 5 pure Skill Points!

"A game full of bloodsuckers," I growled, clenching my fist until the knuckles of my fingers turned white. My remaining SP at this moment was 36 points after subtracting the 2 points to unlock the initial skill earlier and the bonus of 10 SP from the skill level increases. Technically, I was able to pay it, but this was the same as extortion.

However, complaining would not solve the problem. I stood up, straightened my White Military Uniform mantle, and walked back toward the Librarian’s desk. With heavy steps, I asked him to retrieve the ancient archive book about the Temple of the Moon Goddess once more from the Third Corridor, Seventh Shelf.

When the old leather-covered book with the crescent moon emblem was placed in front of me for the second time, I immediately opened it with high expectations.

The complicated Rune symbols that previously looked like chaotic geometric scribbles began to pulse faintly. The effect of Linguistics Level 10 started working, attempting to dissect the ancient secrets of the Dark Era.

However, instead of translating the sentences, my vision was filled with full-of-holes translations. I could only read connecting words and basic prepositions such as "and", "toward", "beneath", or "light". The rest remained dragon-claw marks that could not be understood by reason.

A new notification appeared and delivered a crushing blow to my arrogance.

[System: FAILED. Linguistic comprehension too low.]

[Warning: Literature of Ancient Manuscripts from the Dark Era requires the comprehension class (Advanced Linguistics Lv. 21+) or (Master Linguistics) to be fully deciphered.]

"What...?" I hissed, staring at the transparent screen in disbelief.

My eyes shifted from the Rune text to the system notification, then to the remaining SP on my screen. The system not only stopped me at Novice, but also explicitly stated that even the Intermediate tier (Lv 11-20) would not be enough to decipher the location of the Temple of the Moon Goddess!

This meant that to reach Advanced (Lv 21), I would have to burn 5 SP to enter Intermediate, read even more annoying books to grind the level up to 20, then burn another 10 SP for the Limit Break to Advanced. A total of 15 SP just for the sake of... READING?!

My fangs ground together. I slammed the ancient book down until its dust scattered, causing the Librarian to look at me with a warning stare.

"Very well, Developers," I whispered cynically, a killing aura radiating from my body. "If your system wants to play a war of attrition over point economy with me, let’s see who will surrender first."