Chapter 164: Planetary Core
Obtaining an item from a volume was a new mechanic introduced after the update for Volume 2.
The restrictions were: one item per volume, the item must have been your possession within the simulation, and it cannot be a living being.
In exchange, once you obtained it, the ownership of that item would completely become yours, soul-bound to you.
You would have absolute control over it.
Under such circumstances, the possibilities were actually quite vast.
The Umbral Star Throne was certainly a good thing, but what if there was more content in this volume's simulation? After all, everything so far was about Velber and the three—
"It's content regarding Titan Altera."
However, the completion conditions for Volume 2 were:
[Completion Condition 1: Trigger all of Titan Altera's plotlines]
The condition that previously showed question marks now displayed:
[Completion Condition 2: Trigger all of Manaka Sajyou's plotlines]
Currently, these two simulations could actually be categorized under Titan Altera's plotline. Manaka Sajyou's plot might have been triggered slightly, or perhaps not at all, but in any case, her plot had not yet occupied the main part of the simulation.
So, this item selection... did he really have to choose now?
Moreover.
Even in this simulation, there were actually two items to choose from. Besides the Umbral Star Throne, there was also the Excalibur in Manaka Sajyou's hands.
His simulated self in the second run only failed due to the suddenness of the situation.
Otherwise, with two Excaliburs plus the Crown, he could have performed two full True Releases and one pseudo-full True Release. If he had three, he could have performed three consecutive full True Releases.
Or he could simply use the Crown elsewhere, perform two full True Releases, and use the Crown to buff one of them.
If this were in the FGO game—where you could self-charge three bars of NP while having one bar of self-charge every turn, with a built-in super-strong buff to handle bosses, high Noble Phantasm damage, and no issues with class disadvantage—allowing you to perfectly clear farming nodes 3T solo, it would be extremely broken. Players would whale for it like crazy.
Even in reality, this was a significant upgrade.
But the Umbral Star Throne had its own advantages.
And it might be something that could never be obtained again outside of this simulation.
A limited-time item, so to speak.
Unlike Excalibur, the Holy Lance of the End, or Avalon, which he could get once every volume if he really wanted to.
This left Noah quite conflicted.
However, while Noah was browsing through these things in conflict, he suddenly discovered a very inconspicuous feature in the Volume 2 update—one so inconspicuous he hadn't even looked at it before:
[Plot Review].
This was the first thing mentioned in the Volume 2 update, but with Noah's memory capacity when not in his "retarded state," he almost never needed such a feature, so he had just treated it as a minor quality-of-life update and didn't look closely.
Now, while he was feeling conflicted, he clicked on it casually. He then discovered that the Plot Review feature didn't just allow him to watch past simulation plots; starting from Volume 2, the function to take one item per volume could also be accessed through this review page.
Seeing this, Noah was no longer conflicted. He temporarily saved this opportunity.
According to the description in Plot Review, he only needed to make a choice within the scope of Volume 2. Even choosing during the update period between Volume 2 and Volume 3 was fine—however, if Volume 3 opened and this chance hadn't been used, it would be refreshed and could not be hoarded.
And the updates between the end of one volume's plot and the next usually took a while.
It left him plenty of time to choose and deliberate!
In that case, he wouldn't choose for now.
He'd wait until Volume 2 was finished before making a choice!
As for now...
After Noah accepted the memories of the second simulation, confirmed the appearance locations of the subterranean Magical Beasts and the meteorite's impact point, and felt that alien sensation of Velber—which felt like a civilization virus—he understood why his simulated self wanted to draw Excalibur the moment he saw it.
Then, he started the third simulation, which was also the last one for today.
[Please choose a trait (Select 1 of 4)]
[(Common) Early Death: You will die early, but dying early might not be a bad thing for some people.]
[(Rare) The Blue Sky is Dead: A rebellion initiated by you will have an increased success rate.]
[(Rare) Astonishing: You were born with a face like a chain-reaction car crash that will surprise everyone.]
[(Mythical) Planetary Core: You possess abilities identical to a Planetary Core, giving you control over Starships and Umbral Star Vanguards.]
Is there even a need to choose!
Noah pressed the fourth one immediately!
Look at what those first three were!
Putting aside the first and third, the second one... he was an Emperor, a King, whose rebellion was he going to lead? His own?
And the fourth one, Planetary Core!
Noah remembered that in the previous simulation, the residual will of Umbral Star Velber tried to suppress him, but he ended up suppressing it instead!
Now that he had this trait, he couldn't wait to see what kind of reaction that fellow would have!
Starship Velber 02, Titan Altera...
Mine! All mine!
The simulation begins!
[On the second day after you wake up, you vaguely realize that you seem to be able to sense existences beyond the stars.]
[Looking at the sky, you seem to feel that orbiting the planet is something that belongs to you.]
[You can feel the existence in that position crying for help out of a survival instinct built into its intelligence.]
[It seems something is eroding it, killing it, and it is struggling to resist.]
[Your vision pierces through the planet; you know that is Starship Velber 02, and you know that within it is the Umbral Star Vanguard, Titan Altera.]
[At the same time, you can sense a faint aura belonging to Velber within the Starship.]
[(Planetary Core, Activated)]
[You take over the permissions of the Starship and force it to stop in space.]
[Then, you also take control of Titan Altera and quite easily remove Velber's erosion of her.]
[Velber seems quite unable to comprehend this.]
[You then use the core's authority to forcibly read part of Velber's intelligence.]
[You find that your guess was correct; Velber currently only has a remnant consciousness left. Its main body encountered a massive void in the galaxy that could not be recorded in its database, and then a giant thing like octopus tentacles emerged from it, dragging its main body along with multiple Starships into the void, pulling them out of this world.]
[Only a bit of its remnant consciousness managed to escape; that is the current Velber.]
[You are shocked by the giant void and massive tentacles in Velber's database, and Velber takes this opportunity to repeat its old trick—splitting and discarding a part of itself as a price to quickly flee from your perception.]
[At this time, Titan Altera awakens, and a mechanized voice sounds within the Starship.]
['Permission transfer complete. Welcome, New Core.']
[Following this voice, the white-haired girl sits up. Although you are not physically there, she still looks toward your gaze. With a voice that is steady, soft, and full of maternal warmth—not at all like a weapon of destruction—she speaks to you.]
['Master, please give your instructions.']