Chapter 236 General View on the Universe's Past.
"Come again?" Stunned, Felix couldn't help but doubt his ears.
He never thought that the poison manipulation was related to Jörmungandr's well-being or needed to be passed down.
After all, he was clearly told by Asna that it was an ability! If he reached origin purity, he would have a high chance of unlocking it.
Still, Felix didn't despair yet as he still hasn't looked through the unlocked peak ability after reaching 99%.
Hopeful, he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, diving within his memories. Alas, his heart was thrown to the bottom despair at the sight of an ability's name that was miles away from being coined in the same phrase as poison manipulation.
"This can't be happening." Felix kept murmuring absent-mindedly while checking again and again, yet to no different result.
He truly didn't get the poison manipulation!
He didn't even bother to read the rest of the information about the ability as no matter how amazing and astonishing it was going to be, it would never be the same as free manipulation.
High chance of unlocking it? What a load of crap!
Based on Jörmungandr's words, Felix didn't have a single chance of getting it in the first place!
Felix would be lying if he said that he didn't feel cheated and frustrated, but he also knew that it wasn't entirely Asna's fault for giving him such false hope.
He understood that she didn't mean to trick him or anything as she informed him what she believed was the truth.
Seeing his miserable face, Asna apologized softly, "Sorry, I really thought that the strongest ability of the old snake is poison manipulation."
"It's not your fault." Felix sighed dejectedly, "I assumed it as well."
"My strongest suit is indeed poison manipulation."
The Jörmungandr agreed with them on this point, but he shook his head at their belief that poison manipulation was an 'ability'.
He proceeds to clarify, "Free elemental manipulation is a gift bestowed upon us with a bolt of lightning coming from above when we were still clueless little creatures. With that gift, we received intellect, strength, and immortality."
'So, that explains the red light in the memories!' Felix raised his eyebrows in surprise after remembering how the little snake was suddenly encased in bright red light before it transferred into THE Jörmungandr.
It turned out that light was actually a bolt of lightning that struck the little snake. But, with its infrared vision, it appeared red in the memories!
"Why were you chosen exactly?" Felix asked in confusion.
"That is part of the answers that we sought to find in our journey." The Jörmungandr replied.
No wonder that the primogenitors were driven into depression. They literally knew nothing about themselves.
Why were they given such a gift by the universe in the early days of its creation?
Why were unintelligent creatures bestowed those gifts at random instead of just creating a new race?
Most importantly, why were they given such a tremendous amount of strength without the correspondent responsibility?
No matter how many times Felix cursed the universe for being spiteful and giving the humans absolutely nothing, he knew deep down that it was partial and unbiased.
If it didn't give the humans innate attributes like most races, it meant that it was for a reason. If the primogenitors were bestowed upon with these gifts without responsibility, it also meant it was for a hidden reason.
He soon stopped thinking about the matter, as there was no way that he was going to find out the reason, when the primogenitors spent billions of years trying so but ending up in failure.
Whatever theory or idea that came up in his mind, it was probably already found out hundreds of times.
Hence, he emptied his mind from those overreaching matters and focused on what's near. Currently, not getting poison manipulation was his greatest concern.
Seeing Felix deep in his thoughts, the Jörmungandr smiled mildly as he said, "Child, you don't have to stress yourself about the poison manipulation. I was planning on passing it down to you before returning to the nothingness of death."
Bewildered, Felix pointed at himself while asking, "Why? I doubt that I did anything to deserve getting it."
"Of course, you don't deserve it." Surprisingly, the Jörmungandr nodded his head in agreement.
Not bothering by Felix, who was wincing in pain at getting burnt like this, he carried on talking with a hint of fury in his tone, "However, after I read some of your memories, I realized that a few primogenitors had broken a pact that we made together and decided to pass their elemental manipulation to their descendants."
"A pact?" Both Asna and Felix titled their heads in confusion.
Fortunately, the Jörmungandr didn't have Asna's tendencies of acting mysterious, as he clarified while knitting his eyebrows in disgruntlement, "After we failed to seek our purpose in life, the rest of primogenitors and I made a pact to not pass down our free elemental manipulation to anyone. We either take it to the grave with us or hold into it for eternity."
Without waiting for Felix or Asna to ask him the purpose of such a peculiar pact, he smiled wryly, "It might seem silly in your eyes, but we made the pact to spite the universe."
"BoaHahahahaha!" Not giving a shit about saving the Jörmungandr's face, Asna exploded in laughter while holding her stomach at hearing such a stupid reason.
Scared shitless, Felix swiftly closed her mouth shut with his palm while apologizing with a sweaty forehead, "Please, elder, don't mind her. She is a bit retarded."
The Jörmungandr chuckled as he waved his hand dismissively, "Leave her be. A child of the Unigin race has earned the right to laugh at my expense."
Felix gulped a mouthful as he understood the hidden meaning behind the Jörmungandr's words. Asna could laugh all she wanted without worrying about offending the Jörmungandr.
But for Felix? If he dared to be disrespectful like her, the Jörmungandr wouldn't hesitate to unveil the facade of courtesy and turn into the ruthless being he saw in the memories.
"Uhmmm!" Hearing her muffed out noises, Felix withdrew his palm and faced the Jörmungandr again, totally ignoring her nasty glare.
"Little Asna, if you had let me finish, you wouldn't be laughing." the Jörmungandr gave Asna a gentle smile and said, "We had many reasons to spite the universe. But the number one will always be the belief that we were gifted elements and intellect to populate the universe with diverse intellectual races and species like some reproductive machines."
'As expected.' Felix wasn't surprised by this, as he figured as much from connecting everything that he saw in the memories and what the Jörmungandr had mentioned earlier.
He already created a somewhat general version of the universe's past and some species and races' origin.
In the early years of the universe, billions of years ago, there were just normal creatures without intellect or affinities to the elements.
However, this all changed after the gifts were bestowed upon the primogenitors.
They were the only ones with intellect, elemental affinity, and enough strength to rule above all.
After they began comprehending and harnessing their strengths, they either went on wandering the universe or started mating with their own species over a long period of years.
Their descendants gained the intellect and some of their powers, making them start civilizations slowly on their own.
Galaxy after galaxy, solar system after solar system, and planet after a planet, the primogenitors were spreading their seeds everywhere, creating half-lings, and those half-lings went and mated with the half-lings of other species.
This kept going on and on and on until thousands of different variations, species, and races were born all across the cosmos.
After a hundred million years or more? The Universe was populated and owned by them.
The first generations, who were born from the primogenitors directly, were probably already dead, leaving only the latest generations alive, who had no idea about the primogenitors' existence.
When the primogenitors got bored or tired of their wandering for a purpose, they most likely took controlling and managing the elements as their purpose in life.
Then they started gathering followers from all over the universe, who had an affinity to their element, or they were their descendants.
With their supervision, empires belonging to them started to arise akin to mushrooms in the universe.
Using the old terminology, they expanded from leaves to branches and finally to owning an entire tree.
Yet, it seemed like it wasn't enough as they kept expanding aggressively until conflicts started to arise over territory between the empires.
The rest was history.
"Elder, can you share with us one primogenitor who betrayed the pact?" Hopeful about learning more, Felix asked with an honest look.
Alas, it seemed like the Jörmungandr wasn't willing to continue on this subject as he started gazing at the ceiling again absent-mindedly.
Felix waited patiently for a couple of minutes before the Jörmungandr shook his head slightly, coming back to reality.
"Elder, are you alright?" Felix asked with good intentions.
"Don't mind me." The Jörmungandr massaged his temples gently before asking Felix, "Are you willing to accept being the new poison primogenitor?"
"I am willing!" Felix abruptly stood up and bowed his head respectively, "And I am ready for any test to prove my worthiness of the title."
"Be at ease; there is no test." The Jörmungandr gestured with his hand for Felix to relax while clarifying, "I am already pleased by what I saw from your memories."