A Madman’s Guide to Chapter 6: The Early Bird Gets Samuel’s Breakfast

Samuel’s clone lost consciousness, while Samuel’s main body remained leisurely.

“Quite an interesting morning?” he chewed on the blessing Ethen gave him before leaving, “So this is how it greets ?”

At this mont, Samuel’s main body, having split his mind in two, was still in his pajamas studying the Travel Guide at ho.

“Isn’t this way more useful than you? It just glanced at my clone and figured out every component of . You bottom-tier trash still need a na to record things,” he said. “Honestly, I still don’t know what use you have. Looks like a Golden Finger, but actually useless, even cracking a walnut is a struggle.”

As he spoke, Samuel casually used the Travel Guide to smash a walnut.

After testing, he found the Travel Guide’s cover was relatively flexible and elastic, not a hard rigid binding. So truly it wasn’t suitable for cracking walnuts, and hitting people with it probably wouldn’t do much damage either.

With his mind split in two, he knew perfectly well what was happening on the clone’s side, but he didn’t care.

Dying once wasn’t a big deal.

Besides, wasn’t it technically not even dead yet?

It had even unlocked a photosynthesis skill; standing on that patch of ground soaking up sunlight would keep it alive, which was fine.

Samuel could feel that the portion of his body that had separated still lived.

It hadn’t, and wouldn’t, die—only it simply couldn’t think.

The one-fifth he had split off had had its thinking power withdrawn, it wasn’t staying in that body.

Keeping it around was pointless, it would just let the brain be filled with incomprehensible murmurs and mutterings.

Well, not exactly filled.

The brain was still hanging on that tree outside, it might get snatched by a bird one day.

However, judging by the tree’s vitality, maybe he could cosplaying as Protheus, becoming a bird feeding station.

Every day at four in the morning the internal organs refresh.

The early bird gets Samuel’s innards to eat.

“There should be staff assigned to handle that tree,” Samuel rubbed his eyes and pondered, “If they had to keep sothing like that around for the slums to see, the extraordinary would have been exposed long ago. It wouldn’t be absent from general knowledge.”

He began to grow curious about what the official organizations in this world looked like, and felt a bit like planting an eyeball near his “corpse.”

Then he rembered his clone had already gone GG.

“A clone made from a part of the body—was its strength still too low?” He casually picked up the walnut at smashed by the Travel Guide from the table and popped it into his mouth.

Eyes are indeed crucial organs for many people—logically, creating a clone at the cost of one eye should at least grant it a fraction of the original’s strength.

But the reality wasn’t like that.

Splitting off an eye didn’t take much effort.

In a few seconds he could split off a bucket of eyeballs, disguise them as popcorn, and hand them to kids as Halloween treats.

Lowering his gaze, Samuel ultimately focused his attention on the Travel Guide he had just used to crack the walnut.

He held it in his hand, palm open.

The pages imdiately fanned open, turning to a blank page at the center on their own.

Although he had been saying all day that the Travel Guide was useless, it was at least the first extraordinary item he’d encountered after arriving here. It had appeared right next to his bed and had clearly established so sort of connection with him.

Samuel couldn’t be certain this was a Golden Finger, but he knew it wasn’t simple.

So…

Slash.

He exerted a little force with his hand and tore that blank page from the Travel Guide.

There was no resistance, as if tearing a regular sheet of paper.

After two seconds of silence, Samuel tossed the paper forward.

The sheet drifted twice in the air, then suddenly, like a stage card-trick prop, it rapidly split.

One into two, two into four, four into eight…

The papers seed swept by an invisible wind, converging into a tornado of white paper, then quickly coalescing, solidifying, and taking shape into a coarse paper effigy without facial features.

Samuel cradled the book in one hand and watched.

Snap.

He snapped his fingers, and the rough paper effigy rapidly grew flesh. The white paper was filled with a skeletal structure.

Soon, a truly flesh-and-blood person appeared before Samuel.

Head bowed, eyes closed.

Of course, it was no longer a paper person.

His creation core was based on two abilities: Illusion Magic and turning illusion into reality.

And the material made real by that power beca sothing that actually existed.

As for whether eyes or paper were more useful…

He couldn’t tell a difference now, but Samuel at least thought the special effect had looked cool.

The new body in front of him didn’t look like him. The head hung low and lacked vitality.

Samuel split his spirit and injected part of his consciousness into it.

The new body instantly beca expressive.

“Hello, this is Automatic Trouble Generator Unit 001. Unpleasant to serve you. How may I assist?” the new body greeted him as Samuel controlled it.

Sotis Samuel wondered if he had split personalities.

At least now he could smoothly chat with himself and felt no awkwardness.

“Maybe I should give this new body a new na.” Samuel looked at the person before him and mused, “Ah, call you Celt, simple enough.”

With his brain computing power halved again, Samuel was too lazy to think hard, and tossed out a na.

While he was musing, the new body removed its head from its neck, held it in its hands and juggled it once, apparently unhappy with the face Samuel had casually shaped.

He liked imrsion—whether in gas or performances, he liked to throw himself fully into a role.

Given his personality, a randomly shaped face wouldn’t satisfy him, so he’d show it.

“From now on you’ll be called Celt.” Samuel said to Celt.

Celt adjusted his features, the mouth he held opening: “Understood.”

Their minds were perfectly synchronized. Celt already knew his new na before Samuel spoke it, yet they still habitually said it aloud to each other.

Maybe it was for so kind of ritual feeling?

Samuel didn’t know, but he felt this would eventually make him truly split.

“That’s not bad.” Celt, like donning a hat, placed the adjusted, slightly more cat-like head back onto his neck, “We haven’t experienced split personalities yet.”

“Indeed, I’m actually kind of looking forward to it.” Samuel felt the overlapping perspectives, two different views perfectly layered. Samuel’s main body shook his head, rose from the sofa, and wobbled upstairs intending to lie down for a bit.

He still needed to adapt to the sensation of two bodies; it was actually different from when he was half-human, half-cat before.

Celt tidied the clothing on his body and decided to go out for a walk.

But after only a couple of steps and just as he reached for the door, he suddenly leaned back and collapsed to the floor.

Thud.

He fell and stared up at the ceiling.

Not yet adjusted to the two-body state, when Samuel lay back on the bed the other half had reflexively leaned back as well.

Then he fell flat.

“A bit painful…” Celt muttered.

When creating the body earlier, he’d used the physique of a normal adult male. Because Samuel was completely relaxed when he lay down, Celt’s backward-leaning motion was likewise relaxed—he didn’t stiffen his back muscles in ti.

But thinking that the pain would synchronize with Samuel made Celt smile.

Of course, he had said it. The most fun toy had to be himself. Others simply weren’t entertaining long enough.