Somewhere in a cave, Civitas wakes up, confused, disoriented and more than anything else, lost.

He tries to take a look around, but the only light sources are some small-scattered Mana crystals that don't provide enough light to fully brighten the surroundings.

While he sits up, a strong headache assaults him. He holds his head, which feels like it is being pierced by needles.

But after a short while, the pain fades into a weak, pulsing discomfort.

Then he remembers what happened before he passed out. He should be dead, shouldn't he?

[Yes you should]

Civitas jumps to his feet and starts to scan the dark environment.

“Who said that!?”

He shouts out into the empty cave, his voice echoing through the tunnels.

Another voice could be heard, both clearly male.

Before Civitas could say anything to that, a third voice answers.

{Please calm down, Civitas. We pose no threat to you. And you should know me, right? We talked a lot these past few days, albeit that was in your dreams.}

Civitas indeed recognizes this voice in an instant. It is the voice of the woman he thinks to be a demon queen. Could he trust her? And from where were they talking to him just now?

As if she could hear his thoughts, she answers once again.

{Listen to me carefully, my dear. We somehow ended up sharing the same body. So the place we are talking from is your mind. But there is no need for you to worry, since the only thing we currently can do is talk. We can't take over your body or something like that}

Civitas' eyes open wide. What did they say? They were within his body and tried to take over his body? Panic starts to set in.

{I said, I would do the talking, you are of no help, so shut the fuck up lizard}

Clear anger is audible from the woman's voice, but that hardly seeps through to Civitas' comprehension. Civitas is still besieged by panic and fear. He feels the clear urge to run. Run away from this, from them; Run away from all.

But if it's true, what she said, there was no point in running. He could not run away, there was no escape.

The two voices who just talked are arguing all this time, while Civitas is experiencing an existential crisis.

They are shouting at each other, hurling profanities and insults at each other.

Then Civitas snaps.

“Shut up. SHUT UP. If you don't shut the fuck up right now, I'll start bashing my head against the next wall until all of us are all dead!”

Silence. They indeed stopped talking.

Civitas feels a bit of relief at the fact he regained some sense of control over the situation.

He takes a few slow breaths while slowly walking around in the cave until he finds a suitably elevated rock formation to sit on.

After he sits down, he rests his head on his hands and starts organizing his thoughts.

The adolescent wants to get as clear of a mind as possible, before engaging in a conversation with them again.

He prepares questions for them.

He knows there are at least three entities within his mind right now, going by the different sounding voices.

After thinking for a while, he thinks he's ready and starts asking his questions.

First he needs names for them because naming them voice 1 through 3 would be confusing.

But even before that, he will set some rules.

“Listen here. I will now go on to ask a few questions. You will answer in a short and concise way. You will only talk if I tell you to. If I tell you to be quiet, you will be. All of you got that? You may answer that.”

[Understood]

{Of course}

They answer in unison. Pleased, he proceeds to his next question.

“Now, one after the other, tell me your names and who you are as a person.”

[My name is Gabriel. I am the head of the archangel roundtable.]

Civitas does not know this name, Angels are a difficult to come across race, clouded in mysteries. But it sounds like the highest position among Angels.

Neither does Civitas know this name, but similarly it sounds like an if not the highest position among dragons.

The might which these names and titles carry with them makes Civitas somewhat embarrassed at commanding them around.

That does also raise the question of why they are obeying him, shouldn't they be powerful enough to get out of this situation?

Anyway, isn't one person missing an introduction?

“Go on now, there's still one missing”

{Hm? No, you know all our names now}

Is she playing with him?

“I don't know who you are. Are you playing a trick on me?”

She must be playing tricks on him.

{No, I wouldn't dare to. I already introduced myself a few days ago when we met each other within the Mana vein. Don't you remember me?}

Civitas tries to remember something about the Mana vein she mentioned, but only the memories about the dream come to mind. And those are faint, as memories of dreams always are. Is this all still some kind of elaborate trick by her? He can't be certain, so for now, he will act as if he believes her.

“I have no memory of what you just mentioned. Introduce yourself again.”

{Of course, I'd do anything for you, my dear. My name is Zabula, I am the highest of the demon queens}

So his guess was indeed right. She is indeed a demon queen, although he didn't expect her to be Zabula herself.

Now onto the relevant questions.

“Why are you all in my body? And can you leave?”

{I think I am most suited to explain this since I am the longest here. The short answer is, we don't understand why we are here, and we can't leave. The fact, you do not remember us meeting before, is a clue we could use to figure those things out.}

Is he supposed to believe that? They don't know? They are beings he would imagine, who are capable of almost anything, but they can't just leave his body? He can't trust them, and will not trust them. They clearly are hiding things from him.

“You say you don't understand why you are within my body, but why were beings like you even near me in the first place. What were you doing down in the town where I live… lived. This time, I want Gabriel and Dorminil to answer first.”

[As you wish. The reason for me and the lizard coming for you is similar but slightly different. We both heard your plea for help and answered your call. From here on, I can only speak for myself. The reason I answered your call, was because your soul, which was revealed to us through your prayer, seemed divine and sharp like a sword at the same time.

Both are qualities I deeply value. And your soul seems to incorporate these qualities in an intensity I have never seen before. So I came to help you and make you a part of us Angels. We could simply give you a new body, where your soul could settle in, but a soul this remarkable is difficult to come by.]

His soul is divine and sharp like a sword? That sounds like made up bullshit. And him wanting to make him an angel must be some ploy to enslave him or something. But Civitas has no way to confirm or disprove any of their claims.

“To be clear, I don't believe the part about my soul being divine or something. And me becoming an angel is a pipe dream, I am proud to be human and that won't change. But for now, I'll let you be. Now onto Dorminil.”

That sounds even more insane. Can't they make up any better lies, that are more believable? His soul is supposed to be fiery and is supposed to have the qualities of a great warrior. This sounds as likely to Civitas as pigs starting to fly. And he still can't believe they want him to believe changing into a different race like a dragon is supposed to be that easy?

“All of this sounds insane, I have trouble believing in any of this. But let's finish this up, why were you there, Zabula?”

He hopes her story is more believable.

{My case is a lot different. But first, those two did not explain to the end, probably not to upset you, so let me quickly add the last part of their story.

You deserve to know the whole truth. While coming for you, they met each other.

And saying they are enemies is a grave understatement. So they started fighting,

but they were equally matched.

Right at the point where they couldn't go on any longer and were about to give up their lives in a last desperate struggle, they reached you. Right then and there, both of them randomly decided to absorb your soul, which they both valued highly, to regain some strength. But when they tried to, they were instead absorbed by you.}

Civitas is somehow not surprised at this revelation. He knew they were hiding something. And them wanting to profit from absorbing his soul without any consideration for him is the most believable thing he heard today. The two in question stay silent, confirming their guilt. Civitas just proceeds for now, since there is nothing he could change about that.

“At least that is something I'd expect, so I believe that. Now tell your story”

Hopefully, her story does not sound as made up as the other twos.

{Of course, may I treat it as you having no memory at all of us meeting before?}

That is a given fact in Civitas opinion because he strongly believes they have never met before except in his dreams, at which point they must have come in contact already.

“Yes, go on.”

Civitas replies dryly.

{As most people do, I was training, cultivating my Mana by absorbing external Mana and making it my own.}

Civitas had never heard of such a method, warriors in his town just absorb Mana passively while training their bodies. To his knowledge, it is dangerous and detrimental to try to absorb Mana excessively. But that might just be a difference in species, so he won't dig into that. But he has another question instead.

“Quick question, what is a Mana vein?”

He has to know this to make sense of her story, he guesses.

{It's surprising you don't know this, it's very common knowledge to us. Anyway, Mana crystals tend to resonate with each other and form what we call “pathways”. The bigger a Mana crystal is, the longer the distance over which it can resonate. If a cluster of Many crystals naturally happens to be dense enough to form a complex network, we call that a Mana vein.

The name pathways was chosen because these pathways allow traveling through them if one's Mana affinity is high enough. Although no one ever uses this as a method of travel since one's position is instantly revealed to anyone within, or close by, the Mana vein. So far, so good?}

Civitas is delighted at her easy-to-understand way of explaining stuff. Now he only needs to judge if the information is believable. He tries to figure out any motive or profit she might gain by giving him this as false information, but he can't come up with anything, so he decides to trust this information for now.

“I understand, now go on with your story”

Keeping up the commanding tone gets harder and harder for civitas. He was looked down upon for as long as he can think, and now he is in this weird situation with three incomprehensibly strong beings. The earlier courage he gained by threatening them starts to wear off.

{Alright then. While I was training I suddenly felt the Mana vein I was using vibrate, as if someone was traveling through it and not only that, they were clearly traveling towards me.

I was curious as to which mighty being would dare to approach my territory recklessly like that.

So I decided to also enter the Mana vein and meet them at half-point. The person I then saw there was you, Civitas. You were boldly swimming into my domain.}

How could that be possible? Civitas can't remember anything like that, although… he figures the only time that could have happened would be the two weeks, during which, Miles said, he was stuck inside the Mana crystal. But how come he remembers nothing? The time in the Mana crystal felt like he was just sleeping to him.

“I still can't remember anything about this at all. There seems to have been a span of about two weeks, during which I appear to have been stuck inside a Mana crystal. But I would describe my state during that more like comatose. So me swimming boldly towards you does not make sense to me.”

Zabula answers quickly to that.

{What you describe to me right now seems to fit into what I experienced, actually. The you I met at that time was… different. I only notice this now that I am talking to you again, but something about you was different at that time. Your choice of words was starkly different, you seemed much more confident than you do now, your facial expression was entirely different, and you carried yourself with a sort of grandeur. Like you were a different person at that time.

I have a vague guess of what happened at that time, but I have no confidence in this being the truth. I would rather not tell you, since it might just disturb you even more than this situation already does.}

Her concern sounds reasonable. He indeed is very agitated and disturbed. But isn't what she is withholding from him something about his own mind or body? Shouldn't he gather as much knowledge about that as possible? If what she said is true, there could be something inside him that could take over his body at any time. Does he have a split personality disorder or anything like that? The lack of knowledge and the induced doubt will surely make him even more nervous, so he needs to ask.

“No, go ahead and tell me your theory. I want to know all about this is soon as possible.”

She seems to hesitate. Is she really that concerned about his wellbeing? That can't be, she surely is plotting something. So Civitas takes her time of hesitation to prepare himself to dismiss whatever she says right now. All of this could be one giant trick to make him insecure. Like trying to poke holes in his mind through which she could take control. Civitas is certain this has to be it.

{Alright, I'll tell you about my theory, but please don't put too much weight into my words since this is all just guessing. We, the lizard, the chicken and I, are very close to your soul right now. So we can take a look directly at it.

Your soul seems to be accompanied by some kind of shadow. A shadow darker than anything we have ever seen before. And when we try to approach your soul, this shadow lunges at us. Somewhat like it is trying to protect your soul from us, but not entirely.

Another thing we can observe about this shadow is its seemingly infinite deepness. It looks like an abyss, capable of swallowing everything. So when it attempts to protect your soul, we clearly feel it setting out to absorb us into it.

The only reason why we aren't absorbed so far is that we quickly gave up our trying to do anything to your soul. Our high achievements in soul strengthening probably also plays a part in this. My theory is that this shadow somehow took over your body while you were inside the Mana vein. It's urge to absorb me might have led you to me.

The existence of the shadow is a fact, everything apart from that, even the absorbing part, is not confirmed and only based on what we felt.

I know this is a lot to take in,

are you ok?}

She asks that, but does she really mean it? Or is she just afraid of this “shadow” which civitas can't believe is supposed to be inside him. How come he never noticed something like that? He felt completely normal all his life, although… there was the part about him being unable to sense or manipulate Mana. Which, as was revealed by Stirling a while ago, was caused by his seals. But why did he seal him in the first place? Could he have been aware of this shadow? Civitas doubts that.

Stirling is a cautious man, even with Miles putting in a good word for him, it would not make sense for Stirling to let him live this long. Maybe they were aware something about him is strange, but not quite what exactly. So they sealed him as a precaution and then put him under observation. Observation, which Sterling did himself while Civitas was in his lessons. It makes sense. It makes too much sense now. So Miles must have known about this all along, but never told him anything. A sense of betrayal starts to form in Civitas heart.

But then, assuming what Zabula told him is the truth, what is that thing within him? Was he born with that? Why is he this different from anyone else? Not even these great beings inside him have any satisfactory answers to that. They sound just as perplexed as he is.

“How am I supposed to be 'ok'? What you just told me implies some sort of dark being residing in my body which could take control at any time and apparently has the urge to absorb everything.”

Disbelieve and fear are palpable in his voice. Lunacy just around the corner, he starts to ramble cynically and sarcastically.

“Noooo I am completely fine! Don't I seem so happy and relaxed after coming to know I am some freak of nature not even you can explain? My day could not have started any better!”

Tears were starting to form in his eyes, unknowingly. All of this is far too much for Civitas. He tried to let the words, this demon queen said, go by as just the lies of a demon, but it makes too much sense. He can't ignore this if it slots in too perfectly into the things he never understood. It's like puzzle pieces fitting in just the right positions, but the complete picture that gets pieced together is one of horror and disaster.

His earlier threat of bashing his skull against the next wall suddenly seems to be the more comfortable solution.

But just as he is about to lose his mind entirely, one person comes to his mind. Miles.

Miles is still under the control of Stirling. Although he left him alone and withheld things from him, he is still the closest person akin to a father for him. And maybe he has some answers. Stirling and Miles might be the only people on this planet who could have a vague idea of what is going on with him.

He has to go on. To free Miles and to get answers. And to get revenge on Stirling. The pain he had to go through because of him, and the mind control over Miles, can not and will not be forgiven.

He calms. He takes a few more deep breaths, thankful for the guests in his body having some sense of compassion to let him think by himself.

“Then this… shadow thing is also the reason you got absorbed into my body and why you can't leave, I guess?”

This time, somewhat to Civitas surprise, Gabriel answers, not Zabula.

[Yes, this is what we concluded as well. The absorption happened too fast for us to take in everything at that time, but this makes the most sense. Furthermore, there is one more thing we noticed.

We are constantly being absorbed. The absorption rate is incredibly slow, so slow in fact, our souls are regenerating faster than they are disappearing.

But this still has an effect on us, especially our emotions. I don't know if this is believable to you, but it seems like our negative emotions towards you are targeted specifically.

We are not quite sure if that's the case, but it is the most plausible explanation we came up with for why we can't feel negative emotions towards you.

All of us are proud beings, we would never let someone order us around like you did before, even if you threaten us with death. None of us fear death.

But we can't feel revolting, or angry towards you for that. The Lizard and I talked about that while you were talking to the demon. We all feel the same thing.]

This is, as many things today, difficult to believe for Civitas, but if it is true, it would explain their behavior which is very different from what he expected from such great beings.

This actually seems to be the first good news today.

If he does not have to fear them betraying him or intentionally misguiding him, that is a considerable win.

Sadly, he can't figure out a way to confirm this, so he will try to observe their behavior in the future. They will be stuck for quite a while, Civitas believes.

So, without contemplating on this for too long, he proceeds to ask questions he wants answers for.

“I will trust you for now, but I will be observing you closely. A question which still bugs me is, how did I survive the punishment before? I am sure my body was almost destroyed, and my heart stopped, so why am I even alive?”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

I have never seen anything like this before, but your heart suddenly started transforming into a dragons' heart. Now comes the weirdest part. It is not only me inside this body, and the souls of angels and demons are special as well. So your body started forming two more hearts. Yes, you heard that right, your body now has three hearts.

You should be able to feel the difference if you pay attention.>

Civitas instantly puts his hand on his chest, trying to feel his pulse. But instead of the usual rhythmic pulsing, he feels a jumbled mess, like multiple hearts pumping blood out of sync.

So he can indeed confirm his claims. But he wishes he could not. He devolves further and further away from being human. But there is nothing he can do about that. He won't get beat down just by the fact he might not be human anymore. For all he knows, he might never have been human to begin with.

“So, did my body also just randomly start regenerating from all the damage?”

[No, that was me. When I tried to control your body with the sole intention of helping you, the shadow allowed me to. So I used my healing magic to cure all wounds on your body, and I also undid the remaining seals which were placed on you for some reason. But the exact moment my task of helping you was done, the shadow took the control away from me again.]

So they can theoretically control his body, but only if the shadow allows them, it seems. Those aren't good new to Civitas because the shadow just received even more control over his life in Civitas eyes. But at the same time, he is a bit thankful because he survived only because of that.

“I think all my questions are answered for now. Wait, no, now that I think about it, how did I get here? Did you also take control to walk over here?”

{No, the shadow only allowed me to use Mana for a while, so I could cast space magic and teleport us away. Since I was rushed, the target location was random, but we seem to have been fortunate. This region looks to be very desolate. You should probably try exploring, you need a source of food, don't you? Humans can't live off Mana can they?}

“Not to my knowledge, no. And I am indeed starving. Then I'll try to find some golberries. They are a kind of dimly glowing berry which grows frequently on the outskirts of my town. I ate a lot of them when I was younger, and I doubt I'll be able to hunt a monster to eat.”

Civitas then stands up. His cheeks sore from sitting on hard stone for more than an hour.

He stretches a bit and slowly starts to make his way along the cave wall. He has no source of light except the dim Mana crystals, so he has to be careful with every step. He would rather not make a lot of noise. There could be any number of monsters lurking in the shadows, and drawing their attention would be horrible right now.

[Same here]

{I agree with that}

The feeling of multiple people observing and judging every step of his is of no help to his strained nerves.

After a while, he makes his way to an area where larger Mana stones are more common, so the lighting situation gets better.

Now that he can see his surroundings more clearly, he picks up his pace.

Then he suddenly hears sounds from afar. It sounds like people shouting and fighting. Civitas decides to go closer, but to stop at a point where he could hide any time. Just as he reaches a point close enough to understand what they say, coupled with a crack in the cave wall in which he could hide, the sound of fighting stops. He listens closely and manages to hear a few words here and there.

He believes they are discussing if they should head back or go further in. When they are about to make a decision, a loud roar is suddenly audible, then an explosion, Civitas sees the tunnel the voices echoed from suddenly being brightly lit up. The shouting voices of the people get ever more quiet. They are probably running away while screaming. Right after he heard the last screams fade away, he hears loud footsteps coming towards him. He quickly hides as deep into the crack as possible, hoping, the monster wouldn't hear his heartbeat or smell his sweat.

Then he remains as still as possible, even reducing breathing to a minimum. After just a short time, he sees a large silhouette walk past his hiding spot. He can't make anything out about the monster except its glowing green eyes. The monster halts for a second, its eyes in the line of sight of Civitas. Then it moves again, its eyes going past the crack, out of vision. Civitas heaves a sigh of relief unknowingly, his concentration broken for a moment.

Then suddenly he hears the heavy footsteps accelerating, and in a split second, the monster is right in front of the crack, one eye held against the crack opening, looking directly at Civitas.

The monster starts growling. Its growl so deep it feels like the whole cave is trembling. Civitas is frozen still by fear, unable to look away from the large glowing green eye.

Civitas is sure this is the end of him, but then the monsters' eye opens wider, like it is surprised at something, only to close back down to a slit. It then raises its head back away from the crack and proceeds to walk away.

What just happened? This thing clearly found Civitas, but somehow decided to just go away.

“So you guys are actually good for something. Even if it's just your threatening presence.”

Civitas says this only after waiting for a few minutes to make sure the earth wyrm is gone. He then climbs out of his crack.

[I beg to differ, we are the strongest beings to ever exist, even if we can't do much ourselves right now, our combined knowledge is nearly boundless]

That comment by Civitas clearly hurt his pride.

“And what use would knowledge have in this situation?”

Civitas acknowledges that they must know a lot, but of what use is pure information right now?

[We don't only have theoretical knowledge, we also have a lot of experience, especially in fighting and the art of magic. I am willing to teach you a bit of what I know, since your death is likely to lead to our death.]

Gabriel talks in a manner which makes it seem like he is the one in control, which slightly pisses off Civitas, but he swallows it down. These people won't turn over a new leaf in a matter of hours.

{If you are interested, I will teach you everything I know. No one knows more about space magic or mind magic than I do.}

[Well then, since I would rather not fall behind, I will also teach you everything I know if you so wish. I know the most about the art of the sword and holy magic, which can be used to smite down your opponents or to heal others and yourself.]

All of them still radiate this feeling of superiority, but especially Zabula appears to be trying to suppress her sense of superiority. Her first step in laying down all she has to offer in front of Civitas was the catalyst which made Dorminil and Gabriel also offer up all their knowledge. Civitas is deeply thankful for Zabula doing this. He is also excited to learn magic and fighting now that his Mana is unsealed. Their words were like timber to the flame which ignited when his Mana was finally unsealed. He always wanted to be strong, but his possibilities for that were nonexistent without Mana.

But now he could, and with the help of them, he is certain he will grow a lot.

“Thank you all for offering your help. I will gladly learn from you later on, but for now, we need to ensure our survival first. We need food, water and a safe place to stay at.”

After finishing this short conversation, Civitas slowly starts sneaking towards where he heard the wyrm and the people fight before.

He reaches his destination soon, but is shocked by what he sees there. In this large cave space, the bodies of about 10 darkwolves and 3 bodies of humans lay there. The darkwolves seem to have been slain by the humans, judging by the cut wounds all over their bodies. Of the three bodies, two are burnt to a crisp, so they are barely identifiable as humans. The last body is missing its head. Like it just disappeared. From the open neck, a puddle of blood formed beneath the body. Civitas' stomach starts revolting at this sight. He has to avert his eyes, or else he might actually puke right here.

After fortifying his mind, he once again takes in the sight, this time prepared. The three people were killed by the wyrm, Civitas concludes. He once again is thankful for the wyrm letting him go because these people clearly were strong. Darkwolves aren't to be underestimated on their own, but are still easy targets compared to most of the things down here. But they are skilled in hunting as a pack. A pack of darkwolves is exponentially more dangerous than a single darkwolf. For these people to have defeated them, they must have been considerably strong in relativity to Civitas. But it only took the wyrm mere seconds to decimate them.

Civitas walks over to the beheaded corpse, searching for something useful. Whatever the people who burnt to death had with them, probably got incinerated with them.

But then, just as Civitas reaches the headless corpse, he hears growling from behind. Not as deep as the one from the wyrm, but clearly a large animal of some kind. He quickly reaches down for the sword, lying next to the body, then he turns around quickly, looking at what made the noise.

Right there, at the mouth of another tunnel, a darkwolf stands. It is a bit smaller than the ones lying on the floor. It might have run away when his fellow pack-mates were being defeated by the humans. Now it came back and sees just Civitas remaining there.

Civitas tries to figure out a plan, but his mind is in shambles. He always thought about the moment he would face a monster for the first time. But now that it is actually happening, it is much scarier than he ever imagined.

He raises his sword in the standard posture, which was taught to him in school. He knows the basics of swordsmanship, but due to his lacking physique which wasn't enhanced by Mana, at one point he was excluded from the practical lessons. And to make matters worse, his brain is empty right now. Like when you studied for an exam a lot, but the moment you sit down to take the exam, all the information vanishes.

The wolf suddenly lungs at him. Civitas throws his body to the side, rolling away instinctively. He quickly tries to get back on his feet, but before he is able to stand up fully, the wolf is right in front of him again. He raises his sword while kneeling on one knee and manages to make the wolf bite into the sword instead of him, but its claws still manage to reach past and slash him on his upper thigh.

After clearly getting hurt by the sword it bit down upon, the wolf lets go and jumps a few meters back.

Civitas uses this opportunity to stand up. His leg is in a lot of pain from the slash wound, but it isn't deep enough to hinder his mobility.

The wolf appears to be wary of his sword now because it starts to circle him instead of starting another head on attack.

Civitas mind cleared up a bit from the pain he is feeling, like a cold water bucket being dumped over his face. He decides to take the initiative this time, to build upon the wolf's fear of his sword.

He takes a few well-planned steps forward, trying to bait out another attack by the wolf. It works. The wolf gets impatient after Civitas walked into its attack range and jumps at him once again.

This time Civitas is prepared, so he tries to dodge the jump with as little movement as possible. He miscalculates by a bit and his chest gets slashed superficially by the wolf, but the wound is very shallow. So Civitas uses the moment, right while the wolf lands on its feet again, to slash at its neck from behind.

His precision is luckily on point, so the fact, the sword only penetrates a few centimeters deep is compensated. Civitas knew he did not have enough strength to behead the wolf or anything like that.

And Civitas also wasn't precise enough to reliably hit the spot he wants to. But luck is on his side and he hits right between two vertebrae and severs its' central nervous system in two.

the wolf collapses right then and there, not electrical signals reaching its muscles anymore. Civitas falls down right after it, not because of an injury, but because his nerves couldn't hold on anymore.

He sits down for a few moments, catching his breaths. The wolf is still living, it appears to be unable to breathe, but its heart seems to still beat because Civitas did not sever the nerves completely.

He decides to end its suffering a bit faster, so now stands over the wolf and aligns the tip of his sword with the eye of the wolf. He has no confidence in being able to penetrate the skull, so he figured this might still hurt a lot for a brief moment, but suffocating because it can't breathe anymore would be more agony. So he puts all his weight on the blade and thrusts down into the skull of the Wolf, ending its' life.

Civitas then wants to sit down again because this fight was very exhausting, but before he could do that, he hears a crisp:

*pling*

Then a blue display like window appears before his eyes and a female voice reads the text out loud.

You have successfully defeated a darkwolf!

Essence absorption complete!

You have gained 100 experience points!

Level Up!

Civitas is perplexed. This looks moderately like the system which was described to him before by other people of his town.

But he has never heard of essence absorption, experience points or Level-Ups.

“What is this? Are you guys able to see this too?”

Maybe his “passengers” know something about this. They boasted about their knowledge not too long ago.

Secondly, we have no idea what that message is supposed to mean. It looks like a window to the world, but none of us have ever seen anything like this before.>

Civitas is even more confused now, what is a “window to the world”? He figures asking now can't be a mistake.

“What is the window of the world?”

{Have you never opened your window to the world before? It displays your current status, abilities and such.}

“Oh, you mean that thing. Everyone in my town just called it the system. We had no fancy name for it like that. And I was indeed never capable of opening my window to the world, as you call it.

I must have gained access to it after the seal was undone.”

[But that can't be! No one is able to shut out someone from the divine records! The divine records record all sentient beings and their status. Opening the window to the world is just taking a look at what is written in the records. And no one, absolutely no one, not even us three combined, has the capability of locking someone out from the divine records. If the person who made those seals is really that powerful, there is no way we would have manged to escape to here.]

“But why else did could I never access the window to the world before?”

[I have no idea. This is also my first time hearing of this. This is something I never thought would be possible.]

Civitas' confusion is turning into irritation. Why can't anything ever be simple? Why do unexplainable things keep happening to him? First the three monsters living within him, then the shadow which seems to absorb things, his weird memory loss coupled with something else controlling him and now him apparently being the only person ever to not be able to access the window to the world.

His irritation turns into frustration. He would like to scream as loud as he could, but even that is not possible since he would rather not draw attention to him.

{Please calm down Civitas, we will help you to figure out why everything is the way it is. We already had many questions without answers. What difference make one or two more?}

She is right, but Civitas is still reluctant to accept this. He apparently is just that much of a freak of nature.

Regardless, Civitas tries to open his Status window. His window to the world.

With just that thought, it opens up.

Status Window

Level: 2 Level Progress: 0/300 Ability Scores Skill Section Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress Strength (1) 1 Absorb ??? Max. 999% Constitution (1) 1 Basic Swordsmanship Common 1 12% Agility (1) 1 Intelligence (1) 1 Wisdom (1) 1 Mana (2) 0 Points available for distribution: 20

{This looks starkly different from what my window looks like. I will now name every difference I see. First, I have never seen the “Level Progress: 0/300” part. I have never seen skill progress being listed as a percentage. I have also never seen the numbers in brackets right behind the ability names. Furthermore, I have never seen “points available for distribution”. And last but not least, I have never seen skill rarity displayed in a window to the world. We do indeed categorize skills by rarity, but that isn't something that it usually displayed in the Window to the world.}

After receiving the previous messages about absorbing essence and leveling up, he expected his window to be different from others, but not to that degree.

[Your stats appear to be low even for a human. A level one human should have two in every ability score except Mana to my knowledge. This differs from species to species, but for humans this seems to be the norm. Now, the only question is, if the point distribution really is what is appears to be. If so, you could have a huge advantage over basically every other existing creature.]

“How do you know this about humans? I thought you beings didn't pay much attention to weaker races.”

{We sometimes capture lower beings to study them and experiment on them. I know this sounds cruel to you, but to us, this was completely normal. Because we never viewed humans as equally sentient beings. You were more like insects to us.}

It's unbelievable how fast Civitas forgot how threatening his passengers usually are. Their nice and helpful manner towards him made them seem much nicer than they really are.

“Let's just not talk about this. Let me just try to… distribute my points.”

So civitas starts to distribute his points. And to everyone's shock, it works just like they expected. Why are they shocked? Because although they expected this from the wording, the amount by which Civitas' scores improved from a single level up is just ridiculous.

It is common knowledge, that a human's overall level increases by one every time they increase any ability score by 2, while their level is below 100. This means the overall level is a representation of a persons' growth. After level 100, it changes to 4 score improvements to increase their level by 1. After 200 it's 6 and so on. A young dragon needs to increase their ability score by 10 to increase their overall level by one. After level 100 they need 30 improvements, then 50 and so on. Mana is a special stat which contributes more towards leveling up, since Mana is a universal power which enhances one's entire being.

Humans only managed to persist this long because they are the fastest to master skills, no other race is able to learn as fast as the humans.

This means Civitas will be two times stronger, than a dragon of the same level.

Status Window

Level: 2 Level Progress: 0/300 Ability Scores Skill Section Ability name: Ability Value: Skill Name Skill Rarity Skill Level Progress Strength (1) 6 Absorb ??? Max. 999% Constitution (1) 6 Basic Swordsmanship Common 1 12% Agility (1) 6 Intelligence (1) 2 Wisdom (1) 1 Mana (2) 3 Points available for distribution: 0

Everyone is in disbelief at a level two human having these scores. This is equal to a normal level 10 human, but he is only level 2. Moreover, Civitas appears to be able to level up in a way no one else can.