A soul floating alone in the dark space between worlds. The soul was undergoing the processing that all souls undergo when they die, that being all the information and features that the soul would have gathered over its lifetime. Souls take on many forms that can vary greatly, some take the forms of animals and keep this shape all the way until they are able to make their way through the cycle of reincarnation. Other souls take the shape of a mixture of their previous lives' faces, and others even still take the shape of spherical balls of energy.
This soul followed the last pattern, the energy that seemed to pulsate and ebb between a turquoise and an almost metallic pearl color. Inside the soul a simplistic consciousness was being gently moved while the outside shell was in the process of being cleaned down to the base form of the soul. The almost rhythmic back and forth motion caused the soul to not be damaged by the removal of this outer layer of its being.
The soul was almost done being cleaned and so it felt a tug and was brought to almost being awake but only just on the verge of being so, and like an efficient machine the process was finished, the universe taking this top layer of soul-stuff and using it and the same from many other souls to fuel the universe. And as the last motte of soul-stuff left the soul it regained awareness and began taking stock of its situation, almost immediately drawn into the floating interface before it.
Hello! This is system member ********-12 and I’ll be in charge of organizing your next life, I would hate to assume any sort of preferences you might have towards your next life so please allow me to make any available adjustments.
Perceiving the ethereal light, who’s grayish glow pierced through the conceptual void of color and the literal void surrounding the soul. The soul found itself under the pulling force of this window of light as well as many other souls but they found themselves unable to interact with the window more than perceiving its existence. As the soul came closer to the window the gray and pearlescent like background color, as well as the magenta writing both began dimming in intensity, these colors could be considered the experiences of previous lives that were so greatly impactful that they left a mark on the soul itself, these marks would influence its decisions about its next life and so were toned down for a moment to allow the soul to make decisions that would allow it to grow and experience new things. The words on the table began changing after the soul read them a few times, now reading,
Thank you for allowing me to help you start your next journey; do you have any preferences towards what type of world I should check for availability on? I’ll go ahead and mention a few general types in case you need a sort of guide line. We have worlds where technology was developed to a great degree, one much higher than the two previous worlds you had been booked for. Worlds that allowed their populations to use forms of energy to and I quote “pursue power, and eventually immortality” I would suggest waiting till you have a higher point pool available so that you could get some sort of advantages in any sort of world that uses this type of system. And finally we have some more generalistic worlds with multiple energy types and even ones where there seemingly isn’t any sort of energy except for secretive cults and such. I fail to mention worlds in similar type to your last two bookings due to the devaluation of point gathering if the total number of bookings in a world type exceeds two, only applying if the number has been exceeded with consecutive bookings to said world type. Please ask any questions and I shall do my utmost to ensure a successful booking in a new world.
The soul found itself stunned from all the “new” information, but was quickly getting its thoughts back into coherent order since the sleepiness was draining faster and faster. It understood a few basic principles already, like that it had been told about the points getting less valuable in a world type the more times that they went to them. And that technically they could opt out of using a booking agent but this increased the risk of being unceremoniously plopped out into a world that had zero availability causing the soul to lose points and be brought right back to the void for removal of any outside influence. But almost worse would be that points could be randomly assigned without the souls consent if they did opt to not use a booking agent. So the option was rather starkly obvious to the soul, especially since they had used a booking agent for its last two worlds and had been able to earn points.
Now if the soul was purposely ignoring that it was embarrassed about previously losing massive amounts of points by trying to not use the booking service, that would remain a secret deep inside its mind. And so it quickly ensured that the booking agent was aware that it was interested in using the services of the booking agency and was already well aware of the 30% taxation on energy gathered while using the service. The tax might seem to be a deal breaker but the fact that even with such high taxation souls were able to make profits served as a proof of capability rather than any sort of silver bullet against the agency.
Now then, I’ve made sure that all of your information has been updated and since you are aware of the current tax rate and liability clause. I’ll go ahead and ask you to again specify what type of world should availability be checked for?
Right the agent had asked that three times now, “my apologies. I was wanting to try going to a world with multiple energy systems to reset my point degradation.” saying this the soul began waiting for the agent to get back to them, since a single agent could commonly be other souls and their bookings, and could sometimes take quite a while to respond. Knowing this the soul made every attempt to not get nervous about its next life and began thinking up different strategies for its next life. So far there were three different plans that could ensure a return of the souls spent points, the only problem being that under normal circumstances once souls are booked they lose the ability to access their memories, this is actually the only benefit to not using a booking agent since that allows you to keep your memories, or at least as many as you can keep after trying to shove all of your memories into your newest host, you could also keep your personality but again this had an upper limit considering the pale limitations of most mortal beings.
Just as the soul was attempting to go through the final kinks of its three plans the booking agent came back online and this table posed a more urgent feeling than the soul was used to.
Dear soul, I regret to inform you that I will not be able to answer your inquires about the world type previously mentioned as there is going to be a new balance patch released by upper management staff in a large number of these worlds, and to ensure that your point investments remain in good standing we as a whole organization would like to request that you avoid using that world type. I would be more than happy to provide a recommendation towards any losses of time sensitive plans you might have had.
While the agency putting a new balancing system in place seemed rather abrupt, the soul knew there was a different option than the ones being made available to it and decided to get ahead of any other souls who might have the same message being played in front of them. “Oh thats not anything to worry about, I would like to ask that I be put onto the list of available souls for the balancing patch, if you would please.”
The soul had only one memory of this type of thing happening, the message had been almost the exact same and that balancing patch released gods to worlds that could host them, allowing souls to gain a passive amount of points that they could use on the world, while they were still present on said world. And knowing that there was going to be another such thing released made the soul more than aware that it would most likely be placed onto a world to act as a balancing patch for gods, in some way shape or form hindering them from farming worlds or going directly against their plans and missions.
There was a long pause before the table lit back up. Only this time a different color, and with gold letters.
Please be advised that such a decision will be permanent and will provide benefits as well as consequences to you the customer, Admin-Ghurasis.
And for once in the souls many instances of talking to a booking agent, it knew the only beings who had names were the higher management and it had been moved out of the general que straight to a being who could decide to do actually almost anything to its soul, and it wanted a fast answer, in fact it could be said that it knew said answer would be given to it quickly, the silent and unsaid ‘or else’ there was more than obvious to the soul.
“Hello, thank you for your speedy response, I understand that I will be moved out of general que and will be put under a higher level of scrutiny going forward, nevertheless please put my name down for availability for the system patch.”
Very well, I will open the system manager and begin listing you as the sole user and member of this newest balance patch. You will be required to sign a multi tiered non disclosure contract and will be unable to opt out of further changes and or termination of the balance patch.
And like that the soul was moved out of the void and found itself inside a meeting room. There were a total of twelve beings with name plaques in front of them, but the soul was not able to read them. But it could see that at the end of each plaque there was a number from 1-12. The most prominent being Ghurasis whose name plaque was red and gold just the same as its window and at the end of its name read the number 12.
“Seeing as we as well as the subject of the balance patch are here I shall start the meeting. Unless there are any objections.” Ghurasis spoke with a natural charisma sounding as though it were asking questions and giving options when in reality neither was present. But someone had apparently not gotten the memo.
“Yes, I feel that the soul who was first suggested would make fine use of the privileges this patch would provide them, especially considering how their traits are so well suited for the task at hand.”
A long period of silence overcame the room, in the same fashion as when a parent stares at their child thinking ‘where did I go wrong raining you? And could I get a refund on my crotch goblin, mine seems broken.’ Ghurasis seemed to recover faster than the hypothetical parent would have and spoke towards the offending party, with a blunt tone, all while the words used never left the realm of strict and formal boss speaking to their subordinate “Is that the end of your objection?”
If the soul was a fan of betting it would assume that the party who had spoken earlier only now realized what exactly it had walked face first into. “Why yes sir, I do believe so.” A single nod from the red colored admin was all the soul could perceive before a type of primordial fear crept its way up the soul's being. This feeling only began building and feeling more oppressive until Ghurasis began speaking once again.
“Seeing as you think I’m not able to keep track of you, nor your activities, I will be forced to mention here in front of your peers exactly what it is you have done, and why you just so happen to know a soul who fits the exact criteria needed for this patch to a tee. Yes many of you might be able to read the writing on the wall as it were but I shall put it plainly so that there will be no mistakes about our fellows actions. He took a soul who had only just started using our service and decided to artificially choose what the soul could purchase so that it would only be able to grow as Admin-11 wanted. They did this by using their rank to interpret the exact requirements for a soul to be used in the patch. They even took it upon themselves to try and block our subordinates from reporting any potential souls for the candidacy. And the worst part is that Admin-11 could have gotten away with strong arming the system in its infancy if not for the soul I’m presenting here today. This soul formally requested to be considered for the role,hence informing me directly and stopping the message from being blocked by Admin-11, and since it's only competition was a soul who had been artificially built for the task and nominated without their knowledge, it was a rather speedy case for the decision to remove the other candidate from the race and hence with only one nominee available before the launch of this patch we are forced to ensure the soul has enough bonuses to make it through their development period.”
“And before any of you would like to start demanding justice for Admin-11’s actions, that discussion will come later once we have put out the balance patch… And so again I ask are there any objections to. My. Decision.”
Admin-12 spoke at length but had in the end mounted its fellow admin up onto a crucifix and condemned as a sinner before its peers and was merely saving face by stopping while I was there. And this time no one mistook the end of its statement for anything different from what it actually was, a dismissal of any and all opposition.
“Very well then, I’ll take it upon myself to inform the soul on what exactly they have signed up for. And whilst I’m doing that I expect each of you to look into any souls who were unfairly stopped from participating in the draw.”
A mumble of agreement and the soul was left alone with the admin, “now, let's take a look at your information”
Name: N/A Race: N/A
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Lvl; tier: 1; 1
Hp; mp; sp: N/A; N/A; N/A
Traits:
Fast development; you find yourself physically and mentally ahead of others of your species of the same age.
Combination; you are able to combine skills, traits, and other similar features together to form stronger ones.
Status bank; you are able to store hp, mp, and sp when you're at maximum capacity, up to double your maximum capacity.
“I have some questions in regards to two of those traits, “combination” and “Status bank. Those two traits are well above your tier so you shouldn’t have them, and you have three traits when you should have at maximum two traits. How did these two anomalies happen, in your own words since I’ve read your file.”
The soul remained silent for a moment before deciding that answering with haste was a brilliant idea. “I started my first few cycles with “fast development” but I was put into a higher tiered world against what I asked to be so admin-6 if I remember correctly added a form of random compensation, that I later found was the trait “Status bank” then later I asked to be a part of the first update, I was a runner up in the placements and as such denied the ability to enter any worlds while the decision was being made. This resulted in me being unable to finish some achievements that I was quite fond of trying to complete in my earlier years. And so my third place prize was given a small boost by an unknown third party, who I’m fairly certain was a tier 4 soul who I had competed against on multiple occasions. They and I used to have a form of rivalry between ourselves. Until I decided to focus on improving my base stats up to a minimum of ten.”
“That is accurate according to the records, but why would you want to get your base stats up to ten?” The admin spoke this time with curiosity rather than trying to piece together some sort of greater mystery, and the soul felt emboldened by this fact to speak more freely with the admin.
“I figured out that the highest negative status multiplier is usually divisible by ten meaning that as long as my stats were at ten or higher before anything else was done, I could at the bare minimum get my scores over eleven within a reasonable amount of time.”
The admin remained silent, then with a nod it began going over other factors that it deemed important. “Next up would be going over your role as the sole member of the current newest balance patch. You will be taking up the role as a dungeon, seeing as the previous balance patch is returning good results, except for a few outliers who are deciding to meddle with the affairs of souls while being mortals. Commonly known as necromancers. They are beginning to cut into profit margins, and it will be your job as a dungeon to lure, trick, and crook as many gullible souls into your depths to their deaths, as a method of ensuring that people stop dying in the middle of nowhere and becoming fodder for the necromancers.”
The soul took a moment, digesting the newly provided information to the best of its abilities, it had already known of the necromancer issue, and had been hearing about souls being so badly damaged that they were unable to come back to the void. These necromancers used their high affinity for souls to trap them, and from there they used magic to steal information from worlds other than their own, or in the worst cases they stole the abilities straight from the soul and turned them into mindless slaves. Knowing that it would be forced to face off against such beings made the soul want to curse itself for wanting this job.
The soul forced itself to calm down and tried to show a strong front to the admin. “I understand, and will do my best to ensure that necromancers will no longer be able to find surplus souls to use for their nefarious schemes.” The soul had made its decision, and playing into the admins' dislike for necromancers would only serve to make things easier for itself.
“Very good, I’m always looking forward to seeing such upstanding members of our community accomplish, I would like to ask you though, how long are you planning on being the sole member of this new patch? The reason I ask is because I want to know if you are planning on getting as many of the origin race buffs as you can.”
This sudden ofer to be able to dictate how long it would have to grind out some of the most rewarding types of racial bonuses available to any creature, caused no small amount of perturbation, the soul was very well aware that it could in fact get a massive bonus if it asked for a long enough head start. But also was scared that being the only member of this new species would paint a cosmic sized target onto it. The decision kept bouncing inside its head before the soul came up with an idea.
“Could me and the other guy team up? After all, he was most likely given backdoor access to information on the update, meaning he could totally help me out and make the update far more successful. I would like to ask that he not be made into a dungeon, maybe a symbiotic dungeon adviser sort of figure?”
The longer the soul spoke to this Admin he more it was becoming aware that these awkward pauses seemed intentional, and almost like it was taking its sweet time to think and couldn’t be bothered to speed up its thought process even the tiniest bit. But finally after the soul had counted down from 100 bottles of beer on the wall at least four times, The Admin spoke, “Well that is a good idea, your starting bonus would be halved, to pay for the loyalty of this advisor, but I can see the two of you making a great team… I will add in of course that he will be keeping his backdoor access, but he will only be able to answer questions based on your own ability, and power.”
That stung, it had been hoping for the starting bonus as a new patch member, but also if it could have an adviser who could tell him how progress was going towards getting some of the harder racial perks, then that would pay for itself rather quickly, not even counting how nice it would be to have someone to talk to, since the soul had a feeling that being a murder hole built into a planets surface would be rather rough starting point for any sort of communications.
“That would be fine, and I totally understand the need to limit backdoor paths as much as possible, especially when dealing with necromancers, who I know will be very interested in me.”
The soul offered its response rather smoothly if that was possible for a soul, but also tried to make it obvious that it knew the real reason the admins were avoiding giving it too many boons, since they would act as trails leading right back to the core of the void, where the Admins came from.
“Well then, I’ll go collect your... advisor before Admin-11 does something untoward to said advisor. Please take your time to go over the options that are available to you.”
And with that the soul was left alone, with a new screen in front of it,
Race; default dungeon Lvl; tier: 1; 1
Hp; mp; sp: 20; 200; 00 Points available for customization 500,000. {Status} {Skills}{Starting blueprints} {Perks}
Looking at the available points made the soul very quickly think over if having an advisor was worth half a million points, but also began wondering why its points hadn’t been added onto the total amount since last it checked had well over 33,000 points and those would be very helpful. But the soul still began to browse through the options starting with skills, a huge amount of them were blocked out, so much so that the soul was becoming frustrated and wished that the screen would get rid of all the options not available. This did cause all of the red skills to be removed, now rather than the seemingly infinite list of skills there was a much more manageable list of 10 or so pages to go through, it decided to sort from most expensive to see what skills were worth the most and the soul almost had a panic attack right of the starting line,
Investigation: Allows the user to interpret information gathered subconsciously, and consciously about a target, to build a suitable profile about the target(s). Cost 6000 points.
This skill had been on the souls wish list for at least four or more cycles, but the price was drastically lower than it should have been, last the soul could remember it has been some 20,000 points and now was thirty percent cheaper, that gave the soul pause, and a brief look over other skills led to yet another shocking discovery.
Mana attunement(Rank 1/7)[Number of times purchased 0/7]: Allows the user to become attuned to a type of mana, and use it at a higher proficiency than normal users of mana. Each additional rank of this skill results in greater ease using the unlocked elements, this only applies towards the base 7 elements( Costs 100 points, with each additional type of mana costing 1.2 times the original.
It seems that a lot of the available skills were at a reduced rate, seemingly at random. To what extent the price was reduced by. But the soul decided to not just buy everything within sight, it needed to check out the other sections, like the perks list. The soul pressed the screen and it changed to show a similar screen as the last, still containing the filters that the soul had placed earlier. The highest priced perk in the whole three pages being.
Observant(Rank 1/3): This perk is only available to those with keen senses, with this perk your senses as keen as they might have been, become honed to a finer degree, whether this be taking in more information in half the time, seeing better in the pitch dark, being able to hear things through solid walls like they are happening next to you. All of this is possible and more if you push your natural senses to the limit once more. Cost 18,000 points.
The soul was quite thrilled at the idea of getting this as well as Investigation, since this would combo very nicely. But it had no idea what the previous cost of the available perks had been, the soul looked a bit more and was not able to locate any perks that would be immediately helpful but had found a few that would pair nicely with its current perks.
Enhanced foundations: never fear destroying your future potential by learning at your own pace, this perk removes any hidden or advertised negatives that a skill, perk, or title increasing in rank could have, as long as said negative only relates to increasing the rank of said skill, perk, or title before maxing out its level. Cost 5,300 points.
Deconstruction: this perk allows you to deconstruct anything inside your influence into its base parts, this includes skills, perks, titles, and non-living matter. Your ability to affect living matter is unchanged, and you will have an easier time deconstructing your own skills, perks, or titles then someone else's. Cost 9,800 points.
Dense energy(Rank 1/7): your energy, HP, MP, and SP all count as two, rather than one point. This effect is additive with rank two making it so that all energy counts as three rather than two. Cost 10,000 points.
These perks would be immensely helpful, and would allow the souls dungeon to grow rather massive without any sort of real threat. Thinking this the soul began wondering about what could be located in the blueprint tab, and quite quickly tapped on it opening it up to a page showing a list of creatures.
Kobalts: a basic creature, able to form tribe-like societies given enough time, despite what some would say, they do in fact have draconic blood, but it takes ample effort and time to be able to bring this number to a usable amount. They do have an evolution limit of 3. This limit only begins after reaching adulthood. Cost 20,000 points.
Sprites: an almost completely harmless species, they are able to provide much needed light to a dungeon passively, as well as casting illusions when they are able to gather in large enough numbers. And given enough time are able to evolve into truly powerful elementals. Cost 19,000 points.
Slimes: a physically weak species, they are able to survive surprising amounts of damage from physical means as long as magic is not involved, they are supremely weak to any and all magic. They have no limit to the number of evolutions, but it does take increasing amounts of resources to allow a slime to evolve. Cost 15,000 points.
Dungeons will be provided a random list of three or more creatures to choose from, you will be given a random one once you have entered the mortal realm.
After looking at these options for a while if the soul focused on an option then they could feel an image of the creature, the kobalt brought forth an image of a smaller than normal creature, it was labeled as being 4’8 feet tall and was hunched over, knees bent at an uncomfortable angle, the creatures skin was a pale yellow, almost sickly with uneven and lumpy scales covering its body, its hands had a total of four digits, each ending in a small claws, and the feet had three toes facing forwards each ending in claws as well and a fourth slightly longer claw on the heel of the foot, they also had thin almost rudder like tails, just short enough that they didn’t touch the ground. The slimes seemed rather pointless, considering that they were spheres of various colors, the soul could tell that they were acidic, and that they have a slightly darker shaded area that the soul understood to be their “brain” since saying that a slime has a brain would be a vast insult to all beings that do have them. And can’t evolve unless special attention is taken towards leading the proverbial horse to water. They stand at around 2’7 foot tall. Sprites are completely made out of mana, with the density of the mana deciding the color, they also seem to split whenever they get too full of mana. This also seems to be how they evolve, by gaining high enough numbers they can form an almost hive-mind like structure allowing them to move up their racial evolution line. They hover over the ground at seemingly random heights in the mental image being displayed, and are only around an inch tall.
Seeing these as the souls defenders it rather quickly began looking through the perks list hoping to find something that would enable it to change these creatures into things more apt at dealing with intruders. The soul quickly realized that there was not a single perk that fit the bill for what it was looking for and so it began looking through the skills list and found a treasure trove.
Assimilation: Allows the user to mix and match parts of two or more living creatures to make a single creature. Cost 2,000 points. Only effective towards dungeon creatures, or those under the dungeons direct control!
Bio manipulation: Allows the user to bend and mold biological material as they see fit, mana costs vary based on the changes being made. Cost 1,500 points. Only effective towards dungeon creatures, or those under the dungeons direct control!
Bio enhancement: Allows the use to enhance the natural traits of a living organism. Cost 1,250 points. Only effective towards dungeon creatures, or those under the dungeons direct control!
These skills would allow the soul to beef up their defenders by a lot, although not as much as it had hoped considering the rather annoying addition each of the skills and those with similar properties had, with only working on its creatures. But considering it would be combining these skills almost immediately, it couldn’t help but wonder if that limit would be removed or even change at all. The soul kept wondering about ways it could make itself safe, and it had in all reality ran out of ideas that would be feasible for now. The soul let its mind wander into trying to come up with different strategies it could use.
A ripple in the air caught the souls attention, one moment there was nothing inside the souls admittedly limited line of sight, and the next Admin-12 and the yet unnamed soul who would become the future dungeons advisor. “I see you have been looking through your options, do you have any ideas?” The admin spoke to the soul, not with any impatience, or even all that much interest in the answer but strictly with business in mind and wanting to see its job fulfilled.
“Several but I would love to speak to my new advisor seeing as we will be working together for hopefully quite some time.” The admin nodded and with that the much smaller orb joined the soul peering at the screen in front of it. “Hey, thanks for the save, the other admin wanted to revoke all my points and start me back at square zero!” the orb stage whispered conspiratorially while going through the menus at a blistering speed, it had evidently been able to find a way of making lists of wanted items so that it could stay organized, and added all of the previously viewed items to the list. “May I see your status, to try and figure out what we might be missing?” The soul was already feeling like there were two sides to its fellow soul.
So-far there was the business focused individual and then there was the soul who had been an accomplice in an attempt by a lower admin to over rule the decisions of the higher ranking admins, the soul was very aware that its fellow definitely was more than willing to be a mischievous pain in the back side, but there were definite hints at a good character from what the soul could see. The soul realized that it had not given access to its status screen so it imagined turning the screen towards the other soul. Who promptly looked over the status screen and nodded before going back to the shop.
While its partner was busy it decided that it would bring up the missing points to the admin. “Excuse me, Admin? While I was going over my status screen I noticed that the points I had before I had accepted this role had not been added to my point total. And I was wondering if you could add those points?” The Admin looked towards the soul, his eyes glasslike and blank before he shook his head and began speaking. “My apologies. I was focusing on choosing where to put you two, the points will be added to your total in a moment. I will be having to cut your time short here as we are in rather urgent need of a lancing to the boil that these necromancers have become”
This caused both souls to startle, realizing that they would have a much shorter window of time to go over the specifics for how they were going to survive a literal tide of enemies being thrown at them. The dungeon advisor leaped at the chance to spin the screen it had been looking at around towards the dungeon, who started reading the screen, assuming that this had been what the advisor had been wanting, but the advisor started talking rather quickly, “now I know that the choices here are a little off but if we choose these as well as the stuff you had already looked over then we should be set to enact a very effective strategy. If you have any questions let me know, but we should probably wait until we are down there to talk about this because the Admin is looking real jumpy”
Deciding to trust its half a million point investment the dungeon pushed forward its desire to purchase the selected list before it without reading it. The Admin nodded seeing this and began speaking, “Have you finalized your decisions?” The dungeon and the advisor looked towards each other before nodding. “Yes admin, and I would like to have as long as you can give me as the sole member of my species, please” Not even a moment after the dungeon said this the Admin’s eyes flashed a cold yellow color, and with a single nod the two souls disappeared from the Admins office.
-END-Chapter 1