Serilda sat back in her seat and regarded me with a strange gaze before a soft smile crossed her face. “I’m alright. I’m just struggling with the amount of knowledge the system is passing onto me. It’s overwhelming, but I’m not like a human. I won’t break if something strange happens to me. Besides, I go with the flow, so it’s not too troublesome for me.”

I stared as I judged her response. It seemed like it was honest enough. Though the way she said she wasn’t human kind of irked me. But what was I saying? I wasn’t human anymore myself. I looked down at my fingers and before I dismissed my hand. Perhaps it was something that was best left alone for now. “Anyway, want to practice some magic while we wait for the planet to stabilize?” Might as well find something to do to pass the time.

“Sure, but before we do that, we need to get your paths of power figured out, and a few host forms made, if it’s something that you wish to do.” She said as she stood up and stretched. Her ashen flesh glittered softly in the starlight, and on her face sat a wicked grin.

“Oh yeah, Malek was telling me about that. What are my options right now? Also, what are the host forms?” I asked as I crossed the room and made another chair and sat down.

Instead of just telling me, she made a quick motion, and a screen appeared in front of my face. “How about instead of asking me, you just look for yourself? I’m your manager, not your maid. But I will tell you the function that they play while you look it over.”

I rolled my eyes and glanced over at the screen.

Paths of power available:

Path of Godhood:

Path of the Star Breaker

Path of the Celestial Nephilim

Path of the Planet Cracker

Path of the Archmage

Path of the Lord

Path of the Monster

Path of the Undead

Path of the Warrior

Path of the Politician

Path of the Warlord

Path of the Scientist

Path of the Elemental

Path of the Archon

I read through the list and already I knocked out a few of the choices. I wasn’t a monster, and I had no reason to become one. The next was the politician. While I had no memory of Earth, I knew what politics brought, and I was not too keen on the idea of backstabbing and being dirty. The other thing that I didn’t like was the warlord. It made it seem like it was a path drenched in bloodshed, which to me seemed frivolous. I don’t think I wanted to be defined by how much blood I can spill. The only other option I didn’t like was the Archon. But that was because Malek said not to. When he was telling me about it, the sadness in his eyes was all too prevalent and I don’t think I had it in me to sacrifice things for great power.

I looked over my list once more and turned my attention back to Serilda. Once we made eye contact, she nodded her head. “So, paths of power are used to further enhance you as an administrator. You can select up to three, with each granting unique passives and traits. Though since you don’t have a game type system, the passive and traits will be unknown to you outside of the Administrator interface.”

I glanced at the list once more before I looked back at her. “I see. Malek mentioned something about getting elites from paths of power. Can you tell me more about that?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Okay, so, to be specific, most of the paths grant entities that are powerful who serve you and do your bidding. For example, if you choose the path of godhood, you can use gods. Gods are extremely powerful in their respective domains, and scale based on you. While something from say the path of the Elemental would grant you an aspect of elemental that would be at your beck and call. Each entity comes with its pros and cons. However, I strongly recommend against choosing paths based on that.” I bobbed my head as I listened to her. So I got three paths then.

I turned my attention back to the list as I worked through the list once more. For sure, I would take the Path of Godhood. Because that seemed like it would be fun to do. I mean, who didn’t want to be a god? With the first choice selected, I looked at the others. I had two slots left, so I needed to figure it out. But first I wanted to see what the selection of godhood netted me.

I made a quick motion and opened up the next screen and read the effects.

The path of Godhood: This path opens up mastery of only two domains based on the domain’s overall strength. It also grants the creation of gods and goddesses, and allows for ambient faith to create gods. Number of gods available at your Administrator level: 0/5

I see, so I could choose two domains. Interesting. I could either use this as a utility class or for something else, since the options seemed almost limitless. Now onto the final two paths of power that I would walk. I glanced through and saw that my race was a path of power, which raised a question. “Hey, so can you tell me about the Path of the Celestial Nephilim?”

“That is a unique race based path of power. It lacks an entity to use, and instead primarily works on amplifying racial traits and what not, at least that is from what I can tell. It’s brand new, so there isn’t much of anything about it.” She scrunched up her face as she tried to read whatever it was.

I wish it did a little more to explain things to me, then just having to select them permanently to figure it out, but that’s what my ‘manager’ is for. I would just keep barraging her with questions if I had them, but mostly the choices seemed to be rather self explanatory. But I digress from the topic at hand. It would make the most sense to take the Celestial Nephilim path of power. I mean, it is my race, after all. I selected it and opened up a new screen to look at the effects.

The path of the Celestial Nephilim: A relatively fresh path created during the birth of the Celestial Nephilim. The Celestials hold mastery over stars and space as they interact with the very fabric of the universe as they travel. Grants innate knowledge of space and celestial bodies, and a basic usage of cosmic magic*

*Due to your class, this path of power will only advance as you gain knowledge from your mortals.

It felt like hundreds of pin pricks were tunneling into my skull as knowledge entered my mind. A vast portion of it was incomplete, but what I had was the very basics of the universe, like how energy was stored, and how gravity worked, but a lot of the knowledge had holes. Like there was something there just out of reach. I sat back in my chair as I worked through everything and tried to relax from the sheer overload of information. Some of it clicked as remnants of knowledge of Earth, while other stuff seemed alien and incomprehensible right now. I would have to shore up that knowledge if I wanted to get better with it. I dismissed the screen and looked at my last options.

Now what would fit? Did I want to have a warrior type path? Really, I don’t think I would, considering my class, I could do anything that I could imagine, it was only limited to my personal knowledge so I feel like that alone takes away the need for a lot of the other paths.

So with that list narrowed down, I decided that the best option for me would be the Path of the Scientist. The path of the Star Breaker and Planet Cracker looked really bad ass, but that isn’t what I needed right now. What I needed was a way to merge knowledge and create more. Without a second thought, I confirmed the choice for the Path of the Scientist.

The Path of the Scientist: The need for knowledge compels you. Knowledge is power. You now have now have access to a unique variant of the laboratory, along with the ability to create entities to populate it, and do research. Due to the status of these entities, they lack combat power, so security teams must be created to defend them and the control room. Security teams, however, are restricted by two things:

1) If the laboratory does not produce tech, they are restricted to the gear that mortals use. Unless otherwise provided, security can not surpass the average tech level of all your planets.

2) Security teams can not be used as an attacking force, unless attacked first. However, they may scout out places that may be too dangerous for any scientist to explore, and procure technology. While inside the control room, they may be respawned if slain. If sent on scouting missions and slain, then they can no longer be respawned.

The amount of scientist and security teams rely on Administrator level

Scientist: 0/3

Security Teams: 0/3

Current Security team Composition: Two D.P.S One Medic, One tank.

Please note that compositions can be changed at any time and in any way that you desire.

I read over the long string of text, and I was floored. This is fucking amazing!