Aiden looked at the name at the bottom of the text and smiled. DEO. He felt surprised by the name for some reason. Like he had experienced a change for the better somehow.

“Menu,” he said, as though he had done it a billion times before. His voice still felt funny to him, but he had grown somewhat used to it through laughing. Soon mana coalesced into a glowing text menu before him.

Stats

Titles

Traits

Class

Skills

Storage

Information

Messages - 1 New Message

The menu was so small compared to what he was used to. But he saw the message waiting for him and mentally clicked on it with a compulsion that was very familiar. The words in the message felt even more familiar. Like seeing the handwriting from a friend you've had for all eternity.

Dear Aiden,

It seems everything has gone as planned. You were stripped of your immortality and sent to Earth before the integration process. You will experience an integration as a participant rather than its director, just as you wanted. Your new body is unable to process all of your memories. So you will only have a general understanding of things until you improve your mind enough to grasp more.

Your System knowledge may be stronger as that is a large part of who you are and I did not want to remove it…despite your request. I am the Deity Eternal now and you’re not so what I say goes. I did not want your experience ruined because you didn’t know how to assign stats properly. It will still be a challenge, believe me.

I hope you enjoy all the change.

DEO

Aiden smiled at the snarky message. He could feel the love from AIDE-O or DEO as she seemed to go by now. He remembered her old name, but he couldn’t remember much else about her. Still he smiled at the few memories he did have.

He shifted his focus before he could get too distracted by this new body’s emotions again. Feeling loved was too strong an emotion for him to handle right now. He decided to click on his Status to assess himself.

Name: Aiden

Rank: F

Titles: Loved of DEO, Past Your Peak

Race: Artificial Human

Traits: God Made Flesh

Class: None

Skills: None

Stats: Level 0

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 20

Vitality: 20

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Mind: 20

Mana: 20

Available: 0

Aiden was surprised at those starting stats. They were definitely higher than the norm. 10 was usually the highest someone could start with on an individual stat. Having 20 in each was far outside the norm.

Seeing his high stats made him excited and he laughed with a giddiness that seemed to fit the situation. The laugh hurt, but he was growing use to the pain. It didn’t make him as sad this time and he found a balance much sooner.

Distracting himself seemed to work the best, so he decided to jump into find out why he had the starting stats he had. He zoomed through the menus like a God that had created the menu in the first place. Everything seemed intuitive to him even if he had forgotten why things worked the way they did.

First he pulled up his titles and read through those.

Loved of DEO

This is for your specifically Aiden. I didn’t want you to go experience something new and then die on the first day. This is so you don’t have to fear death and lose out on experiences you may otherwise enjoy.

Effects: You get three extra lives. If you use these you will start again from the very bottom. Don’t use these, but they are there if you need them.

Aiden smiled at the kind gesture from his dear friend, God. Then he moved on to the next title.

Past Your Peak

You have reached the peak and then given it up. Is this starting over or seeing what lies beyond the Peak. You will have to discover that for yourself.

Effects: You have full control over which class you obtain at each rank.

That was handy. And it was also seemed unfamiliar to him. It was a title he didn’t think he had ever seen before. Then again, he was only an hour old, so that shouldn’t be too surprising to him. He smiled and kept digging to find why his stats were so high.

The next place he looked was at his race. It said he was an artificial human. What exactly did that mean?

Artificial Human

Your body has been made to be the absolute perfect specimen for a Human from Earth courtesy of DEO.

Effects: All stats start at 10.

Well that explained some of it. The rest of the answer must be in his only trait.

God Made Flesh

Your soul has spent countless eons at the pinnacle of existence. That cannot be taken away so easy, despite your own efforts to do so. Your boundless soul affects your body and improves it.

Effects: +10 to all stats for each rank up.

There it was. It was a combination of his race and his trait. Each gave him 10 points to all stats. DEO really set him up right. It really would be a waste to do nothing with it. Perhaps it was time for him to get his barings. The hour long grace period would be done before long and he needed to explore the area around him. Something told him that walking would feel extra funny.

Moving his body had felt intuitive to him so far, but when he actually tried to do a specific movement, all of that changed. He tried bringing a foot underneath him and began to fall.

His heart lurched and his breath caught. Then he through his limbs out wilding looking to catch himself. He failed.

He flopped on to the ground with a thud and Aiden had to take a moment to recognize he was okay. There was a dull pain in his back and head where he landed in the forest grass. It was a new pain he hadn’t felt before. However, experiencing things he hadn’t felt before was becoming the norm today.

He was finding it easier to find the desire to move forward. Sadness didn’t hit as hard as it had at first. And while he still felt ready to laugh at any moment, the sharp pain from laughing to hard before was hidden just below the surface. Ready to greet him again at the slightest chuckle. It made him feel alive.

With a big grin on his face he tried standing up again. His high dexterity stat must have helped with his balance, because he only wobbled a little bit this time. He rose to his full height and had one thought.

This feels super funny.

Soon Aided had doubled over in laughter and fell back to the ground, rolling in the grass, clutching at his stomach. The pain brought tears to his eyes, but it couldn’t quite stop the giddy feeling in his heart.

He was at the start of his journey. A journey of ups and downs and surprises around every corner. He certainly was ready for a surprise of some kind.

“Ah! Somebody help me!”

What was that? Aiden thought. Was that…a surprise?!