A void.
That was where Prius Logan was after his death.
He could see, but he had no physical body.
'Where am I?' Prius tried to say something, but it came out as a... It didn't even come out. There was no noise to hear himself, he could only think.
But still, something spoke to him.
[Welcome to the void.]
'What is that?' Prius thought. 'Is something trying to speak to me?' He could have swore he heard a voice.
[Correct. This is the System speaking. As a reward for dying at the exact same time that the Tenth Paragon was conceived, The Ninth Paragon, also known as the Celestial Emperor has decided to merge your soul with his, combining the Eighth Prodigy of the multiverse with the Tenth Paragon of the multiverse.]
'Tenth Paragon? Eighth Prodigy? Who the heck are those?' Prius thought. 'Am I the Eighth Prodigy?'
[Yes. Prodigies of the multiverse are gifted with soul cultivation, while Paragons of the multiverse are gifted with normal cultivation and body tempering. A combo of this type would make the heavens tremble.]
'So, why would he do this? The Celestial Emperor, I mean.' Prius was getting the hang of conveying his thoughts.
[Well... He's bored. He wants to see if someone can finally entertain him. Now if you excuse me, I will be bonding with you now and sending you to the Tenth Paragon's Body...]
[Commencing...]
[Begin!]
Prius woke up with bleary eyes, wrapped in nothing but a blanket, being held in someone's arms. He internally screamed.
'Wait a second?' He thought, being careful not to try and speak- he wasn't sure if he could, and if he did, it would have been creepy. 'Was I just born?'
A voice resounded in his head. [Yes. You have been reborn into the body of Prius Logan, a demon, in Sector 100-0043 of the Demon Empire.]
'A demon?' Prius thought, smiling a bit. The person holding him placed him into a crib, made out of a weird blue wood. The bottom was squishy, like a mattress. 'Do they have any powers?'
[Yes. Demons have the passive perk Ultra-Speed Regeneration, the passive perk Enhanced Reflexes, and they have a Divine Bloodline, meaning they have incredible memory and can ascend to divinity or become the Celestial Emperor. As the Tenth Paragon, you also have the perk Unlimited Energy Cultivation and Unlimited Body Tempering, which fused with your perk Unlimited Soul Cultivation to become Unlimited Cultivation, the perk Extreme Luck, the perk Toon Force, and the passive perk Immortality which is locked, among other things.]
'Gosh, that's cool!' He spoke in his mind. Another person took him into what seemed to be a place with giant tanks, filled with purple goo. Inside each tank was a baby or a child sized demon. The demons actually looked like humans, except they had a horn or two horns on their head, which came in varying sizes and colours. And, each demon had part of an octahedron sticking out of their chests. Glowing veins ran to it, filled with all sorts of colours. 'Wait. What are those?' Prius thought. Luckily for him, the person carrying him - the attendant was what Prius had nicknamed them - had positioned him in what was apparently a baby strap, letting him see everything around him.
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The attendant carried him to one of those tanks, opening the top before taking off the blanket and dumping him inside the liquid.
Suddenly, Prius started feeling tired. He tried to fight it, but it felt impossible. Just as he was about to fall asleep, the System spoke.
[Would you like some assistance fighting the sedative?]
'Yes!' Prius said with the last of his mental energy.
As he drifted away into oblivion a pain like needles stabbing into his body appeared, and he was jolted awake. It hurt. A lot.
'Ouch! Was that supposed to be painful?'
[Yes. Right now, you are tempering your body using this nutrient mix. While not a very potent temperer, it will work for now.]
'Cool! Are there stages for body tempering?'
[No. Body cultivation does not have stages.]
'How does it work?'
[By taking the energy from any physical matter or energy and storing it in your body as opposed to storing it in your core (dantian), the physical matter in your body becomes enhanced, allowing you to do more things with your body alone. Unlike just training your muscles, this enhances all aspects of the body, including ones that you can't train, like the organs.]
'Alright.' Prius said. For a few hours, he would keep on asking questions, trying to gain a basic understanding of his universe.
At the end of his questioning, he contemplated his situation with the System.
'So, this is a world where demons have incurred the wrath of the elves, causing the elves to declare war on them. But, since elves were part of the Universal Alliance Federation, all species part of the federation attacked them. You attack one wasp, you've attacked them all. During wartime, most of the funds and treasures that go to the schools to train demons are diverted to fuel the military. So, during wartime, students at the academy get less resources and funding, meaning only the top dogs get the scraps, while the mediocre ones are left starving. How annoying.'
[Correct. To get the resources, you must excel.]
'Alright!' Prius thought. Then, he realized something.
'Wait. Let me just test this out for a second.'
[What?]
'Status!' He called the words out in his mind. And sure enough, he saw a blue screen with all his stats.
Name: Prius Riot
Race: Demon/Paragon
HP: 1000
SP: 1000
Constitution: 250 (average 0.1 for adult demon race)
Constitution Stats:
STR: 240
AGI: 245
END:250
SENE(Soul Energy):255
ENE (Energy):260
Miscellaneous Stats:
INT: 20 (average 5 for demon race)
CHA: 25 (average 15 for demon race)
LUK: 20 (average luck around the universe is 1)
Stat Points: 40
Perks: [Ultra-Speed Regeneration], [Enhanced Reflexes], [Unlimited Cultivation], [Toon Force], [Immortality(locked)], [Extreme Luck]
Skills: N/A
Bloodline(s): [Paragon Bloodline(sealed)], [Divine Bloodline(sealed)]
'2500 times stronger than the average demon? Wow! And 20 times more lucky than them? Well, I'm just too OP. Even my perks are OP too. Toon Force? What the heck?'
'Also, if I allowed the sedative to take effect, how long would I sleep?'
[You would sleep for two months until you mature to your peak state, getting massive gains for your constitution stats, at which point you would be enrolled in a training school.]
'Alright then. Could you let the sedative take effect?'
[Commencing...]
[Begin!]
And with that, Prius fell into a deep slumber.