Sighing, a black-haired youth looked at the old man in front of him.
"So, let's get this straight, I died?" he looked at the old man who nodded in return to his question, "And you were the cause of it?" the teen's face was one of disbelief as he looked at the old man in front of him.
It was the old man's time to sigh, as he awkwardly smiled at the boy in front of him, "I'm afraid that's how it is. You had a nasty curse on you, actually, it was going to cause the end of the world so I had to give you a heart attack to stop the curse from harming Earth..." the old man looked averted his gaze before whispering under his breath, "...not that it did stop it, the curse just passed on to another person..."
The teen, hearing this, felt his eye twitch as he looked at the seemingly senile old man in front of him.
"So, old man, what's gonna happen next? Can't I just go onto the afterlife? I'm a little drained after finding out I'm dead and all," the boy didn't seem very happy at all, in fact, he just seemed drained off all energy like he just wanted to sleep for all eternity.
The old man nervously smiled as he looked at the boy again, "Erm, about that, as I am the God in charge of Earth I can have you reincarnated into a world of your choice, if you want?" the old man seemed like he was hiding something and the boy caught on pretty quickly.
"Oh? So, you just want to sweep this under the rug, huh?" the teen smirked at the man who was getting more fidgety as time went on, "Well, if you want me to keep quiet, you can reincarnate me but you need to give me some benefits to go along with it."
Seeing the smug look on the teen's face, the old man nearly blew his top but after thinking about it, he caved in, realizing it was a little price to pay in return for him keeping his job, "Okay...what are your requests, child?" the old man seemed a bit defeated by this point.
Seeing his plan pull through, the teen felt his dead heart start to quiver with excitement. How many books had he read where the protagonist got to choose his powers and became OP? How many times had he wished to be that Mc? Too many to count for both questions!
But before he could get excited, the teen looked at the "God" in front of him, some questions on his mind, "What world will I be reincarnated into? And what are the limits for what I can wish for?"
God seemed to ponder about the boy's question for a little bit before he came up with a reply, "You have a choice of 4 different kinds: A low Fantasy one, a High Fantasy one, one the same as Earth or in other terms a low Tech world and the final one you can choose from is a High tech world," he waved his hand and four different worlds appeared, each with one of the aforementioned options above them, "Make your choice now."
The boy went into deep thought as he went through the pros and cons of each of these things. He ranked them on their danger worlds, even with the cheats he could possibly pick, they went from safest one to the most dangerous one as such: Low Tech, Low Fantasy, High Fantasy and High Tech.
He had a bit of difficulty deciding on which was more dangerous out of High Fantasy and High Tech but when he remembered Warhammer 40k and thought of the slim possibility he'd be in on a universe like that he quickly ruled out that option. Even though there are fantasy elements in Warhammer, the technology and alien races are what make it fucking terrifying.
Plus, if he was reincarnated into a grown-up body, he'd be seen as some kind of a retard when compared to the average person who knew much more about technologies he'd see as advanced. He was more willing to so in a fantasy setting.
In the end, he decided it was between Low Fantasy and High Fantasy, as being reincarnated on a Planet just like Earth would be boring, and quickly deciding what he wanted, "I'll choose Low Fantasy, please, God."
He picked this because he didn't think he could easily adapt to High Fantasy, nor would he really want to. High Fantasy was pretty much like living in Magical Medieval times; Even more deadly than normal Medieval times.
So, Low Fantasy was mixing the best of Earth and Magic; an obvious choice to someone who didn't want to change his views too much.
God nodded his head and touched a planet much like Earth, the other three disappearing and a smile appearing on his face, "Good, that limits the choices on your wishes. The more dangerous the Universe, the more powerful the abilities you could have picked," it was God's turn to have a smug smile as he looked at the boy's face darkened into a grimace.
"Ah, you sly old bastard..." the boy whispered under his breath before looking into the old man's eyes, "Explain the limits on my wishes then."
"You can have three wishes, none of which can be, as you would put it, "OP" and each of them has to have a drawback - which you can specify - and that's about it really," the old man waved his hand and two chairs and a table appeared, "Sit down and we can discuss the abilities," as he said this, the old man himself sat down.
The teen complied and sat down across from the man, "So, I just tell you my abilities and you'll see if they're fine, right?" God nodded and the boy got to some thinking about possible abilities.
He couldn't wish for anything too drastic so he didn't even bother bringing it up, instead he thought about powers which could be pushed to incredible heights, they just needed sufficient training to fully flourish.
"I've got one, God," the boy said as he brought the elder to attention, "I wish to have the Kachi Kachi no Mi from One Piece, the weakness of it being that it scales of off my body's strength and durability and if I go too hot I can burn myself out."
God thought about it for a while, assessing if it was balanced enough and found something that interested him. The weakness wasn't really a weakness at all if you thought about it, because if the power scaled with the strength of the body, all the boy needed to do was find a way to constantly increase his strength and as he was going to a Low Fantasy world, he could probably find a way to do so.
God smiled at the teen, who thought he'd been found out, but God surprised him, "That's fine, you can have it."
The boy didn't know how to answer, in case he ruined what he'd just gained, instead he just went onto to think about what his second wish could be. Ideally, it had to be a thing that pushed his first wish up in both power and versatility.
The teen looked down at his body and instantly came to a realization looking at it, "God, my second wish is for my new body to be 20x better than the average Human in strength, speed, stamina etc, the weakness will be that it requires a LOT more food to fuel it."
This wasn't an overpowered wish but it wasn't a trash wish either. It would give him the strength to protect himself and would work perfectly with his last wish that he had in mind.
God heard this wish and instantly knew he'd been a bit fooled as both the first wish and the second wish fit perfectly together and would overall increase the boy's power. But there was nothing he could do to take away the powers as they were both balanced enough.
"...That's fine. What's your last wish?" God sighed as he sunk a bit into his chair, disappointed that he underestimated the kid in front of him.
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The kid in question looked at God with a smile on his face, "My last wish is to have Enhanced Potential. If you want an example for what I mean, look inside my head - you can do that right? - and you'll know what I mean.*"
God closed his eyes for a second before opening them and looking at the kid in front of him with a conflicted face. He was conflicted because the kid had properly planned this out and for some reason, God felt a little humiliated. Not because he wanted the teen to die but mainly because he was supposed to be the God of Earth and a kid under his watch had pulled a quick one on him.
In the end, he nodded his head and the teen smiled before speaking again, "Then when am I going to be reincarnated now that we've figured this out?"
God's earlier conflicted look turned into one of mischief, "Now," and with that, God waved his hand and the boy started to glow in bright white light, "And have fun with your powers being imbued!"
"Wait--What?" the boy looked worriedly at God but it was too late because he disappeared.
He reappeared in a green clearing with a few big black boulders placed around it. The trees surrounding the clearing were massive and incredibly thick, while there were bushes interspersed between each tree making a big ring of vegetation surrounding the body of the boy.
The boy looked incredibly different compared to how he looked when he was talking to God just now. Not knowing about the changes, the boy started looking around before feeling something click in his head causing him to drop to the ground.
"Uhh, my fucking head...!" he hissed this as he rolled about on the ground gripping at his head.
The boy felt like his brain was expanding and trying to crack open his skull and the pain was simply excruciating. Tears of pain poured from the boys head as he started to bang his head off of the soft ground he was lying on.
Slowly the pain started to fade but before the boy could rejoice in the lack of mind-numbing pain, more pain flooded his body. It was a peculiar type of pain; the pain you feel throughout your entire body, from your skin all through to your bone marrow.
Another volley of pained screams echoed out from the boy as he started rolling around again.
As he was too distracted by the pain he was currently feeling, the boy didn't see the girl walk out of the bushes and trees next to him. The girl saw him and jumped back in shock at first before she walked up to him and called out to him in a cautious voice.
If he could put together a coherent thought, the boy would be sure to scream at her, mainly to tell her that he was too busy possibly dying to answer her "Hello? Are you okay" question.
The girl, seeing that her question wasn't going to be answered because the boy clearly wasn't okay, rushed back into the forest surrounding them. After a few minutes, the girl returned with a few elderly people in robes.
One of the men went up and touched the boy's head before an aura flared and funneled its way into the boy's head. The man's expression tightened up a little before he stood up and waved his hands. With the wave came a wind that held itself under the boy and kept him afloat mid-air.
He looked back at the other elders and understand seemed to light up in their eyes as they realized what the old man wanted to do.
The old man walked passed the group of elders the child had brought with her and walked back toward wherever they came from. What the old man wanted to do was take the boy in and help him with whatever ailment was plaguing him. Children don't just drop to the ground and scream in pure agony, there's definitely something out of the norm with the white-haired child.
The group walked through the forest for a good while before they once again arrived at a clearing. But unlike the clearing the boy was found in, this clearing was exactly 'clear'.
There was a village, and quite a sizable one at that, in this clearing and by the looks of it, it must have been big enough to hold at least 200 people and it still had space to expand.
Some people who were walking about in the village, doing their jobs, quickly noticed the screaming from the boy levitating in the air behind one of the elders. Some of them rushed over and asked if the Grand Elder needed any help.
The old man gently smiled before waving them away, saying he'd sort it out himself and they need not trouble themselves about it. They seemed like they wanted to insist on helping but by the looks of the child screaming behind the elder, this was something they wouldn't be able to help in, no matter how much they wished to.
The old man quickly escorted himself through the village and into a big wooden house in the middle of the village.
He turned to the elders behind him and told 3 of them to come and help him downstairs in the basement. He left the other 4 elders to look after the boy and do whatever they could to ease his pain.
Downstairs in the basement, the old man was explaining what he needed the 3 elders for.
"I need you to freeze the walls of this basement," he pointed to a tall, wiry-framed man, before looking at the short woman and man next to him, "and I need you two to fill up the frozen basement with water!"
The elders looked confusedly at him but they did as they were told as they knew the Grand Elder wouldn't tell them to do this unless it was absolutely necessary.
The wiry-framed man put his hands on the wall next to him and with a cracking sound, the wall was covered in thick ice. He did this to the three other walls before somehow making it spread to the ceiling and then placed his hand on the floor and did the same thing.
The 2 other elders, now floating above the icy ground under the same force that lifted the boy above the ground, started to pour water into the room. The water appeared out of mid-air in front of both elders' hands and fell to the ice below with hard splashes.
They carried on doing this until the water was about 2 and a half feet deep, and then they stopped whatever magic they were performing and looked toward the elder for the reason they were doing this.
The Grand Elder saw their looks and decided it was time to explain to them what was happening, "That boy up there," he pointed to the ceiling, "has a massive influx of raw, burning mana flowing through his body, it's simply him ripping apart and burning the pieces. We need to balance out his temperature by making this into an extreme ice bath while I go and concoct some medicine to help."
The 3 elders grimaced when they heard what the boy was experiencing. They knew how horrible it was to have raw mana flow through them, let alone mana that was pretty much on fire. So, in the end, they added a few more chunks of ice to the room before they, and the Grand Elder, walked up the stairs.
The boy's skin was bright red by now and there was even the slightest of degrees of smoke coming off of his body.
Seeing the bright red skin and vapor coming from the boy, the Grand Elder quickly rushed him downstairs and dropped him into the water, while waving his hand and making a stream of cold air start to constantly flow into the boy's lungs to help him breathe.
A sizzling sound was heard as soon as the boy's body hit the water, akin to the sound of molten metal being dropped into water.
The elders who quickly followed, along with the younger girl, quickly realized how dangerous it had been for the young boy.
The Grand Elder didn't stick around to watch and instead walked upstairs in a hurry to the top floor of the house and into what seemed like a study. The study had herbs and mysterious liquids thrown about the place and the old man cursed his unorganized ways and started looking about the study for what he needed.
He found a few weird looking fruits and threw them into a massive mortar and pestle before grinding them up with a big stone club.
In the bottom of the mortar, there seemed to be a few small holes which were connected to an empty flask underneath it. A thick liquid was squeezed from the fruits and ended up in the bottle underneath them.
Looking at the resulting orange-colored juice, the Grand Elder thought for a moment, seemingly conflicted before he opened up a metal cupboard to the right of him and grabbed a slowly pulsating red and orange fruit. There was a visible clash on the man's face on whether he should add it or not but his desire to help a young man helped to override his greed and he threw the fruit into the mortar and ground it down into juice.
The result was the flask's contents gaining a magical red and orange glow and it seemed to get much thinner in consistency compared to its viscous look from before the special fruit was added.
The man made sure all the liquid he could fit in the bottle was inside it before grabbing the flask and rushing to the basement once again.
He looked at the water boiling around the young man with a worried expression, mirroring the other people in the room, but he quickly snapped out of it and poured the contents of the bottle over where the boy was placed in the ice cold water.
The liquid entered the water and seemed sentient as it shot toward the boy and merged into his body, turning his bright red skin into completely blood red skin with a slight metallic shine.
The Grand Elder looked at the water and then looked at the other elders, "We need to leave him now. It's up to his own power if he survives now."
And with that, they all left the boy in the water, saying they'd periodically check on him.