Waking up in another strange room again, I appreciated that at least this time it was somewhere with a bed. Looking around the room the walls, floor, and ceiling seemed to be made of a sandstone rather than marble which was mildly more comforting, rich set ups always felt fake and wrong for some reason, and the bed itself while a small single bed had a surprisingly comfortable mattress.

Staring at the ceiling I started to have my ship of Theseus moment, if my soul was pulled from a damn lucky dip fountain then what was this body? It definitely felt correct, if anything it felt more right then my original body had felt, so maybe it was made specifically for my soul? Did that mean I was physically more myself than prior to dying or was I less because this wasn’t my original body?

Sighing and getting my ass up to sit up on the bed, I accepted I had no idea and would likely not know for a while. As much as I loved philosophy concepts as a teenager I didn’t really want to learn more about one by becoming the example, but what can you do when life happens. Or well, death I guess in this case.

The rest of the room contained a small wardrobe, standard kinda ikea fair with two bottom drawers and a top section with two doors to open it up, a bedside table that currently had a small jug of some liquid and a cup, plus a reasonably comfortable looking armchair in the corner with a reading table next to it. Sniffing the jug it had to be orange juice, and well my soul had already been kidnapped, or I was in hospital in a coma either way, so I poured a glass and ended up quickly going through three as I realised just how dry my mouth and throat were.

Now decision time, I was dressed in a robe similar to the bearded wonder Eterna but with my entire upper body covered except zero sleeves, so it was either time to settle in to be bored and wait to see who came to get me or walk out and hope the doors weren’t locked.

As I started to stand up I remembered the strange prompts right before I passed out, and suddenly it was like fireworks going off behind my eyes as all the information that had been simmering away in the back of my mind being processed came to the forefront.

The divine gambit, effectively a challenge series set down by higher tier beings then the gods called titans. Having a lesser soul complete a gambit challenge or round paid out in divinity for the god and in reward dice for the lesser soul. Gods could also gamble on the outcome to earn more divinity.

The challenges could be anything from a fight until last breath, which if my understanding was correct actually meant until the gambits system had to stop the fight before a fatal blow, to solving a specific series of challenges like puzzles or obstacle courses, through to a monster hunt or a straight up fight with a monster from a lesser world as well.

That was all fairly understandable, a little crazy and uncomfortable, but if it was the reason I got a second shot at life then I could work with it.

The really odd part was this system, and the prompts I had gotten. The divine gambit participants system was seemingly designed to allow lesser souls to grow, to the point where a soul that got strong enough could even ascend and become a demigod, the lowest tier and first step on the way to becoming a god, and swap this system over for the divinity system.

It seemed close enough to some of the games I had played, D&D or Pathfinder was my only exposure to something similar, but effectively it created a status and skills for your soul. Then when you obtained a reward you would get one of a few types of dice. Item Dice, that would provide gear or a bundle of consumable items. Skill dice, that could grant skills aligned with your soul based on the roll. Stats dice, that would improve a stat you had to make you better. If my fake memories of this knowledge were right most challenges let you shift your rewards around a bit, they normally had once locked die then you could exchange the others around depending on the active rate at the time.

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For a bit I was confused why it would force rewards down to luck, but just as quickly the knowledge bubbled up. It was to protect lesser souls. The rewards came out of the divinity pool granted to the gods, and while they wouldn’t lose any reward it wasn’t always that the best options for a lesser soul aligned with their sponsors own goals or opinions of various skills or items and so on. So this removed any decision from the selection process for the most part, removing a host of potential issues. It also evened the playing field a little so that a more minor deity can have a lesser soul be just as lucky as a major god and gain divinity at a similar rate for that lesser soul.

Focusing on the new information I knew there should be a mental trigger to bring up my current base status, even if it shouldn’t have a lot just now, as it was based on my current soul and where I am not my past life. Finding the combination of the concept of status and soul while focusing, suddenly I could see my stats and felt annoyed for taking my mothers advice not to play too many video games while I was younger.

Name Fenris Tier: F (Humanoid type soul Lesser) Skills: Sponsor: Eterna Trainer: Ingut

With a bit of focus I opened up the next menu with my stats, after reading through my very unimpressive new about me page.

Strength: 7 Dexterity 11 Intelligence 8 Wisdom 14 Endurance 17 Vitality 13

From the knowledge granted I knew the baseline for a Tier F soul was ten points in each stat as an average, which didn’t look good for me. Actually I am fairly sure the system is calling me stupid at this point, bit rude. Otherwise Tier should be tied to overall power, and Tier E wasn’t unable a hundred points in each stat as an average was present, but as it didn’t count skills Tier was more about the amount of minor divinity a soul had providing those stats then actual strength.

Having no actual real baseline for how good or bad these stats were I pushed it to the back of my mind, if I can't do anything about it right now no point stressing on it if I can help it.

The trainer field was interesting, as I had no idea who that was, but assuming it meant Eterna wouldn’t be training me himself which did make sense, I accepted that the only thing left to do was to go find out.

Swiping away the screen and getting up to go see what I could find, I was appreciative that the floors were smooth stone with somehow no dust or build up of anything, as for some reason while providing clothes when summoned no one bothered with shoes.

Finding my door unlocked I let myself have one more moment of feeling small in the face of this whole situation, and kind of thankful that if I read the blessing from Eterna properly then it was stopping this from all overwhelming me, I stepped out to see what I would find in the rest of this new area.