It felt like I had a very confusing dream, but now I couldn’t remember it. I was drifting on the line between lucidity and dream and as any normal insomniac, I struggled to reach yet again the blissfulness of dreamland. On the other hand, reality was tugging hard at my consciousness to keep me grounded in the real world.
After a tug-of-war of the mind that felt like an eternity and probably lasted at most an hour, I woke up at an unexpected sight. Well, three sights to be exact. One was looking at roots, another at a cave under a tree with a cat in it, and the last sight was staring into the void━ except that my intuition was screaming at me that this was not the void but a shadow. It felt like having 3 eyes with each seeing a different reality.
As any sane person does, I tried to understand what I was seeing. After failing at it for a couple minutes and a headache to show for my effort I decided to unfocus my vision. That seemed to work as I was perceiving all, yet understanding nothing. After a little pondering on what I saw, I realized that one of my sights overlapped with the sight of the kitten.
A blue window popped up in all three of my visions. It had the layout of a yes/no pop-up and what looked like a constantly changing character. My programmer experience identified the everchanging squiggle as a timer after a second or two. Trusting my somewhat weird instincts I waited for the timer to run out.
Now another blue window popped up. This one was easier to understand as it seemed to be a weave of meanings that in the end make up the whole message, as opposed to unidentified text.
Anyway, it read something like:
[System] [Do you allow the System to scan your body, soul, and mind?]
[Yes]
[No]
My first reaction was to say no, but then the thought of something that could transmit meaning would need access to my mind sounded weird. If only I could ask-
[System] [The System needs permission due to the restrictions placed on it at creation.]
Did it just read my mind? Then why the permission at all? Oh wait it just answered that. Isn’t it then just a lie?
[System] [The System used your natural emission of mental energy to understand your thoughts.] [The System is not allowed to lie and lying is almost impossible in Intent-based languages.]
I heard enough about demon deals━ that may or may not be a thing in this new reality━ to know how wrong this could go, but I was convinced enough so I went with ‘Yes’.
[System] [Scanning...]
Why does the meaning of wait crystalize in 3 dots for me? Is it because it is more aesthetically pleasing or is it system influenced? Anyway, here it is.
[Status] Name [Unnamed] Species [Shadow Cat] (Shadow Beast) Stats calibrating… Skills calibrating… Traits
[Shadow Magic Affinity(High)]
[Limited Immortality]
[Shadow Realm Entity]
[Ritual Attuned]
[Lucky]
System Notes Your soul is adapting to a new body. Some of your soul and mind-related traits and stats are unstable or not yet measurable. Updated [Status] will be visible upon full soul-body integration.
[Traits] [Shadow Magic Affinity(High)] -Shadow magic comes naturally to you. -You have a boost to any shadow-related meditation technique, cultivation, etc. -You have increased shadow-related materials use efficiency. -You can learn shadow-based Concepts and Laws more easily. [Limited Immortality] -You will not die of old age. [Shadow Realm Entity] -You hold a permanent connection to the Shadow Realm. -Upon the destruction of your body in the physical realm you return to the Shadow Realm. -Your body and soul are held together and powered by shadow magic. [Ritual Attuned] -You instinctively know how to set up rituals that suit your purpose. -You instinctively know how to navigate the [Consciousness Flow]. -You have an inherited map of the [Consciousness Flow]. -Resistance to [Mental Pollution] and [Mental Corruption]. [Lucky] -The laws of [Luck] consider you a cat. -You are a little luckier. -The laws of luck are clear in your eyes.
[System] [Would you like a System Assistant?]
[Yes]
[No]
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At least this one is easy to answer… Oh wait what if the system assistant is a demon? Well, I guess too late then.
‘Hello, I am your System Assistant (and not a demon). If you have any questions you just have to think them my way.’
Good to know I don’t have a demon bound to me. The rest seems easy enough, just imagine you ask the question to the System. ‘What’s a System Assistant? What does it do?’
‘A System Assistant is a small shard of the System dedicated to assisting an individual. There are multiple types of assistants, but in your case, I’m here because you lack the instincts to survive your surroundings. My task is to supplement your lack of instincts and general knowledge of your current world and that beyond it.’
‘So... Is my case special?’
‘Due to mana, in most worlds, the fauna and flora change very fast. Add the fact that most young monsters are abandoned a week after birth, and as you can figure, your case isn’t too special. How you died and got this body is a little special, but we also get reincarnations with memories from time to time so it isn’t that unique. Also, try to focus on what each word means in the sentence or be more specific when speaking in a mental-based language. Your last question also leaked your desire to know about how special your reincarnation is, not just about you being bound to a System Assistant.’
‘Then can you explain my status? It sounds kinda powerful, but I look like a palm-sized newborn kitten and I don’t feel that I can bend reality to my will.’
‘Then I'll start with the easy part. Traits are your (usually inborn) qualities. You can treat them like passive skills. You have [Limited Immortality] because your soul doesn’t need to burn itself or the soul-body connection to produce mental energy. So as long as you have mana you could theoretically live until the end of time. Then, You have [Lucky] because the Goddess of Luck Mora once said “Cats are lucky”. The two shadow traits are there due to your race and they don't really do much more than what is said on the label. [Ritual attuned] is a more complicated mix of what you are━ soul, body, and mind. All that aside, the trait is mostly based on what you inherited from your parents.’
‘Now let’s move on to stats. Those measure things about yourself like how much mental energy you are producing or how pure your soul is. You can change what you want the status to include and in what units each stat is measured. Here is an easy-to-understand example.’
[System] BP (Blood Pressure): 0 Notes: You don’t have blood.
‘Skills are more interesting as they are tied to the soul. Your memories are not only stored in the mind but also in the soul. The soul then naturally grows connections between memories based on your thinking process. If you cycle mana through these connections, the result will be mental energy heavily tainted with different concepts. When you release this mental energy it will get attached to any compatible unrefined mana in the surroundings. Now that we got the theory out of the way, it means that: to acquire new skills you need the right memories and experience, and to improve old skills you need new memories or you'll always cast a 50 mana [Fireball]. I’ll tell you more about skills once you have one.’
‘Wait. I got what you mean with all that theory. The surrounding mana type affects how powerful a cast is. So using Fireball in the ocean will probably be very weak or not work at all. Also by all you said shouldn’t I already have skills?’
“For the first part, if you are a fire mage you can always use your refined mana to supplement what is missing from the environment, but in most cases straight up using the spell and not the skill is better. As for the second part, although you have skills, your soul hasn’t finished transitioning yet, and using skills may result in loss of memories and/or soul damage.’
‘Ok so using skills now is a bad idea━ noted. Anything else I should know about the status? I mean besides what a Shadow Cat is.’
‘Well not really about the status per se but more about the consequences of the System Notes. You have new soul-body connections so your body won’t affect your thinking for at least the next week. So congrats you don’t get the equivalent of Shadow cat hormones to influence you, but you also don’t get the improved thinking speed of having an actual body. Also another thing, the soul-body connections that go through the mind are currently being flooded with shadow mana. What that means for you is that your attention is no longer distributive, emotions affect you less, and you are less creative; that would last for about a day. If you had a split mind or you were a hive mind it would mean that only if you converged your mind you wouldn’t start thinking about shadows. The System also advises against thinking about shadows for the next month.’
‘Got it no shadows for me at the moment.’ Now that it was mentioned I feel really calm. Not the I have experienced everything that can be experienced kind of calm, but the world could end and I wouldn't care kind of calm. Now if I try to look deeper I can perceive my emotions. It is more like knowing them as opposed to feeling them like a normal human. There is fear of the unknown, fear of change, curiosity about my body and how it works, confusion about how this is in the same reality as my previous world, wonder at the system, happiness at not really dying, and a lot more flashes of emotion that go too fast for me to perceive as more than a blur.
‘The System recommends thinking about your situation while your emotions are still suppressed.’
‘I thought you only answered if I called.’
‘I only answer if you think about me or the system. And you did so in your introspection.’
‘Good to know that you’ll answer even if I call subconsciously. What would happen if I called you in a dream?’
‘Judge the situation and act accordingly.’
‘Also how did I get here?’
‘Give me a second to get access to your original world’s database. Okay, so you died in your sleep of asphyxiation. The battery of your laptop got overheated and started leaking, it then ignited a fire on your desk and carpet. The fire then spread and you died of carbon monoxide poisoning. After that, your soul departed from your body with the soul-body connections mostly fine. As your soul was floating through the mental plane to reach the Soul River. It somehow didn't get corrupted and a compatible body called. After you got to the mana lump that was going to be your new body, you somehow survived with your mind and soul intact the flood of shadow mana that was going through your old and new soul-body connections. And so you were reborn. Ah, the miracle of life.’
‘So I was lucky enough to survive mind and soul wipe TWICE, but not enough to be reborn as a dragon. Figures.’
‘If it makes you feel better the System considers your race superior to shadow dragons.’
‘It should make me feel better but now my emotions just don't leak through. But at least I know I feel pride at that for some reason.’
‘The reason should be instincts that got etched on the blank parts of your soul that come with being a shadow cat. You’ll feel them only when new channels are etched in the soul to them. You’ll also get weird memories from your ancestors from time to time in your mind.’
‘Great so now I get the equivalent of a fever dream for memories from time to time. At least show me what being a shadow cat is all about.’
’Sure… Let me pull up your status and… here.’