With her new world chosen, one with magic, Jun rushed back out to her respawn screen and quickly paid the karma to remove the [Magicless] trait. She smiled to herself as the offensive trait vanished from her page, the section now totally bare and ready to be filled anew. Just like with the world slot before, Jun pushed her mind against the now empty trait section. She expected another table that she could search through, but as with everything about this afterlife, things weren't what she expected.
Jun couldn't help but scream as some force suddenly dragged her down. The twinkling stars and nebulae of the galaxy rushed by noiselessly. As suddenly as the force had seized her, it vanished, flinging Jun through a cloud of golden gas to land feet first upon a pristine white sand beach with a loud thud. Her legs gave out beneath her as she stumbled, not ready for the abrupt landing. Her eyes wide, she looked around her, stunned at the beautiful scene.
The beach bordered a shining, iridescent ocean that seemed to go on forever. A shimmering spiral galaxy that she instinctively knew was hers spun lazily in the sky dotted with pink-tinged gold clouds. She couldn't help but feel at peace, the air charged with the promise of unspoken possibilities and a new dawn. She simply sat there for some time, quietly enjoying the peaceful beach.
A yawn escaped her lips and she suddenly remembered what she was here to do. This was no time to relax, she had traits to choose! But... how exactly did she do that? Carefully standing, she looked around her for anything out of place. A screen, a strange reflection, anything obvious, but all she could see was the sand of the beach and the calm ocean beyond. Instinctively, Jun rubbed her eyes. Maybe she was missing something?
A bolt of realization shot through her. She rubbed her eyes! She yawned earlier! She had legs! She had a body! Excitedly, she rushed to the water's edge to look at her reflection. A strange sight greeted her. Her reflection constantly shifted as she looked on, her features changing with every small movement of the water. Crouching down, she poked at her reflection. Instead of feeling the cool touch of water, as her finger brushed the shimmering surface her mind rippled before a wave of information crashed down upon her!
Traits to improve her health, improve her mind, to hurt and to heal, to give and to take. Traits for technology. Traits for magic. Advantages to have a better chance in society. Advantages to survive on her own. Curses big and small, magical and mundane. Endless potential, it seemed to whisper to her. She need only ask. It was too much!
Jun struggled against the tide of information, her psyche tossed and rolled in the sea of information. Screens popped up in her vision. Hundreds, thousands, millions of screens assaulted her mind, each clamoring for her attention. Her lungs burned as she kicked and flailed against the tide. Her vision started to go dark, her head feeling like it was about to burst. No...not like this! A burst of energy filled her as she rallied her mental energy around that urge to fight, to resist, to endure, and she surged forward, pushing the tide of information back!
With a gasp, Jun stumbled back from the water's edge, collapsing to the sand as the last dregs of that tide of information drained away from her mind. She laid in the sand, gasping for breath, an immense weariness weighing her down. A screen appeared in front of her, its presence nearly overlooked in the aftermath of the flood.
Psyche fortified through karmic infusion.
MIND stat has been unlocked.
MIND stat has been permanently enhanced.
Trait obtained: [Touched by Karma]!
+1 to MIND.
-4,000,000 karma.
She shivered as a breeze blew across the beach, chilling and pushing her. A warm spot in her chest flared suddenly, spreading throughout her body. It felt like she was being embraced in a warm hug that warded off the worst of the chill. Hugging herself, Jun looked down curiously at her chest and was shocked to find a strange golden symbol. Poking at it, she flinched as a new screen popped up in front of her.
[Touched by Karma]
The Great Cycle of Reincarnation is driven by sentient life and the karma it cycles. Just like life, karma is impermanent. It is to be cycled and used to drive one further through the Great Cycle. You have taken the first step, sensing the karma within you and using it to gird yourself against the tides of fate.
Gain the [Karma Manipulation] skill.
Affected by the balance of karma.
This trait is hidden.
This trait cannot be removed.
Was that how she got traits? She glanced at the peaceful looking sea in front of her and shuddered at the thought of going through that experience again. It couldn't be that, could it?
Why was this so different? She thought about how she'd started this respawn process, about how it seemed to be a strange mix of screens from a video game and dreams. The formation of a galaxy, watching her past self fade away, then a screen like a character status. The world selection had been simple and intuitive, a glorified spreadsheet that responded to her thoughts. Everything she'd interacted with seemed to respond to her thoughts before she was thrown onto this beach and into a body. Remembering what she'd done to find Merinthia, Jun paused. Could it be that simple?
Jun pictured what she wanted from her next life. Images of her casting magic filled her mind. Flying through the air on a broom. Throwing fireballs. Making magic potions. She gathered all of these images together, wrapping them in a ribbon of her desire to use magic, and tentatively nudged it at the ocean in front of her. The reaction was immediate.
A patch of the shimmering sea in front of her began to roil and froth as golden wisps of vapor escaped into the sky above. Ripples spread out to the rest of the ocean, becoming violent waves the farther across the shimmering water they traveled. The entire sea was soon churned as if a storm was about to hit, yet despite the violence of the water, the beach remained untouched, an island of calm in a sea of chaos. As suddenly as it began, the sea settled, the water that had boiled receding away from the shore to reveal several gems gleaming in the white sand.
Hesitantly, Jun stood up and took a step towards the new portion of the beach, trying to get a closer look at the strange gems left behind. She cautiously approached one of the gems, a brightly glowing purple and gold stone the size of her fist. Nervously picking it up, she braced for an onslaught of information!
It was a pleasant surprise to her that instead of a flood of information, a single screen hovered over the gem in her hand.
[Magic Incarnate]
You are magic made flesh. Reality bends to your will as easily as breathing. You have no need for spells, cantrips, or techniques. The most legendary of enchanted items are mundane before your eyes. Go forth and show the universe your arcane might!
Requirements to unlock: 10,000,000,000,000 karma, birth world mana density 90% or greater, reduction in birth world mana density, increased negative karma generation.
As she read the description of the trait, her eyes widened and she nearly dropped the gem in her shock! 10 trillion karma?! She'd thought she'd had an insane amount before, but this trait cost more than 10 times the karma she had! It even had other requirements, ones that looked like it would limit where she could even start again. Shaking her head with a sigh, she set the stone back down and approached the next nearest gem, a multi-hued gem the size of a golf ball that reminded her of the opals she'd seen in a science text book in high school.
[Multiple Affinities]
Where others might have an affinity for a single area, you have more. You will gain affinities with multiple disciplines, at the cost of greater difficulty learning with elements opposing your affinities.
Affinities are assigned at birth with as few as 2, and as many as 5 assigned. Minimum may be raised with additional contribution of karma.
Requirements to unlock: 15,000,000,000 karma to unlock, 25,000,000,000 per increased minimum affinity, birth world mana density 15% or greater.
Jun was tempted, except she had no idea what affinities really meant. Earth hadn't had any magic, and she'd never had much time to play many video games after high school. Besides which, as much as these screens reminded her of the older RPGs she played before school, work, and dealing with her own issues got in the way, there was no way real magic worked exactly like it did in some 15 year old video games, right? Setting the gem back down, she moved on to the next, another the size of her fist that seemed to alternate between white, black, yellow, green, blue, and red.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
[One with the Elements]
Air. Earth. Water. Fire. Light. Dark. You are one with the primary elements of the universe. Your affinities are balanced and work in harmony with one another, building each to greater heights than would be possible for any single element alone.
Requirements to unlock: 666,000,000,000 karma, birth world mana density 60% or greater.
Images of her practicing martial arts and flinging fire and balls of air filled her mind. She'd loved the Avatar series growing up, and she and Ash used to pretend to fight in the woods every weekend as kids. This trait sounded like exactly what she would want if she wanted to that. She pictured herself wielding all the elements and fighting to save the world. A grin came to her lips as she pictured Ash talking about how they could both be the Avatar and fight evil. Ash had such an animated look on her face that day as she proclaimed that they would both become the Avatar, fighting evil together forever as she struck a heroic pose under the willow tree where they'd argued the last time they spoke, when... Her grin vanished as something wet and warm dripped down her cheeks. Jun squeezed her eyes shut as she shoved her memories deep down and locked them away in a box. Unnoticed to her, one of the stars in the galaxy that was her soul grew dim and dark, drinking in the light around it.
Shaking her head, Jun set the gem back down. She'd changed since she was a kid. Those childish dreams weren't something she wanted anymore. Looking around, the next gem she spotted was smaller than the last, about the size of her thumb, and looked like a simple piece of clear quartz. She gingerly picked it up and read the screen that appeared above it.
[Fast Learner]
Everyone learns at their own speed. With this trait, your speed just happens to be faster than others! Your ability to learn and comprehend is improved, helping you to understand and retain knowledge just a bit better, but always faster.
Requirements to unlock: 352,500,000 karma.
This would be perfect for her! It didn't give her magic exactly, but she figured she would have to learn a bunch of new stuff in a new world, including magic. Nodding to herself, she carried the gem up to the beach and set it down before going back to look for more gems.
She examined several more gems, each of them promising to be useful to her learning magic, but few of them felt right. Some were immensely powerful, but expensive, and the thought of having so much power while not knowing anything about magic scared her. Many sounded too weak, or too focused, or too niche. Several more she discarded for other reasons that she couldn't articulate. The dim spot in the galaxy above seemed to dim slightly more each time she discarded a trait like this, and each time the spot went unnoticed. The ones she set aside were mostly similar to [Fast Learner], but seemed more powerful in exchange for being more focused. [Linguist] would help her learn languages better, while [Charismatic] seemed to make it easier for her to learn and apply social graces.
As she returned to the gem area after setting the ruby red [Charismatic] gem down in her small pile with [Fast Learner] and [Linguist], a twinkling gold and white gem caught her eye. She must have stepped over it several times, as it lay half buried in the white sand. Picking it up and reading the screen on the small gem the size of her finger tip, she couldn't help but gasp, happy she hadn't missed it.
[Born of Karma]
Most life springs forth from their parents, growing and learning under their care before they mature and live lives of their own, eventually repeating the cycle of life and death. Your origins are more complicated. The Great Cycle has seen fit to bestow upon you this trait, and take karma and the universe itself as your parents. You are [Born of Karma].
You will be born into the world from karma itself, retaining the knowledge and skills of your previous life. The secrets of the Great Cycle are yours alone, and as a child of the universe it shall be your duty to maintain those secrets to preserve the balance. As a child of karma, your race will be chosen for you to ensure the balance of your chosen world, your appearance reflecting your soul.
This trait is hidden.
Cost: 10,000,000,000 karma.
It wouldn't help her with magic immediately, but it would let her retain her knowledge. The lack of memories from a past life had gnawed at her, making her wonder why she had had such a large debt of karma and been saddled with only negative traits. She looked at the small pile of gems in front of her with mixed feelings. While each of the four were useful to her, none of them would make sure she could use magic. [Fast Learner] and [Linguist] even overlapped, with the former applying to everything while the latter only applied to language. She wasn't sure if taking [Born of Karma] would teach her any languages. If it didn't, [Linguist] would at least help her learn whatever language she had to learn quickly, while [Fast Learner] would help her learn everything faster. And she still hadn't found something for magic!
With a sigh, she turned back to the exposed seabed full of gems. She covered most of the exposed area already, having only skipped the edges closest to the walls of shimmering water that enclosed most of the area. Walking carefully around the perimeter, she saw several more gems laying in the sand, and even several just out of reach beyond the walls of water. As she reached the farthest point from the beach, she tripped over something buried beneath the sand, barely avoiding diving face first into the shimmering wall of water.
With a sigh of relief, not wanting to relive the experience from the first time she'd touched the shimmering water, she glanced down to see a small black stone jutting out of the ground. Bending over to pick it up, she was surprised to find that the stone was bigger than she expected and quickly dug it out of the sand. What she'd thought was a stone was really a piece of obsidian the size of a baseball that looked like it had been sheared in half, the outside a dull stony grey, while the inside was a deep, reflective black that showed the strange ever shifting features of her face. Picking it up, she was shocked at how deceptively heavy the gem was, weighing far more than any other gem she'd looked at before. Reading the screen that had popped up as she picked it up, she knew that she'd found the perfect trait for her.
[Affinity Hoarder]
Where most would be satisfied with a single affinity, you want more. More than just multiple affinities, you want all of them, and you can get them... for a price. With hard work, just a bit of luck, and this trait, there is no limit to what you can eventually achieve.
Affinities for magic may be learned through study, exposure, and experience. Practicing with magic will slowly improve affinities, slowly improving your power.
Disguised trait. Overwrites other affinity based traits.
Requirements to unlock: 525,000,000,000 karma
[Affinity Hoarder] would let her learn affinities! She wasn't sure exactly what an affinity meant, but every single magical trait seemed to talk about having affinities. With this, it she would be able to have them all, she just had to study and practice! Clutching the deceptively heavy piece of obsidian to her chest, she rushed back up to the beach and added the stone to her pile. Looking over the 5 gems in front of her, she picked up the gem for [Affinity Hoarder] and focused on it, pushing her intent to take the trait. She felt something nudge at the warm energy in her chest before a wisp of it flowed into the obsidian gem. The gem slowly turned bright gold as it absorbed the energy, before suddenly shattering into dust that swirled up and into the sky!
Trait [Ability Hoarder] obtained.
-525,000,000,000 karma.
2/5 traits filled.
She felt a cold energy settle in her stomach, suddenly feeling hungry for the first time since she arrived in this strange place. Instinctively, she knew this was the hunger for magic, and that there didn't seem to be anything nearby that would ease it. Looking over the screen again, she frowned at the 4 gems remaining in her pile. She'd forgotten about the trait she'd gotten earlier that was taking up one of her slots, so she'd have to choose one to get rid of.With a sigh, she picked up the gem stone for [Linguist] and placed it back in the seabed. [Fast Learner] would be good enough, and she didn't want to give up [Charismatic]. The last thing she needed was social awkwardness on top of living in a new world!
She quickly absorbed the clear quartz of [Fast Learner] followed by the ruby for [Charismatic].
Trait [Fast Learner] gained
-352,500,000 karma.
3/5 traits filled.
Trait [Charismatic] gained.
-75,000,000 karma.
4/5 traits filled.
[Charismatic]
There are just some people that naturally seem to know exactly what to say, and how to say it. That thrive in social situations as if they were born to do so. This trait will help you understand social cues, and how to maximize the effect of your presence!
Cost: 75,000,000 karma.
The twinkling gold gem was the last one left. This is it, Jun thought to herself. Picking it up, she channeled the energy into it like she had the rest, sighing as the comforting sensation of a warm hug settled around her shoulders. As the trait settled in her, the familiar notice screen popped up, followed immediately by a second.
Trait [Born of Karma] gained.
-10,000,000,000 karma.
5/5 traits filled.
Karmic Balance: 150,214,661,343 (-546,431,500,000) World: Merinthia (Tier 1) Race: Human (Balance) Gender: Female Stats:
MIND - 10 (15)
CON - 10
STR - 10
AGI - 10
DEX - 10
CHA - 15
SPR - 10
Traits:
(5/5)
[Touched by Karma] (Hidden)
[Born of Karma] (Hidden)
[Magic Touched] (Disguised; [Affinity Hoarder])
[Fast Learner]
[Charismatic]
Skills: [Karma Manipulation]
Life Generation Completed.
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