"Welcome to Celdion, your new home!"
... What? Who the hell are you! I yelled mentally while floating in front of a massive planet.
"If you are hearing this divine message in whatever language you can comprehend, you must be one of many lost wayward souls that linger in the abyss between realities! Thankfully for you, you've been caught by my handy Reincarnation Protocol that is part of my Life System, meaning it first consolidated power fitting for you and dragged your soul from wherever you were to here!" The... Female voice continued? A goddess perhaps? Or something close enough as you'll need a godly power to create... All of this. "If you're wondering who I am, I'm Gineria the goddess of order and cycles. For I control the cycle of life, death and rebirth. My domain over order allows me to set rules and create systems that standardised management of power. Using my domains, I stopped your soul from entering the Final Oblivion. The dimension that exists outside of time and space, completely not within the scope of the multiverse. It's much easier to stop your soul from reaching its final resting place than to find you within that space and drag you out, though do note that it is possible to do so. Your purpose? You will get it after this message. Without further ado, let's finalise adjustments to your character page and set you on your new adventure that I've gracefully given to you!" The voice- No, the recording of Gineria finished. Wait... Why am I the only one here than? Surely if she has the power to drag me along she could've dragged many others? I looked around, which I just realised I could do, but saw nothing but empty space. Not long did a string of new messages appear.
[Reincarnated mortal detected...]
...
[Loading New-Guy's-New-Life-Goal.exe]
...
[File found! Displaying...]
[This is the world of Celdion, a world of fantasy and mystery. It is the year 1563 of the Lunaria calender and the continent you will be sent to is Salvatia. The kingdoms of significance exist are; Humanria Kingdom, Windfall Empire, Ironhome and Anima Union. Little over a century ago in the year 1458, they won the biggest war ever against the tyranny of the Demon Lord Salarius. With the help of heroes summoned from other worlds, they managed to win the war and destroy the Demon Lord. However the aftermath was hellish. Towns were broken and farms were lost. The road of recovery was long and tedious, only in the early 1500s did they truly returned to before the war begun. However they entered an era of stagnation and technological and magical progression barely moved forward ever since. Your job? Bring your technical and modern knowledge and being a new era of innovation!]...That's a lot of information.... And expectations! I'm no genius how am I supposed to do all of that?!?! Bring innovation?? I'm not an engineer!! Sighing, I glared at the massive planet. I guess this is going to be my new home, better make the most of it.
Wait
Wait wait wait!
She said all souls would go to that Final Oblivion or whatever right? She explicitly stated it wasn't impossible to find and drag out those souls! Does that mean I can reincarnate my friends and family? I trembled in excitement, I could maybe find magic of some special relic that calls upon souls! Yes yes, I can do that. Plus if I'm going to have to show bring new innovation, might as well work on bringing them back on the side.
[Loading Customisation Menu...]
...!
[Error! Warning: Soul corruption detected!!]
What?! There's something wrong with my soul! I tried to look at myself but couldn't, I feel fine..? Hard to say considering the only senses I have are sight and hearing despite not having a body and being in the vacuum of space.
[Investigating issues...]
...
[Species_Data corrupted! Attempting resolution...]
...
[Error! Unable to resolve soul corruption! Engaging Divine Resolution Protocol...]
...What does that even mean?! I was a human you dumb machine! I started to grumble and whine when the voice of Gineria entered my mind. "Hello there mortal, it appears there's something wrong with your soul." She said with much calm. Shocked to silenced, she continued "Let's see... Ah you're from Earth. Far away from home aren't ya?" She noted while I was panicking. If there's something wrong with my soul, would that mean I can't reincarnate properly? Wait does this affect my brain- Uh mind? Am I still me?! As if reading my mind(she most likely can), she responded to my thoughts. "Everything that makes you... Well you is still there so no worries for that at least. Memories, personality and important details are safely kept in the deepest part of your soul. However certain details are lost in your travels." She began before a comforting feeling washed all over me. Calming me down and stopping me from entering a spiral. "You... Are an odd case. My Reincarnation Protocol doesn't normally pick up souls from your realm since souls from there aren't strong enough. They typically don't linger in the abyss long enough for the Reincarnation Protocol to have a hold, consolidate and reinforce and finally move it to here. Your soul is unique in the way it's strong enough to not immediately decay and enter the Final Oblivion, allowing the Reincarnation Protocol to have enough time to save your soul. Although, it appears that it isn't strong enough to survive the journey here unharmed." She explained with a sad tone. Despair filled my metaphorical body. Does this mean I won't be able to reincarnate anymore? Maybe it's for the better, eternal peace sounds kinda good... The goddess quickly drag me out of my depression and said "I apologise for this, the Reincarnation Protocol is supposed to reinforce your soul so that it can survive the trip to Celdion but it did not manage to do that since your realm is also very far away compared to mine. It was designed to pick up any lingering soul but not sufficiently designed to ensure a faraway soul to survive the journey here." Gineria spoke and sighed. Continuing, "If you wish, I can let you go and enjoy eternal peace in Final Oblivion. Or, if you wish to reincarnate to my world, I can use my order domain to forcefully enforce order in your soul, which will expunge the corrupt data and leave an opening that I can personally modify." She offered generously with an encouraging voice.
"It's your choice. I'll be here until you make your decision."
It comes to this. Whether I want to join the people I love in the afterlife or to reincarnate into a new life. Such a big decision given to a mediocre person. I'm just a random electrician... Why isn't this given to someone more worthy? Like a genius or some big shot engineer? Do I deserve to be given such a priceless opportunity?
"You may not be the most optimal person for this purpose, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. Many great kings and emperors come from very humble beginnings. Just because you weren't important in your last life mean that you can't be in your new one. If you choose to reincarnate here, I'll give you the tools required to accomplish the task I've given you. I do have to warn you, if you choose to reincarnate I can't make you human again or any humanlike race. The corruption in your soul affects your racial compatibility. That means expunging it when I enforce order in your soul makes it impossible even for me to allow you to reincarnate as a human or close enough race. An intelligent sapient monster you'll have to be." She said. Damn that means I can't even be a human in my new life... If I choose this, what will I be given? Gineria's voice immediately responded to my inquiry. "I can engrave a unique trait, a few extra skills and innate access to more divisions of magic. Normally you would already get more abilities but I'll give you even more. It's what you deserve to be my little pawn to make my world a better place." She elaborated patiently. So bonus powers for me to wield in this big new reality. Is it worth it for me to lose out on enjoying a free and happy afterlife? That's the big question isn't it? A monster with many supernatural abilities... That sounds amazing but I'll be giving up my humanity. Kind of? It's a very strange thing. I'll be a human mind in a monstrous body. Maybe I can make it work. If I don't I guess I'll just die and return to blissful nothingness anyways, if I succeed I may be able to bring everyone back!
So the decision is quite obvious at this point, try my best as a monster and bring change to the world. Failure isn't all that important, it just means I'll die and enter what I assume is some form of heaven.
With a mental nod, I agreed.
"I'll do it, I'll be your champion."
"Very well. I'll let you customise your new body here. Click on the 'Finish" button to finish everything up and descent to your fresh body. See you soon, Caleb..." Gineria chuckled before her voice faded away. A strong sensation envelope my existence, barely giving me a chance to understand the feeling, it left. Next, options rapidly reveal themselves to me. A screen appeared.
[Below are the traits you'll be granted with upon rebirth]
[Personal Assistant]
[Automatic Actions]
[Untouchable Soul]
Oooo, sounds cool! What do they do?
Personal Assistant
Type: Trait, Passive
Description: You've spent your entire previous life relying on technology, specifically an artificial intelligence that assists in what was considered mundane things like gathering information and reminders. It left an enough impact on your life that it manifest itself on your soul.
Effect: Your soul will contain not only your conscious but the conscious of an artificial mind. This mind will help you in any task that you do, either automatically or through direct commands. It has all the capabilities of an artificial intelligence; perfect memory, beyond biological response time, library of information, the ability to analyse anything and more.
Automatic Actions
Type: Trait, Active/Passive
Description: You've always wanted a way to do certain annoying tasks automatically and only be aware of its completion. This desire is strong enough that it manifested itself into your soul.
Effect: You can have your body automatically do any task or action as long as you know how to do them. Your body will attempt to accomplish this task in as effective and efficient way as possible. You won't be mentally aware of these actions until it's finished or its interrupted and needs your immediate attention.
Untouchable Soul
Type: Trait, Passive
Description: The goddess Gineria has enforced her will and domain onto your soul, purifying it and removing all imperfections. Although this has impaired your ability to reincarnate as a human or humanlike race, this has made your very soul impervious to outside influence.
Effect: Soul is immune to all damaging or negative Spirit Arts, soul related status effects and cannot be damaged by soul based attacks.
That's... Quite a powerful set of abilities. On one hand, Personal Assistant is literally an intelligent AI that is with me at all times and have all the capabilities that one would expect of one. On the other hand, being immune to these damage types mean I would never have to worry about these kinds of things ever again. Automatic Actions just have too many vulnerabilities to be worthwhile unless I'm immune to attacks while I'm using it, which I'm not so it's too dangerous to use. So it's either be immune to soul shenanigans or have an AI assistant that can help me in any task. Hmmm... I'll take Personal Assistant, Untouchable Soul is powerful but it's a passive effect that only has one purpose unlike the other which is so damn versatile.
[Trait chosen...]
...
[Displaying extra skills...]
A long ass list appeared, giving me nearly infinite options. A blue box that has a scroll bar at the side. How the hell am I supposed to choose?! There's so damn many skills! All of them are useful too.... Worse is that I can only pick 5, which is more than 3, but still! Time flew by as I did deep research and viability of using said skills. Some are already obtained for me since I've been given some just from the process. Scrolling through the list, I discovered some trends. The skills typically follow "categories", like there's a bunch of skills that improve your body, give you more options in combat, gives you utility like clearing fog or seeing at night etc etc. My best bet is to take skills that are very versatile and complement my pre-existing skillset, optimising my potential. Eventually, after much thought and deliberation. These are the ones I've decided to take.
Point Of View
Type: Skill, Active/Passive
Description: Your optical organs not good enough? Want to see something from a different perspective? This skill is for you! See anything from the perspective of a dot in a location near you!
Effects: Select a point in space within eyesight or within 15m radius around your body and determine a direction. This skill will allow you to see through this point.
Unstoppable Senses
Type: Skill, Passive
Description: There are plenty of ways to interfere or interrupt your senses, status effects, spells or specific skills. In certain circumstances losing access to hearing and sight can be fatal. No more as this skill will allow your senses to remain sharp and functional regardless of conditions.
Effects: Immune to Blindness, Deafness, None Functional Smell, None Functional Touch, Tasteless Buds. Can see regardless of darkness, hearing ignore silencing, smell ignore smell blocking.
Mana Battery
Type: Skill, Passive
Description: Your body is naturally attuned to mana and can absorb and store it much more than it'll normally could. Becoming a living walking mana battery, allowing you to cast more spells without worrying about their costs.
Effects: Your mana capacity is 5x your current capacity, your body takes in mana 3x faster.
Mana Efficiency
Type: Skill, Passive
Description: Mana flows smoothly and without issues throughout your body, allowing spellcasting and sorcery to be accomplished with lesser effort.
Effects: Mana costs decreased by 15%, spellcasting speed increased by x1.5, mana is easier to control and spell effects are x1.2 stronger.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Spirit Arts: Ghostly Hands
Type: Skill, Active
Description: Using the spiritual energy from your very soul, you can create translucent hands that act as your own hands but able to pass through walls and can summon even more.
Effects: Summon translucent hands where the size of them is dependent on how much spiritual energy is invested in them. All of them can be individually or collectively controlled by you. Each hand is bonded to your soul through a connection, thus all exotic and supernatural energy can be transmitted through it. Allowing you to cast spells and use relevant skills using the spiritual hands.
Alright those are my choices, first of all I'm making a ton of assumptions with how my Trait works. I didn't pick up Natural Linguist or Analyse since I assume those are part of what Personal Assistant would do, it'll genuinely be a waste if I purposely picked those skills but have them redundant since I have a Trait that can do that too. None of the magic stuff is here but I remember unlocking quite a ton of them, so it's safe to assume magic will be my main way of fighting and doing stuff in this world. Giving me more mana and have it move better allows me to cast my arsenal of spells more and quickly with less fear of running out of mana. I didn't pick stuff like Mana Absorption, Mana Stealing Touch or Mana Veins since I do want more versatility outside of magic and some of them are assuming certain body types. Mana Stealing Touch assumes the monster will have hands or will it work with other appendages? It doesn't clarify and I won't risk taking a skill only for it to be useless since it only works on like bipedal creatures.
Point Of View and Unstoppable Senses gives me a strong advantage in both combat and simply looking out for dangers or treasures from a safe position. Unstoppable Senses allow me to no longer be concerned about things like darkness or being blinded, this is mostly to compensate for the fact I have no clue where I will "spawn" so being in a cave with no natural light source would suck ass without some form of night vision. There are skills that provides that directly like Dark Vision and Blind Sight but this one provides more general use instead of just affecting sight. Point Of View is such a fascinating skill that I originally picked it up on a whim, though that doesn't mean it is a bad choice. Being able to see and observe things without my actual body being there will allow me to scout places with lesser danger. I'm not really sure if Unstoppable Senses affects this skill but even if it doesn't it's still great for seeing things that is out of my direct view. Now that I think about it, this skill would've been really useful in my army days...
Now there are actually quite a lot of "arts" that is accessible for me to grab, Spirit Arts: Soul Charge and Spirit Arts: Great Empowerment are both great at making me stronger or last longer using spiritual energy. Specifically Soul Charge refills stamina using spiritual energy and converts to mana to replenish mana stores while Great Empowerment increases all physical attributes by 3 times. Very powerful don't get me wrong and I will certainly pick them up if I ever got the chance but Spirit Arts: Ghostly Hands is just too versatile and complement my spellcasting style too well. Moreover even if the whole magic thing doesn't pan out I could like wield weapons using the hands especially with my Weapon Proficiency, not only that but it solves the problem of if the monster I become doesn't have hands. Plus muda mudaing my foes with a million ghost hands is too cool of an opportunity to give up. The only real issue here is that I don't have any remaining skill slots available that help with the spiritual energy stuff. Things like Dense Soul or Powerful Spirit would've helped so much in making this skill more powerful than it would normally would.
Curious enough, there's also some other "arts" type of stuff too. Chakra Technique: Elemental Balance or Chi Arts: Blade Ki allows me to manipulate the elements using chakra instead of mana or form an energy blade on my hand using chi. Pretty rad but rather not viable for my 'build', I've unlocked a bunch of magic types so it'll be a huge waste to not have my style to be the versatile mage. If I want to go out of way to make them viable, I could've picked skills like Meditation, Vital Body and Perfect Chakra Points but those would take up valuable skill slots while I still need to use even more to pick the specific arts or techniques. Besides, the very generic names and description compared to everything else kinda implies it's more likely better to learn from teachers. I hope the path to cultivation and being a ninja is not locked off as being a ninja or martial artist monster would be great.
Thinking back, it's a real shame I couldn't pick up a ton of skills. There's so many that I wanted or feel I would need but some is outright more useful in short term. Meditation is a great general recovery skill that replenishes everything more quickly and Superpower outright triples physical strength while it doubles the remaining physical attributes. Thought Acceleration would've allow me to plan and react at faster speeds, Slow Regeneration would've allowed me to heal myself without medicines or magic. Alas, too few choices and too many options. Without spending more time, I clicked on the convenient 'Finish' button at the top of the list.
[Skills chosen...]
...
[Displaying magic divisions...]
A big square appeared listing the types of magic that exist and that I can choose only and 4 more types.
• Pure
- Energy
Description: Use the raw and purest form or mana to cast destructive spells.
First Spells:
* Mana Bolt
* Mana Burst
- Construct
Description: Use the raw and purest form of mana to cast spells that solidifies mana.
First Spells:
* Mana Wall
* Mana Shield
- Aether
Description: Use the refined and perfect form of pure mana to cast spells of great power.
First Spells:
* Aether Blade
* Great Aether
- Origin
Description: Use the oldest and ancient version of magic to cast spells of the past.
First Spells:
* Walls O' Mana
* Corandus Levitutus
• Elemental
- Blaze
Description: Use magical fire and flames to burn through all obstacles and foes.
First Spells:
* Ignite
* Burning Embers
- Frost
Description: Use magical ice and cold to pierce the hearts of many or freeze them solid.
First Spells:
* Icicle
* Freezing Beam
- Wave
Description: Use magic to control and conjure water to wash away your troubles and enemies.
First Spells:
* Water Control
* Water Spray
- Gas
Description: Use magic to control the very winds and blow away all enemies and problems.
First Spells:
* Air Flow
* Air Impact
- Material *
Description: Use magic to control the earth and smash or crush all your enemies and foes.
First Spells:
* Earth Shaping
* Earthen Wall
- Spark *
Description: Use magical lightning to strike down your foes and electrocute them to defeat.
First Spells:
* Spark
* Shocking Grasp
- Bloom
Description: Use magic to control plants and cultivate their growth to be a druid.
* Plant Control
* Growth Stimulation
• Duality
- Bright
Description: Use magic to create light and control it for utility and combat.
First Spells:
* Brighten
* Balls Of Brightness
- Gloom *
Description: Use magic to being about the darkest day and descend your foes in unending cruel darkness.
First Spells:
* Darken
* Field Of Darkness
- Life
Description: Use magic to control life itself and heal allies and friends or bring the inanimate to life.
* Lesser Healing
* Minor Regeneration
- Death
Description: Use magic to induce death and despair to all those that have wrong you or stop death to force the dead to rise.
First Spells:
* Lesser Damage Infliction
* Pain Amplification
- Solar
Description: Use magic to gather the power of the sun to burn away all foes.
First Spells:
* Photosynthesis
* Ray Of Sunlight
- Lunar *
Description: Use magic to gather the power of the moon to support allies and blast away enemies with moonlight.
First Spells:
* Helpful Moonlight
* Moonlit Rays
- Holy
Description: Use magic filled faith to bring about the might of your God and help those that are faithful to your religion.
First Spells:
* Healing Prayer
* Purify
- Infernal
Description: Use the magical power of demons and use their trickery and brute force to solve all your issues.
First Spells:
* Demonic Might
* Hellfire
- Astral *
Description: Use magic to gather the power of the stars above to power through any conflict and concern.
First Spells:
* Shooting Stars
* Starry Blessing
- Void
Description: Use magic to call upon the endless eternal void itself to drown all that stand against you in painful oblivion.
First Spells:
* Vast Nothingness
* Power Nullification
- Order
Description: Use magic to enforce order and laws to control the battlefield or the world.
First Spells:
* Mana Manipulation
* Dispel
- Chaos
Description: Use magic to brig chaotic change and instability to disrupt anyone from using the power of the supernatural.
First Spells:
* Chaos Bolt
* Disrupt
• Investigative
- Detection
Description: Use magic to detect things usually unseen by normal mortal eyes to give you the advantage.
* Detect: Magic Wielder
* Detect: Chi
* Detect: Chakra
- Scrying
Description: Use magic to see into places too far for any mortal sense or to see the properties of any item or being in this universe.
* Far Sight
* Distant Vision
* Identify
- Divination
Description: Use magic to gain insight and knowledge of anything you wish to make plans upon plans for your perfect future.
First Spells:
* Premonition
* Search
• Enchantment
- Imbuement
Description: Use magic to imbue effects onto any object or tool to give you the edge you need.
First Spells:
* Durability Increase
* Toughness Increase
- Runic
Description: Use magic to inscribe magical text that allows a person to use magic without the ability to spellcast through items.
First Spells:
* Spell Storage
* Spell Activation
- Glyph
Description: Use magic to draw circles of magical power to complement your ordinary spellcasting potential.
First Spells:
* Circle Of Projectiles
* Circle Of Projection
- Ward
Description: Use magic to draw great diagrams that cast magic on larger scales most mortals won't be able to.
First Spells:
* Ward Of Monster Deterrence
- Mind
Description: Use magic to manipulate the minds of people and monster alike and gave them dance to your own tunes.
First Spells:
* Minor Headache
* Deep Sleep
• Manifestation *
- Illusion
Description: Use magic to bring about images and structures that don't truly exist to trick and fool your foes.
First Spells:
* Small Illusion
* Sound Effect
- Transmutation
Description: Use magic to bring about molecular change to matter to get what you want when you need it.
First Spells:
* Energy Conversion
* Transmutation Circle
- Creation
Description: Use magic to create anything your mind can comprehend at the cost of mana.
First Spells:
* Create: Gas
- Summoning
Description: Use magic to call upon beasts and creatures of legend to fight for you in battle or serve your interests.
First Spells:
* Summon Wildlife
* Summon Monster
• Devastation
- Atomic
Description: Use magic that can cause damage and destruction on scales that word even scare the Gods.
First Spells:
* Nuclear Flame
* Atomic Detonation
- Destruction
Description: Use magic to cause devastating destruction to whoever and whatever that opposes you in your goals.
First Spells:
* Instant Disintegration
* Destructive Wave
• Foundation
- Temporal
Description: Use magic to influence the flow of time itself and have it bend to your whims and wishes.
First Spells:
* Fast Forward
* Time Slow
- Dimensional
Description: Use magic to bend the folds of space between realities to instantly travel to anywhere all at once.
First Spells:
* Teleport
* Warp
Those names are really weird, instead of normal typings like "Fire Magic" or "Nature Magic" we have "Blaze Magic" and "Bloom Magic". Strange. A good chunk is not even pickable so I'm not really sure why the system or by association Gineria bother putting them there. Some options are already highlighted so I'll have access to them already... Huh cool. I could use all of Manifestation Magic since due to the Reincarnation Protocol, I gained access to the entire "division" of magic instead of the mere types like the rest of my magic. Funny enough it seems I'm not normally supposed to have access to Astral Magic but due to the protocol again I got it.
So we have the basic elemental magics, fire, water, ice etc. The standards of fantasy. Duality is a perfect name to describe magic that have direct opposites. Life and Death, Holy and Infernal etc. Definitely picking Life Magic since it's the equivalent to healing magic besides Holy Magic(which isn't pickable). So that's one out of 4. Hmmm........ I won't pick anymore elemental magic. They are basic as fuck and I can probably unlock them through trial and error... Scrying is a yes. Being able to observe areas from far far away and using it to identify stuff is guaranteed to be valuable. Detection Magic is really mediocre from its description and what I can safely assume from the spell names so not something I'll want to use a slot on. Divination however will probably be useful if I can cast the spells on a higher level, I really doubt we'll be able to see the future at low levels so all I'll get is vague prophecies and poetic but nearly useless phrases to find solutions to problems. Quite the gamble to use my slot on... I'll take Divination Magic only because I'm sure it would be useful in the future and probably a pain in the ass to learn on my own. Any of the enchantment magic is useful but I'll pick Runic Magic since the rest quite likely builds off of structure of runes. Like wards are definitely useful but really? Only one ward is given to me in the beginning? It's almost certainly a balancing thing which is hilarious to consider since it really makes it seem to be a video game. Imbuement is the only one I'm not sure how it works, if it functions by imbuing mana into stuff I can achieve that on my own eventually but if not it may be more worthwhile to pick Imbuement Magic instead of Runic Magic. Choices, choices...
Another angle is seeing how Personal Assistant would factor in my spellcasting capabilities. After all if my Trait; Personal Assistant has access to a library of all the important runes, ward diagrams and circle formations for Runic Magic, Ward Magic and Glyph Magic respectively I wouldn't need to use a slot on any of them. Imbuement Magic is more usable short term since it doesn't require knowledge of specific symbols and shapes to use. A good chance that my Trait won't just give me information like that since that'll surely be too good to be true right? I decided to change my mind and select Imbuement Magic instead. Giving me a free 2 set of runes and not being able to progress in Runic Magic unless I gain access to a book or something with information makes it a risky choice, since I doubt I can improve on my Runic Magic the same way I improve for the other magic types. At least Imbuement Magic is simply imbuing an object with mana in a special way to give it special effects, a method that doesn't inherently rely on a dictionary like Runic Magic and practically the rest of the Enchantment Magic. That should be it. I stared at the glimmering 'Finalise' button. Doing deep breaths, which is funky considering my lack of a physical body, and mentally clicked it.
[Innate magic talents chosen...]
...
[Choosing valid body...]
...
[Body chosen! Transferring soul into new body!]
Suddenly, my very being starts to shift and warp. My perception starts to distort as I feel my very soul gets adjusted and moved. Before I lost my conscious, I heard Gineria's voice one last time.
"Good luck Caleb Chua, you'll definitely need it."