My consciousness returned and my eyes shot open. I gasped for air, trying to calm myself down.

After some time, I managed to regain control over my breathing.

Something was off.

The dark, starry sky was nowhere to be seen or was I falling. Instead, a white ceiling loomed above me. There were no stars, no moons, not even a sun. This was not the sky as I knew it. It was something else.

For a few seconds, I just lay there, unmoving and staring at the whiteness above.

There was no pain… Wait, no pain?!

I sat up slowly and my hands went to my stomach… Nothing.

The wound was gone. Looking at my hands, there were no holes, no wounds. The same for my feet. Looking at my chest and shoulders, no arrowheads piercing me.

All of my wounds were gone, completely healed without leaving behind the slightest scar.

Not only that, even the older scars on my arms, legs and upper body were gone. There was no sign of any injuries. No pain.

My hands ran across my entire body in fascination. It had been a long time since I had last seen my body in such a marvelous state. If not the very first time.

Not a single trace of traces of torture, not a single scar that remembered me of the pain I went through. I frowned.

I despised my scars, but they held significant importance to me. With them gone, it felt like I lost part of myself. They were a reminder of all the hatred I held for the Wen clan.

Shaking my head, I sighed.

I guess it doesn’t matter either way. I wonder what's going to happen to me. Death sure is strange.

Once I finished evaluating myself, I took a moment to survey my surroundings. I sat on what appeared to be a vast body of water, with my body hovering just above the surface. Strangely enough, it still felt like sitting on solid ground.

I knocked against the ground and it was solid. There was a layer of something over the water below.

The water was crystal clear and serene, extending as far as my eyes could see.

When I looked at the water, I saw someone. A girl.

Beautiful…

It was the first impression I got while looking at her.

Her golden eyes shone like the sun, a color far prettier and brighter than a human’s. Absent-mindedly, I extended my hand towards her and the girl mirrored my movements.

My eyes widened, and so did the girl's. My mouth opened slightly in confusion and the girl's mouth did the same.

I lifted my hand to my face and the girl started tracing her long black lashes that had a hint of golden highlights, matching her eyes. Only, that I did the exact same thing.

Then it clicked. This girl was... me.

I looked at myself in wonder, for the first time seeing my own face.

My eyes were sharp and my high cheekbones and a slender nose gave me an exotic look.

My hair cascaded down my back in soft waves, its ebony color contrasting beautifully against my smooth, flawless skin that was a light shade of brown.

Seeing it now, it really was an atrocity what had been done to my body.

And then there were my ears. They were much longer than any human's, and had a slightly pointed shape that hinted at my inhuman heritage. I gave them a small squeeze and instantly regretted it.

I suppressed a yelp and flinched as I let go of my ears.

My ears were sensitive. Definitely not to be touched casually.

All in all, my appearance didn't match the way my life had been. My beauty didn't match all the pain I had been through.

I still considered it a shame that I only got to see myself after death.

Or… was I dead?

The death I saw was painful, but at the same time, for some, it was salvation and freedom. Personally, I never gave the after-death-experience a thought. To begin with, I never thought there was something beyond death. Death was the end of life. That was it.

But maybe... I was wrong. After all, I was still thinking, feeling and resenting. It was not like the death I had imagined, where everything would just come to an end.

What had happened to my injuries and the pain, then? Why had my body healed?

Recalling the events, I remembered the pain in my chest, the arrows piercing me. The human woman cutting down the ropes of the bridge and me, falling down a dark abyss.

I looked around me.

There was no pain, no injuries, no dark abyss. There was nothing.

Suddenly, the calm water below me began to move, ripples forming on the surface, waves crashing into each other. The surface split and a deep hole was formed from which emerged three giant heads, covered in dark blue scales glistening with a mystical light, emerged.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Each head had a pair of narrow, silver eyes and was attached to a long neck. A body remained unrevealed. The sheer size of these things left me frozen in fear. A single head was bigger, taller and thicker than any tree I had seen.

Every muscle in my body tensed up, ready to bolt at any moment. This was unlike anything I had ever seen.

Time seemed to slow down as the creature's —or creatures' — eyes were fixated on me. My heart pounded in my chest and my hands trembled in fear. I didn't know what to do, but one thing was for certain: if I wasn't dead already, I would be soon.

The silence was deafening, broken only by the sound of my own labored breathing.

Iron Will activated, trying to push the fear away, but before this presence, its effect were insignificant. Still, I could feel a little bit of rationality return.

“Finally. That barrier of yours put up quite the fight,” a deep, authoritative voice resounded in my head, sending shivers down my spine with each word that snuck into my mind.

I stood frozen, staring at the creature in a cold terror.

With each slight movement of the creature, I thought death was coming, but instead, it simply tilted all three of its heads.

“You refuse to answer? My intrusion has not harmed you, did it? Are you in pain?” The voice spoke quickly and sounded almost… worried.

My thoughts raced, my throat was dry and my hands trembled uncontrollably, yet the words registered in my mind and I took together all my courage.

“I- I’m fine… I think…,” my voice came out frustratingly shaky and hesitant.

Even Malik had never scared me this much. No, compared to this monster, Malik was but an annoying fly.

“That’s good. Is there a reason for your behavior, you seem… Oh, I think I understand.”

Out of nowhere, a bright light emitted from the creature, forcing me to avoid my eyes.

When the light vanished again, the snake was gone. Panic gripped my heart as I looked around frantically.

Then I spotted a man, right were the middle head had risen out of the water. From his appearance alone, it was clear that he wasn’t human.

Partially covered in reptilian scales, his skin was a light shade of blue, while the scales covering his hands, neck and part of his face were a deeper and darker tone.

His hair was silver and at the sides of his head where the ears should be, grew two long horns that had strong semblance to snakes without a head.

I flinched when I met his piercing blue eyes, which were sharp and perceptive.

Dressed in a distinguished suit of dark blue adorned with subtle silver accents, he wore something that looked to be of greater value than anything the clan ever possessed.

“Now this should be better, am I right?” He asked, this time, the voice coming from his mouth.

I nodded.

For some reason, it seemed like the most logical thing that this man was the three headed snake from before, yet I felt myself baffled by the sudden change.

“I apologize for the sudden appearance, but I needed to talk to you and breaking system rules requires quite a lot of strength, so I could only do it in that form,” he laughed.

Did he just say he broke the rules of the System? Just like that?

Calming down, he extended his hand towards me.

“My name is Laos and I am here to help you,” he smiled as I stared at his hand.

I had seen this before. It was a handshake. Something humans did to confirm deals and promises or a simple greeting. I was still careful, after all, I was talking to something…someone that had immense power and could transform into… whatever that thing was.

Hesitantly, I grabbed the scaled hand and shook it.

“Who are you?” The question just left my mouth. My heart skipped a beat as a surge of fear coursed through my body.

I carefully eyed the man, whose smile hasn’t wavered a bit.

“Like I said, I am Laos. A… friend. I am not here to hurt or harm you and my sole intention is to help you. While the circumstances are… odd, I only want to help,” he said, letting go of my hand.

He doesn’t seem to be lying.

“Help with what?”

I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly help with, after all, I was dead or dying and there wasn’t much to do about.

“First of all, keeping you alive would be a great start, would it not?” A grin, unfitting his noble appearance, spread across his face.

My eyes widened.

“How?” I blurted out.

“We will have to awaken a part of you that has been dormant until now.”

Awaken?

I had holes in hands, feet, stomach, shoulder and chest and was falling down a gorge straight into death, that anything could still save me was unbelievable, but then again, I was talking to a snake-turned-humanoid man, in some weird space.

“I don’t understand,” I told him.

“You will. But let me start at the beginning. Do you know where we are?”

I shook my head.

“We are inside your mind. The liquid below us is your skill. The one that prevents mental interference,” he pointed down.

That water was Iron Will, seriously?

Wait, wouldn’t that mean that Laos here, who broke through the water, broke through Iron Will?

“You are manipulating my mind?” I asked while frowning.

“Technically, yes, but not really,” he tried to defend himself, as I raised an eyebrow.

“While I have broken through your skill, I am not going to mess with your mind, but for this interaction to happen, I needed to get here and your skill was in the way.”

Huh, so the skill actually was like a barrier for my mind. And Laos just broke through it. He would need a skill higher than Epic-grade for that.

Why am I even surprised. It would be weird to expect him to have a skill below Epic-grade.

Now that I was thinking about Laos strength, I also remembered that I still hadn’t identified him.

[??? - Lvl. ???]

I couldn’t even say that I was surprised, but this just confirmed that Laos was at least a hundred levels above me, but honestly, it was probably more.

I still gulped at the imagination of what would have happened to me if Laos weren’t out to help me. Then again, could he even kill me here in this mind space of mine?

Actually, with the time I spent here, wouldn’t my body long have reached the bottom of the gorge?

So many questions…

Keeping those questions to myself, I let Laos continue his explanation.

“In this space, time flows a little different from the outside, which makes it quite the good place for training.”

Given we are having a chat, that meant time was flowing slower in here then on the outside. Understanding that, I nodded.

“Since this place contains your essence, basically everything that you are, it will be possible to find your dormant traits.”

“What are those?”

“Some species possess dormant traits. Awakening them often rewards a skill, a Species Skill, to be precise. The amount of dormant traits is different for everyone. There could be a human with one dormant trait or one with two, but for all I know, there might be one with twenty.

“A dormant trait awakens when you reach a certain level. The first trait awakens when you hit level ten, but the thing is, we have no time for you to reach level ten, so we will awaken the trait forcefully.”

Laos walked up to me and stretched out his hand towards me. I instinctively evaded the hand and took a few steps back. He looked at me with surprise.

“Don’t worry, I am not going to hurt you. This is just the process of unlocking the trait.”

From the way he acted, he spoke the truth. Hesitantly, I stepped closer to him.

“Good,” he said, laying his hand onto my head.

“What are you do—“ I began to say, but a system message interrupted me.

A dormant trait has been forcefully awakened.

As a penalty, the grade of the skill will be lowered by one.

You have acquired the Species Skill [Regeneration (Rare)]

[Regeneration (Rare)]

Allows you to burn mana to heal wounds. The amount of mana needed depends on the injury. This skill does not heal poison or diseases. The speed of the skill is determined by your Intelligence and Willpower. Intelligence directly affects efficiency.

Just like that, I had unlocked my first trait and gained a chance to survive certain death.