“The scarlet angel, the Temperance fell with the sky itself, humanity’s cries and pain absorbed into her being.” – The Inception, Book of the Quintet Court.

[Initializing…]

[Constructing Transcendental Vessel…]

[T minus 1000 seconds]

[999 seconds]

[998 seconds]

[99….]

…

[3]

[2]

[1]

[Vessel Constructed]

[Mapping Material Body to Vessel]

[1%]

[2%]

[3…]

…

[98%]

[99%]

[100%]

[Mapping complete]

[Transforming Vessel in semblance of Material Body]

[Transformation complete]

[Mapping Soul to Vessel]

[1%]

[2%]

[3…]

…

[98%]

[99%]

[100%]

[Mapping Complete]

[Generating Artifact]

[Granted Artifact: Anak Orb]

[Generating Armament]

[Granted Armament: Red Thread]

[Granted Title: Originator]

[Selecting Emergence spot…]

[Cave of Undead selected]

[Initiating Vessel Materialization]

[Entering Cave of Undead]

Tisha’s sense of self coalesced for lack of a better term in how she would describe what just happened to her. One moment she was on her way home from the family gym and the next she…was not even sure what happened. Words as if from a computer screen flashed before her being, she was distinctly sure that from her last physical memory until now she had no physical body. The words in her head confirmed the feeling.

She shook her head to clear it, her short black hair following the red highlights reflecting the light of the torches. The shorter bangs above her eyes contrasted the long ones on either side of her face and the way it flared in a graceful shape around her head gave it an almost birdlike appearance.

She glanced down, something felt off about her as she stood up studying herself. She had always been somewhat athletic especially as the top martial artist in her families’ age group. However, she felt that compared to how she was a few minutes…hours? Days? She was even better, her body felt slightly freer in fact she felt better than ever physically. Mentally was a different issue as she massaged her forehead, she felt like she just had a fading headache.

Rising to her full height she could tell there was a visible difference. Firstly, said full height seems to have increased a few inches. She had always been somewhat on the taller side especially for a girl she remembered the last time she had measured her height pre-Uni she was at five foot and nine inches but she was definitely at around six foot now. Secondly her body had gained some musculature, nothing as obvious as her height but she could still feel the difference. Finally her mouth, it felt… off. She put a finger to one end and pushed feeling the canines and they felt much longer than they should be almost vampire like from the movies.

Her curious grey eyes eventually glanced around after her brief self-inspection, taking in her surroundings. It was a cave alright, lined and barely lit with torches on the walls in ominous looking bone styled holders. There was a large ornate looking double door shut closed on the opposite end of the cave to her. It was gold in colour and either door had five large white skulls going down their centers.

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All of a sudden-

[Beginning Initiation]

[Grant name to participant…]

[Name selected -> Robin]

She both read and heard those words but did neither, it was an odd feeling almost like it was just a thought in her head.

“What are you? Where am I?”

Words finally found their way out of her throat.

[I am the System, and you are in a world in between worlds]

“What does that mean?”

Her mind turned to the very popular anime genre, where protagonists were sent to different worlds. It was usually after death from what she remembered, and she was quite certain she was not dead.

[Further questioning of this kind is prohibited]

The voice had no substance to it, no emotion, no will despite being able to have a conversation, well one of a sort. It was hard to even call it a voice.

[Bring up your Soul Map]

The instructions on how to do so was somehow understood by her without any actual explanation by the System. She thought she might as well not knowing what else to do than follow the System’s prompting.

Soul Map

Name: Robin (Tisha Marigold)

Artifact: Anak Orb

Armament: Red Thread

Titles: Originator

Attributes:

Strength

G

Toughness

G

Dexterity

G

Agility

G

Varos

G

Varos level

G

Perception

G+

Abilities:

Anak Orb: [Neuter Sensation]

Red Thread: [Claw Morph]

Skills:

[Analyze]

An image with a table of a sort appeared in front of her eyes, it looked like an attribute sheet. And she could not help but notice how very game-like this all was further confirming her earlier theory of the similarities in her situation and said popular anime genre.

[Starting attributes are adequate, above the average of the other originators]

The voice again.

“What do you mean?” She assumed a question related to the actual Initiation would be fine and she was correct.

[Attributes are G- at their lowest rank and the highest that you can begin with in this world is G+]

She did not have a single G- attribute.

[Even so, it should be exceedingly unlikely to have a G+ attribute from the beginning and yet you do in Perception which is especially hard to get a high rank in, how peculiar]

The voice said with absolutely no indication in the tone that it found the situation interesting.

“What do each of these attributes represent?”

She did feel that they were mostly self-explanatory, however as someone who knew and played a decent amount about games, she could understand that the terminology and their actual effects could be very different within the same genre.

[Strength is your physical ability, involving the lifting of heavy objects and the damage caused by physical attacks]

That was simple and what she expected.

[Toughness is your ability to take punishment directly and either shrug it off or survive]

Also self-explanatory.

[Dexterity is your reflexes and balance including your skill with weapons held with your physical body it also includes the speed of your body parts.]

That implied weapons that were not held physically, she wondered how that worked.

[Agility is your foot speed, not necessarily your maximum speed it also includes your ability to change your speed going from zero to maximum and vice versa.]

Usually, agility was included in dexterity but it seemed they were separate here meaning that someone could have incredible agility but bad dexterity. They would be very good at quickly reaching their maximum speeds but their actually attacks might not be able to keep up with their change in position.

Now for the stuff she knew very little about.

[Varos is the strength of your Varos and destructive energy-based ability in combat]

Basically…magic power? Was her first thought after a short time musing, however it felt off to call it magic and she was not sure why.

[Varos level is how much Varos you have to use, it can also be seen as exceedingly efficient stamina as even at G- low use can last nigh indefinitely without rest. However, using abilities and/or unleashing it to augment yourself physically can lead to quick exhaustion depending on how much of it you use in short periods]

Suddenly, the statement about maximum speed made sense…she suspected that this mysterious Varos was used to augment yourself and you could push your physical abilities beyond their normal possibilities shown on the Attributes.

[Perception is discernment]

…

She waited for more before realizing that it was not coming. If the System wanted to explain further it would and seeing as it hadn’t, she decided to move on.

“What is the attribute above G+?”

[The next rank is F-]

Unsurprising, the earlier the letter the better the rank.

“And what is the maximum rank achievable and how do they relate to the minimum power-wise?”

[The maximum rank is A and each rank is exponential in power from the last]

Huh.

Moving down the list.

“What are abilities?”

[Essentially your unique powers engraved in your Soul, contained with your Artifact and Armament released to the world by your Varos]

She focused on the first one [Neuter Senses].

[Release a bright flash of light from the Anak Orb that robs every enemy off all their senses for a short amount of time.

This sounded quite supportive in nature but the ability to blind and enemy on top of taking out every other sense seemed very useful.

Then she turned to [Claw Morph].

[The two ends of the scarf briefly harden and reshape themselves into large claws and cover your own arms granting you increased strength and slashing power behind your melee attacks for a brief period. Your overall toughness and agility is also improved significantly. However, your dexterity is reduced]

She honestly liked this one more she felt it better fit her style as a martial artist.

“Then there are Skills?”

[General Abilities that can be used with your Artifact or Armament, can be taught to and learned from others]

She felt she did not have to understand what [Analyze] did.

Using it was instinctive as it had no medium like with the Abilities.

Analyze

[Double Door]

Yup.

“Then titles?”

[Boons granted when recognized by the world]

Then Originator?

[One of the first to be summoned to this world, due to the excess energy used in the initial summoning, you get a boost to your Varos’ level of strength beyond the grading you have]

This confirmed to her that grades may not necessarily be equal in value when comparing to anything else, she would have to keep that in mind. More importantly, she was summoned, confirmed to not have died unknowingly.

[The initiation would continue, call upon your Artifact]