As for the jobs column the percentage on it was also something interesting, especially that...
Jobs: N/A (0.02%) → (0.06%)
It had actually increased... Will he be able to choose a 'job' once it will reach 100%? And why name was in plural? Was this possible to have many jobs?
Next column showing skills was obviously hollow and there was nothing really that he could learn from it, except the very fact that there were skills in this world at all. The last one fragment of the sheet though...finally made his persistent mental pinpointing worth it.
Soul-Form: Chain
Grants great increase to your current spiritual strength, make it easier to obtain and double all spiritual strength obtained
Grants the highest level positive correction to all skills and actions related to your soul-form, all skills related to your soul-form will grow far easier.
Skills directly related to your soul-form can be obtained extremely easily, and even new skills can be created.
Automatically grants one of the two conditions for ???
Grants greater mental fortitude? All possessor of the soul-form are free from self-destructing behaviors? It is easier to cope with hardships? Grants absolute protection for being forced to go against your own convictions?
Grants ???
Pillars Of Heaven
Pillar Of Wisdom
- Grants increase to all your talents
- More powerful the more wisdom you posses
Pillar Of Faith
- Grants correction to your destiny.
- More powerful the more ???
Warning! Information granted by the System can be limited by subconscious choice of medium, your own understanding capabilities or cognitive abilities of the System itself. To see more exact data broaden your horizons and/or find a way to increase capabilities of the system itself.
To put it bluntly, for Mark both 'unique' skills seemed like a really big guns. Only, once more... Why chain? What he was supposed, to do with it? Well, perhaps fighting with chains could be cool but wasn't it kinda... limited?
Or maybe not? He probably should not think like that before even trying. After all it was being positive, and having open mind that was key attitude to use someone full potential.
And why there was only 'correction' to his destiny in the pillar of faith instead of “positive correction” like in second bonus from his soul-form? Did it mean that it won't always be beneficial for him?
As for the last warning he didn't really ind it strange. From the moment when he learned about Soul-Forms from Levi he suspected that this field was a lot like quantum physics – not really something that could be naturally understood by human, or even any organic being's brain.
Still, In his previous life he managed to understand quantum physics, even if only to a certain excess, so he believed that there will be time when this other field won't be beyond him as well.
Still fragment about increasing capabilities of the system itself suggested that it was something more private than widespread. Maybe this system was only for people who were reincarnated like him? If yes then it was good, since he wouldn't need to hide information, in case that his status will be to different.
Unfortunately even if now he had some glimpse of what he should go with his future development, and a lot of questions to search answer for it would take months before he will be able to really start.
Or maybe there was something that he could do even now? Trying to think about it Mark noticed a certain conviction in himself, that if he really tried and imagined it properly he should be able to conjure some sort of mana construct as long as it was chain-shaped.
Obviously he gave up that idea instantly, even if it would really worked doing something like this in his current situation could be extremely dangerous. Mark didn't even want to think about how many things could go wrong while trying to materialize metal object while still in the mother's womb.
But the very fact that he probably could do so make him think about different possibilities. According to his status he had three different kinds of energies in his body, and if he could use at least one of them, then shouldn't he be able to somehow feel and manipulate them directly? There was a silence here, and he didn't have anything beside it to do, so at least trying wouldn't hurt right?
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Three weeks later...
Mark wanted to scream with frustration. It was here, It was HERE, he could feel it so why it was so difficult to do anything with it?
Finding both life force, and magical power, proved to be quite easy, first was... like everywhere in his body, like the strength of muscles, he just needed to focus on feeling his body strongly enough. Magical power was, even easier, it was more of a brain thing – not really willpower, as it was still something material, like impulses wondering through his nervous system. A very small amount of it was also all around his body.
Spiritual strength was so nowhere around that he decided to give up for now, probably around the end of first week.
Actually fact that it take him two full days to grasp first two was rather slow in Mark opinion, he was in ideal circumstances here, was working practically all time, excluding sleeping, and there were bonuses from his unique skills too. He suspected that it would take more than a week if he worked... well 'outside'.
Still, even if he had no idea if it was long or short, two out of three was not a bad core, so he was satisfied.
Until he tried to do something with it.
His line of thought was simple, he didn't want to mess with life force, since he didn't know how important its 'life' part was, and using magical power externally could be dangerous... so why not use it internally? After all it was in his body anyway and it seemed to react to his will to a certain extent so why not take a very small (safety first) part of it and dissolve it beyond his nervous system into the rest of his physical body? There was some of it here anyway so it should not be dangerous right?
During next two weeks Mark learned three things.
One – It indeed was not dangerous, at least as long as he used only very small amounts, it just spread harmlessly even if he lost control.
Two – Magic in this world was actually somehow imagination – based.
Three - Imagination based magic in real world was hellishly difficult.
It was up to the point, where Mark wanted to return to his previous world just to punch in the face all authors that described it as easy, and created characters capable of miraculous feats right of the bat.
In reality Mark needed not only to exactly imagine, the amount, density, vector of movement and way how his Magical energy should dissolve into his body, he also needed to perfectly 'mark' - of course through imagination, borders of moving energy (or it will completely leak out before it would even reach anything.) He also needed to do all of it AT THE SAME TIME if just one thing slipped from his head, all power will leak out, explode (It really scared him at first thanks god that amounts that he operated were too small to do any damage, beside a strong tickle), start to go into completely different direction, flow together with his blood and so on...
Putting it bluntly, even simple actions needed one to divide his/her attention and have a strong mind discipline.
That or he was just untalented.
Still, Mark always believed in self-improvement being key to happiness and as stubborn as he was, he refused to give up. Besides as hard as it was it still was true magic.
And after over two weeks when he finally was able to do it more or less proficiently, his hardships were rewarded.
Skill “Magic Power Manipulation lvl 1/10” granted.
Magical power + 2.5
Spiritual strength + 0.5×2
Sub skill “Inner Manipulation ● Strengthening” delivered.
Magical power + 2.5
Spiritual strength + 0.5×2
Eager Mark tried again, this time finding reserves of magic in his body many times greater than a moment ago. Despite that he found moving and dissolving it into rest of his physical body considerably easier.
“Status” he commanded.
Name: N/A
Surname: N/A
Species: human
Age: 5 months (Unborn) → 6 months (Unborn)
Life Force: 0.073 → 0.143
Magical Power: 0.061 → 5.35
Spiritual Strength: 127 → 135
Jobs: N/A (0.06%) → (98.12%)
Skills:
“Magic Power Manipulation lvl 1/10”
- “Inner Manipulation ● Strengthening”
Unique:
Soul-Form: Chain
Pillars Of Heaven
- Pillar Of Wisdom
- Pillar Of Faith
All three, of his statistics grew, however as interesting as it was that they could grow with obtaining skills (and probably leveling them too) it had become clear that they could grow by themselves to.
Especially his magical power – putting skill boon aside it had become considerably bigger than his life force, and Mark could think only about one explanation – training. He trained/used his magical power a lot during last weeks, while he didn't use life force (could he even use it, it clearly worked on different principle that magic power) and in result his magical strength outgrow his life force.
Though this actually left spiritual strength as something of a mystery, he didn't use it so why it grew anyway? In the beginning, when he noticed it during last weeks, he even though that it was actually spiritual strength, instead of magical power that he was using, but he rejected this thought almost instantly – since energy that he trained with was clearly similar in amount that his life force, at least back then.
Putting this aside however, information, that this technique of infusing body with mana was capable of strengthening was interesting, as he could not notice this kind of result without any possibility of movement.
It was also pleasant, since Mark never liked physical exercises, so fact that he could replace physical strength with magic, even if only partially was nice. Unfortunately trying to point into skill names didn't give away any additional information.
Lastly he was truly excited about what will happen when “Jobs” counter will reach 100 %.
This counter itself was something that he though a lot, unfortunately only interesting thing that he noticed was, that it seemed to grow in steady pace.
Until the current moment that is, when it jumped by nearly 40%. The only explanation, was him getting his first skill, but he was still unsure how it exactly worked. Oh, and it didn't grow nearly at all when he was sleeping.
“And speaking about sleep, I probably should use some of it” It was still impossible for Mark to yawn in reality, so he done it only in his imagination, before going into the land of dreams.