The longer Roberts was examining the newly acquired tattoo, the stronger he was feeling a low pressure on his mind. Unpleasant, invasive, almost piercing, it was stubbornly trying to get into him. At first, he tried to resist but almost immediately understood that it was stupid. Therefore, Rob relaxed which gave the result in a moment.
Initializing the first entry…
Authorization – granted through the mark…
Limits set according to settings…
Access to standardized status screen…
Soul and body identified as human…
Brief explanation included…
Starting…
Everything before Robert’s eyes blinked and then disappeared, replacing with floating letters on a black background.
Strength – maximum contraction and explosive force of body muscles; average peak human 18
Agility – precision control of the body, flexibility, coordination, and sense of balance; average peak human 15
Endurance – the ability of the body to sustain activity for a long period or on peak performance; average peak human 21
Toughness – the ability of the body to resist different types of external damage; average peak human 10
Vitality – complex index of vital energy to sustain longevity, level of body regeneration, resistance to viruses, infections, and harmful substances; average peak human 11
Perception – complex index of all senses besides standard five, including direction, time, temperature, gravitation, location of planet pole, and many others; average peak human 16
Mind – ability to process any information, speed of thought, and level of possible concertation on complex tasks; average peak human 21
Core – indirect index of soul power, which mainly shows the capacity of stored unused mana inside an individual; average peak human 27
Staring at this wall of text, Robert's first thought was that the system was created for idiots – a self-explanatory description made it not very difficult to understand what each parameter had indicated. He hoped that next time he would get a brief and convenient version. The second was about his own stats that with huge probability would be quite pitiful. Only the last three could be not bad, especially Mind, but everything else might be a pity to look at. If he remembered correctly, a 10% increase in one point could make a noticeable difference the bigger the number would be. He tried to make a rough count, but calculating an exponentiation in the mind was quite hard.
How many is it? So, a difference of 5 points makes around 1,6 or 60% increase. Then 10 points would be 2,6 or 160% increase. 15 points would be over 300%... and the gap constantly increases further.
New text appeared before his eyes, interrupting his thought process, so he once again focused on it, trying not to miss anything valuable, which can help him later to choose correctly or, better to say, the most suitable blessing for him. In his case, it was life-important. Literally.
Base scanning has been completed…
Detected an innate trait… detected a modification of life form granted by a God…
Recalculating numbers of current stats and peak possible…
Strength 2/23 Agility 5/17 Endurance 3/25 Toughness 4/15
Vitality 5/16 Perception 9/14 Mind 40/50 Core 20/25
Traits found… Creating brief explanation…
* Remodeled Brain (Remolded) – strong modification of brain using part of hive-mind to create an evolved version of both. Greatly increased speed of thought process, concentration, and analysis of information gives hive-minded creature the possibility to directly rule their colony as their own body. Increased Mind and its possible peak to match that of a hive mind.
* God’s Envoy (Envoy) – envoys are engaged in different tasks from being missionaries or conquerors to observing natural laws or leading nations, but they are all united by one thing, which distinguishes the owner from the masses. Mark from a real God. From it, they can get part of God’s power, access to a status screen, the ability to communicate with some sapient species in different dimensions, and have increased potential by a small margin.
* Spiritual body (Spirit) – ability to survive even the worst scenarios is the main thing that divides a successful envoy from a less fortunate. An eternal soul and physical body merged forever, making them one entity. That gives them properties of both, thus making it possible to regenerate any damage, except critical to the heart and brain, with the condition of having full mana and time delay. Speed is determined by the difference between the fitness level of the body (Strength, Agility, Endurance, Toughness) and its life and energy force (Vitality, Core). The potential of the soul and body affect each other to some degree. Damage to the soul leaves marks on the body. Separating the soul from the body is impossible.
Detected a God willing to bestow blessing…
Randomizing options…
Change on standby before the user makes his choice…
I see a noticeable change in potential in physical stat from average values. Guess, if you are so tall, you can’t be super agile. My magic stat seems not bad. If it reflects mana capacity, then a magic stat for sure… Still, the thickness of my arms and legs correlates with my current Strength. At least I can now grow more muscle than before.
Robert continued to read further. He was glad that the status screen indeed became much smaller and hadn’t tried to swallow him by its length. Thanks to its creator, there was no enormous list of his skills, each of them numerically and methodically describing how he can run, jump, use a knife, fork, and spoon, and kick people with his right foot separately from the left one because of odd buff out of nowhere. He already knew that – why would he need to track it? Roberts saw similar things in some books and always skipped these parodies on shopping lists. However, such experience with written products gave him some vague understanding of what to expect and what to look for right now.
Okay, what do I have here? Around fifty creatures with brief descriptions on top of their main qualities and abilities. That’s good. I can slowly browse everything. Hopefully, though there are only a few sentences on each option, together they can answer several questions and make everything clearer. Can I make magic? Where do I get mana because there was no such stat as mana regeneration? What condition of living of most creatures? How strong are they? Yeah, lots of questions…
Robert didn’t know how much time it took him to finish. His mind gave him the possibility to read whole paragraphs at once, greatly speeding the process, but he also returned to recheck specific information awfully many times, so he could form a proper picture of these dimensions, their inhabitants, and possible ways to increase his chances of survival.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to find out the existence of standard fantasy races like orcs or goblins. There were other mythical creatures, who had their own reference in legends, books, or even movies. Some of them were sapient, but a significant part of the list consisted of different animals. Robert tried to remember as much as he could to use it in the future, but he didn’t have a perfect memory. Maybe some parts of the info would stay somewhere in the background of his mind and would pop up when needed. At least he made a few conclusions.
The first was obvious. Each description of the creature had a small mark in the left corner saying “Tier 0”. Together with words about the possibility of merging with someone with about the same potential, it definitely marked an approximate power level. In addition, there were no real mighty creatures from myth – like dragons, kirins, or cyclops. Everyone seemed to be similar to humans in terms of general strength. He guessed it was a question of higher tiers.
The second was about the magic. It was totally a thing. However, every soul in the list had Core stat, so anyone could perform it in theory. The biggest obstacle was that without proper knowledge, he wouldn’t do anything even if he chose someone gifted. For example:
Ashen humans – a race of humans that lived near the volcano, which was for centuries a place of power, set by an unknown God. Later, when the ruler had lost the battle for the crown, it exploded with powerful torrents of mana. Concentrated waves of energy and ashes had changed humans, making them highly sensitive to mana. Ashen humans are very skillful in absorbing environment mana, have strong souls, and can easily manipulate energy. They have good endurance, but average strength and agility. They can’t live without mana in their surroundings, making their vitality fully dependent on external energy. In addition, corrosive damage to their bodies from ash made them very fragile. However, ashen humans compensated for it by developing magic to high levels.
Abilities: Mana manipulator
Traits: Fragile, Mana hunger
There were a few more very sensitive to mana species, but each of them needed magic education to realize their potential. Also, he noticed the difference between traits and abilities. The latter looked more like some supernatural powers, innate and somehow limited, but active. Hell, even orcs had one.
Orcs – common humanoid species who excel in endurance, strength, and toughness. Because of their limited mind, they lead a primitive, but very aggressive lifestyle in most worlds. They like to live in tribes and, in most cases, constantly travel to find proper targets for their raids. Don’t like to craft things, which can be taken from others. The weakness of the soul limits the usage of magic to a few extraordinary individuals, but, on the other hand, they can passively absorb mana from the environment. They have an unconscious innate ability under strong emotions, especially rage, to use mana to boost physical performance and decrease feelings of pain.
Abilities: Berserk
Traits: Muscular, Insensitive absorption
Some species were quite odd, like a mixture of the futuristic era and some fantasy books, with strange powers:
Space atronaches – intellectual species of former mystical elemental creatures who are highly developed in technologies. After the destruction of the surface, they had to move into the orbit just to survive. The chaotic energy environment stopped them from using former natural powers and forced them to evolve new ones. Constantly living without gravity made their constitution quite weak. However, they are able to absorb high concentrations of mana or radiation to boost their vitality and prolong their life. Have weak perceptions, but huge souls. To propagate in weightless conditions managed to develop a weak local gravity manipulation.
Ability: Gravity Manipulation
Traits: Weak, Fragile, Senseless, Insensitive extended absorption
Others looked promising in medieval dimensions but were questionable before the power of guns:
Weapon saints – self-named humans who started to make soul bonds with a chosen melee weapon. During the battle for the crown, alien forces invaded the world. Thus, the ruler created a special ritual for his people to give them weapons with the possibility of unlimited growth. Putting part of its soul into it makes a strong connection between the owner and the weapon. Different types of weapons give different aspects of power, but breaking soul-bound weapons affects the owners greatly. They have an average physique, which is affected by chosen aspects, depending on the power of the bond. They also can use mana to directly control their weapon or hide it in their own soul.
Ability: Limited telekinesis, Soul scabbard
Traits: Soulbound weapon
However, the more Robert read, the more he made connections to create a general understanding. Every single supernatural ability was fueled by mana. Maybe even the Gods themselves couldn’t violate the law of energy conversion. The mana was stored in the soul, or in his case, body. As he learned, there were many ways to get it. Most actively or passively absorbed it from surroundings. Some could transform it from another energy source. For example, electricity or the light of a local star might easily be a “combustible” for such conversions. In some cases, this exchange was very specific and depended on the circumstances of the world. Rob could see an existence of a high possibility simply not to match them in some dimensions. He wasn’t even sure that every world had mana in the environment. At least his Earth hadn’t shown any traces of it.
Each creature is fully adapted to his or her own environment, but I don’t know where I will be sent. I can get fire breath from a flame iguana, but enemies can use real flamethrowers. Possible super strength from a three-horned bull is useless when everyone uses guns or exoskeletons. I don’t need underwater breath in the desert or slow levitation in space. Telepathy worthless versus robots – what would I do versus my own squad of mechs? Metal skin will boost my toughness but can make any deep water my future grave if accidentally use it in an attempt to protect myself. I need something universal, to adapt to every possible scenario or else… wait, I saw something like that…
Scrolling through the huge list for a few minutes, he finally found what he was looking for.
Magic pliant rodent – living in a harsh magical environment filled with predators, it became highly adaptive to all constant changes, starting from a very birth with a single goal – to survive. Toxic clouds, huge temperature fluctuations, gravity wells - this animal has no time to grow slowly. For the sake of its own survival, it needs to adapt fast. The fuel of such a process is mana. Too high consternation of it in the environment doesn’t allow a safe absorption of energy, so this rodent managed to create a link to get mana directly from space between dimensions with the cost of placing part of its soul as an anchor, but in exchange losing ability to absorb any energy from surroundings.
Ability: Adaptive growth
Traits: Soul anchor
The description was slightly vague about that adaptation thing and its possibilities. Robert totally missed the part about getting mana from other sources when he had read it for the first time. This made getting energy unconditional, but it would decrease a possible capacity even more. There would be no increase in potential as it would have been with most of the other souls. No attacking superpowers.
Rob, you wanted that. No flashy movements, but to make your life longer. So stop doubting and choose!
With a mental sigh, Robert made a quick recall of other noticeable options. Most of them looked stronger on paper and gave real power immediately, but he didn’t want to risk. Maybe he would regret it after appearing in the world, but he just refused to bet on his life. Adaptation helped humans to evolve, so it would help him.
Wait, after hearing about gods, now it could be a false theory… Oh, grow some balls, Rob, and decide at last! Stop pondering!
You have chosen your blessing… Calculating the change… Merging souls…
In the next moment, Robert felt pain. No, PAIN. He was burning in hell’s fire. He was freezing in an ice cave. He was squeezed by a multi-ton press. He was eaten alive from the inside. His flesh was melting in acid. He… Different scenarios of painful deaths attacked his mind, almost crushing it. They were constantly changing without pause as if the main goal was to destroy him. Rob couldn’t even scream. His consciousness was blank and unfocused. Soon, real terror began to form inside his mind, as there were no signs of stopping this terrible torture. He felt he would bath in insane pain for eternity until his conciseness would finally break under pressure and crumble to dust as it had happened with others.
The merge is completed… Adjusting status…
New trait and ability found… Creating brief explanation…
Strength 2/23 Agility 5/17 Endurance 3/25 Toughness 4/15
Vitality 5/16 Perception 9/14 Mind 40/50 Core 13/25
Traits: Remolded, Envoy, Spirit
New trait: 1) Soul anchor (Anchor) – part of the soul becomes an anchor and is placed in between dimensions. It creates a permanent link to create a constant supply of mana despite environmental conditions with the price of inability to absorb it from surroundings. Creates separate stat (Mana regeneration) that depends on the strength and size of the anchor.
New ability: 1) Adaptive growth (Adaptive) – an uncontrollable ability to adjust the body to harsh conditions and speed up a rate of growth to provide higher chances of survival. Doesn’t affect potential. Uses mana to sustain the change.
Oh, damn it, finally it ended. Hope it was worth enduring. Please, don’t be useless... Okay, now what?