Arnold was feeling a bit overwhelmed. In what he assumed was a maximum of about one week, he died, hell, his whole universe died, he was somehow reincarnated into a different body, and that different body turned out to be that of a strange species of worm, and now there is some kind of videogame-like system telling him he’s reached level one for being born? It was safe to say he had a lot to figure out.
Okay, before I try to figure out this “system” thing, and the fact that it might be in my brain somehow, which is definitely not freaking me out, first I am going to try figuring out where I am and what I am, and once I have a good idea of both of those things, then I will try figuring out what is going on with this system.
As Arnold started moving around, he noticed that the way he felt sensations was different than before. It was as if he was sensing everything through his skin. Also, it was completely silent. So silent that it was quite unnerving. Fortunately, as Arnold had grown old, he had come to love the silence that living alone had brought. This silence was different though. It was complete. No sound of the wind in the trees, no sound of his movement, nothing. He also noticed that he was quite chilly, although he mostly just assumed that he must have been born in a harsher climate.
The thing that put him off the most, however, was the fact that he wasn’t breathing. He could tell that he didn’t need to. Now that was going to take some getting used to before he could become comfortable in this body.
Although he wasn’t breathing, he could tell he was still absorbing something to survive. Something new. Something that he knew instinctively from his time on Earth, but more intense.
Sunlight.
Somehow, he was absorbing sunlight and cosmic radiation from the stars and converting it into a different energy. A source of energy that felt almost… magical in nature. As he focused on this strange energy, he could feel within himself that something had just changed.
*Ding*
Congratulations on obtaining the general skill [Lesser Mana Sense]. You now have the rudimentary ability to sense one of the most important aspects of reality, magical energy, in its most basic form.
He could sense the energy more clearly than before. More importantly, he could sense that this energy was in its most basic state, and he could transform it into a different state, somehow.
Firstly though, the energy felt magical because it is magical. So… magic is real in this new universe huh? Holy smokes. It is probably going to take me a minute to wrap my head around this. I mean, imagine what one must be able to do with this. It is literally magic! Imagine all of the things you can do with this power… This must be what that person floating in that weird space meant by “reborn with a chance at power unreachable in your home universe” and all that.
Now, as Arnold was thinking about all of this, he noticed that he was slowly growing hungrier as time passed. Abnormally hungry. Arnold required more energy than just the far-off stars could provide as a newborn, and in the few minutes since had been born, something had been nagging at him, almost like he was forgetting something.
He realized it must be the instincts of this new body wanting him to consume something for energy.
But what is there to consume? The ground in the area seems rocky and barren, there probably isn’t anything much to consume in the immediate area. Wait a minute… the egg I was hatched from!
As Arnold turned to face the egg, his instinct only grew stronger, affirming the realization that he had just come too. He needed to consume the egg. He also noticed, now that he had gained the… skill, [Lesser Mana Sense], he could very faintly sense that the egg held a surprising amount of energy that seemed to draw him in, at least compared to the paltry, minuscule amount he gained from the cosmic radiation of the stars.
He quickly started moving back toward the egg over the rough, rocky, terrain. As he got to the egg, he opened his mouth and felt something… farther along in his body close at the same time he opened his mouth, almost like a hatch. As he started to bite at the egg, he realized that his mouth was full of many razor-sharp teeth that seemed to close together seamlessly to block anything else from getting inside his mouth. When his mouth closed the flap further back into his body opened, and all the crushed and shredded eggshell was broken down into copious amounts of mana for him to store and absorb.
As he kept munching away, he quickly became… saturated with mana and began storing the rest inside of himself. However, he quickly realized that even then, there was so much mana contained within the shell that it would be too much for him to store within his body, so he stopped eating the eggshell. However, by then, he had already eaten too much eggshell, so he started to panic, he thought that he might just explode from gathering too much energy, but thankfully he noticed that when he became unable to store any more energy it seemed to be redirected somewhere else.
He cautiously took another bite of eggshell and noticed that the energy was again taken somewhere else. He had stopped about halfway through the eggshell, but quickly resumed consuming the eggshell as he noticed the mana kept being redirected elsewhere. At around the three-quarters mark, something new happened to his body.
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*Ding*
Congratulations, you have leveled up. Check your status to see your current level.
Okay, that’s it! I need to know what the deal with this “system” is. Status.
Name: Astrophel (Arnold Wagner)
Species: Space Worm
Rank: 1
Level: 2/10 (0/20 exp)
Titles: Star Lover
Dominions: Space, Stars, Earth
Mana: 1000/1000
Innate Skills: Basic Space Manipulation (1/100), Basic Mana Type Converter (1/100)
General Skills: Lesser Mana Sense (1/100)
Hmmm… It seems like this “system” is simply a way to keep track of my new magical abilities and level. Very interesting. The new skill I gained is called [Lesser mana Sense], but my “Innate Skills” are basic. That implies there are different levels of skills. You must be able to upgrade your skills in some way, probably through reaching the maximum level of the skill and doing something to upgrade it.
Also, it seems like leveling up slightly increases the strength of your body. Somehow, I feel it is slightly easier to move around than before even though I was just born. This is amazing! I wonder how something like the system came to be. I find it hard to believe that such a thing is natural.
As Arnold was thinking, he was still finishing off the remainder of the eggshell, and when he was finished, he noticed something on his status had changed again. The (0/20 exp) next to his level had become (10/20 exp).
That must be where the energy I consume goes. This system seems to be very similar to a video game. That’s a bit odd. Also, what are Dominions? IT being on my status implies that I must have some sort of control over the thing listed in my Dominions. Maybe it has to do with my magic, like what kinds of magic I can use. If that’s true, that means that I must be able to use Space, Star, and Earth magic. I’m going to have to figure out how that works as well. More importantly though, why in the blazes does it say my name is Astrophel!?
As Arnold was pondering what the things in his status meant, he was slowly moving away from his hatching place over the bumpy, rocky terrain. He noticed that in the few hours since he had hatched, it was getting colder constantly, which he was getting a bit worried about, as he didn’t know if the species of worm he had been reborn as had and sort of protection against the cold.
Wait a minute… did my status page not say what species of worm I was reborn as? What was it again… Status.
Name: Astrophel (Arnold Wagner)
Species: Space Worm
Rank: 1
Level: 2/10 (10/20 exp)
Titles: Star Lover
Dominions: Space, Stars, Earth
Mana: 1000/1000
Innate Skills: Basic Space Manipulation (1/100), Basic Mana Type Converter (1/100)
General Skills: Lesser Mana Sense (1/100)
Space Worm? That doesn’t make sense though. I mean, I’m clearly not in space. Although, I don’t need to breathe, so that supports my status. I guess a space worm wouldn’t have to be born in space, just that it would be able to go to space if I wanted to. Speaking of being born in space though, where am I? I have been constantly moving for a while now and this slope seems to finally be petering out. I guess I can just explore my surroundings for a while.
As He wiggled across the rough surface, he noticed that no matter the direction he wiggled, the terrain didn’t change at all. It was all just the same rocky, barren surface as far as he could tell. There had also been no other signs of life so far. It just seemed… dead, like nothing was living near him at all somehow.
Arnold was beginning to suspect that this lack of life and odd environment had something to do with the race he was born as, a space worm. He began to think that in fact, he wasn’t born on a planet at all. As he wandered on, his suspicions only grew and were slowly confirmed as he stumbled upon only more hard, rocky surfaces across what he found to be a cratered, pockmarked, silent landscape. Once he had continued for a long time, presumably hours of meandering in the same general landscape, his fears were all but confirmed when he stumbled across the very same crater that he had exited shortly after hatching.
Oh boy. It looks like I wasn’t born on a planet after all, but some sort of asteroid in space. That confirms it. It explains the lack of sound, the lack of life, and it only makes sense, being a space worm. Am I doomed to die on this barren rock? No, I refuse, I wouldn’t have been born here simply to just die, the name of my species is ‘Space Worm’, for heaven’s sake. There is no need to panic. I clearly have enough mana to sustain myself for presumably a long time, enough to figure out what I am supposed to do to survive. Surely, I was built for this kind of environment. I just need to figure out what I need to do to get off of it. Also, space would explain this deep, biting cold on my… outer layer that I’m feeling. It has only been getting worse over the hours. Will I freeze to death?
Arnold was again starting to panic now that he noticed that he was only getting colder as time went by. It had been over half a day at least of him trying to figure out where he was and what he had to do to survive, and the cold was starting to finally get to him, at least before the boredom had begun to set in.
The cold is starting to get to me, I should probably figure out what I can do to alleviate this cold. What do worms even do to stay warm during winter? I guess they probably just burrow into the ground. Would that even work for me on an asteroid though? It's probably just cold everywhere no matter where I go. Oh well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try.
Arnold began tunneling into the rock slowly, and as he did, he noticed that as he consumed the rock, he gained a slight bit of mana from the rock before it came out the other end mostly disintegrated into what was essentially just sand.
That is interesting. I assume that means that most things, even inanimate objects like rocks and dirt have at least a little bit of mana in them.
As he slowly made progress tunneling through the rock, he realized that this probably wasn’t going to work out, because the chill was not going away and was continuing to slowly get worse, until eventually if felt like the entire outer layer of flexible shell on his body felt like it was starting to freeze and... flake off?
Wait a minute, flake off? Am I able to molt as a natural way to defend against freezing in deep space?
He felt the outer shell on his body start to freeze and fall off of him, revealing a completely new outer shell underneath that was unaffected by the freezing of the previous shell.
Now that is pretty cool.