Every action we take will have a cost to it. It's only natural that action creates reactions, after all. Talking to our friends, falling in love, bullying, murder, betrayal and every other small and large thing will have a cost to it. But that cost isn't always ours to pay. As a mortal, you could easily start a rumour about another. In some cases, you will feel guilt or fail and be ostracised for your lies so the cost is yours but in others, what if the only thing it costed you was a brief moment of speech, something we naturally do anyway? In that case, the person you made the rumour of would pay the cost.

But in the end these sorts of things can't really be considered a cost. We don't lose anything permanently like emotions or sight from such simple things and we don't have any obvious side-effects from them either. No, the things that can actually be considered a 'cost' aren't so simple. But a cost like that can still be taken from another, making something monumental become easy. Take me for example. Somewhere around the hundred thousand year old range (lost exact count long ago), immortal, all-powerful, beautiful, smart and a god. I worked my ass off to become the most powerful person in my universe and I had achieved that goal after the first two thousand years due to my talent, abilities and luck. I became a god, then the strongest god, and then... nothing.

I hit a limit. I stagnated, stronger than everyone, immortal and bored. I knew that there was a stage above god, a realm I couldn't access but that's the thing: I couldn't access it. Somehow, there was some unknown condition I needed to fulfil in order to surpass my current strength that was annoyingly slippery to grasp. For about half the time after I found that limit I tried to improve myself to the limit. Sure, my power was already there but if I couldn't improve that, what about my skills? The methods use to do everything i do?

Naturally, it had a massive difference. I learnt how to make my skills cheaper, faster, stronger and better. I purified my mana to the utmost limit, improved my magic and fighting to the furthest they could reach and fixed every minor imperfection in my body while even fighting to perfect my instincts. In the end though, I still reached a limit that I couldn't surpass and it irked me to no end. So for a while, I changed my focus. Crafting, enchanting, empowerment, strengthening and blessings. I turned to physical weapons and items to improve myself yet again. Of course, I reached a limit in that too. Materials, mainly. Once I reached a certain stage, I had enough skill to keep improving but the materials needed to do so weren’t in this realm.

So again I changed my focus to something else. My main reason was boredom, really. I was immortal, perfect, all-powerful and skilled. What was I supposed to do with my time? As a result of that, I spent a around ten thousand years on perfecting absolutely everything about myself I could think of. Subjects I used to consider useless like science and technology suddenly became a skill I improved to the limit. Things like speed-reading, separating my thoughts into multiple layers, photographic memory and instant processing became skills I actually bothered to invest time into. I did absolutely everything I could think of to perfect myself, even to the extent of using magic to mutate my body. Sure, I remained humanoid but I was just my perfect version of it, not an actual human.

Ironically, that's how I discovered a way to change realms. By changing my race into something new, I felt the impossible to cross barrier weaken. While it didn't out-right break, it had atleast faded enough to allow me some insight into how to break it completely. It was simple really. I was created by the 'heavens', an unconscious will of the mass of energy named mana. In other words, since this universe formed me, I couldn't escape this universe. To escape, I had to form my own body instead, my own completely unique race. In the process of mutating and perfecting my body, it weakened my connection to my universe but at the same time, I was still as a whole created by it regardless. To escape, I needed to manipulate reincarnation in a way that I made my body instead of the 'heavens' making it.

Simply put, I was screwed. How the hell was I supposed to manage that? But the answer came to me rather quickly. Sacrifice. I had to sacrifice my strength to create a new 'base'. You see, I realised something. One of the requirements was that I was unique. That didn't necessarily mean i couldn't use this universes mana and substance to create the body, it just meant it could not be made by the heavens unconscious will. I had to be remade by my own will, sacrificing my strength to create a new race for myself with me as its founder. Under that theory, it means that originally all the races began like this. Someone tried to escape by creating a new race that the heavens adopted into their system. Whether they succeeded and surpassed this realm or died before they could birth children, the result was still the same. A new race was created and it was added to the heavens.

But after I had spent the majority of my painfully long life trying to be perfect, I naturally wanted to be the best I possibly could be. My bet is that most of the gods who had tried this before simply used their own strength as the base and rarely, maybe used a handful of other gods as a sacrifice. The way I could determine this was simple. The difference between a dragon and a human. Naturally, the dragon has a massive amount of cultivation talent, strength, speed, intelligence and potential as compared to the pitifully average race of humanity so logically, a dragon was the result of multiple gods having their power sacrificed with one being the centre of the ritual while the human was just a single god. But me? As I said, I want to be perfect. So, I went hunting gods.

Well that's a little overkill. More like I went overpowering them with ease, even only breaking a small sweat to defeat and capture an army of two hundred gods single handily. With all my training, research and insight that went into making myself perfect, the average gods who where just concentrating on playing games with mortals and living in luxury where child’s play. And better yet, I even managed to acquire a lot of legacy skills, lost knowledge and interesting techniques in the midst of my raids. Every time I captured and sealed a god into sleep, I grew in power and knowledge from the loot I collected, the memories I read and the items I gained. I was even surprised to find that there was an entire new branch of magic I hadn't discovered yet, bloodline abilities. Sure, I had seen racial abilities before but bloodlines? Never. Maybe it's just that I was so focused on my self that I stayed in my own section of the universe but this was an eye opener that made me want to look for other powers I didn’t know of as well.

While I had collected a lot of gods for my ritual and sealed them, I had still yet to understand the mysteries of this universe. If I didn't finish analysing them before my ritual who knows how much power I will miss out on. Bloodlines and racial abilities I now know can be created through a mixture of science and magic but what about affinities? Luck? Growth speed? I was collecting all these gods for exactly this purpose but yet I was looking at things on a too small of a scale. I was just trying to jam a crap ton of power into me and become an ultimate race like dragons, phoenix's and unicorns. But even they start with a pre-determined amount of strength, simply having more potential. So I changed my thinking. Instead, I need to be able to store as much potential as possible in a human-sized body. Being a dragon just means I’m a bigger target but if I can be a humanoid that's a thousand times more talented, isn't that better?

Thankfully, my new goals went hand in hand with hunting gods. I would hunt down maybe one or two hundred at a time before stopping to research all my new discoveries thoroughly and continuing. Gods are pretty common anyway, honestly. While I personally was a cultivator, there where many ways to become a god in this universe, even in mortal worlds. I also learnt a lot about culture. One of the most interesting discoveries I made though was when I found out that the majority of fantasy books, movies and stories created by humans where in reality made by the ones who got glimpses into other worlds in the form of ideas. It was an amazing discovery to make, the idea that everything a lowly human wrote might just be the tales of some of the strongest people in the universe. In fact, because of that I am sure that somewhere my story is being written about as well.

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All in all, I collected a lot of knowledge, power and gods over the course of my 100+ thousand year life. I even learnt that my natural intelligence was translated into several other powers passively affecting my soul like achievements, titles, perks and traits. So many interesting things... I was in heaven. Through all this though, I found one planet that I began to watch over and build a nation on with me as their god. There was an all-female bloodline which altered the holders of the bloodline and any they have sex with (female only obviously) to be able to have kids with each other. Personally, I know that both genders can be bad but I still prefer females so when I found them by chance I led them into becoming one of the top nations on the world throughout around ten thousand years worth of time. It was quite fun and I had decided that this was where I’d be reincarnating in the future.

Eventually though, I began to reach a limit. Gods grew worry as rumours spread of a god-hunter and they went into hiding. My progress slowed, discoveries dwindled and inspiration lessened. What really pushed me over the edge though was when I realised I hadn't made any backup plans for my safety once the ritual was done and I was reincarnated. Sure, I made a nation for myself but obviously I couldn’t tell them I was their god and then kill myself to reincarnate as a baby. I’d probably be killed by assassins and wars trying to get rid of me. So, I brainwashed two hundred of the gods and deleted memories while binding their souls to oaths. I made them my slaves before bringing their strength up to the limit. They would be my safety net and they where the results of a thousand years I dedicated to planning my safety, future powers and story. With them, I could reincarnate while they still think I am alive as there are still an army of gods watching over them.

But that is secondary. Over time, I learnt that ultimately some powers just simply didn't mix. Cultivating, rituals, time-based improvement, game systems and dozen of lesser methods existed but couldn't work together. In the end I decided that cultivation has the biggest potential with how open it was to gathering different powers all at once and since it was familiar. I mean, so many things can be crammed into a cultivation-build. I could even use ki, life-force, spiritual energy or physical energy as my base for cultivation. I decided mana was still the best though since it has purity levels that can improve strength drastically and the widest range of magic’s to access across the universe, so it was logical to choose it. I was so powerful after all since I was able to purify my mana, meaning I regenerated it faster, it was stronger and it was cheaper to use. Obviously it's amazing, especially since so many different magic’s and powers can be adapted by it. In other words, it is very versatile as compared to other forms of cultivation.

My body was a tough choice to make. I like being pretty. I've always been pretty and that only got better and better as I cultivated. But one thing I never liked was my enormous boobs. It was stupidly annoying on a body that should otherwise be considered at a size and looks standard that could be considered both beautiful and cute. I wasn’t tall, I had a cute but beautiful face and even my personality is cute to a certain extent. And no, I’m not being vain. There are several powers that prove I am and that is why I can so confidently refer to myself as such. But yeah, the tits where ridiculous. So I went with my current body as no one alive other than my slave gods recognise it and minimised the size of my boobs. Now, it's around a low C cup instead of the previously MM cup monstrosities I had. A growth trait was on them within my soul so the more I cultivated, the bigger they got. Originally, they where barely a B...

My point is though that I left my body largely unchanged save from that feature. I didn't even bother picking my hair and eye colour yet since all the powers I’m layering onto myself will make it change when I’m born but I did make sure to keep my skin a slightly pale shade. I don't like freckles, birth marks, tans or excessive body hair so I simply manipulated things so I’d stay perfect even without my cultivation. I did adjust the insides of my body though. Obviously, I know the limits I can go to with the body manipulation. In reality, I had a lot of miniaturised organs that where bigger on the inside instead and widened my mana channels to the limit while applying a natural filter into them. It will make purifying mana faster and easier and it takes up the majority of my body. Where the 'heart' would be I instead had almost all my organs as well as the heart. I also had two of these organ clumps with my next one being on the other side of my chest. They where encased in a very hard shell of strengthened bone so they are fairly safe.

I had to make the reproduction organs the same size due to my desire to stay humanoid and the possible desire to have children or sex in the future but the majority of my body was just optimising the space to the utmost limit to install complex systems that make basically everything better. Even the bones where strengthened, though they too where impossible to miniaturise. I was trying to make myself perfect and since I had confirmed it all and then keyed it into my soul, it won't even be hard to regenerate as long as I still have energy left. And by nature, the body is just the 'filter' while the soul is the 'container' so I should be able to remake my body from total cellular destruction as long as my soul isn't damaged and I have the energy. Even then, I can just make the essentials if I’m low, opting to run away and then repair myself.

Yeah, I’m kind of the most OP life form there is. But having a bigger body would be pointless anyway since there is a limit to how small I can make everything. If I have a bigger body my organs need to be bigger so instead, staying at my current size is the best choice. Finally finished messing with my body now though, I could mess with my soul. I added all sorts of properties onto the thing. Heavenly level affinities in everything I could think of, heavenly level talent, potential and cultivating as well as the highest boosts I could put on all sorts of other stuff. Theoretically, there isn't a limit to how much my soul can hold. As long as there is enough power sacrificed with me at the centre, I can build it up massively. Even now with the countless systems, traits, achievements, titles, perks and rules i put into my soul along with every power which could work together, I still have a lot, and I mean a lot, of left-over power which all went into passive boosts like luck, soul-strength and intelligence. 

I had even found that there is a noticeable difference to being a natural at something as compared to acquiring mastery. Two master swordsmen with exactly the same bodies but one is a natural and one is an acquired. The natural would win due to the ease and flow of their movements and skills. So, I made myself things like being a natural genius, a natural protégé, naturally beautiful (don't judge), naturally cute (already there), naturally adorable (maybe I put it in?), natural magician, swordsmen, healer, fighter etc. etc. With the small amount of power I had saved after all that, namely the power of my own body as the centre, I poured all my power into my last choice and I died.

What my own power did for me was that every one of my talents will grow with time, training or items of the right specifications. Individual powers can be improved. I... made myself a monster that can surpass the highest limits even while being in this universe, meaning things like my heavenly affinities will grow with time and training. Overall, I had no reason to let myself be weak and every reason to make myself strong. I... was going to be the OP protagonist I had always dreamed of being, even if it kills me (Which it did. I literally just killed myself, lol).

Of course, none of this was anywhere near how easy as it sounded. Overall, I wasted the power of around five thousand gods just to keep all the other power in place so I could finish the ritual. If not, it would have dispersed and everything would have failed. Not to mention the other fifty thousand gods I used to make everything about my new form as powerful as possible. I mean, this can only be done before the body is created so it literally means that it is impossible to do under any other circumstances. I even put around ten thousand gods worth just into strengthening my soul. Right now, no one in this universe could shatter it even if they wanted to. Although I’m not going to test it, theoretically even if I die again my soul is powerful enough to not be affected by death at all. Sure, I’d lose my body but with my souls strength I would still easily be able to become a god again and restart the process, even having the chance to strengthen it more. I did everything, and I mean everything, I could to make sure I will survive, thrive and improve as fast, cheaply, easily and comfortably as possible.

No one was going to stop me from achieving my goals. I was going to become the most powerful being in existence, no matter how much I sacrificed to achieve it... (Yeah no, I’m not sacrificing things like my emotions. I'll just sacrifice other people’s power.)

Besides, I’m sure those gods I used are fine without souls. I'll just assume they have 'true souls' instead and if not, well, bad luck for them.