It was cold. Colder than anything I've ever felt before, yet it wasn't uncomfortable. Well compared to everything I've gone through in over 5000years of constantly accumulating pain. Now you might why I said suffering instead of living, well it's a complicated story so let me just give a not so basic rundown.
[Major Backstory]
I have a special soul that possesses something called a rejection that rejects something {it could be a person, a thing, an emotion, a phenomenon or something else} kinda like Orihime Inoue from Bleach. I have a rejection to authority and since I was a new soul when I first died I had no experience in all sorts of godly matters that happen after you die. Apparently some low-level celestials like to have this kind of souls become their lackeys who they may then give some boons and then let them reincarnate into different worlds and then give them tasks so they can have some sort of entertainment but I didn't know that {like I said, I was a newbie soul that didn't know much of what was going on}.
So the first time I died was when I met him {not gonna tell you guys his name yet}. He was a celestial and he was the one who was supposed to oversee the passage of my soul but he noticed the rejection in my soul which even I didn't know I had and he wanted me to be under him{God that sounds wrong}, but my rejection was a rejection of authority normally it shouldn't influence me but I was dead and in my soul form so I just rejected not knowing the calamity I was bringing on myself.
The celestial who was supposed to reincarnate me was offended and he asked me like three more times but I just put it to the side of my mind like he couldn't exactly attack me or something like that , hell I called him old bastard like twice. He should not be like all those cliche old masters in Xianxia novels that get pissed off over small shit like that, right?
During the course of my first life, I don't even remember most of what I did or people I met or even remember what my name was, but I seemed to have a lot of karma, probably I used to be a good person.
So the celestial asked if I wanted to reincarnate with my memories or if they should be wiped completely.{it's a choice only souls with special situations like "having a rejection" get, but I didn't know that and I was too dumb to ask then}
(A/N: some of you may be wondering why they want to wipe the memory when he hardly remembers anything about himself. That's because if they leave his former personality and knowledge intact he'll know too much and he'd be able to affect a lot of things based on past knowledge)
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I still wanted my memories so I decided to keep them not knowing I was literally preparing myself for the biggest fuckover of the millennia.
Celestial: ok so you have enough karma for a few gifts before reincarnating and seeing as you don't know much and your world is still too backward to have things like mangas, animes and light novels yet, I'll pick some for you and you can tell me if you are okay with them.
ME: ok
Celestial: hmmmn, lets see I would like to give you an immortal body but your points don't make the cut oh lets put dragon body and phoenix body together, so like you get like all the features that both of them have like the longetivity that dragons have and when your lifespan comes to an end you achieve nirvana to rekindle your lifeforce, you also get a quick healing and many other features. Oh and it improves and gets better like with more damage to your body to heal from your healing becomes faster and better, kinda like a leveling system
ME:(why the hell is he grinning like a crazy maniac, and what the hell is a leveling system) … OK
Celestial: hmmm you still have quite a few karma points left, oh… you can have a sharingan or rikugan pick one.
ME: what are those?
Celestial: they are ocular powers or dojutsu.
ME:… ok, but they are different right?(like explain motherfucker… wait is that still a thing)
(A/N: yes it is still a thing my young padawan, wait do you even know what that is?)
Celestial: oh that, well sharingan gives you higher perception and allows you to copy techniques and have an eidetic memory among other things and there are higher variations of this eye power that you could still unlock and find out and the rikugan gives vast perception and immense brain processing power and also helps the user to manage energy.
ME: hmmm, that's a hard choice. Can't I have both of them.
Celestial: No you can't huh, wait… you still have enough karma points to merge the two. OK done I've merged both of them.
ME: Nice, but why are you smiling like that (that smile feels creepy for all the weird reasons)
Celestial: Oh I'm smiling? I'm just thinking about some things. OK time to be reincarnated, goodbye and try to despair as much as possible, he he…
ME: "huh what do you mean despair… " I scream as I'm disappearing but all I see is the guy smiling evilly as I blackout.
When I woke up everything I saw was black and I felt like was in water but I didn't know where I was then I was a light and a tunnel from which the light was coming from. I tried to move towards the light but I could hardly control my limbs but then I noticed I was finally moving but then the tunnel started getting tighter and tighter until I could hardly breath. I felt like I was dying and already started panicking when I remembered "oh I can't die". But I started panicking because who knew if all that was real but then I finally got free and was able to breath. I could not open my eyes but I could hear and that was when I realized I was just born and I was already crying(that was crazy, I was actually reincarnated so was everything else real, damn I am so excited for the future)
(A/N: You're lucky you missed the classic whack on tha ass after rebirth as a baby, praise the author, hehe)