CURRENT MODE : EXPERIENCE BURNING (TIMED)

STAT MEASUREMENT : PERCENT STR: 0.5%

END: 0.5%

INT: 0.0000000000000000000000000000001%

CHA: 0.00000000000000000000000000000005%

PER: 0.0000000000000000000000000000001%

SPEED: 0.5%

Let's rock.

I put my body into a sprinting position, my shirt rips a little because of the solidification, but it should be fine.

See, there is actually such a thing as "too much experience". This is rarely a problem for universes as they constantly use energy to create things, and it's really rare for a normal soul to reach that threshold, but I'm an exception.

The story as to how I accumulated that much experience isn't that special, I simply lived so long that I inevitably ran into some situations that would give me a lot of experience, may it be killing a big monster in a system or witnessing the death of a god. And if you accumulate too much of said experience what happens is that your soul will essentially explode, this can actually turn your soul into a universe if you're lucky, but more than likely you'll annihilate everything around you and you'll lose a massive part of your soul - assuming you survive at all.

There's also the possibility of a soul vacuum. Basically, your soul becomes so heavy it acts as a black hole that absorbs every other soul around it, growing bigger and bigger until it starts devouring entire universes. My soul is actually kind of doing that already, and it's mostly contained by my menu, frankly so much of my existence is kept in check by my menu I barely remember half of what I implemented in it.

The best way to avoid that is to burn experience, all it takes is raising your stats and do some exercise, strength and speed are the safest, so this is what I'll use since I'm not afraid of collateral damage here.

Another fun fact, shown stats are almost never the maximum power your soul can muster. What stats actually define is the maximum amount of experience your soul is willing to use to boost a particular thing, it's rarely constant too. For example, endurance technically doesn't harden or regenerate your body constantly, your soul just reacts when it feels you're in danger - although some stats are technically constantly active like intelligence, all stats tend to have their own quirks.

If your soul used all of its power in one go, it would instantly starve to death. That does mean the average person could destroy an entire city in one punch if the soul was willing to just die for that one attack. Mhh? Would I die if I used 100% of my power?

I...I don't actually know. Maybe? I'd destroy tons of universes in the process but I don't want to think about that.

I run, I put as much power behind each step as I can muster, I can see miles and miles of similar hotel hallways turned into rubble below me. I go so fast everything around me turns into a blur, I run faster, faster, it's more accurate to say I'm jumping than running at this point. I must have gone through the equivalent of multiple galaxies worth of distance in only a couple of seconds, but numbers mean nothing when they reach a certain amount, I'm powerful enough to destroy multiple universes, I have enough charisma to make even the strongest willed person my servant, I am for all intents and purposes omnipotent so why do I-

I don't want to think about that.

I go faster, burn it all, destroy this mockery of what once was. A hotel where no one resides, a universe with no stories to tell, a god with no one to look over, I hate it. But it's fine because I'll just leave this place anyway. I'll leave it all behind and keep going, keep running, that is my purpose, there can be no destination in this endless journey, and if there is a destination it would be as meaningless as the top of that tower.

I let go, the accumulated momentum makes me crash into multiple roofs that lead into the floors of more hallways, until I eventually slow down enough to fall back down and hit the red carpet with a loud thud, I can feel my stats slowly come back to normal.

I lay there for a couple of seconds, minutes, hours, years, does it matter? I shake my head, I'm thinking too hard about this. I'm just readjusting to the fact that I'm alone again, that I have too much time to think. I'm sure the next universe will make me forget about it soon enough, I felt weird in the tower, but I became better right? So it's fine, don't worry about it.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I pull out my soul bloat screen.

Soul Bloat : HIGH

Experience Level

ACCEPTABLE

42%

Soul Vacuum CONTAINED

26 s/ps

Memory Corruption

HIGH 42%

Was my memory corruption always that high? I'll just do a [MEMORY CLEANUP] real quick.

Memory Cleanup

ACTIVATE (CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE)

ERROR LOGS

SETTINGS

PROTECTION (CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE)

I refresh the window multiple time, after a couple of tries the activate button finally works.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen my cleanup be unavailable, but also I don't use it that often. [MEMORY CLEANUP] will remove memories that aren't that important or those that are potentially harmful, it also ignores recent memories, so it's generally pretty safe.

Souls aren't very good at keeping memories intact, they see it as fuel, after all. However, if a soul does keep a memory, it can actually give the soul some semblance of personality, assuming it has the intelligence to process it. The issue is that souls don't really "forget" things the same way humans do. You can get over a bad memory once enough time passes and it eventually fades away, and something that happened a week ago will make you less mad than something that happened one hour ago.

Souls won't forget about that. If a memory is important to a soul, it will affect it as if it happened yesterday and the soul won't truly get over it. Of course, humans also have important memories, but it's not comparable to something that literally never fades away unless you let it. Sometimes experience will even mix in with that memory and it will start corrupting everything around it and at that point it's better to destroy the memory entirely.

Of course, I don't need to worry about that because I have a skill for it! I worked really hard on that menu so that I could stay healthy and happy forever! Sure, I have ups and downs, but this is the only solution to immortality. Something that constantly watches over you and stops you from going too far, because I don't trust myself with something like this.

I get up and look around one last time, still the same hallway, I'm not sure how this universe managed to create so many, actually. And it's all the same, the same lights, the same red carpet, the same abstract painting... wait.

I look at the painting a little more closely, it's a face, a weird looking one, but it's definitely a face, and I swear it's one I'm familiar with. My memory can get fuzzy during a [MEMORY CLEANUP], but it should be over by now, so I don't think that's it. I poke the painting with my finger.

It moves.

The face contorts and change with the moving colors, as if it's pushing itself against the canvas. But the painting stays flat, this is all an optical illusion. It can't be alive, if it was then that'd mean I-

I don't want to think about that.

A sound comes out of the painting, as if the face is talking in a slow, painful voice, one that I unfortunately recognize, "Ta a ak h a p ii c..a y re?"

I rip off the painting and throw it on the floor and I hear a squishing sound. I can see colors leak from it, and I instinctively stomp on the painting as if I was squashing a particularly resilient bug. The floor cracks at every stomp, but the painting never breaks. I'm okay with being killed, I'm okay with silence, I'm okay with being alone, I can tolerate all of that, so why did you have to make me think about that.