"Phew! Elohim was not kidding; his soul's karma is way too high! I have never seen such positive karma since the Ten Great Saints in Azula. Hmm, I'm pretty sure there is some hidden agenda behind Elohim's decision of giving this soul to me, as far as everyone knows, that old prick loves to meddle with his mortals' lives, someone breaking the rules under his watch should be impossible."
Temelth had to trim a lot of John`s soul essence to allow it to reincarnate in her world, which took a lot of her power to be done. The higher the karma, the less malleable the soul, and more considerable influence this being will have on the fate of the world he lives.
"Done! Now that you are all trimmed up I can send you down to live, but before that, let`s tone your karma down a little, shall we?"
John abruptly woke up floating above a blue planet similar to earth, he was still in his incorporeal form but felt somehow lighter, as if something was missing. Before having enough time to unravel the mystery of this strange feeling, a bright light obstructed his vision, should he have eyes he would most definitely have flinched.
"Hello, little one! Welcome to the world of Azula!"
Although John could understand Temelth, he had no recollection of learning this specific language, much like it happened when he spoke to Elohim before. It felt akin to knowing the meaning of a word but having no idea how to write it.
After an awkward minute without any response from John, Temelth took the initiative and went on a raving.
"Well, I will keep it short. I had to trim your soul to make it fit into this world; the most obvious effect is that you have lost a lot of your memories. You will reincarnate into Azula as a newborn human boy. As you have a lot of spare karma I took the initiative of granting you a powerful blessing that has 5 major effects, 4 of them you will have to figure out during your life and the last one grants you the power to talk, write and read any language you stumble upon, if you manage to upgrade it you may even be able to understand divine languages."
John was unable to understand anything.
{Blessing? Trim my soul? Karma?}
"A blessing is a small fragment of a God's power that he can grant to mortals. The trimming of your soul was very tame as I just removed some unnecessary memories from you without affecting your personality. Karma is the sum of a soul's positive and negative actions through all his reincarnation cycles."
{Is Azula different from Earth? I mean the laws of physic and such.}
"It is both different and similar at the same time. Here you have the same fundamental laws that Earth's reality had, but there are some extra ones as well. You have no cause for worrying; here there is what we call The System balancing all of them."
{What do you mean by System? Like a videogame RPG system? What is the main difference between Earth's reality and this one?}
"That's a good yet unprecise analogy. There are levels, skills, blessings, curses, and a bunch of other stuff like videogames from your old life, but it's just the logical side of one of the System's many facets."
She gave him a few moments to gather his thoughts before continuing.
"Back on your reality, there is only one kind of energy from which everything derives from, like light, mass, time, etcetera. For the sake of simplicity, let's just call this energy 'matter', which would not be wrong but is far from being precise."
"In this reality, you too have the 'matter' energy, but there is a second and much more volatile one; we call it 'aether'. From which things like mana, soul, divinity, and a few others derive from."
"Aether and Matter coexist and are inherently inert toward each other. However, they will intertwine under special circumstances. For example, when matter gathers in the form of a living being, a phenomenon occurs that draws aether, that's how a new soul comes to be. The sum of living matter and soul is what we can properly call Life."
"Life, which is matter and soul united in one being, provokes yet another reaction from the extremely volatile aether, creating mana."
"The living being keeps producing mana by merely existing, flooding the surrounds with it. Soon, the entire planet is drenched in mana."
"Life notices that they can command mana to change their surroundings. They wish for something to happen, and the mana in their bodies moves to do their bidding. Magic is born."
{Matter and Aether does not interact; matter naturally gathers around for billions of years and one day becomes something alive; aether reacts and gives this living thing a soul, turning it from merely something alive to Life itself; Life existence provokes a reaction in the aether, creating mana; mana keeps getting generated and spreading; Life learn how to command mana, magic is born. Did I get everything right?}
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"Yes, you did."
{What about the System? How does it fit in the picture?}
"The System is a foreign existence that operates with yet a different kind of energy. It invades a reality, reads their particularities, and creates a set of rules adapted to it. Then, it chooses the strongest form of life and assigns it the role of an 'Administrator', granting it the power to tweak the rules if needed to fulfill its only order: push life forward. I can't share anything else about it until you get stronger."
A strong wave of energy passed between the two interrupting Temelth's explanations, it was as if a big explosion had happened somewhere and the shock wave produced strong vibrations. Temelth then wrapped up their meeting.
"I said my piece, and now it's time to send you down, I hope you grow enough in a lifetime to one day stand by my side in the coming war, meanwhile, have fun!"
{Wait! I have a lot more to ask! Temelth!}
A strong force pulled John down, and his vision started spinning and then blurring, he barely had any time to register the moment he passed through a roof and collided with a woman`s belly when darkness enveloped his consciousness.
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Inside a wooden hut in the middle of a forest covered by snow, a couple was trapped inside as soldiers moved to surround it. The bearded man was sweating despite the freezing temperature, his hands gripping tightly to his halberd as he faced the door, waiting for it to be breached at any moment. The woman was sweating profusely as her baby chose this moment to be born.
"Dammit! We can`t leave now! Can`t you hold it inside a little longer?"
"By the gods Geralt! It's not something I have any control over!"
Geralt knew there was nothing to be done. He could either face the seven soldiers outside or surrender himself.
"Fuck me! Ok, ok, calm down, I know what I have to do" Geralt lowered his lance and looked into his wife`s eyes, he couldn`t hold his tears as he spoke.
"I love you. Gods, I love you so much! Since the moment I laid my eyes upon you, I knew we were meant to be, you gave me so much, and all I did was bring you trouble! Please honey, all I have is you and our unborn child. Whatever happens now, do not move, do not make any noise, and I beg you, do not seek revenge in the future. Tell my child that I… that I…" Tears flowed freely from Geralt`s eyes, his mind racing as he searched in vain for what he wanted his future kid to know about him.
"Tell my child that I abandoned you before he was born" He wanted his son or daughter to hold no hatred towards the Ilex kingdom, no good would come of that. In Geralt`s mind, he was better of thinking that his father was a coward who bailed on his wife when she got pregnant. "It's safer that way."
"Geralt? What are you saying? We can still fight! I can still fight!"
Before his wife could get up from the old bed, Geralt cast a weak |Petrify| spell followed by a camouflage one. As he laid her head on the pillow, both her and the bed turned invisible.
"You taught me those well; I tried hiding from you that I learned them to surprise you on our next mock battle. They are weak and temporary, but will get the job done."
The woman kept shedding tears even while petrified. On any other day, these spells would not even scratch her skin, but during labor, a woman would not be able to muster any mana to resist spells or cast some of her own. She could not even move her head to look at her husband before he rushed to his death.
Mustering what was left of his courage, Geralt cast one last illusion spell and rushed outside with his trusted halberd in hand, the soldiers took a moment to process the fact that their target chose to face them instead of surrendering, but as Ilex Kingdom's elites, they quickly surrounded Geralt to complete their mission.
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The fight was as bloody as it was intense, Geralt swiftly moved in the battlefield deftly dodging all attacks while striking with his halberd all the soldiers' exposed skin. They wore high-quality armor that protected most of their vitals, making it hard to deliver a killing blow, and it soon delved into a fight of attrition.
Geralt was known as one of the best melee fighters of this age, his martial prowess and his proficiency in the use of a halberd set him apart from others. His strikes were so fast that his halberd produced sonic booms every time he moved it. The enemies, however, also possessed vast training and inhuman powers.
By the end, only two soldiers were still standing as Geralt laid in a pool of his own blood, his halberd by his side. Most soldiers ended up dying of blood loss from the myriad of cuts that Geralt managed to inflict.
"Shit captain, that was one tough son of a bitch! He killed all of them! What do we do now?"
The soldier who spoke had a few cracked ribs, a broken leg, and a deep cut to his arm, he took pride in his combat skills, but the man they went up against was a monster, even while outnumbered 7 to 1 he took the other soldiers down as if they were flies.
"I will check inside the house, take this high-grade potion to heal your most severe wounds and bring our horses, I will go check the hut."
The captain of this unit was not faring better than his soldier. He too had a cracked rib and a few deep cuts around his body; the damage to his shield was beyond repair, and if not for a stroke of luck he would have lost his head to Geralt's halberd at one particular moment.
"Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir!" The soldier was shocked; high-grade potions cost a few months of a soldier's wage, only a few could afford such luxury.
The horses were about a kilometer and a half away (~1 mile), as soon as the soldier left the captain shed a tear for his old master and friend, his expression shifted into a mix between sadness and anger.
"You mad bastard! Look what you made us do! If you only had surrendered! You knew I would not hurt you! Dammit! You knew it! Why, Geralt!?"
The captain took a few minutes to get a hold of his emotions, he went inside the house, and his eyes widened, what he saw made him understand why his friend had opted to fight till his last breath.
"By the gods! What have you done?!"
In his eyes, the hut was empty, no furniture inside, only the pale body of Geralt`s pregnant wife with her throat wide open. He did not need to look any further to know that she, along with the child, had been killed by Geralt so they would not be captured.
"FUCK! What did you do, Geralt! Fucking fuck! What will I tell Kovadyn?"
The captain could not contain the anger he felt for his old master and punched the hut`s door with so much strength that it practically exploded.
"Sir, the horses are ready, and I got his body strapped in one" The soldier arrived just in time to witness his captain outburst.
"Good job, soldier. Help me pay our respects to our dead companions and torch the hut. The smell of blood will attract some creatures over."
The sound of people running through the woods reached their ears before they could round up the bodies.
"Soldier! To the horses, NOW!"
Captain and soldier mounted their horses and left the place just as a group of hunters arrived at the scene. One of them had heard the fighting and went back to get help, they came rushing to the place and found only 5 dead soldiers outside and a dead woman inside the hut, but as they were about to loot the bodies and clean the area, the spells wore off, and a woman started screaming as she immediately went into labor.