A couple of hours later Jayde woke up, sitting up she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she was upset with herself that she had fallen asleep so carelessly.

Standing up, she stretched to get all the kinks out of this new body from falling asleep on the hard floor. Noticing the fire had died down, and there were only a few burning coals left, she carried some more wood from the stockpile and fed it to the fire.

Soon a new fire was blazing away. After drinking some water from the gourd and eating some of the rations stored in her makeshift carry bag, Jayde examined the memories from the owner of this body.

The previous inhabitant of this body had really lived a miserable life, she thought seems like the people on this planet were just as cruel and heartless as those from her previous life.

All the knowledge about magic and cultivation was very confusing to Jayde, it was totally unscientific, there was no logic to it at all, and what really depressed Jayde was this body she had ended up in was useless, it couldn't cultivate magic.

How was she going to survive in this world? From the look of things, she could be crushed as easy as an ant. It took Jayde quite some time to accept this fact.

It was really a difficult concept for Jayde to accept, especially since her previous body was genetically enhanced. She never had to worry about being weak as her previous body had increased strength, speed, agility and healing ability.

For someone who used to be at the top of the food chain to now finding herself right at the bottom — it was really depressing.

Suddenly remembering the Proteus Artifact had said something about contracting with her to help her cultivate to becoming the strongest in Doha. Jayde figured it was best to find out what it was all about, the previous owner of this body had no knowledge of divine artifacts in her memory.

"Hey Proteus System, you still there?" she called out nervously.

"...."

Where would I go, the guide of the Proteus artifact thought, I am contracted to your soul.

The Proteus Divine Artifact decided to explain this small detail to Jayde.

"I am contracted to your soul unless you break the contract and pay the penalty, I will always be with you," the Proteus System explained.

"Oh—er—do you have a name?" she asked "Calling you Proteus System is quite a mouthful."

"My creator called me Isha-uah-ankh-antef-munkh ❶," the Proteus Guide answered.

1

"..."

Sheesh that is even more of a mouthful than Proteus System, thought Jayde.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Okay, how about I just call you Isha," said Jayde

Not happy with the way that Jayde had shortened his divine name, the Guide of the Proteus Artifact nevertheless agreed as Jayde was his contractor.

2

"Great! Okay, Isha give me the run down, what is the gig here, why is my soul here when I know I died and how can you make me stronger when this body can't cultivate?" Jayde demanded, firing off her questions rapidly.

"..."

Gig? Run down? Confused about the words his new contractor was uttering, Isha figured that she wanted to know what had happened.

"Firstly your soul did not belong to System 516 Dimension, and when you died, I was able to — at great expense to myself I might say — transport your soul back to your body before you entered the reincarnation cycle."

For a couple of seconds, Jayde mind blanked out with that piece of thunderous news. In the Federation Jayde was considered brilliant, she was the top student from her batch, so it did not take long for the gears in her mind to start spinning.

"Okay let me get this straight, one there are over 500 different dimensions, and for some reason, my soul which should have been in this dimension ended up in another dimension. Two the theory that souls can reincarnate is actually true — whoa, hold a second if I was meant to be here then does that mean the previous soul inhabiting this body was meant to be in my old dimension, and if that is so, then how did our souls switch?" Jayde asked heatedly her speech getting quicker by the second.

Isha was quite surprised that Jayde was taking everything so well, and impressed that she had made the logical leap to the gist of how her soul ended up in Doha.

"There are thousands of dimensions, and yes your soul was never meant to end up in System 516, and you are correct that the previous soul inhabiting your body rightly belonged to System 516. Before you ask, I have no idea how your souls were switched," Isha decided to quickly clarify that before Jayde asked.

"But what I can tell you is that it would have taken a tremendous amount of power to switch souls between dimensions, and it is not done lightly, there are heavy penalties to pay for that type of spell. To my knowledge, only a god ranked mage could have the power to perform such a complex spell, and as to the reason why I am sorry to say I have no idea," Isha explained further.

Jayde sat quietly digesting the information that Isha had just given her. The ramifications were quite mind-boggling. Some mysterious person, with unimaginable power, hijacked her soul and switched it. For what possible reason would someone do something like that?

According to what Isha said whoever did would have been punished for doing it, was it to save or destroy her? Jayde needed a final piece of information before deciding whether she had a powerful ally or enemy.

"Isha when did you contract with me?"

"A partial contract was initiated when your blood spilled onto the Divine Tome," he answered, "The soul contract was only fully initiated when I sensed your soul after your death."

Recalling the memories of the previous soul, Jayde realized that the partial contract must have formed when the previous Jayde cut her hand and bled onto the golden tome, that made her curious why did Isha not initiate a full contract with the previous soul.

Reading her thoughts, Isha answered, "Because her soul was too weak, and it did not belong to this body, only this body with your soul has the strength to contract the Proteus Divine System," he clarified.

Well then that cleared it up, she had a powerful enemy, Jayde thought. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to ensure that her soul did not end up in this dimension. It was not a comforting thought, but there wasn't anything she could do about it now.

Jayde was a realist, she knew that stressing over the matter right now wouldn't help, the best she could do currently was to learn as much as she could about this strange new world she had ended up in.

Looks like it is time to get serious and figure out a way to make this body powerful, and learn all I can about magic, Jayde thought with determination filling her body.