The body ends up looking really badass if I do say so myself. I mean, I designed the thing so of course I think that and Aethos just apparently really loves Zenithals so I don't have an objective opinion here, but I think others would say the same thing if they were to see it.

The body is just over six feet tall. Dense, lean muscle rather than bulk. Overall, the body, my body, looks powerful. Olive skin that the stars of Jersey Shore could only dream about having, eyes of molten silver that seem to shift as you look into them, eyebrows made of tiny silver feathers that glint under artificial light. My hair is indeed made of feathers that seem to cascade across the scalp the way feathers do on a bird, gracefully trailing down off my head to just under my shoulders. Some feathers are long, others are shorter in order to fill in the gaps in "feather hair" that are left by the longer ones in a way that looks natural. You might not even be able to tell they were feathers if you didn't look too hard at them. They remind me of Mikey's hairstyle in Tokyo Revengers, if a bit longer. It gives off a sense of grace and elegance while also screaming power. It's badass, for sure.

I'll admit I was surprised by how good it ended up looking because when I pictured it from Aethos's description alone, I had pictured a plucked chicken in a way because hair follicles, to me, look way smaller than feather follicles. That's what Aethos told me they were called. They sounded somewhat offended that I hadn't known that. I asked Aethos what species they'd been while alive, figuring they might have been a Zenithal, but they wouldn't tell me. Saying they'd left that chapter behind and that it doesn't matter now because they don't have any connection to it. They prefer not to talk about it, and I respected their request enough not to pry any further.

Anyway, as a whole, the face I end up with looks young because it is. Aethos aged it down. They only told me that it was another gift from them, that they were "giving back some of the years I'd lost as a child to hardship," and that I should consider that my age from now on. It's not too much of a mental shift if I'm being honest. I never felt much different as the years went on, anyway.

I can't tell you that I feel any different than I felt when I was thirteen, for instance. I don't feel older. I just feel like I'm in a different body. My head is clearer, perhaps, but there's nothing about my mentality that I would consider exceptionally diverged from what it had been when I was younger. I never related to others in my peer group when they talked about how much different it felt to be an adult. Another thing my parents took from me. Literally, apparently. My concept of being a child.

My body is that of a powerful young scion from head to toe. Graceful, lithe, and powerful. A body that anyone would be more than happy to have. Perhaps I'll feel more connected to this one. Getting to reflect on my reaction to being pulled here and the subsequent realization that my old body had been atomized, it wasn't about me losing my body at all. It was about the fact that yet another thing had been taken from me, yet another loss of something I had considered mine even if I didn't truly feel connected to it.

It's hard to explain, really. That dissonance, that dissociation that comes with heavy childhood trauma. That even though it doesn't feel like you're dreaming, it still feels like at any moment you could wake up and find that it had been one. I hadn't gone back to a therapist after they'd put me in the foster system, so I never talked about that with anyone, but I'm more than self-aware enough to realize the reason for the feeling.

I decline Aethos's offer to look at the internal anatomy of my new body because I don't really want to see organs if I'm not expressly required to and discuss the way everything works biologically even though Aethos lamented over how much they wanted very much to do that. I declined quite vehemently, however. The picture of my body Aethos had projected at the time was incredibly life-like to the point that it may as well have been real. I can imagine the organs and innards would have been the same.

Once my body is designed, the projection of it disappears and another blue window shows up. My Status, judging from the fact that it's just a box with different attributes and numbers next to them.

Vigor

135

Focus 90 Resilience 225 Will 225 Dexterity 180 Attunement 45

"This is the Attribute portion of your Status sheet. This is the quantification of how your Zenithal body will respond to the seating of your soul based on the current density of your soul now that it is subject to the concept as it stands here. If it were just based on your human experiences, the numbers would be lower still, though your Resilience and Will scores actually are much higher than they would be in a standard Zenithal. I trust I don't have to explain why."

It is very reminiscent of typical status sheets that I'm familiar with in Earth games and books that I've read, in spirit anyway, though obviously there are differences in letter. Typically, at least in those that I came across, status sheets or attribute sheets have Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Intelligence, Willpower, and Luck. There may have been some deviations here and there, but overall I'm comfortable saying that's the usual layout. From context, this sheet is not that different. The names are different, but the idea seems to be similar. Vigor is Strength, Endurance is Resilience, Dexterity is the same, Focus is Intelligence, Will is Wisdom, and I'm not familiar with Attunement, but I imagine if the trend should continue, then it is somehow related to Luck.

"Your understanding is suitable, though there are nuances that deviate from your understanding of the idea as a whole. For example, Vigor is strength, yes, but it also contains the concept of endurance as you understand it. It is life. It is energy. Stamina. It's the force you exude on the Universe around you, in a way. To be Vigorous in totality."

"So Vigor encompasses strength and endurance? What is Resilience, then, if not endurance?"

"Resilience is a type of endurance, yes, though the specific idea in this case is your ability to maintain integrity amidst conflict. Mental resilience, physical resilience, spiritual resilience. It could be said that it is your ability to resist that which attempts to sway you from your path, if Vigor is the force your presence exudes while on the path."

"Okay, so in simpler terms, if I'm understanding correctly, you mean resistance to damage from magical attacks or physical damage or even things that would affect you mentally? Would the latter concept affect your overall mental stability then? Like for things like PTSD, if you have that here?"

"I'm familiar with the concept of illnesses of the mind that are caused by traumatic events, yes, but largely the denizens of this Universe are more equipped to handle events like that. It might be attributed to Resilience, but it could also be any number of other things like genetics, or a species' ability to handle the effects of certain things, or the fact that the soul here has such a literal affect on your existence which makes your mind more stable by extension." Aethos pauses momentarily, as if realizing something, before continuing.

"Well, perhaps the last concept is Resilience's affect. It makes the most sense, if that is the case, but I cannot confirm this as fact. The System is modeled after a zeitgeist of concepts retained by mortals and a lot of experience in order to translate all this into something as complex as the System, so it's not infallible nor all knowing. Merely an incredibly complex compendium of knowledge."

"So it's another extension of the idea behind the Spell arrays and Skill molds? System translated qualifications and quantifications of pre/sans-System concepts?"

"Exactly, yes! When I was a mortal, when I was a God, and even now that I've Transcended, which is the literal term for beings like me for your information, everything we've found out is entirely through trial and error. There's no definitive. For the same reason Spells and Skills can't truly affect a soul, testing can't be done on souls in any truly meaningful way, either. We wouldn't even know how or where to start, even if it turned out that there are things not yet discovered that can affect souls."

"So you don't know exactly how Essence works, even as the God who oversees the System wherein it's the main form of energy?"

"I know how Essence works in the same way you know how air works. Well, that's reductive and also condescending on my part, so I apologize, but I'm trying to give you the barebones necessities so you have some information about the Universe you're being thrust into. I know as much about Essence as can reasonably be known, much the same as your scientists knew about air, but there is always a greater why or how. Always something bigger or something smaller. This is why I'm not telling you that we know everything about Essence, because we can't possibly." Aethos snorts, conveying their belief that the concept of knowing everything is ridiculous, which of course is true, before continuing on.

"If even the Gods don't control Essence, if it existed before the Gods whoso created most of the life in the Universe you'll come into contact with, then who or what does? Where did it originate? Do you catch my meaning? All we know is what we've observed and deduced from millennium after millennium after millennium of trial and error. Which, to be fair, is quite a lot and we have many, many accepted theories that seem to coincide with some of what your theorists and philosophers have come up with. Most of which you're currently not equipped to learn or grasp in a meaningful way, so you can pursue those later, when you're no longer feeling this way. "

"That makes sense based on the way science in my Universe is carried out. It's called the scientific process or something like that, if I'm remembering correctly. People used to think that blood in the body was blue until it was exposed to external oxygen. Well, people still think that. They don't understand that our blood is red because of the iron, nor do they get that there is always oxygen in the blood. It doesn't just suddenly turn red when you get a cut." I laugh because I'm still impressed by the human educational system.

I mean, other countries have pretty good education systems, I've heard, but I never went to any of those schools. Just ones in the United States where people believe that the Earth is flat despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I could get into politics as well, but none of that truly matters for me anymore, now does it?

I start to feel a bit sad again, then, but Aethos presses the brakes on that train of thought by speaking up again before it can go too far from the station. "Those are all concepts you can explore for yourself when you're there but I'll continue on with the explanation of the attributes on your Attribute sheet. Dexterity is the same word as the one you're familiar with but it encompasses not only physical dexterity as it relates to your body, but also mental dexterity. You could call it cunning or acuity, perhaps. If I could separate them, I would, because the stat is skewed lower than I think it should be based on the mental portion of the attribute."

"So the number doesn't accurately represent how fast my physical reflexes would be, then? Why put it there at all if it isn't accurate?"

"Because it's a representation at all. It isn't encompassed in any other attribute. For example, although Vigor contains the power aspect of the speed your body can travel at, it doesn't have anything to do with how fast you can react to certain stimuli the way Dexterity quantifies. To preempt your question about why it was not made into two different attributes, it's all Dexterity. You can call it physical reflexes and mental reflexes, but they're still just reflexes. There isn't a reliable way to differentiate between the two, despite the ability to quantify the number at all."

"How are you coming up with that number? Where is it coming from?"

"That's a great question, actually. The base numbers are a very educated assertion based on the overall capabilities of a person's body, soul density, and lived experiences up to that point. The educated portion of the assertion refers to the ability to sense where a soul leans as far as the different stats go. It's something you can learn. It's an extension of the Aura you can learn through trial and error based on what you know of people and how their souls feel to you. As you can imagine, my Aura is as developed as they get, so at level zero, I take a number from one hundred to a thousand depending on the level of soul density you currently have as it compares to the average and spread it out based on those leanings I sense."

I do some quick math and realize that my attributes add up to nine hundred. Based on what they had said, that meant that out of ten people at level zero only one of them would be stronger than me attribute-wise.

"So it isn't a literal quantification, just an educated guess on your part?"

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"A very, very educated guess, yes. The System's numbers are as accurate a representation as you're going to get without any way of measuring it as you would something with literal mass. Even soul density isn't literally quantifiable, it's a general proportion based on the sense of it at conception and at the time of measurement. Before the System, you could only get a general sense of how much denser a soul was than someone else's, not a very accurate numerical representation. Nor would you know how much you had grown except, again, in a very general sense. Now you have levels that do a great job of such things, though there is some deviation from the norm as far as who is stronger of two cultivators between levels and so on."

"It all sounds like it was very inconvenient before the System." I have a very good idea of how complicated it would have been to learn and stay alive before the System. The more I learn about everything to do with it, the more I recognize the sheer utility of the System. It's incredible, even if inexact. A very good representation of something is better than none at all.

"It was akin to manually washing your clothing in a river with soap compared to the way doing laundry at present in your Universe is. Except back then you had to build the rack on which you scrubbed the clothes. You had to make the clothing and soap by hand, too. By killing the animal for its fat with your bare hands or another weapon you built yourself and taking its hair for the thread and fashioning the needles out of its bones. All yourself. With no reference for how to do any of that except for watching others before you do the same and learning that way."

"Damn. Didn't you say there weren't that many people before?"

"Over a world about seven times larger than yours, there were probably seven times less people, yes, though that's based on personal accounts and not an exact census. I don't know about the rest of the Universe, obviously, as I hadn't left the confines of Ackellia until after Godhood but you can imagine that any 'watching of others' was in short supply. From what I observed immediately after I became a Transcendant, it was much the same for the rest of the Universe, too. This is why my System was so important and why, even though I gave up almost everything I had, all the potential for my own future after Transcending, I don't regret it in the slightest. I'm the sole reason almost all of the people in the Universe are alive and get to continue living."

"Do they worship you? You know, beyond this Aethosian Armada I'm going to obliterate the second I'm out of here?"

"From what I am aware of, yes, in a sense. History was much more decentralized before the System, as you can imagine, so much of the information is either not recorded, lost, or grossly inaccurate. The Aethosian Armada is only named such because I created the Spell they're using, which is in the 'flavor text' as you called it. If any know of me at all, it isn't as a Deity who Transcended to become the System. They know of Aethos, the spell creator, Aethos, the God of Utility, or they simply worship the System directly. Those individuals call me 'The All Parent.'" Aethos chuckles bitterly, then. Why, exactly, I wouldn't know. Maybe they don't like the name, or they don't like the idea of being worshiped.

"It's more that they believe I control all that goes on in the Universe and their worship is predicated upon the fact that they become 'one with the System' when they die. In a sense, they are correct, but only in that your soul breaks down into Essence when you die. Some is also used when someone is conceived, as well. Again, I know almost everything there is to know about Essence, the life cycle included, and if I explained it all you might quite literally be here forever."

"That makes it sound like souls are created then, if they break down in a way you can literally detect after death. Do they not know that on Ackellia? Should you have told me that?"

"It's not that they don't know, exactly, because they have a pretty great understanding of the phase states of Essence and their functions, which includes how it interacts with life and death, but that they have no way of observing it beyond with Soul Senses. It's inexact, like how in your Universe they merely theorized about the existence of cells before they could observe them through a microscope. Plus, you're aware of fanaticism. You've had more than your fair share of run-ins."

"That's true, I suppose, but if it's a known element, what makes them fanatics?"

"That's a good question, too. Although they know that Essence is involved in life or death, they can only theorize about it being recycled. They know about the law of conservation of mass in this Universe, too, and it does actually include Essence, but they can't prove that the way I can due to my position as the System so it isn't actually fact here. Just a very widely accepted theory." Aethos's voice changes to one of irritation as they continue on.

"That's not what those who worship 'The All Parent' are touting, though. They believe that if they follow a specific set of commandments in life, when they die they will be accepted into the System as souls to live on in an afterlife as beings of pure Essence where all their wildest dreams will come true and if you go against those commandments then I destroy you, doomed to the void and removing you from existence entirely."

That sounds very familiar. "Let me guess, they also try and make everyone feel guilty for breathing wrong?"

"Yes, and they're using my name to do it. The sad part is the Gods on Ackellia can literally speak to you, though it comes at a cost. They could be worshiping someone that can give them real guidance and convey their doctrines. I cannot speak to them. Everything they're saying is based on unfounded assertions and hearsay because I don't have a presence on Ackellia. I can't."

Wow. "That's remarkably relatable."

"Yes, I'm aware of religion on your world. I pulled more from your soul than you actively retained knowledge of, so I definitely know what you know. Needless to say, I am displeased with these so called worshipers of mine. Plus, even if I were able to speak to them, I wouldn't benefit from worship the way the Gods do as Ascended beings. My Transcendence involved giving up all routes for further advancement. I will never be more powerful than I am, but I will grow in usefulness as more and more knowledge and information is discovered."

I feel Aethos's attention wane for a moment, as if there is literally less of it. They're probably paying attention to something somewhere else in the Universe.

"The only reason I know what I know about Essence and souls is because I am the System and I know when people die and when they are born. Upon death, the Status closes off and then I feel an infinitesimal amount of Essence enter the circulation of the System. It escapes again when a baby is born. It is as close to proof as you can get as far as the generally accepted theory is, but is still not proof at the same time. Causation, correlation, and all."

"Oh yeah, I remember you saying you wouldn't be able to speak to me after I get put in my body. If you can't literally tell them that, then it stands to reason they wouldn't know and then take steps from there, but don't you speak to other Gods? You've never spoken about it with them?"

"As I said before, I don't often get visited by the other Gods. It requires even more of their power to do so than it does to physically manifest in the Universe so they don't come here unless absolutely necessary. In the last twenty millennia, I have been personally visited once. I can't manifest the way they can. For all the Essence in the System, I cannot use it personally. It is not mine to use. It is theirs. It's yours, now, too. Besides, even if I did somehow have the ability to give them what I know, there is no guarantee they would tell anyone else."

"Huh. Okay. So the Gods here are essentially just more powerful, more eccentric, more jaded mortals?"

"In a very simplistic manner, yes. No one becomes a God without making sacrifices somewhere and most often that 'somewhere' is having a circle of people who will tell them they're doing something wrong. To grow, for many, is to be alone, depending on the methods you take to do so."

"I figured. That's a pretty common trope where I come from, too."

"You'll forgive me if I don't find that comforting. It's a common trope in fantasy novels written by people who have never met a God and are just dreaming up a world where Gods exist. The fact that it is so close to reality is nothing if not concerning. Alright, we've digressed again from the topic. Attributes."

"We're up to Focus now."

"Yes, so in these fantasy novels and video games, you had Intelligence, you were saying. In some places, this meant that a person would literally get smarter as well as more magically powerful the higher this stat went up. Focus does not make you smarter, but it does allow you to concentrate more of your brain power on a task. It increases your ability to use magic, or more accurately Essence. This, by extension, makes the Spells you use more powerful because you can 'focus' more of it into an array."

"That's pretty straight forward."

"I suppose, yes, though there are nuances to every attribute and the way they work. They do more than just increase the literal thing they're named after, but it is the best representation of the number in each category. Focus is a concept the same way Shadow is a concept."

"Oh! So the attributes govern the concept of what they're representative of? That means they affect everyone slightly different then, even if they largely affect everyone in a similar way, right? What my concept of focus is might be slightly different than someone else's concept of focus."

"Yes, that's correct. You can influence the way the attributes affect you the more familiar you are with them and depending on how you develop your understand of the Concepts behind them. Capital C that time."

"Okay, great information to have. Will is next."

"Will is close to your concept of Wisdom, but Will is much more important than Wisdom was for anything. Will is what powers a Spell, yes, and the more you have the more fuel you have for a Spell, the longer you can hold a Spell, and so on, but it also affects the way your Path is solidified. Someone with a low Will attribute will not go very far on their specific Path because they don't have the strength of self to continue walking it. It affects your ability to use your Aura, your defense against Channel burn, cauterization, strain and all things magic. In a very real way, Will is your most important attribute, though you can't neglect the others, obviously. You can have a strong Will, but if you don't have the power to back it up you're a fly who will never give up trying to smash a glass window."

"I want to be able to say something other than 'that makes sense' every time you tell me something else, but it just is the most apt thing to say. I don't really have anything else to say except for that."

"You can say it every time for all I care."

"Sure, but it's about all I care."

"If I had eyes to roll, I would roll them. Moving on. Your final attribute. Attunement. It is the connection you have to the Universe around you. How compatible you are with it. It affects your a little bit of everything, but it's the most esoteric of the attributes for a reason. It mostly aligns with your concept of luck, though it's very reductive to say that. Even the way I understand it is flawed because it essentially is the Universe. The number will never go above one hundred and it must be one hundred before you can Ascend. It's a representation of where you are on your Path and it increases incredibly slowly. In some cases, it never does. The higher the number, the more the Universe notices you. The more opportunities come your way. The more chances you have to seize the next piece of the puzzle on your Path to Ascension, as it were."

"I want to say that makes sense, but it makes less sense than the others did, for sure."

"That's because it does make less sense than the other attributes. The only reason I can detect it at all is because I can detect the other attributes and about how strong those pieces are in comparison to the whole and then the difference goes into Attunement."

"Oh, so people whose souls are less dense at level zero start out with less Attunement?"

"Yes, definitely. There is literally less of them to be connected to the Universe in the first place. It makes sense that they would have a lower attunement. Those in that one hundred range of attribute points I referenced can have as low as zero, though when that happens it means they're going to die before they reach their majority. You can make it to majority at an Attunement of one, but you're not going to be powerful or receive any opportunities except for those handed to you by a family member with a higher Attunement. Typically higher Attunement people end up with others with a similar Attunement, but not always."

"That sounds sad, honestly. A literal quantification of how much you're worth. You realize that's what it could be seen as, right?"

Aethos's tone is grave. "I know all too well. That's not what it was meant to be interpreted as and I can't help how the mortals decided to take things after I put them in place. I would change it if I could, but in a very real sense that's exactly what that number is. In a Universe like this where people are worth as much as they can do, if there is a number on their Status that, unfortunately very reliably, gives you an idea of that very thing, then it makes logical sense that people would begin looking at it like that."

"So just everyone down there is treated based on the number in their Attunement attribute?"

"No. No one has access to your Status except for you and not even any [Identify] Spell can tell the user the numbers in your Attribute sheet, but the same way I can tell what the number is, others have developed the ability to get a general sense of how someone's attribute pool is skewed and how many attribute points there are, as well. It isn't as exact, of course, because I have the best soul sense in the Universe, but it is reliable to the point of having no difference. If someone with a soul sense can tell how strongly the Universe is connected to you or not, it doesn't matter if you tell anyone or not."

"Right. What difference does it make if they can't literally see the numbers if they can get a very accurate sense of them, anyway? That didn't answer my question, though, Aethos."

"I did answer your question, though I guess I didn't give you enough context. My answer is still no, not everyone is treated based on the number in their Attunement in a general sense, but there are hierarchies based on them. People tend to hang out with people of similar Attunement. It is just how it ends up. Power begets power, and even if you don't realize it, people gravitate toward that power. You'll find that the people you end up meeting are other people with similar Attunement because the Universe puts them in your path. It isn't always up to you."

"So it's not that anyone literally thinks less of those with a lower Attunement, just that that's the way the cookie crumbles, you're saying?"

"I suppose you could say that, though, again, nuance. Noble circles definitely do care about Attunement. You cannot gain a Noble title, or advance past the one you were born into, without a certain Attunement. You cannot get certain positions in government without a certain level of Attunement. You cannot be a certain level in many militaries without a certain level of Attunement. Powerful positions are barred to those without. It is the way of things, though of course I agree that it shouldn't be that way as a rule."

"Alright, so we've gone through as much as I can think to go through, right now, as far as attributes. You said something about Skills, though. Is there somewhere for me to see those? As much as I'd love to put off the danger of the fight to come, I also want to beat the shit out of the people who took me from everything I'd come to know. I wouldn't say love, exactly, but I had reached a point where I was okay and they took that from me. I'm going to make them wish they hadn't."

I can feel the rage burbling up inside of me, somehow. Hatred. Coldness that I was introduced to when I was younger but pushed down because it scared me. I didn't want to confront the feelings that my life instilled inside of me. I didn't want to be changed by it and the coldness represented that change, so I bottled it. Pushed it away. Purposefully didn't look at it when I came into contact with it.

No more. You're going to see the anger I've been building since childhood.

And I'm going to use it to rip your fucking throats out.