《Title is very much pending》 Prologue Prologue Mankind has always been such a creative species. Always innovating, pushing the envelope past their mundane and simplistic ways. Better, more efficient, faster, stronger. Easier. From the moment the Creator spoke, mankind had been slated to be the rulers of the Great Garden. Made in His image, mankind was supposed to live in everlasting peace and harmony while overseeing every other species the Creator gave breath to. Then the two learned. They touched the forbidden, consumed it, and were thus consumed by it. They were cast out of the Great Garden, the gates forever closed to mankind due to their actions. But what of all the other species that resided there? Who was to rule now? Of course, that was decided later. The two would-be rulers were not the only ones to be consumed by the forbidden. Only the first. But I digress. It¡¯s so easy to fall into memories that should have been long forgotten. Since being cast out of the Utopia that was made for them, mankind had an extremely difficult time just surviving in the Impure world. To increase their survival and continue their existence, many children were birthed. Also, to make things easier. Labor, food gathering, hunting, making clothing, building little hovels; the more children that were birthed, the easier it was to divide the many tasks necessary just to survive. The would-be rulers found other issues to contend with as they continued to multiply. The rightful inheritors of the Impure world were most displeased to have these invaders amidst them and sought to end them quickly. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Mankind fell even further from the pedestal by being introduced to war. It was one thing for mankind to have to survive in this new, cruel world, but to have hostile opposition to their very existence? Mankind was nearly wiped out. Why? Slaying their would be murderers, acquiring the weapons and items left behind by the dead, lust for those who were left behind, greed for more, bloodlust for power and to prove dominance¡­ Murder, rape, pillaging, destruction. Tainted. The Creator was not pleased. People scoff at the idea of the Flood, claiming there is no possible way such an event could have taken place. Hoping, almost praying, that it wasn¡¯t true. That it couldn¡¯t be true. Otherwise it would have damning consequences. On top of that, the original inheritors of the Impure world vacated to somewhere else. Why should they stick around and die for the fallacies of mankind and their Creator? Drowning for someone they reject and deny the existence of, while ignoring their own origins. Time passes. Many historians notice an interesting trend, that history seems to repeat itself when the newer generations forget the hard earned lessons from the past. Which leads us to this day and age. Mankind tumbling further from the pedestal, sealing their fate once again. But that doesn¡¯t matter to me, doesn¡¯t even interest me in the slightest. What does interest me is just how creative and advanced and lazy mankind has become. Stories, video games, movies, entertainment! How wondrous these things are. While the games and movies are particularly fascinating, the most hypnotic and mesmerizing were the stories. Not only the mythologies, not just science fiction, or the fantasy; what drew my attention most was the stories of travelers to another world. Reincarnation, isekai, world travelers. Blessings that grant them immense abilities and powers. Transparent screens that signify a connection to a supreme, otherworldly being. Why would this genre interest me so much, I¡¯m sure you wonder? In all that I¡¯ve read and even watched, not one has had a mythological being transported. No minor deities, evil beings of immense power, no eldritch horrors, no legends of old, no one truly powerful. Especially, no dragons. Once upon a time, I watched on as one of the eldest as the Creator made mankind. Observed as they frollicked and danced through the fields and meadows, supposedly ruling their domain. I intently gazed as one was tempted at the tree on the hill in the center of the Great Garden. Flabbergasted when both were consumed by the forbidden. Disappointed at their newly acquired shame. Angry when they were cast out of the Great Garden, never allowed to return. I¡¯ve had many names throughout the ages. Different monikers for different civilizations. Not all of the names, to be sure, as there were more of my kind given the breath of life from our Creator. Before I was forcefully restrained and reborn into this weak sack of meat and blood, I was mighty. Before I was violently overthrown from my position of most powerful in the Great Garden, I was invincible. Before my mate and child that had barely drawn breathe were viciously murdered, I was content. Before I saw floating blue screens when no one else did, I was a dragon. That dragon had a name. My name was: Leviathan. Now it''s some human name I don''t know yet. I was just reborn after all. For the second time. And wasn''t that even more traumatic. Chapter One So. Here we are. Again. One of the strongest beings, if not the strongest being in the Impure world, being reborn into a weak sack of meat and water. This was bad enough the first time. At least then, I knew what everyone was saying. I managed to grow old and die peacefully in my bed, alone.. No loved ones, no kin. I was forcefully removed from the physical realm and sealed into the soul of a newborn babe on my first reincarnation. Abilities, power, even my magic were all bound. I was a normal human being except with one of the oldest souls in existence. I was reborn during a modern era. History taught me many thousands of years had passed since my last memory. Disappointed, I found one of the many treasure caches I left in the Impure world and lived an easy, carefree life. Then I grew old and died. Only to be reborn again. But I guess this time is different. No random visits by nurses, no constant chimes and whistles from the monitoring equipment at a hospital. No random yells of pain or despair, no cries of newborn babes. Not understanding what anyone said when I finally was pulled from the womb. Right now, there is only the breathing of two others in the darkened room I¡¯m resting in. I¡¯d like to point out that actually experiencing the labors of childbirth as the child is not just exhausting but very traumatic. The fact that this is the second time really drives home just how lucky newborns are for not remembering the experience. There is also no control of this meat sack I¡¯m stuck in, my thoughts driving more stress through this tiny mortal shell than it can handle and I cry out involuntarily. It doesn¡¯t help that I¡¯m hungry. A dim light appears, lifting a majority of the shadow perceived through my eyelids. I have bodily fluids still covering them, not being properly cleaned after my eviction from my new mother. How do I know this? Second time¡­ I likely would have panicked more, like I did the first time. Experience can be good, most of the time. I¡¯ll not bore you with the feeding and cleaning that took place. But it did make for a long week, at least I think it was a week. In that time, just like any newborn, I struggled with everything. But I also managed to open and focus my eyes.
Congratulations! You¡¯ve been reincarnated¡­ again?! Well, aren¡¯t you a lucky mortal to be reborn more than once. We welcome you to this new world. Please enjoy the tutorial and grow into a powerful being!
Transparent blue screen hovering in front of my eyes and I can read it - say what?
As you are a sentient newborn, you are experiencing the System fifteen years sooner than you normally would. This also means the tutorial will be !@#^&%%!@^#$%#$^. Error ErrorReading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Error
I¡¯ll guess that¡¯s not normal. Would this be appropriately called a blue-screen of death? Hope it¡¯s not being run on Macrosoft, they had all manner of issues.
int main () { std::cout << "System Admin override: assuming direct control¡­¡± Ahem. Due to unlocking the System fifteen years earlier, an error has occurred. Please be patient while the System bug is corrected and patched. In the meantime, please explore the Status command provided to you. As you are newly born, simply think the command - since you are unable to articulate vocally.
Even for a being that has been living for countless millennia, I have no words for this. I¡¯m shocked to be sure, with gleeful jubilation rapidly replacing the shock. Ah, I squeed and wet myself. Nappy change for me. I¡¯d be embarrassed if I was old enough to control those impulses. Yeah, I squeed, I fangirled, I spazzed. I greatly enjoyed reading those stories where random people were pulled into different worlds and given an ability or twelve to become the greatest in that world. While they depressed me, due to having been one of those beings and without assistance thank-you-very-much, those stories also allowed me to relive my glory days through proxy. After being shuffled around and given new linens, which says a lot all by itself, I finally manage to have a moment I can activate the status screen.
Name: ??? Age: 10 days Job: Baby
Level: 1 Exp: 0 To next lvl: 100
Race: Human (???) Stat points: 0
HP: 5 MP: locked SP: 5
HP Regen/min 0.25 MP Regen/min locked SP Regen/min 0.25
Strength: 1 Agility: 1 Intelligence: 236
Endurance: 1 Dexterity: 1 Wisdom: 312
Charisma: 50 Luck: 1
As expected of being a child. The high intelligence and wisdom is certainly nice, reflecting the age of my soul and experience. The charisma is slightly surprising until I really thought about it, after all babies are supposed to be adorable. The single digit in luck is¡­ disheartening, reflecting my old lives as well. Damn my magic, being bound yet again. But since I have access to this System, I may be able to do something about that or the System will for me. Time will tell. At the top left hand corner of this semi-translucent screen there is a picture of my face. I already have a head of pitch black hair and what looks like amethyst colored eyes with a slight vertical elongation. Hmm, that may have to do with the question marks next to the human race identifier. I wonder¡­ did any of my abilities carry over? I think of the word and focus, like I did for the status screen.
Forbidden action taken! Abilities and additional stat points are blocked from user until age quantifier is submitted by Admin. Please be patient, the error in the System was your fault after all.
¡­ Fuck you too then. I take a few moments to think and then I wake up. I didn¡¯t even notice I had taken a forced nap. Oh, I suppose I¡¯m hungry again and my damn nappy is a mess. I sincerely miss being a dragon. Chapter Two I¡¯m grateful when the next two years pass by quickly. Being as limited as I was truly drives home how powerless anyone can be when first born. Other than building myself up and learning the language, I didn''t do much else. No other notifications came from the System indicating an update, no massive quests were garnered or granted, no uber abilities were randomly gifted or earned. Seriously, I just did the baby thing and tried to toughen myself up faster. Made all the right noises, cried whenever I needed anything. Made sure to shit and piss on both my parents, because which baby doesn¡¯t? Made sure to take several tumbles out of their arms when they were carrying me to inflict guilt for not paying more attention, though I stopped after the second time - not much into self inflicted damage. I moved, squirmed, wiggled, and crawled as much as possible to toughen up, because being a helpless kid is terrible. I slowly started to learn this new world language and I learned my name. It was repeated often enough. Eldrin Gildersah. My father, Maltran Gildersah. My mother, Ghealie Gildersah. They were successful adventurers and dungeon explorers, met each other while traveling and dungeon diving. Became attracted to each other during several joint adventures, then tied the knot and retired after a large score. Moved to this backwater village, bought the house on the hill for the view, then I was conceived. They like to talk about such things and this is what I¡¯ve pieced together with my limited grasp of this new language. Now, the only reason I¡¯m absolutely certain that two years has passed is due to the birthing day celebration my parents hosted for me and the fact that my age is recorded in the status window. I checked it periodically to determine any stat gains and to work the math out on any possible modifiers. I did learn that if I focus on any single stat, I get an explanation and brief example for said stats use. Strength determines how much you can lift or how powerful you impact an opponent with fists or weapons. Endurance determines how long you can commit to any physical activities and factors into physical resistances and overall health. Agility is speed and graceful fluidity of movement. Dexterity allows for precise and difficult coordinated movements of the body. Intelligence has a wider definition. High intelligence doesn¡¯t necessarily make you smarter, but it does allow a person to retain more information with greater clarity and recall. This will allow for a more diverse spectrum of options available when encountering problems, but without a breadth of knowledge at your disposal, high intelligence would just be a number. Wisdom allows for sound judgement of the options made available from the intelligence stat. Having a high numerical value in wisdom makes it easier to determine the proper and best path or action for pretty much every moment of a person''s life. Charisma is a mixed bag. This affects physical beauty, as well as how successful interactions with other people occurs. This is a more subtle stat in that only those with ridiculous numbers will actually be able to sway or convince others to follow the rhetoric being given. There have been people throughout the ages with an extremely high charisma but were total morons and the opposite, people who knew exactly what needed to be done and even portrayed it excellently but their poor charisma dampened the effect. Luck is luck. This increases or decreases the probability of good or bad things happening at random times. Handy, but I personally never cared for it. My luck has been proven to be low and given that, I¡¯m not sure how I would feel at having more randomly occurring events happen to me. At least with my low luck, I know to expect the worst all the time. Well, I know now. Since I¡¯m a very young child; the HP, MP, and SP numbers are obviously all low. Due to low numbers in the physical stats, I cannot determine any modifiers for anything. My magic being locked prevents me from determining my MP as well. HP is the abbreviation for health points, MP is mana or magic points, SP is for stamina. What hasn¡¯t been listed are the hidden stats, or what I think exists as hidden stats. Will power, resistance to physical and magical damage, additional damage percent increases. The mental and spiritual stats and modifiers. Character alignment. Now, I always viewed myself as a chaotic neutral kind of dragon, always thinking more about myself than doing good or bad actions. Being incredibly selfish rather than how I¡¯m portrayed as evil incarnate and always causing mayhem. That¡¯s not to say I didn¡¯t do those things, just not for the reasons people had thought. My rule was pretty much tyrannical, but no one died from hunger or exposure. I¡¯m quite confident that is defined as a ¡®benevolent¡¯ act. All that aside, today is turning out to be an interesting day. I haven¡¯t soiled myself, my belly is full, my body is no longer sore from my morning exertions to train this puny shell, and I received a bit of good news.
Administration has determined that the age modifier for full System use is now lowered to ten years of age or a suitably life threatening event occurs that the user will die. Horribly. That said, if the user intentionally attempts to endanger himself, then you can die a terrible and agonizing death.
Now why would this notification be a bit of interesting news? Quite simple really. The village, along with my family and I, are being attacked. By goblins.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Nasty little shits that stand about a meter tall, with some variation. Pot bellies, varying hues of green pigmentation for skin, bulging yellow eyes, ragged pieces of leather skin to barely cover their shame while occasionally having oddball pieces of standard armor located sporadically on their body. Clubs, shortswords, daggers, pitch forks, or branches ripped off a tree are being used for melee. From the brief glance I had of them on top of the hill, while being held in my mother''s arms, there were at least forty of the blighters. All racing towards the village I claim residence of, to rape and pillage. To kill. The goblin in front of my mother and I, is poised for an overhead strike with a wooden club. My father is halfway down the hill to help defend the village and doesn¡¯t know, doesn¡¯t see, the lone attacker attempting to steal my mother and myself. Women for raping, birthing new goblins, then eating them when they die from ¡®overuse¡¯. Children, because they¡¯re fatty and tender. Skin, muscles, bones, all soft and delicate. Delicious. As I have lived for millenia, there is no fear in me. Since I am currently powerless - there is no need to worry about dying since I have no ability to defy death. The pending violence is all frozen in place as I ponder the new System screen in front of my eyes.
Due to an approaching ¡®violent¡¯ death, the System is fully unlocked for the user. Congratulations! You have unlocked the abilities tab. You may peruse at your leisure and upgrade when you gain enough experience.
Congratulations! The ¡®Old-Soul¡¯ life experiences ability has been unlocked. This ability carries over all previous life experiences, including but not limited to all abilities and stats. Use this ability wisely, for it can make or break your future!
I stare blankly at this particular screen, barely noticing more behind it. The blank look slowly warps into a small grin, which widens to a smile from ear to ear. I smile so wide, my face hurts. Then, I laugh. I laugh so long and hard, it could be deemed hysterical. An untold amount of time later, I stop. The dull and lifeless look that had been expressed through my eyes is no longer present, replaced with a kaleidoscope of feelings that are blazing stronger than ever before. I can have my power back. I can be mighty again. I take the time to look at the remaining System screens, curious as to why there are so many.
Due to being in a life threatening event well before the System foretold, the Awakening of your Blood has commenced. This will awaken your origins - from this world and from previous incarnations.
Dragon. Heheheh, I don¡¯t know whether to decimate these goblins or allow them all to live for this. No, they¡¯re attempting to take what is mine. She may be my mother, but she is still mine. My father? Mine. This village and its inhabitants? Mine. From the buildings, to the people within them, the clothes they wear, the tools they use, to what looks like wheat in the fields, every fruit, every tree, and each individual blade of grass. Mine, as a possession. As part of a dragon¡¯s hoard. A dragon¡¯s hoard that should never, ever, be stolen from. They will all die for this transgression. The next nine screens are abilities that I care nothing for at the moment. The last screen is what makes me openly, shamelessly weep.
Intrinsic ability: Magic, is sealed with a Divine Conditional effect. Condition was: to die, knowing the great magic held within was present but untouchable. Condition met. Unlocking Intrinsic ability: Magic
I wept. I cried out my pain and anguish, my anger and hate for this shackle that was forced on me. Then I cried tears of joy, for having what was taken from me - returned. Energy surges throughout my body now, starting the moment the System granted me access. The Old Soul ability has suffused my tiny body with power beyond what it should handle, but with my dragon origin unlocked, it prevents me from popping like a wet balloon. The presence of my magic drapes over me like an old, comfortable blanket. Covering, soothing, embracing me with an old warmth I had forgotten and yearned for. I have gained back parts of what was mine again.
Time will restart the moment the user exits his status window. Hint: movement is allowed during this frozen time.
I slowly move my mother¡¯s arms away from me and climb down to the ground, her arms staying locked in the position I left them. I¡¯m almost a meter tall, almost the same height as the goblins, so the ground isn¡¯t too far. Once I¡¯m on terra firma, I take a moment to examine the picture in my status window. Since I lack a mirror, I hope this is an accurate representation of my looks. The baby fat my parents worked so hard to build up on me is gone, replaced with lean and hardened muscle. Not cut like a bodybuilder, that would look beyond ridiculous on a two year old''s body. Only a slight bit of definition exists, as if I was overly active while playing. My hair is a shaggy mess, still pitch black and starting to get long. Eyes are still amethyst, a more noticeable slit in the pupil and emit a purple luminescence. Tanned skin, from all the time spent outside. Thankfully, I didn¡¯t grow any taller. That would be a little awkward to explain. I walk over to the goblin poised to strike my mother. Grabbing the club, I slip it out of its hands and examine it. It¡¯s just a sturdy piece of tree limb, cut down to size. Nothing fancy. I wield it single handed, slapping my other palm while I consider how to destroy this pitiful shitstain. Shrugging, I coat the blunt weapon with my magic to make it sturdier and I strike both knees with the full force of my unlocked stats. A few dozen strikes are aimed at the torso and four to the head, all from different angles. Nothing appears to have happened. I walk around the goblin and ponder. Either I wasted time and effort for nothing or the amount of force I just generated and the impacts given will all occur after time resumes. Nodding thoughtfully, I mosey off to the village and do the same thing to the rest of the abominations invading my territory. There are a few villagers who are about to be struck down, caught in mid pose. I move them out of the way so they don¡¯t accidentally die or become hurt when I close the status screen and resume time. Thankfully, time froze before anything truly bad could happen. No one was captured, killed, or being raped. I wandered the area, doing an ever widening circular search pattern to make sure I didn¡¯t miss any of the blighters. Having found no others, I make my way back to my mother and go to climb back into place. Or I was going to, I forgot about the damn club. It¡¯s too bad I don¡¯t have an inventory¡­
You¡¯ve unlocked your inventory! Presently, it has unlimited storage capacity. Use it well, you never know what you might need in the future.
Well, seems that I do. I toss the club in and proceed to climb back into my mother''s arms. If what I expect to happen actually does happen, then this ought to make for a humorous sight. At least, for me. If they all die in spectacular ways, it¡¯s just a shame I¡¯ll miss the rest of them perishing. I had thought about flaring my power or conjuring a giant fireball, something to demonstrate my newly awakened power. I¡¯m not one for grandiose posing and especially not for monologuing. That has gotten more so-called villains killed than damn near anything else, ignorant fools. Seeing no other point in prolonging this incident, I cuddle closer to my mother of this world and close the status screen. Time resumes, the goblin in front of me looks confused for a moment before a visceral shrieking wail comes out of its disgusting mouth. Then it explodes in a messy green, red, and white shower.