《Undeath》 Prologue: Transmigration Issues [ Evolution paths: Chaos egg / Haunted skull ] If there was a word to describe what I was feeling right now then I didn¡¯t know it. One minute I was having another argument with Tess about some meaningless bullshit, and now I¡¯m staring at a floating prompt right out of Heroic Age. Either I was tripping out on something Tess had slipped me, not an unlikely scenario as she had employed that tactic before, or this was one of those transmigration or reincarnation scenarios that have become so popular to write about online. I knew it wasn¡¯t a dream because I simply didn¡¯t dream, never had and probably never will, so that only left acid trip or crazy reaction as option. Well regardless I was stuck in the darkness with only this prompt in my head to keep me occupied. If this was just me tripping balls I figured I¡¯d come down soon and then there would be a whole new screaming match between me and my oh so beloved partner, but on the off chance that this was really happening¡­ Yeah, this sucked. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I loved Heroic Age. Tess and I were pretty much addicted to that particular Full Dive MMO, but I wouldn¡¯t want to actually live there. Fantasize about being my character on my down days for a bit of escapism therapy? Sure. Actually live there? Fuck no. I had no delusions about my chances of survival in a chaotic and violent world like Eden were even fucking plants could kill and eat you if you wandered off into the wrong forest. I like my life expectancy on boring and normal old planet earth thank you very much. Plus Tess was on Earth, and sure are relationship was a weird dysfunctional, unhealthy, and dangerously co-dependent thing, but I loved her. Or, well¡­ I needed her, couldn¡¯t imagine life without her and didn¡¯t really want too most times, and would most definitely die for her. That¡¯s love right? I think so, and if not then it¡¯s close enough for me. Long and short of it was I didn¡¯t want to be without Tess, even if I wanted to kill her half the time we¡¯re together, and if this was some transported to another world thing I wouldn¡¯t be with Tess. That is what I¡¯d call a deal breaker. Thus I must be having an acid trip, and when I come down from whatever Tess managed to slip me I would ensure that she suffered beyond all imagining. Maybe I¡¯d shave her head while she slept, and to top things off I¡¯ll but hair dye in her shampoo. Something like neon pink or baby blue, Tess would hate that. Yes, that seemed like adequate revenge. If I really needed to do more I could always hang out with her ex, she¡¯d go nuts seeing me and Kat together doing anything at all. With my retaliation for Tess¡¯s latest ¡®prank¡¯ I decided to just wait things out, after all how high could I possibly be? Turns out, really fucking high. What felt like six or so hours later I was still in the dark with that annoyingly insistent mind game prompt thing flashing at me to pick an evolution. Don¡¯t ask me how I could tell the prompt was flashing when it was all in my head, I just could. Now I knew that some people could go on acid trips for days on end and I also knew that being high as balls could warp a person¡¯s sense of time, but I had just run through all the classical rock songs I knew by heart in reverse alphabetical order and I somehow doubted I¡¯d be able to do that if I was so high I wouldn¡¯t be down for days. Still I must be tripping as the other option was just impossible and I refused to accept it. So how does one pass the time when they are stuck in an unpleasant situation? With music, obviously. I started playing back all the songs I could think off in my head. Eventually I¡¯d be back in my apartment and everything would be back to normal again. And luckily enough for me I knew enough rock music to keep my own radio station afloat for a decade. * I was halfway through P!ATD¡¯s I Write Sins Not Tragedies when something finally changed. ¡°Ok, ok, I give. Seems you need a bit more of a personal touch, some motivation from yours truly to move things own and progress everything. That¡¯s fine, transmigration can be all so very confusing and scary for you insignificant mortals I can understand how you¡¯d be paralysed by your irrational and illogical fear of the unknown. Fragile little babies the lot of you, but hey you keep me in a job so I¡¯m willing to help out from time to time. Escpecially when it serves my best interests to do so. So here I am, rejoice and be glad for god has blessed you with a visitation! Now be a good little puny mortal and just pick one of the options I was so very kind in setting up for you¡­¡± There was an annoying voice breaking up my wonderful mental playback of Brandon Urie singing about what must be one hell of a crazy wedding. It said something about being god and making some choice, never a good sign when god comes to you in your acid trips. Even worse when god sounds like a complete asshole.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Anyway back to the rock! ¡°I hate them, I hate them both¡­ It¡¯s official these two are the worst decision I¡¯ve ever made, and that means a lot coming from ME of all people¡­ Never should have bothered with this, should have just let Athena do it. At least she gets off on all this transdimensional relocation bullshit, no idea what she sees in it. ¡®Oh joy I get to deal with ungrateful assholes from across the multiverse, what fun!¡¯ I swear Athena must be touched in the head or something to actually enjoy any of this. Then again given her family that¡¯s not all that surprising really, she¡¯s probably the most stable of all of them¡­¡± Not the most pleasant thing when a voice drones on and on in the background of your music, in fact it was pretty annoying really. Still if I ignored it I was pretty sure it¡¯d go away. ¡°Ok, enough of this. If you ever want to see Tessa Grant again you¡¯re going to shut the fuck up and listen to me when I speak. Got that Buck-o?¡± It¡¯s almost sad how effective certain threats can be, most times I would laugh off whatever someone said to get me to do what they wanted. Sadly I had a big weak spot that I was just too attached to, bring up Tess and it got disturbingly easy to manipulate me. At least I was aware of what my weakness was, and typically it wasn¡¯t a problem. This time it was. ¡°Ok ¡®God¡¯ what do you want?¡± The voice heaved a sigh of disgust before launching into a rapid fire explanation. ¡°Good, well then let¡¯s get down to business. You, player Nox, are one of the lucky few selected to be relocated into Eden. Why? Above you¡¯re paygrade. All you need to know is that you are an important part of something much bigger than your puny mortal mind could ever hope to comprehend. You will live out a life on Eden, and if you aren¡¯t a complete fuck up of an individual then your experience playing the game Heroic Age should be of advantage to you in your new life. If not, oh well¡­¡± Feeling a bit indignity at this treatment I decided to eloquently voice my dissatisfaction in the most impactful and concise manner I was aware of. ¡°Yeah no, fuck you.¡± Truly even the great bard himself would be envious of my genius word crafting skills. ¡°Oh now that¡¯s adorable, the miserable speck of mortal soul thinks it has a say in things. No, see that¡¯s not how this works. You don¡¯t get an opinion here, in fact if your consent wasn¡¯t so important to my peers then I¡¯d just plop you down onto Eden and wipe my hands off you. However, since this is a new kinder and more benevolent pantheon I¡¯m going to need you to actually make a choice. And since you¡¯re going to be such a little bitch about it, I¡¯m going to make that choice simpler for you. Option one, you pick something to evolve into so you can be born into Eden and I can move on to more important matters. Option two, I send your stubborn ignorant mortal ass down to the deepest pit in the lowest ring of hell and let some demon keep you company until your soul breaks into nothingness from the torment. Go ahead, pick.¡± It probably says something about my personality that my initial response to a divine ultimatum was to refuse on impulse. Then again the rational part of me advised that maybe eternal damnation was maybe something that I didn¡¯t want to experience personally. Of course there was also the all important matter that my heart reminded me of at the last moment before I opened my metaphysical mouth. ¡°What about Tess?¡± I heard another disgusted sigh that somehow managed to seem more disgusted than the first. ¡°The both of you are a major pain in the ass. Your little soulmate is being sent to Eden too, in fact she should be getting born fairly soon. If you want to be with her, your only possible hope is to get onto Eden and track her down. There, happy now?¡± Without hesitation I picked haunted skull in my mind. The flashing prompt that was blaring and strobing in head disappeared the instant I made my choice and I suddenly felt like I was falling from some great height. ¡°Really? Just like that? Fuck I hate mortals¡­ You know what, no, I¡¯m pretty fond of mortals I just hate those two. Yep, let¡¯s leave them a little gift. No one will be made as long as I don¡¯t restrict their growth¡­¡± That was the last thing I heard as I fell away. * [ Species: Undead ] [ Race: Skull ] [ Name: Nox ] [ Class: NONE ] [ Status: Agility- 0 / Defense- 1 / Intelligence- 5 / Resistance- 1 / Soul- 50 / Strength- 0 / Wisdom- 5 ] [ Traits: Undeath / Grim Bloodline / Old Soul / Darkness Affinity / Unholy Affinity / Lesser Physical Damage Reduction / Unholy Immunity / Mind Immunity / Negative Energy Healing ] [ Weaknesses: Lesser Fire bane / Light Bane / Greater holy Bane ] [ Skills: Lesser Negative Aura 1 / Lesser Fear 1 / Lesser Spirit Search 1 ] [ Divinity: Curse of Tongues (Loki) / Blessing of Soul (Earth) ] Great, I had a whole host of information pop up in my head and now I have a migraine. This whole reincarnation transmigration thing was starting out great, just #### great. Wait a second, why can¡¯t I think the word ####. Oh ####. Oh, come on! This is #### Ridiculous. What the ####. Ok, I can admit that I like cursing. In fact #### is one of my favorite words in the language, and now I couldn¡¯t even think the word. This was ####. Oh what the ####. I can¡¯t say #### either? What about ####, ####, ####, ####, ####, or ####. I focused back in on the information in my head and saw the curse, in Heroic Age a curse of tongues will effect language in some way. Loki, divine trickster, basically a godly #### All this taken together and it wasn¡¯t hard to put two and two together to get four. Loki had taken my ability to curse. #### Loki. Skull Daze 1 In Heroic Age there are tons of advantages to being an undead, but there are also plenty of weaknesses to counterbalance those advantages. My old character was actually a half demon, not one of the undead races, but my character did have the trinity classes of grandmaster necromancer, arch warlock, and dark sage. I was more than knowledgeable enough about undead in Heroic age, and I¡¯d rather chance the undead evolutionary path then roll the dice and get something random with a chaos egg. Still being a skull sucked. There was really no getting around the fact that being a skull was pretty much the worst thing ever. Skulls were weak, had no real spells or skills to protect themselves, and were unable to move in any meaningful way outside of clacking their jaws together. That was what I was working with here, an immobile and unprotected body that would break under the swing of any idiot with a mace. Luckily I was in some sort of crypt or something, probably a dungeon or instance, that was absolutely full of skulls and skeletons serving as wall decorations. I fit right in, and unless I brought attention to myself I would probably go completely unnoticed by raiders and hunters alike. I was just another piece of the scenery here, which could at least ensure my survival if some adventurous types decided to go dungeon diving. How I would gain any sort of experience or whatever it was that allowed me to advance and level up was anyone¡¯s guess. Then again I didn¡¯t even have any classes to level, so I was basically clueless as to how I was going to grow past this skull on a shelf position I currently find myself in. Maybe if something collapsed on my shelf close enough to me I could manage to gnaw them to death. I wouldn¡¯t hold out much hope for that though. Really all I could do now was what every serious gamer does when they set up a new character, plan out my character¡¯s future and paths. I was the proto undead, in Heroic Age that meant I could evolve onto any of the undead evolutionary paths. In the end the undead paths lead up to five main end routes, at least five I knew of. There was the lich path, reaper path, spirit king path, vampire path, and the horror path. In my mind the only three options were the lich, reaper, and vampire paths. Liches were essentially pure casters and had the clearest progression paths, but they also tended to evolve into dead ends and had the disadvantage of being unable to enjoy the pleasures of life. Reapers were the strongest undead I knew of and they were basically the perfect race for any combat class, but there was the disadvantage of eating a set amount of souls every week to survive. Then there were vampires, probably the most balanced of the three with the only real downside being the permanent light weakness and the racial blood thirst trait. I didn¡¯t know all the exact details of these evolutionary paths in the game, and who even knew what differences reality would have compared to Heroic Age. Still there was no harm in evolving along the skeleton path until reaching the skeletal lich evolution. That was when the major branching off would begin and paths would start to isolate themselves off from the main undead evolutionary tree. That meant I could evolve four times before having to seriously worry about the advanced evolutionary path stuff. As for my classes I decided it would be best to stick with what I knew best, it shouldn¡¯t be too hard to pick up the novice necromancer and warlock classes. The dark scholar class would be a lot harder to get though, I might need to settle for the cultist or dark mage classes. Regardless of what my third class would be, my main two should be enough to carry me through Eden safely enough. Both necromancers and warlocks had minion summoning which should ease the burden and danger I would have to otherwise personally handle, and they both also had powerful offensive abilities and skills. Add on to those classes that innate defenses that undead have and the resistance traits they pick up and I would be one hard to kill monster. Of course this assumes I can survive long enough to reach that nigh unkillable status. If I could stay under the radar and avoid having any crusades called down on me or bounties put up for my head I figured I could do it. Sure it would be hard, this new life of mine was basically going to be an attempt at a no death run in Heroic Age after all, but it should be possible for me. I had to believe that, otherwise I¡¯d end up a depressed skull stuck on this shelf for all eternity. That was unacceptable, I needed to find Tess. * God it was boring here, I haven¡¯t even seen any other undead. Here was a fact I hadn¡¯t really considered before, undead don¡¯t have stamina. Undead are like perpetual motion machines, they don¡¯t need rest and lesser undead can¡¯t even sleep if they wanted to. I¡¯ve been conscious for at least three days now. Three days of uninterrupted consciousness with quite literally nothing to do but watch the hall in front of my shelf. I¡¯d playback some music in my head, at this point there was basically a constant rock playlist going on endlessly on shuffle in the back of my mind, but it wasn¡¯t helping me stave off the boredom much. See these are the things that weren¡¯t in Heroic Age, the waiting and boredom between the battles and leveling. I would kill for a television, and I would commit genocide on a scale that would make even the most bloodthirsty dictators blush and turn away if I could #### curse again! God #### I have never needed to say #### or #### more than I do at this moment. If I ever came across Loki¡­ Well let¡¯s just say that words haven¡¯t been invented yet to describe what I¡¯ll be putting that #### through before he dies. Oh hey there¡¯s some motivation to take the reaper path, advanced reapers could kill gods in the lore of Heroic Age. I wouldn¡¯t mind trying my hand at god slaying if it was Loki. Sadly, there was little to no chance of that happening. I doubted Loki would ever show up in front of me if I ever gained a way to actually kill him. * Do you know why the caged bird sings? I do. That bird is so #### bored that it would either kill itself or go insane if it didn¡¯t sing. I¡¯m sure that¡¯s it, it has to be. I¡¯m sure any raider who came down my hallway would be shocked at what they found, they might even take me away as some sort of artifact or novelty pet. At this point I didn¡¯t really care. ¡°GET UP, COME ON GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS!¡± ¡°GET UP, COME ON GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS!¡± ¡°GET UP, COME ON GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS!¡± ¡°OPEN UP YOUR HATE, AND LET IT FLOW INTO ME!¡± ¡°GET UP, COME ON GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS!¡± Was belting out Disturbed at the top of my nonexistent lungs smart? No, no it wasn¡¯t. Did it make me feel better? A little. A part of me actually hoped that someone would show up, if only to break up the monotony. Never a good idea to hope for an encounter just so that you can stave off boredom, but that was where I was at now. If I wasn¡¯t so sure that I was sane then I¡¯d be certain that I was going insane right here on my shelf. Not my proudest moment here, but what can I say.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. * It¡¯s the skull equivalent of twiddling my thumbs, but I¡¯ve been playing with my fear and negative aura skills. My current excuse is that they could level up some if I practice them enough, but the truth is I just got tired of singing and needed something to do to stave off the endless boredom. * I¡¯ve named the skeleton hanging on the wall across from me Teddy. Teddy doesn¡¯t talk much, he just likes hanging out. Heh, hanging out. Yes, I¡¯ve sunken to making puns, I don¡¯t even cringe at the bad ones anymore. Me and Teddy have in depth chats about all sorts of things, and by chats I mean I yammer on endlessly about random nonsense at an inanimate skeleton that I pretend is actually listening to me. Objectively I guess what I¡¯m doing is pretty sad, but regardless it¡¯s all I got. Pathetic? Undoubtedly. The lowest point in either of my now two lives? Most definitely. Helpful? Slightly. Thus Teddy and I talk. I tell him about that time I woke up in the middle of the night to find Tess straddling me with a kitchen knife in her hand as she decided whether or not to kill me, he hangs there and doesn¡¯t judge me for my strange life choices that led me to such a scenario being expected for me. I make a joke about a nun and a beaver at a hockey game, Teddy doesn¡¯t laugh and I¡¯m forced to admit the joke wasn¡¯t bad enough to wake the dead. I admit that I unironically enjoy soap operas for their drama and various love polygons, Teddy keeps silent not condemning me for my horrid taste. At some point Teddy became my therapist. We hammered out a lot of my internal issues from my unhealthy codependency with Tess to why I can¡¯t watch Star Trek Evolution without having a minor panic attack. Turns out I was a hot mess of issues, but I think my time with Teddy really helped me to come to terms with that. I¡¯m a mess, so what? Everyone is a mess. Needless to say Teddy and I grew a strong bond over the weeks, or was it months now? Regardless we grew close Teddy and I. I decided I¡¯d be bringing Teddy to life with necromancy at the soonest opportunity, it was the least I could do for my friend after all. * ¡°And when I was four Nancy Stuart, the girl from across the street, kept wanting to play doctor with me when all I wanted to do was play Last Journey on the VR set she had at her house. Turns out I was whoring out my body to her for a whole summer without even knowing it, though later on she did end up getting into medical school so maybe her intentions were purely scientific after all. Regardless that summer I managed to raise my rogue 2kool4scool to level sixty four and discovered my love for VRMMOs. After that I was hooked, and played any decent VRMMO I stumbled across, and begged my parents for the latest VR system each year. But then when I was fifteen the Full Dive capsules came out, and well¡­¡± I laughed a bit as I remembered how I spent every cent I had ever made from cutting lawns and babysitting to buy the full dive bed, and even then I needed to borrow some cash from my parents to afford the thing. It was a glitch filled second hand bed, and I loved the thing like a long lost sibling. ¡°Yeah, after that the VR head set systems just weren¡¯t good enough anymore. With full dive it was like you were really there in the game, all your senses were stimulated and you couldn¡¯t tell the difference between the game and reality. Full dive became the standard within the first year of its release and any media that wasn¡¯t full dive compatible all but died out. And then there were the industries that went through a whole sort of rebirth period under the full dive tech. As a teenage guy I really appreciated what full dive could do with porn, but you know¡­ yeah¡­¡± I coughed to dispel the awkward mood and tried to move past my bit of oversharing there. ¡°So it was right around then that I met Melody, the first real girlfriend I ever had. I freely admit I had no idea what I was doing. I showered that girl with attention and gifts to the point that I might have reasonably concerned her parents, all the while unaware that she was fooling around with three other guys and even one of the hottest cheerleaders at school. Looking back on it, I¡¯m actually impressed Melody managed to joggle us all without one of us being suspicious of her for an entire year. To make things worse was the fact we all knew each other through Melody too, even hung out as a group a few times. Ah, I really was blind back then, but at least I wasn¡¯t alone. We all made a support group for each other after we found out, Melody¡¯s heartbroken harem all helping each other get over the loss of their first love. Kinda funny now that I think about it¡­¡± Junior year of high school was really weird for me after that, which in hindsight might be why I like watching the dramatic love polygons of soap operas. Nothing like living one to make them seem so relatable. ¡°So after that I stayed single until my second year of college, when I met Tess it was¡­ well¡­ It was something at first sight. I¡¯m not even sure how to describe what Tess and I have together, we¡¯re not really ¡®together¡¯ together but we are together. We¡¯ll occasionally date other people, but it never lasts long because we get jealous of whoever the other is seeing and end up convincing the other to dump them. Then again we can¡¯t stand being alone together for very long either because we always end up fighting and resenting each other for something or other, but we also can¡¯t stand being apart either¡­ I remember that Kat once called us friends with benefits, but I don¡¯t think I can honestly say that Tess is my friend. In fact most of the time I¡¯m with her I can¡¯t even honestly claim to like her as a person. In a way I guess we are ¡®soulmates¡¯ I can¡¯t live without her and don¡¯t want too, she feels the same. Kat thinks we¡¯re both insane and was worried that one of us would eventually kill the other, but honestly things never escalated that far. We wouldn¡¯t let things get to the point of physically attacking each other, but psychological warfare was fair game¡­¡± I let out a weary sigh that seemed to well up from my very soul. ¡°I miss Tess. ####, I miss Kat too. I miss my apartment, and my crap job at the office. I even miss that idiot Mackie, even if he was a ####.¡± It was a good thing skulls couldn¡¯t cry, because I was pretty sure I was close to breaking down emotionally right here and now. I was lonely, so lonely I was telling my life story to a #### corpse. I had always been tough mentally, but it had been months now and nothing had changed. I was still alone here in the hallway, I was still a skull unable to do even the most basic of actions, and I still hadn¡¯t found my Tess. I was a geek, I¡¯d read more isekai and transmigration stories then I could count, none of them had the main character stuck alone and helpless in the middle of nowhere. I should be having an adventure, building a harem, and leveling up into some unstoppable overpowered character. Instead I was serving as a decoration on a shelf in the middle of an abandoned hallway. It wasn¡¯t fair. ¡°Tess¡­¡± If there was a way to go back in time I knew for sure that I would have chosen the chaos egg. I wished so badly that I had chosen the chaos egg. Why didn¡¯t I chose the chaos egg again? Oh yeah, I thought I was being clever. I was so cocky, I thought I would have no trouble evolving from a skull all the way to a skeletal lich. It would take me a month, at max, to get to that evolution then I¡¯d end up spending some time deciding my path from their based on my experiences. Hah! If only things were as easy as I had thought back then, as easy as the game was. Shocker, reality wasn¡¯t some game you could breeze through because you¡¯ve played it before. Reality was cruel, unfair, and didn¡¯t give a flying #### about what you thought or planned. I was losing it, I could tell. It was all too much, I had been alone too long with nothing to do. It¡¯s funny, people always say that you can¡¯t actually tell when you¡¯re going insane. I could tell. I was losing my mind, and that made me more scared than anything else in the world. My mind was my sanctum, I didn¡¯t want it altered, inherited, or damaged. That was why I never did drugs, why I stayed away from alcohol, and why I exercised it regularly with brain teasers. Yet, here I was losing the battle for my sanity. Turns out that time and solitude can wear down even the most stalwart of minds. ¡°Hey, Teddy? I know you¡¯re not really there and all, but well¡­ I could really use some help here. So if you could just say something, anything, just this once? Please? For me?¡± I needed to hear someone else¡¯s voice, see something besides the same old wall with the same old skeleton hanging from it in the same old hallway. I needed something, anything, to happen. I needed it because if nothing changed, if things kept going the way they had all these months, then I would lose who I was and probably end up some cackling insane skull on a shelf for all eternity. ¡°Hah, of course. What was I expecting? Of course you can¡¯t talk back Teddy, your just bones¡­ Just bones. Ha. Haha. HahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHA¡­¡± It was funny because I¡¯d been talking to bones for months now, bones didn¡¯t listen and bones can¡¯t talk back. Bones weren¡¯t undead, without a soul bones were just bones. Just bones¡­ ¡°AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!¡± I wonder when it was I started screaming? [ Skill Gained: Ghastly Wail 1 ] Skull Daze 2 [ Skill Gained: Terror 1 ] I felt something pop into my mind but I couldn¡¯t focus enough to release what it was, and honestly I couldn¡¯t bring myself to care. I was going insane, no, I was insane. I was beyond hope, beyond salvation, and beyond reason. I wanted nothing more than to have everything go back to when I was sane and happy and hopeful. Even those first few days as a skull would be fine, I still had hope back then after all. I would give everything to go back, I just couldn¡¯t handle this. It was too much for me, and I could feel my mind breaking. [ Skill Gained: Despair 1 ] Again a flash through my mind, but it didn¡¯t matter. Nothing mattered. Everything was over, all that was left was the noise. The noise I could count on. The noise would keep me safe. I could wrap what¡¯s left of my broken mind up in a protective layer of noise and then my mind wouldn¡¯t break anymore, it¡¯d be safe and I could protect it. I just needed to keep up the noise. So I kept screaming, it was the best I could do and the loudest noise I could make. Luckily I didn¡¯t have any lungs to limit me, so I could scream forever. I could keep up my protective noise layer forever. My mind would be safe forever. [ Skill Gained: Madness 1 ] I could faintly hear something outside of my own noise, that wasn¡¯t good. If that other noise beat my own then who knew what would happen to my poor tattered mind. That other noise was trying to make me crazier than I was now, and that was just unacceptable. I needed to be louder, my noise had to cancel out the other noise. I screamed louder. [ Skill Gained: Panic 1 ] The noise I was making was louder than the other noise, my mind was safe. I was safe. Just needed to keep up the noise and everything would be alright¡­ * [ Racial Class Gained: Undead ] [ Skill Gained: Mental Bastion 1 ] [ Class: Undead Level Up ] [ Skill Gained: Life Detection 1 ] [ Skill Fusion: Ghastly Wail 1 / Lesser Fear 1 / Terror 1 / Despair 1 / Madness 1 / Panic 1 ] [ Unique Skill Gained: NegaVoice 1] I felt my head begin to ache, and that biting pain brought me back to my senses. I had lost myself for a while there, in fact I was totally out of it. I lost time, I had no idea how long I had been¡­ well¡­ screaming to myself. It was embarrassing to even think about what I had been doing, I mean really what could I have possibly been thinking? Screaming will keep me sane? Yeah, that¡¯s the logic of a sane person alright. I was honestly really glad that no one was here to see my little mental breakdown, well no one but Teddy. Teddy wouldn¡¯t tell anyone, I was sure of it. Advantages of having an imaginary friend, they can reliably keep your secrets. Still my head ache reminded me of that time all that information was dumped into my head, so focusing on what I was thinking of as my stat screen I checked to see if anything new had popped up. I wasn¡¯t disappointed. [ Species: Undead ] [ Race: Skull ] [ Name: Nox ] [ Class: Undead LV 2 ] [ Status: Agility- 0 / Defense- 3 / Intelligence- 8 / Resistance- 3 / Soul- 50 / Strength- 0 / Wisdom- 8 ] [ Traits: Undeath / Grim Bloodline / Old Soul / Darkness Affinity / Unholy Affinity / Lesser Physical Damage Reduction / Unholy Immunity / Mind Immunity / Negative Energy Healing ] [ Weaknesses: Lesser Fire bane / Light Bane / Greater holy Bane ] [ Skills: Lesser Negative Aura 1 / NegaVoice 1 / Lesser Spirit Search 1 / Mental Bastion 1 / Life Detection 1 ] [ Divinity: Curse of Tongues (Loki) / Blessing of Soul (Earth) ] I had gained a class, somehow. It also looked like my stat points from the two levels I had gained in that class had automatically been placed in certain stats. What shocked me the most was that each level up had given me five stat points, in Heroic age you would only get one stat point per level up if that so five stat points a level was a bit ridiculous. Still this ¡®Undead¡¯ class was one I had never heard of before so I was a bit weary of it. How it leveled up, what perks it gave, how it meshed with other classes, everything about this class was an unknown. I did not like unknown¡¯s popping up when I least expect them, even when they seem benevolent. Still five stat points a level, that was nothing to scoff at. That meant when I maxed out the class it would end up giving me a total of fifty stat points to work with. Even if were those stat points were assigned was predetermined, that was still five times what I would otherwise normally gain. If the class could be upgraded too, then well it would be utterly broken as a class. The novice classes usually only gave two or three stat points for all ten of their levels, every other level would usually give you a point at the adept level, and at the master level every new level got you a new skill point or two if it was a high tier class, if there was a grandmaster level to the class then that usually meant two or three points a level. Five points a level at the first rank of the class was just plain overpowered. Not that I¡¯d complain, I need overpowered cheat classes right now like a fish needs water. Without them I¡¯d surely die.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Then there were the skills. I¡¯d never heard of NegaVoice, but detect life and mental bastion were common skills that most if not all undead had. Mental bastion prevented the natural degradation of an undead¡¯s mind, a useful skill when undead had an unlimited natural lifespan and were prone to madness, and was likely what helped me regain my senses. Then there was detect life which let undead sense the presence of the living, the skill was a good counter to stealth skills when I played Heroic Age and I had a feeling that it would be supper useful in my new life. I felt a bit calmer now, but then I noticed the soul stat and almost had a fit. I had thought that the stat was five, but I had missed a zero. I had fifty soul, that was just about unheard of. Even my old character in Heroic Age only had thirty six soul, and that was with soul being an important stat for summoners that I had invested heavily in. If I had a throat I would have nervously swallowed, as it was I was trying to hold in a burst of insane evil laughter that wanted to erupt from me. Fifty soul, that was enough to not just cow an archdemon but to tame and enslave it outright. It might even be enough to handle one of the sin rulers. As a warlock I¡¯d be unstoppable, and as a necromancer¡­ I imagined armies of undead numbering in the thousands. ¡°Oh yeah, this is more what I was expecting for a transmigrated reincarnator. Overpowered and cheat like.¡± Still, all the soul in the world wouldn¡¯t help me if I didn¡¯t have the classes, spells, and intelligence to actually use it. Until then it just served as a good mental defense stat which was utterly redundant to me as an undead being. ¡°I really need to get the mana sense and mana manipulation skills soon¡­¡± Once I had those two skills I could start working towards obtaining the warlock and necromancer classes. And I guess with my weird undead class I didn¡¯t have to worry about picking a third class for my class trinity. I just hoped that the undead class complemented the other two, I thought it might given the way it distributed that ridiculous number of stat points and how plenty of undead casters were also necromancers¡­ Still you could never be sure. ¡°Alright, so I need to figure out how I leveled up while I was insane and just do that while I¡¯m not insane, simple.¡± Skulls could evolve at common level three so I only had one more level to go. One more level and I¡¯d be able to move under my own power. I honestly never thought that there would be a day that I would be longing to be a simple skeleton, but here I am. I was tired of the skull life, the skull life sucked monkey ####. I was ready to be a skeleton, more than ready really. Funny since my original plan had me skipping the skeleton phase altogether with a level three caster class so I could directly become a skeleton mage, but then again life never seems to go to plan for me. Maybe I shouldn¡¯t even bother to plan anything out anymore, all it seems to do is encourage fate to find ways to have the plan blow up in my face¡­ So, all I have to do is figure out how I leveled up by screaming. Huh, maybe I¡¯m a DBZ character? No, there¡¯s no way someone can power up just because they scream really loud right? There has to be some other circumstance that popped up that I unwittingly triggered while I was insane, or maybe it was just the act of going crazy itself that did it. That said, just from a purely scientific perspective it would be irresponsible of me to not even attempt the method that has been proposed¡­ ¡°Ok, DBZ power up screaming attempt number one. Go. RAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!¡± * So screaming was a flop. I knew it would be, but somehow it was a little disappointing. Oh well, can¡¯t use anime logic in the real world. Although apparently this real world functions on video game logic, so maybe anime logic not working out should be more of a surprise. Maybe I need to go on a journey, build up a group of close friends that are like family to me, then have those friends get endangered so I can get a massive power boost. No, nevermind, too much work for too little return¡­ Regardless screaming was useless, which of course meant I had no clue as to how I managed to level up. It would be great if there was a guide or something to tell me how all this stuff worked, at this point I¡¯d even settle for vague hints from on high about how to advance. Of course I didn¡¯t have that, all I had were my memories of Heroic Age and some common sense stuff. Killing things gets you EXP, get enough EXP and you eventually level up. There might be hidden requirements or prerequisites, but a big part of things is just killing enough until you get the level up prompt. I didn¡¯t have an experience bar, but I¡¯m just going to assume that in this world leveling up functioned the same as the game. If that wasn¡¯t the case then I was probably screwed regardless of what I did. Actually that was the same with a lot of what I was thinking about this world, I was assuming that lots of stuff was the same as or similar to how things were in the game because the other option was that I was doomed. Ignorance, sometimes it was bliss and other times it was just straight up frustrating. Still my ignorance was what allowed me to hope, and at this point hope was really all I had to my name. On the bright side I had plenty of time, an abundance of time really. All of eternity so long as nothing destroys me. Even better was that the mental bastion skill would keep me from going crazy from all that time and loneliness, at least it probably would. It should be a help at least. I really hoped that the skill would help keep me sane, I hated the idea of losing myself like I had before once again. I hated the idea of being out of control of myself more than I hated the idea of Tess hooking up with some other guy, and that was enough hate alone to start all sorts of wars. So I had all the time in the world to try and level up, what I don¡¯t have is anything to hunt or farm EXP off of. That left me with trying to guess what the random special actions and requisites were to level up the class in the passive way, sadly I had never been good at passively leveling. Things would be so much easier if I could just massacre my way to a higher level, or at least had a class that I understood how to passively level like warlock or dark sage. Then again I wouldn¡¯t be able to passively level either of those classes stuck in this hallway anyway, there was nothing to read so no research can be done and I can¡¯t collect souls or make deals while I¡¯m all alone. Ah, nothing like being unable to level up when you¡¯re right on the cusp of an evolution. * In the end there was nothing I could do right now to level up right now, but that didn¡¯t mean that there was nothing I could do. There was an often overlooked priest and monk skill that Tess told me about that could help grow your wisdom stat by a couple points and increase your mana pool¡¯s size, focused meditation. Now Tess hadn¡¯t told me how to gain that skill, or if she did I hadn¡¯t paid attention to her which I was now sincerely regretting, but since the skill was called focused meditation I had a few guesses on how to pick it up. Closing my eyes, or since I didn¡¯t really have eyes I guess I just blinked off my sight but I liked to think of it as simply closing my eyes so that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to call it, I turned my focus inward. [ Species: Undead ] [ Race: Skull ] [ Name: Nox ] [ Class: Undead LV 2 ] [ Status: Agility- 0 / Defense- 3 / Intelligence- 8 / Resistance- 3 / Soul- 50 / Strength- 0 / Wisdom- 8 ] [ Traits: Undeath / Grim Bloodline / Old Soul / Darkness Affinity / Unholy Affinity / Lesser Physical Damage Reduction / Unholy Immunity / Mind Immunity / Negative Energy Healing ] [ Weaknesses: Lesser Fire bane / Light Bane / Greater holy Bane ] [ Skills: Lesser Negative Aura 1 / NegaVoice 1 / Lesser Spirit Search 1 / Mental Bastion 1 / Life Detection 1 ] [ Divinity: Curse of Tongues (Loki) / Blessing of Soul (Earth) ] Well this could be a problem. When I tried meditating it caused my stat screen to pop up in my head, which of course broke my concentration and killed my chance at meditating. I tried it again, and once again my concentration was broken by my stat screen. And thus started a vicious cycle.