"So, do I have one?" Never had I felt more like a child than when I said those words…
And it was with anticipation that I waited for the system to answer me.
Eventually the board changed again.
[User… you went through an, unusual reincarnation process. As you know, your soul is from another reality, one with a different way for souls to interact with the power system]
'Wait, what?' But before I could question the system on what it meant by that, it continued.
[the world you were from, we cannot speak for it, but in this reality, souls hold a special place in the production of magic. Within this world, every soul has something known as a 'Reverberation' and when this reverberation interacts with magic, it becomes attributed based off the 'song' of that person's soul.]
"And since I don't have one of these reverberations…"
[you have no Attribute, effectively, you can't use any kind of magic except for things that are simply Mana Manipulation…]
"Oh…"
- - - -
Drip…
'Ueghe…'
Drip…
'Ehhhgu- wha. Wha'wazzat?…' I think as I groan and turn away from the cold thing dripping on my forehead.
Drip…
But the noise of dripping liquid falling through out the room echoes into my ears. And the pain in my back and torso have me groaning even more.
The light beaming onto my face and the feeling of the cold breeze that makes its self known, gets me shivering.
My bleary eyes shift around, a bit too small part of me expecting to be attacked or something.
But the only thing I'm attacked by as I sit up, disregarding the dull pain all around my body and the intense pain in my side, and hand, is a cold ass droplet of something falling from the hole above me…
Drip…
I glare up at the annoying drops, and after another one hits me right on the nose, I shuffle away from the spot.
Only for my brain to play catch up with my instincts, and for my mind to snap to a hazy awakeness as I realize that, what just fell on me was water!
'Finally! Something other than blood!' I think as I shuffle back to the place where the water is dripping from.
I stay there for a bit. Trying to adjust to the bright light from what I assume is the sun coming in from on high, and feeling dribbles of water fall onto my tongue.
After a bit, the slowness of the water's dripping down starts to get to me and I look around sluggishly with ever so slightly clearer eyes.
The room I'm in is cloaked in shadows, but not to the point of complete darkness. The light that streams into the room is refracted in the particles of dust that are whipped up from the occasional wind from the outside air that makes it's way in from the same hole the sunlight does.
Due to the heat of the sun, a small bit of the hale has begun melting down into the hole.
In The center of the room is a small pool of a pitch black substance that could have once been thought of as blood... But as I look closer, the reflection of the sun in the darkness reveals a silvery sheen. besides that, the only thing that remains here from before is the rune on the floor. Oddly enough, as I look at it, it makes absolutely no sense to me, and to be honest, I have no idea how that thing works at all. I take a note to draw it all out in the runic board to see what it actually does exactly…
Speaking of the boards, I look around to see if the system is still here.
Not seeing it, I call out "System"
And before my eyes a dark grey board manifests.
[Ding.]
[yes, User?]
"Uh… there was, I think, just before I fell unconscious, something about rewards..?"
[ahh that yeah, I'll pull up the log of what you got, okay?]
I nod as the board changes to show a new message.
[ user has chosen to randomly select one reward ]
[ reward selection in progress, please wait, please wait, please wait ]
[ reward one selected ]
[ item name: GRINNING CRESCENT MOON PENDANT.
Item rank: UNCOILED.
Item details: UNDER THE MOON OF A CARDINAL SOLSTICE, THE IMPOSSIBLE HAS BEEN MADE MANIFEST.
Item functions: LUNAR BOOST: SPEED AND JUMP DISTANCE GAIN INCREASE IN RELATION TO CURRENT PHASE OF LUNAR CYCLE.
Item flaws: SOLAR JUDGEMENT: TWO TIMES SLOWER IN THE LIGHT OF DAY.
Item bonuses: ONCE IN A BLUEMOON: USER CAN ONLY TAKE THIS ARTIFACT OFF WHEN ALONE UNDER A BLUE MOON.]
…
What?
I was speechless at the Board, it was terrible, but what was with that 'bonus'? Shouldn't that go in the Flaw category?
I don't think I've seen a single blue moon in my entire time here!
And that fucking flaw…
Pinching my nose I take a deep breath, and ask "and, where exactly, is this, pendant?"
My suspicions are confirmed as I open up my eyes and see a new message…
[it was automatically equipped upon manifestation into reality… ]
I look down and yep, there's a weird ass necklace around my neck.
"Of fucking course…"
It is as the system said, a kin to a crescent moon in style, what it hadn't mentioned, was the ebony black, perfectly spherical crystal in the center, or the seven stars within the crescent that curved with it.
The thought is enough to get me asking. "What does it mean by, Uncoiled rank, i thought you did the ranking system as F to S or something.?"
[ahh, no, the current rankings used by the tarnish system are as follows from weakest to strongest;
F-Rank: Below capability Mortal - JUNK
E-Rank: Common capability Mortal - COMMON.
D-Rank: Upper capability Mortal - UNCOMMON.
C-Rank: Peak capability Mortal - RARE.
B-Rank: Beginning Immortal - VERY RARE.
A-Rank: Ascendent Immortal - MYTHICAL.
S-Rank: Peak Immortal - LEGENDARY.
X-Rank: Heavenly Immortal - GODLY.
Please note, these rankings are based off of power level, not usefulness to user.]
'This is some Xianxia Novel type shit… if I act out of character, will I be electrocuted or something..?' I think with a small sweat drop falling off my forehead.
[what the Function board was referring to was, well, a bit of context, the function Board, is actually a multitude of much smaller, typically one or two use, systems that conglomerated into one. Upon fulfillment of one of the hundreds of hyper specific unlock conditions, that will be your version of the board for the rest of your time with us. The rest of the mini boards remain in stasis.
The Boss Battle Function, it's one of the more uncommon unlock conditions, what with things like, flirt with someone, or gather five herbs, or even just stand in snow for an hour straight… suffice to say, Boss Battle hasn't been active since we had a status board, and the ranking system we used back then was, way, more esoteric and a bit confusing if we're being honest.]
I started trying to take off the pendant about half way through all that, the TL:DR is just that the Function I unlocked is really old, and accidentally used an old ranking format or something…
As I skimmed over the details most of my attention was focused on getting this fucking pendant off, my effort was met with not a single bit of success as the necklace tightened around my neck every time I tried to take it off.
'God this sucks…. Why my neck? Why couldn't it have been like, a bracelet or something..?' I think this as I get a bit more desperate and reach for my knife, still dug up to the hilt in stone.
As I do, and with a clean snap. only the handle of my knife comes back to me, and the rest, meaning the entirety of the blade, is broken and left in the floor…
I take a deep inhale and then sigh out as I-
…
…
…
-After that well needed de-stress session, I walk out into the non magical darkness of what I think is the door way to the place I came here from.
I say that, because there are bloody footprint wraps lightly imprinted into the floor.
"Lotta blood…"
As I moved through the darkness, I called the system to me, it had been keeping at an oddly far away distance since the… de-stressing I did in that room.
"So, just so I can get ahead of it, or at least get an idea of what I'm supposed to do to get it, what are the unlock conditions for the Skill Tree Board?"
[it's nothing you can do early, so it's fine to tell you a bit sooner, the condition for gaining that Board, is to gain a Grimoire.]
"Oh, and how do Grimoire choose their wielders?" I speak up with a blank look on my face.
[oh that's easy! Through their attribute.]
"If I could strangle you, I would, I really would." I say as I gather mana in my hands to start engraving a rune into the floor of the dark room I was now in, that being the room I was once completely lost in.
At the time, I Hadn't given myself the time to explored what with all of the potentially creepy ass, attack puppets -that turned out to be people- out for my blood…
As I ignore the system that has made my life, so, so much more difficult, and as I finish the runic array, it is a bit weaker than one would expect, but a ton of mana was recently evacuated into space, so it's to be expected.
I gather the broken parts of the departed, each one a monument to my sins. And put them into a pile, and begin the process of sorting through their body parts, until I find all the pieces of each person.
The pain in my stomach gets stronger, and I throw up, or at least try to, a few times, but eventually, I have all twenty six corpses as close to complete as I can make them.
I then carry each shattered corpse to the now roaring fire rune.
And bow to their corpses, until their completely and only ash, before continuing on to the next.
There is only a mass of pale ash in a still roaring fire after I finish. I don't bother to dismantle it, as this will be my source of warmth for a while.
I bow to them one last time, on my knees, I pray for those I killed, and those I wasn't able to give even this farce of a funeral to.
I then continue inwards towards the back wall, where the lever was. In order to get to not only the bear's carcass, but also, to turn off, or atleast, diminish, that runic array I made before.
I was more out of it back then, had less of an understanding of things, I'll make sure that I won't die with regrets.
As I walk, I also find on the ground, a slightly dirty piece of paper.
'Oh that map!' I think with as much elation as my body can experience in it's dead tired state.
Though, with how I am right now, I'll leave trying to comprehend this thing to future me.
I pull the lever, fully expecting nothing to happen. But to my surprise, I fall onto my butt as the mechanism actually swings me and the wall around completely.
Leading back to the bright room, it's easier to look at this time, having already slightly adjusted to the sun, those papers are still on the floor. And there's still that green goop in that vile, and I make a note to come back for it.
I look into the still open door, expecting to see a void of darkness sure, but at least one that had been diminished a bit, like the rest… though, I suppose it only dimmed at all due to the proximity it was to the massive mana sink necessary to power such a spell…
But no, still the same Dark as from the beginning of this whole
Mess… still the same impearceable void. Frustrated a bit, I look at the map again and…
There isnt a crazy long hallway, anywhere in this schematic.
Either I'm losing it even more… or this is a secret tunnel.
"This is some bullshit is what it is…" I say as I willingly walk straight into the bullshit. That is, I walk directly into the still magical darkness…
- - - -
The mold is clinging to my mind, it whispers to me, the divine truths of this world, and I must respect it's wishes.
have fun.
Thank you for reading.
Good night.