Chapter 23: A [Blessing]?

Crimson stared at Raften with a stunned expression, then posed a very important question.

“Why are you in a hot tub playing a dating sim?”

Like he’d asked, the mostly invisible Overseer was sitting in a hot tub, a towel wrapped around his invisible head, and his unseen hands holding a controller, while on a massive Tv in front of him a dating simulator was running.

Crimson was completely nonplussed, then thought about it for a second and accepted it. He’d forgotten how random Raften was. Though that did nothing to help the fact that he was in a bit of a bad mood, being struck by sudden pain and left on the verge of death was…annoying - to put it mildly. Extremely mildly.

“Ahh, this? Don’t worry about it! Want to join me?” Raften said gleefully.

“No.” It was a cold response, and there might have been a bit of bloodlust in it, but he was working hard to conceal it.

“Ahh, well, that’s fine. Anyway, how was connecting to the system?”

Crimson’s face twisted in confusion, “I haven’t connected to the system, that’s three days away.”

He couldn’t see Raften’s response clearly due to his mostly invisible nature, but Crimson guessed that he shrugged.

“It’s your fault for making assumptions, and you know what they say about assumptions? They make an-“

Crimson cut him off before he could finish, “Get to the point. What assumption did I make?”

“You assumed that it was your birthday on Earth that counted, not your body’s birthday. Well, not that it matters too much. It’d be easy to make that mistake, but I am surprised that it never occurred to you. I thought you were smart?”

Crimson winced, Raften wasn’t wrong, but hearing that kind of insult from him was especially derogatory, but it didn’t make him angry since it was true. Looking back on the past eleven months, he was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to him either, but he’d never had a reason to question it.

It wasn’t like Raften had ever given him a hard date, he’d just said that Crimson would connect to the system on his 16th birthday, it had been a complete oversight that it hadn’t been the birthday he thought it was…

But that meant that his body was sixteen, that meant…that his body had a birthday.

“Raften, what is going on with my body? What race am I?”

The voice that echoed from the Overseer was languid, and rather frustrating to listen to as he said, “Well, as you surmised you are a Half, and I can confirm that you are Half-High Human. I know it’s hard to find information on in Falst, but Kosoka is the ancestral home of High Humans. Your old man is the High Human by the way.”

Crimson’s brows creased as he asked, “And my mother?”

A chuckle was heard, like that of a mischievous child and Raften said, “Go to Kosoka when you’re stronger. Maybe about Level 50? You’ll be able to find her if you do some investigating.”

“And you’re not inclined to tell me now?”

“No,” Raften’s cheerful voice clashed with Crimson’s icy one, “It’s more fun if you find out on your own, and it will be more meaningful to you as well. Besides, if I told you then it would be a problem, I can see how you’d respond.”

Crimson gritted his teeth, extremely tempted to enact some form of violence on the flippant God, but knowing that it wouldn’t help if he did, so instead he asked, “Can you at least tell me my…”

Crimson froze, realizing that even though he was claiming both the body and the parents of it, they weren’t actually his.

Raften chuckled, “I assume you were about to ask about your mother’s race? Not telling, but I’ll narrow things down for you a little, just for fun. Your mother is a member of one of the Fairy Races.”

Crimson, still caught in the dismay over his realization, was dealt an extra blow as he suddenly had to deal with an even wider pool of races than he’d originally surmised, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get anything more out of Raften regarding his mo-…his body’s mother.

“I think you still need to answer my other question, whose body is this? You told me that you made it, so I didn’t have any issues living in it, but now I find out that I’m riding around in someone else’s body have to track down their parents. What is going on?”

“You’re over thinking it, that body is yours. The occupant before you was merely an artificial spirit keeping the body alive until you could claim it. It is your body, and everything about it is yours to own and claim completely guilt free - including YOUR parents.” Raften said in the most serious voice Crimson had heard him speak in, though that might just be because he seemed close to failing a route in the game he was playing.

The answer still wasn’t good enough for Crimson, so he asked, “But you said you made the body, how does that line up if it has parents?”

Raften’s response was heavy, “Because I had to interfere to allow you to survive. You’ve been wondering what kind of Half you were? Without my help, you’re Abhorred. You would be dead, but with my help you became Favored.

“Allow me to tell you what kind of God I am, what my [Authority] is. I am a God of [Possibilities], you might rather call me a God of [Time] or [Realities], but it is more accurate to say that I am a God of [Possibilities], and I used my [Authority] to interfere and allow you to survive, then I worked with the God of Earth to create an artificial spirit to keep your body alive until you could claim it.

“Crimson, that body is yours, it was tailor made to fit your soul and anyone else who tried to occupy it would die. Also, that name that you hate so much? That came from your mother, not me. Claim what is yours and stop lamenting over something that doesn’t matter. IF need be, I’ll grab the God of Earth and have him use his [Truth Authority] to make you understand that I’m being honest.”

The words Raften said were heavy, they could easily have belonged to someone shouting or enraged, but his tone was mild and firm, and because of what he said, Crimson dropped to his knees, stunned. Any single revelation Raften had given him today wasn’t too shocking, but the combination - as well as the person sharing the revelations - shocked him enough that it felt like his mind had short circuited.

It was unreasonable, and he knew it, but he was furious at Raften. He hated that he had to find out this way, he abhorred the idea of having to find the parents of this body and look them in the eye knowing that he wasn’t their son. It felt like he was stealing someone else’s future, regardless of Raften’s ‘comfort;’ it didn’t change how he felt.

“Well,” Raften said, cutting through his thoughts, “we’re getting off topic, there were some things we needed to discuss.”

Crimson got shakily to his feet and faced the flippant God, ready for whatever else he’d be hit with.

“First, you will be receiving a [Rizvim], yours will be called [Rean], which will prevent you from being able to read [Skill Descriptions].”

Crimson felt his anger surge further, a [Rizvim] were a kind of limiter, placed on a [Blessing] to weaken the holder. They were similar to curses he’d seen in games back in his old world: a level where you had half health, attacks of a certain type did less damage, slower xp gain, and others. They were very rare, to the point that he could say that it was probably one of the things he knew the least about, but Halfs, specifically Favored, were the most frequent recipients of [Rizvim].

Raften continued, “You’re quite lucky to receive a [Rizvim] like this one, [Rean] is exactly the thing you need to propel your strength even higher.”

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘propel my strength higher?’ Isn’t the point of a [Rizvim] to weaken the person with it? Kind of like balancing an overpowered weapon in a video game?” Crimson asked in surprise.

“No, definitely not! You know how people grow the most under pressure? It’s that kind of idea, a [Rizvim] is there to put pressure on you to help you grow to even higher heights. Let me answer before you ask, there are three types of [Rizvim]: Give, Take, and Twist. Most people don’t even think of the Give type as a [Rizvim], they just see it as an additional gift from the Gods, but there are some that get pretty nasty. Those under this category might give a specific [Skill] or conditional buff.

“It’s the Take and Twist types that people mostly think of when they talk about [Rizvim]. Take removes something from you, stuff like slower XP gain or a loss in [LUC]. Twist, takes something you already have and changes it. There’s actually a guy traveling to Falst right now who has a Twist type [Rizvim], it forcibly changes all of his emotions in battle to rage, and he has to work hard and constantly to control his temper.

“Like I said earlier, [Rizvim] are there to help you grow stronger, either by overcoming them, using them, or avoiding them. It also helps us out quite a bit on the administrative side, but I’m not really allowed to talk about that. We did argue for a while about which [Rizvim] we should give you, but the Goddess of Wisdom and I agreed, then got everyone else to agree, that withholding information would be the best kind of [Rizvim] for you. Your inquisitive nature means that it won’t be a handicap, but a learning curve, and the [Skill] I created for you at your request will fill in any gaps that may form.”

Crimson folded his arms in thought, but didn’t get any time to process what he’d just heard as Raften continued speaking, “The second thing I wanted to talk about is that you’ve been quite troublesome to us. When I originally placed you in that body you had a Rank 7 Affinity for Mana, rare, yes, but not a problem. Over the course of this year, you have increased that Affinity to Rank 10. That…has never happened. Literally, it’s never happened before, we don’t have any way to deal with it, we don’t have enough data to create the infrastructure to support the kind of abilities you’d gain from it. What kind of monster are you?” Raften let out a long sigh, “Because of that, your Affinity will ‘officially’ be set to Rank 9 until we collect enough data to create a Rank 10.

“Unfortunately, we also don’t have the infrastructure for Rank 9, so your current capabilities are more in line with Rank 8. We do have about 80% of the Rank 9 infrastructure set up, so we’ll need your help if you want to speed up the process. I’ll send the details later via [Quests].

“So, if you wake up and wonder why your mana doesn’t listen to you like it used to…that’s why. Since you’re smart, you’ll eventually realize that this is a good thing, but I’ll leave you to figure that out for yourself.”

Raften fell silent, the only sounds were the gentle burble of the hot tub and the clicking of the controller in his hands.

Crimson dearly wanted to take the time to process everything he’d learned and shout at Raften a little, but knew that he was probably on a time limit, so he pushed past his momentary frustration and curiosity to ask some questions that he’d had since learning more about the system.

“Raften, how much time do we have?” Crimson asked.

“A few hours, why?”

“I have some questions for you.”

“May I have mercy on myself.”

———

Crimson woke up on the ground as sore as possible. Everything hurt, from his bones to the follicles of his hair. That, from what he’d heard, was fairly normal.

Connecting to the system wasn’t a simple or pleasant experience, and it was normal for people to take a few days off before, and almost a week after their 16th birthday to deal with the pain.

No, the concern was that even his mana veins hurt. Like Raften had warned him, the mana that had once suffused his entire body was now completely confined once more to his veins, and it felt sluggish in comparison to how it had been in the past. It felt like someone had drained all the blood from his body and replaced it with molasses.

With a groan and a heave, he pushed himself up off the ground and staggered over to his bed stiffly. Normally, pain wasn’t an issue for him, he could push past or ignore it, but this kind was especially difficult, and was only exacerbated by the strong sense of hollowness he felt from the apparent lack of mana in is body.

He crumpled on his bed and stifled another moan. After laying facedown on the bed for a moment, he smacked his lips a couple times. His mouth had the disgusting feeling that only came with not brushing his teeth before bed for weeks: a combination of bad breath and odd feeling teeth from the built up crud on them.

A strong and startling realization hit him as he laid on the bed: he was hungry, the hungriest he could ever remember having been in his life time. He was also extremely thirsty, like he hadn’t drunk anything in a day. The two basic needs clawed at him and forced him to take action.

With a strong force of will, he got up, brushed his teeth, and slowly limped down the stairs to the front room. After asking the owner of his inn, he found that he’d been out for approximately two days, which was a bit stunning, but certainly not a record time for speed or longevity. Verity had informed him that she’d been out for four days when she connected, and he’d heard of people who were up and about after just six hours - though they’d probably been in the same condition he was currently in.

With a sigh and a wince, Crimson paid the owner 40 Royals to send his son out to buy food, and the owner got him a pitcher of water which he drained twice before his son returned.

Out of concern, the owner offered to take him upstairs to his room, but Crimson declined - he’d had enough of people ‘assisting’ him in his past life. He’d honestly rather crawl up the stairs than be carried. It would be another story if he was gravely injured, but he could still move - albeit with difficulty.

He tried to sit on his bed and missed, landing directly on the ground next to his bed. With a deep sigh, he embraced his own uncharacteristic sense of laziness and devoured the food that had been purchased for him. Bread, fruit, a few meat skewers, and some alcohol that he casually set to the side - he’d give it to Verity later.

He found a vegetable approximating a carrot at the bottom of the bag and began to gnaw on it as if he was taking our his repressed frustration on it.

He’d learned a lot from Raften, this interview had been far more informative than the previous one had been, though the last one had more as far as quantity, the most recent discussion was qualitative, and extremely so at that. Even the questions Raften refused to answer were informative.

They even set a return appointment: when Crimson [Progressed] at Lv.50. It was an important thing to note, since Raften had refused to tell him any specifics about how the system functioned beyond Lv.50, and had mostly dropped hints and suggestions to help him prepare.

As to be expected though, the first few conversation topics of his meeting with Raften were a bit…overshadowing. Like a cut on the pad of a finger, it just wasn’t something he could ignore or forget, but the unfortunate thing was that he didn’t have an answer.

Should he seek out ‘his’ parents? Avoid them? Should he have any guilt for being the new owner of his body? He didn’t have any answers, and he probably wouldn’t for a while. Fortunately, it wasn’t like he had a true time limit, but it did seem like Lv.50 would force his hand.

With another sigh, he laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling, all he could do now would be to wait. It was galling, but there was nothing to do but wait, and wait, and wait.

He spent an hour, staring at the ceiling, forcibly restraining his desire to cast magic, study, or work out. Raften had given him a few warnings about waiting until at least 12 hours after his [Blessing] had finalized to do anything to raise [Skills], and it gnawed at him, like leaving a worm to crawl under his skin without stopping it or doing anything.

Finally, after the sun had set, he heard a chime in his ear, and a few words appeared in the air in front of him:

—————

-Connected.

-Prioritized Manual Installation Complete…

-Stand by…

-Calculating…

-Completed.

-Welcome, access [Blessing]?

—————

Crimson grinned, finally!

—————

-Request Accepted.

-Calculating User Data…

-Stand by…

-Administrator Assigned.

-Manual Settings Applied.

-Generating Basic Information…

-Generating Basic Statistics…

-Error, difficulty reading data set [Race], contacting Administrator…

-Manual Race Set.

-Procedures Complete, verify information:

-Name: Crimson

-Race: Half (High Human/???) -Age: 16

-Affiliation: [Adventurer’s Guild: Brass]

-Active Title: [Empty] [Blessings of Trans’Du’Niir] [Rean]

-Titles: Lucky

-Health (HP): 40/100 Regen/s: 1.7

-Magic (MP): 190/190 Regen/s: 2.0

-Fatigue (FP): 70

-Condition: Weakened

-Class: [Empty]

-Sub-Class: [Locked]

-Sub-Class: [Locked]

-Status:

Strength (STR): 17 Agility (AGI): 15

Constitution (CON): 14 Vitality (VIT): 17

Intelligence (INT): 19 Wisdom (WIS): 20

Perception (PER): 19 Willpower (WIL): 22

Charisma (CHA): 7 Luck (LUC): 90

-Affinities

-Elemental

Fire: 5 Water: 5

Earth: 5 Wind: 5

Lightning: 5 Metal: 7

Magma: 5 Ice: 5

-Dynamic

Holy: 5 Profane: 5

Purity: 6 Corruption: 5

Life: 5 Death: 5

Mana: 9 (10) Void: 2

-Confirm Information:

-Information Confirmed.

-Reading Preliminary Data…

-Administrator has applied a [Skill Set]

-Acquired [System Instincts]

-Due to overflowing data, User will receive 4 relevant [Skills]

-Acquired [Sword Mastery]

-Acquired [Mana Influence]

-Acquired [Mana Sense]

-Acquired [Linguist]

-User has met the qualifications for over 10 [Skills]

-Two [Skills] will be randomly generated from qualified pool

-Acquired [Secret Sense]

-Acquired [Basic Calligraphy]

-Applying new [Skills]…

-[Title(s)] gained:

-Acquired [Linguist]

-Acquired [Mentor]

-Applying Titles…

-Applied [Skills] and [Titles]

-Calculating [Classes]…

-Remaining Calculation Time: 12:59:45

-Administrator note: Get some rest Crimson-chan, don’t forget that you can’t Level ANY [Skills] until this timer runs out in 13 hours. ;P

—————

Crimson looked at his [Blessing], his initial excitement had burned out due to Raften’s note. ‘Crimson-chan?’ This Gods cursed weeb!

With a sigh, he looked over his [Blessing] once more. Like he’d expected, his [Inventory] - which had ten slots - was empty, he didn’t have any [Rituals] revealed, and he still didn’t know his mother’s race!

Well, aside from those few points he was quite happy with his [Status]. There were definitely some [Rituals] he’d need to preform to get everything exactly how he liked - like the one to add a clock to his [Blessing] - but he felt he’d done well in preparing during the year.

He didn’t know the average stats for a High Human, but a regular human had stats around ’10’ as the average, while Crimson’s stats, when averaged out, were about 16.5, leaving him with quite a running start…though he did have to admit some confusion since he’d calculated his [STR] and [AGI] to be higher than the presented value based on comparisons to other people. His estimate had placed them both above 20, which was a conclusion he’d reached after armwrestling a lot of sweaty men and women, as well as racing them.

He supposed the difference could be down to technique, but it would require more testing to be certain.

Rather, there were three things on his [Blessing] that he found more interesting than anything else, and they were all in the [Skills] portion of his [Blessing]

—————

-Skills

-Bloodline: [Eyes of Change: [???] 1/10]] 1/10, [???] 0/0

-Class: None

-Sets: [System Instincts: [Skill Peak] 1/10, [Locked], [Locked], [Locked]] 1/10

-General: [Sword Mastery] 1/100, [Mana Influence] 1/10, [Mana Sense] 1/10, [Linguist] 1/10, [Secret Sense] 1/10, [Basic Calligraphy] 1/10

—————

As could be expected, he had a [Bloodline], it didn’t surprise him too much, though there had been a decent chance it would have been a [Racial Skill] instead of a [Bloodline] because of his mother’s influence. It was definitely responsible for his weird eye contact ability, the one that allowed him to push with his will, though what was confusing was that his [Bloodline] was very odd to look at. Because of [Rean], he couldn’t be certain of how it worked, but it seemed like there was a [Skill] in a [Skill]. Maybe it was a [Skill Set]?

It was his best guess since [System Instincts] was a [Skill Set], and they were both laid out similarly.

The second thing that caught his attention had been [System Instincts], [Skill Sets] were rare, but whether or not they were valuable was up in the air. Each of the [Skills] in a [Set] all had their own individual levels, and the [Set] itself had a level. To [Progress] a [Skill Set] all the [Skills] in the [Set] had to be Lv.10 as well, which mean that progress was staggered and difficult, but the upside was obvious: you got several [Skills] for the price of one.

It appeared that [System Instincts] had four [Skills], but that he only had access to the first one. He could probably gain access to the others by working on the first one, maybe he had to max it? Again though, he had an issue with figuring out what it did.

[Rean] was quite annoying…but he had to admit that finding out on his own what it did sounded a little more appealing than just getting it handed to him. He was a bit concerned that he might be screwed in the future by not having access to [Skill Descriptions], but since there was no way to undo a [Rizvim] he might as well make the best of it.

…There was no lying to himself, once he’d worked past the shock of it, he reveled in the fact that he’d gotten a [Rizvim]. Even if Raften hadn’t explained that they were technically a ‘good’ thing, he would have been happy. Since his previous understanding of [Rizvim] were that they were there for balancing reasons he took it as a bit of a mark of pride that he was powerful enough to need balancing.

It gave the mental image of a bunch of internet forums screaming for a ‘nerf’ which was a great feeling…not that he’d be lauding his ‘nerf’ over anyone else, they’d just think him crazy and avoid him for being ‘cursed’ by the Gods.

The third thing that caught his attention was something that he genuinely had no idea about: ‘[???] 0/0’ What in the world was that? Since it appeared under [Bloodline], was it something he got from his mother? His father?

Raften told him that he was ‘Favored’ which meant that both his parents had a strong influence, so that could be it.

With a sigh, he was forced to set the third one aside. He had no clues and nothing to go off, even if he did research - which he would - it probably wouldn’t turn up anything.

He chuckled to himself after he let out yet another sigh. He’d sighed a lot that day, it had been nothing like he’d imagined or expected. He thought that there would be fanfares, whooping, cheers, and excitement - all from him!

He thought he’d get something awesome, it was literally called ‘[The Blessing of the Gods]’ and yet the day, or rather days, had been nothing but disappointment. The only way it could get worse would be…no, better not finish that thought. He’d jinx himself.

With a groan and a heave of effort, Crimson got to his feet, brushed his teeth, then collapsed back into bed. Since he had to wait, he might as well spend the time sleeping - not like he had the strength to do anything else anyway.

———

The first thing Crimson felt when he woke up in the morning, was panic. It wasn’t because of anything crazy like being under attack or anything extreme, rather, it was the absence of his usually ever present mana. In his groggy, sleepy state, he’d forgotten what had happened the previous day and had expected his mana to suffuse his body like normal, not ooze along like molasses in his veins.

With a grimace, he forced himself out of his bed, stretched, and walked over to the basin that he filled with water. From there, he proceeded to wash the cold sweat that had appeared on his body from the momentary panic, then glanced at his window to check the time using the light. It was about…7am? He’d really slept in.

There was still an hour left on the timer, and since he could move better than yesterday, he decided to work out his stiffness with a morning run.

Stiffly and shakily, he made his way down the stairs, his leg muscles groaning with every step, but their cries were ignored at he waved casually to the very concerned owner and stepped outside.

He stretched with long and slow movements, then started walking. After a few steps he tried to kick it up to a jog, but his muscles didn’t want to cooperate and his punishment for trying to force them was eating a mouthful of dust. His arms had been stiff enough that he hadn’t been able to move them fast enough to catch himself.

Gingerly, he pushed himself back to his feet, and like a dog that never learns, found himself back on the ground after trying to run once more.

He had never been so grateful for an empty alley. It allowed him to maintain some dignity as he bit back the tears of frustration that had built up and threatened to fall while he laid in a pathetic heap on the ground.

He had been remarkably positive about this whole mess. He’d tried to look on the bright side when he lost a significant portion of his strength, he did find some things to be genuinely happy about, but it didn’t stop the disappointment and frustration he felt from overflowing.

The biggest feeling he had, the biggest thought he was suppressing, was simple, so simple is slipped out from his lips, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

He clenched his teeth. It was truly what he thought. He’d had well laid out plans, a careful consideration of the future, but in a moment a lot of them had been destroyed. Getting a [Blessing] was supposed to be a perfect moment for him, like he’d thought last night, it was supposed to be something worth celebrating, but instead he was laying in an alley, crying.

He knew, logically, that it was similar to an investment. He lost a lot of his strength to invest it into the system and eventually he would gain far more strength than he had before, but it didn’t stop how he felt. Logic could channel emotions, not erase them, and despite how much he prized logic, it wasn’t comforting.

He hated how pathetic he was, getting worked up over what was essentially nothing. He would get back his strength, the soreness was only temporary then he could get to grinding [Skills] and [Stats], he’d be able to learn new spells, and he’d be able to start training to get a [Class], but the reason why he was so worked up was simple: it felt like he’d become crippled once more. He felt trapped again and it hurt.

For the first time in almost a year, he wasn’t just crying from frustration or loss, he was actually crying because he missed his parents. He cried for Verity’s loss, for all the pain he felt, and for everything he missed. He cried because it was the only way he could vent everything.

Laying in that dirty alley, Crimson was finally able to let out emotions he’d kept trapped for months and felt a wonderful sense of relief for it. He’d tried to ignore how homesick he was and how much he missed his parents.

In this world, he had high expectations for himself and others did as well. He had to hold himself to a high standard, be the one in control, and always have an answer. Because of those expectations, he’d never been able to be what he was: a 16 year old kid.

Once he’d cried himself out, he wiped his tears, and stood with a slow and creaking motion. He wasn’t far from a secret passage, and he wanted some privacy for what was to come.

—————

0:13…

0:12…

0:3…

0:2…

0:1…

-Calculation Finished, [Class] feature activated.

—————