Congratulations!

You've completed the last trial of the void!

First stigma generated!

Requesting access to void system...

Granted!

Warning: No physical form detected! Requesting system to search for new host...

Granted!

Initiating...

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Searching...

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Search complete! Compatible life form detected!

Requesting system the access to plane R24325...

Access granted!

Initiating soul transmission...

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Continuing the soul transmission...

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Transmission successful!

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ERROR! ADDITIONAL ENTITY DETECTED!

REQUESTING SYSTEM TO INITIATE SOUL DISSOLUTION!

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REQUEST DENIED!

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RE-REQUESTING SYSTEM TO INITIATE SOUL DISSOLUTION!

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REQUEST DENIED!

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RE-REQUESTING SYSTEM TO INITIATE S%&L D&***°#10010##*

110011100##*****###

ERR-**##11000110

SHUTTI-**##110 SYST**##1101 DOW##***#1111

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Alec groaned as he woke up. What welcomed him was piercing sunlight through the window, his bed feeling more fluffier than ever and a nerve-wrecking headache. Bloody hell! My head! He stretched a hand to avoid bright light spears from piercing his eyes. Wait.

Daylight? His work instincts took over. Holy fuck! I overslept! He walked out of the bed, tried to run over the nonexistent floor. He fell on his head with a thud on the stone floor.

Owowow! What the fuck? Alec groaned as he looked up to check his bed. A high pedestal with a vibrant red cushion on the top of it. He looked at his own... paws and his... tail and his body covered in black shiny fur. He ran his paw over his face. A muzzle, fluffy ears, all features matching that of a feline. A cold wave of awareness passed over him, sending goosebumps down his spine. A fucking Cat? He got up in panic, not knowing what's happening. He tried to run but stumbled and fell. He wasn't used to waking on all four. He never had cat paws to begin with. He tried to calm his panicked mind and pushed himself to his feet and started assessing his environment. He tried to walk, his legs trembled as he felt something piercing his brain, skipped a step and stumbled upon the obsidian floor again.

His heart was pounding down his throat. What the hell is this? Is this all some weird dream? What the hell is happening? He shook his head and took his gaze around the room. A pretty normal room with walls in a shade of red, a plain black stone floor and a high ceiling with a chandelier hanging in the middle of it. Pretty normal except for the part that it's eerily empty and that chandelier is just hanging there, no rod or chain system, it's just there, floating. Weird. He looked up to the window. A big window, easily three meters in height and one and a half meter wide across the front wall. He could feel the morning breeze on his fur, carrying a faint metallic tang.

Ok, I need to calm down. I don't know what's happening but as far as I can tell, it ain't a dream. His head was hammering against his temples. Bloody hell that hurts! He looked around, moved his gaze towards the window. I need to know what the hell happened to me, but first I need to learn how to FUCKING CATWALK! Ok! Calm down, Alec. Let's see. Every animal is born with instincts, last time I tried to walk there was a loud beep in the back of my head, it felt like my body was telling me I was doing it wrong. He pushed his feet against the dark floor, got on his small furry paws and took a deep breath. Whew! He let his instincts guide him and took a step forward, then another and started towards the upper right corner of the room. Oh... Ohhh... That was easy. He shifted his sight, back towards the outrageously large window. Or maybe I am just too small.

Eyeing the window, he let the cat instincts guide him and jumped, only to meet a hard glass wall. He fell and slammed against the obsidian stone floor again.

Owch! What the fuck was that? Some kind of barrier? Alec rolled himself over and got up. He was feeling odd, beyond just the circumstances. First thing that bothered him besides not being a human anymore, was how calm he was despite the circumstances, it certainly was odd. It was true that he freaked out at first, but after his headache wore down, his heart finally stopped it's hard pounds. Why? I'll bother about that later. For now, I need to gather some information. First of all, where the hell am I? He jumped again, this time easier than his last attempt, and reached his suspiciously comfortable giant red cushion on the white pedestal. He casted his gaze to the sky, the bright sun was on the blue horizon without the faintest traces of clouds. The barrier was still there, he tried pushing it while still maintaining his position on the pedestal. The barrier was weirdly soft, he could still feel the wind against his paws. Looking around the window, he found uncanny runic inscriptions vertically across the window. He didn't know what it said but he was pretty sure they were glowing with a dim blue hue.

Looking outside Alec confirmed that he was in some kind of fortress surrounded by a lush green forest. He was above the height of the average trees, so, it was hard to make out anything of the surface covered by vast canopy. His sight followed a bright silver rose garden just below his own castle chamber and what felt like a tower of the same height as the one he was in. There was a similar structure on the far right separated by curtain walls and large fortress gates. Made up of what appeared to be pitch black obsidian, covered with artistic runic circles, glowing with a bright red radiance.

The sun had just risen, yet everything was eerily silent until he noticed something on the front curtain wall. A armored man, laid there without a single movement. He focused and his eyes widened. There's no head, bloody fucking hell, that man's dead. Alec focused and noticed two more beheaded corpses near the front gate and another pair to the upper right of the middle area. A nauseous feeling creeped down his throat. This isn't right. He backed off, his heart, again bumping against his throat. Nothing's right here! What the fuck is happening? He jumped off the pedestal, fighting off the twisted nauseating feeling down his stomach, he shifted his gaze towards the front door. I need to get the hell out of here!

Alec walked to the front door, what appeared to be a polished wooden door, on a closer inspection, was actually some kind of metal. Cold to touch, giving quite a metallic feel to his front paws. He noticed the same runic inscriptions the metallic-wooden door. It's structure too complex for him to make out anything off it. What caught his attention was that the runes were losing their radiance. The once bright hue of red was getting increasingly dim, until it vanished to pitch black, blended in the background and the metallic-wooden doors creaked open with a clicking sound.

Huh? What the-

He rushed back to pedestal and pretended to be asleep, calming his pounding heart, he shifted his gaze towards the still creaking doors. The doors opened to reveal, well, nothing. Nothing was there. It was just an empty hallway. He waited for a few minutes before finally getting off the pedestal. A few steps and he was out in the suspiciously quiet hallway, stretched towards both sides with a sharp turn at the end of both ways. He looked left and right the hallway he was on, with neither way looking any better than the other. Sharp metallic tang still lingered down his nose.

What the bloody fuck is going on?

To response to his question, something appeared in front of him. It looked like a touch screen, floating in the air, disembodied. A quick experimental paw swipe found that it was actually solid, quite similar to the invisible window barrier.

What the hell is this?

He looked around to find if there were any similar runes like the ones in the window. Nothing. He moved around and the screen followed.

New Quest received

Strange Fortress

You just woke up in an unfamiliar place and body. Explore the fortress to discover more.

Difficulty: -

Objective: explore the fortress

Reward: ???

Clear conditions: Reach the ground floor and search for clues regarding your presence here.

Accept: Y/N

What the-

He looked around the suspiciously empty hallway. No runes in sight, not even a single soul visible till the far end.

Um.. Accept?

A cold yet soothing surge of knowledge washed over his head, goosebumps down his neck, he panicked. Not having any idea what the sudden cold rush was, he tried to run but stumbled and fell again. Finally the cold surge calmed down.

What the hell is happening?

He looked at the floating screen, no longer was it giving any option to choose, just like an in-game quest screen. He cast his gaze at his own paws, his fur, still standing from the goosebumps.

Am I going nuts?

He went back to the room, screen patiently following him back. He jumped back on his high pedestal, landed on the red ball of his suspiciously comfy cushion. He sat there, again unsure of what to do next. The screen was still in front of him.

I mean, quest? Objective? Difficulty? What the fuck is happening? And what am I? A level one sneaky cat or something? Now don't tell me if I say status it'll open up my-

Another screen appeared next to the first.

Alec Jones

Species: Puerulus Antitheus Feles

Race: Ancesant

Constellation: Inanis Praenuntius

Potential: [Perfect]

Status:

Level: 1

HP: 70/70

MP: 59/60

SP: 63/63

STRENGTH: 8

ENDURANCE: 4

VITALITY: 7

MIND: 26

WISDOM: 8

CLARITY: 4

AGILITY: 8

Available Skill Points: 0

Species abilities:

Blood Claws lv1

Mana Bite lv1

Racial attributes:

Dimensional space access lv1

Mystic lv1

Language comprehension lv Max

Stellar abilities:

System interference

Path of Stars [Exclusive]

Stigma generation:

S1:[Unavailable][Stellar essence detected] evoke? Y/N

S2:[Unavailable][Unlock s1 first]

S3:[Unavailable][Unlock s2 first]

S4:[Unavailable][Unlock s3 first]

S5:[Unavailable][Unlock s4 first]

S6:[Unavailable][Unlock s5 first]

SIKE!

What the fuck is this? He shook his head in bewilderment. At least give me something I understand, damn it! He looked up to the floating status screen and got off the pedestal. Blood claws. He tried activating the skill mentally. He felt a sudden surge of energy and found his claws coated in dark reddish zaps of electricity. Breathing quietly and steadily, he hefted one of his claws, took aim and swiped it down against the white stone pedestal.

The result shocked him, pieces of white debris flew in the air, leaving a shallow claw mark on the pedestal.

Holy crap! He instinctively backed off and got a better look at his creation. He wanted to try mana bite too but didn't want to chomp on rocks. After minutes of staring, he started experiment with opening details of his abilities. He wasn't expecting much but to his surprise, another screen opened beside the first two.

Info:

Species: Assassins of the night, shadow beasts born from the shadow of reaper itself, creepers of the darkness, leaving trails of silent death in their wake.

Alec groaned as he looked up the information regarding his species..... Not ominous at all... Does it even make any sense?

Info:

Race: Ancesant

[Rank too low to access any information]

Info:

Constellation: Inanis Praenuntius

[Rank too low to access any information]

... Ok... What's a rank? There's nothing about that on my status screen. And why the hell are these name in latin? Am I expected to understand the- oh! I understand them! Even though I've never learned latin, I know what it means. Perhaps it's the effect of language comprehension. The system is manipulating my brain at such a basic level. He looked up to the floating screen. I don't even want to imagine what kind of being made this.

Ancesant and void herald, there's no information on these two. Ancesant sounds kind of cool but I have no idea what it means and also WHY AM I A FUCKING CAT? And why is it that species and race are two different things? My species is infant demon cat and my race is Ancesant. Well, I can't expect my common sense to work here. Perhaps this world has it's own sets of rules. And who am I kidding with common sense, I was a normal college student just a night ago. I want to think about what happened, but I can't. He casted his gaze outside the window. All I know is that something has been screaming in the back of my head.

I need to escape from here.

But first, he needed to know what was he capable of. He looked up to the screen on the far right, showing information about his skills.

Info:

Species skill:

[Blood claws][Lv1(0.1/200)]

Power: 40

Type: Physical

MP cost: Low

User charges their claws with blood mana and unleashes them on the opponent. On a successful attack, opponent might suffer from [Blood Disruption].

[Maximum power increases with skill levels]

[Probability of additional effects increases with skill levels]

[Blood Disruption]:

[Probability: 3%]

Target suffers a backlash upon using mana. Result can vary from an instantaneous paralysis to cancellation of spell. Additional instances will have a cumulative effect.

Of course there is mana and magic. And was that reddish dark mana, blood mana? Most likely, I'll think about that later. Not that knowing is going to help me escape.

Info:

Species skill:

[Mana Bite][Lv1(0/200)]

Power: 40

Type: Physical

MP cost: Low

Bites the opponent with the fangs infused with mana. On a successful attack, enemy might suffer from [Mana Drain].

[Maximum power increases with levels]

[Mana Drain]:

[Probability: 8%]

Target suffers from a constant state of mana leaking. The higher the maximum mana of the wielder, the greater the effect.

A superpowered cat running around draining people's mana tanks? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP! Sigh...This is making less and less sense everytime. He looked back, towards the green quest screen. Did someone put me in some high tech VR game? He shifted his gaze to his own shiny black fur. But it's just damn too real. I never signed up for this shit! I NEED MY FUCKING LAWYER!

S1:[Unavailable][Stellar essence detected] evoke? Y/N

Info: Engraves the first stigma of constellation [Inanis Praenuntius] on your soul.

Uhh... I don't think I'm in a condition to mess with my soul. There's a time and place for everything. He wasn't sure if he had the luxury to wait to have his soul engraved. He needed to escape from here and by instinct, he knew that this was not a process which he could begin when there just might be a blade hanging over his head. He gulped and decided to use it after exploring the fortress.

[Dimensional space access][Lv1(0/500)]:

MP cost: Low

Allows user to have an empty dimensional pocket, can be used to store non living entities.

[Maximum Capacity increases with levels]

Evolution: [Conditions not met]

That was pretty straightforward. Only non living entities? Makes sense, would be kinda broken if I could just sneak inside at will.

[Mystic][Lv1(0/700)]:

MP cost: Moderate

A racial attribute of ancient void dragons, present yet not present. Masks the Dragon's presence at will. Can not be perceived with mundane techniques.

Void Dragon? Holy crap! there are dragons too? And this skill is... kinda broken, upgraded mother of Stealth? when it comes to survival. Masking my presence at will? And being unable to be identified by normal techniques!? perhaps if I raise my agility high enough, I'll be able to deceive people's senses. But, that's for later, for now, exploring the fortress will be a piece of cake with this.

Oh! And finally, perhaps the most op skill. Hey see! It's got an 'exclusive' in it's name. Oh boy! This is going to be great.

Stellar Attribute:

Path Of Stars [Exclusive]:

[Unawakened]

[Conditions not met]

... I'm done with this. I'll find out why is it not showing the conditions later. I'm getting more and more uncomfortable the more I stay here.

He decided to roll with this. He looked back at the hallway. For now. He jumped and got up to the pedestal again, paws over his comfy pillow. So um... Dimensional space access? He tried to mentally activate the ability and the pillow vanished. Whoa! Glad that worked, how could I leave that nice stupidly-comfy pillow here. He got off and followed the trail back to the hallway. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before opening his eyes again. The screens were still there, waiting. He placed his paw on rightmost screen and tried to mentally dismiss it. It vanished. He repeated the same with the remaining screens and they vanished one by one, clearing his field of view.

Alright, then. Looking left and right down the hallway, neither offered anything to recommend it over the other. He cleared his mind and set off to the left towards the sharp end of the empty corridor.