I awoke from my literal dirt nap a full year later, tired and hungry. You would think that a year in suspension would make you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but reality is a bitch. “year” a term I learnt in my seclusion was both the universe standard for a planetary cycle or a set period of 8760 hours depending on how it was used. this knowledge allowed me to understand the monumental time span covered by the Pheonixian memories and helped me realise just how large the universe truly is.

For the entire duration of my meditation, I was completely conscious, with the system using the natural energy of the planet to sustain the bare minimum amount of bodily function required to preserve my life. Upon emerging I needed food, I needed water, I needed sleep but most of all I needed to cheat while I still could.

Being level 0 was a rare if predictable occurrence that would only happen once in a layer. Every time a being rose to a new layer either through a level 100 ascension or being dragged up via some other means they would revert to this stage. The difference between the two is someone who ascended would retain their skills while their stats would be adjusted whereas someone forcefully elevated would lose everything and have to begin from scratch.

This was not all bad as level 0 came with certain advantages that would be lost immediately upon becoming level 1 and if one wanted to exploit them they had to be careful because gaining that first level as simple as killing a small animal or harvesting a semi-rare plant.

I once again started to draw in the dirt this time it was a square inside a triangle inside a circle. This ritual did not need blood as it's tribute would instead be paid in pain. it was a simple ritual known to most that allowed one to lose a level to a minimum of lv1 at the expense of losing all benefits gained from the level up or during the time one was at the level in question and would need to be repeated multiple times to remove multiple levels.

The cheat the Pheonixians left in this ritual was that if performed at level 0 with a slight modification to the triangles location it would allow one to reduce their level to -9 losing 1 point of every statistic in the process but gaining multiple instances of the bonus one would gain from going from level 0 to level 1 namely opening a new statistic type and gaining a skill.

The next several hours were a combination of suffering brutal pain before succumbing to unconsciousness before awakening weaker than before and repeating the process. By the end of the self-inflicted torture, I was literally as weak as a newborn child possessing a tenth of the strength and dexterity of a normal human. It was an arduous crawl before I could force myself into a stumbling walk to get to the mouth of the cave.

Using one of the simple system based abilities I discovered I peered out into the wilderness. Using “identify” to find anything edible. Alas, there were no berry bushes or steak trees the grass, however, was listed as edible and being as ravenous as I was I ate it as if it were a feast. During my grass porridge dinner, my luck returned and I stumbled upon one of those semi-rare plants, a bloodroot mushroom. Picking the ugly looking fungus led to a cavalcade of messages and an orgasmic feeling as my strength returned in full. basking in the feeling and knowing I had just skipped trying to kill something without the strength to walk properly I thanked whatever being was responsible for my uncanny luck.

I knew I had just gained “1 level” and broke free of the introductory noob level. I had two screens in front of me with one listing multiple statistic types and the other listing available skills. To many, this would be a hard decision that would impact the rest of your life, selecting the single skill and stat to decide your future. Unlike them, not only did I not have to limit myself but I also had spent an entire year looking through the options. The result of my decisions looked like this

Name

Jack

Age

0

Level

1

Statistics

Strength

11

Dexterity

11

Constitution

11

Luck

12

Mana Sense

1

Mana Control

1

Physical Resistance

1

Magic Resistance

1

Ki Sense

1

Ki control

1

Healing Affinity

1

Space Affinity

1

Status

Health

110

110

Stamina

110

110

Mana

10

10

Ki

10

10

Alignments

None

Class

None

0

Skills

Offensive Casting

1

Increases the damage of all spells by 1 level

Energy Syphon

1

Draws any available energy from the area increasing regeneration

Triggered Spells

1

Allows spells to be stored at the cost of 1 level of damage

Fusion Spells

1

Allows for advanced spells to be cast through fusions.

Natural Regeneration

1

Increase natural health regeneration can be boosted with energy

Blessing of growth

1

Increases stat gain on levelling [0.1]

Blessing of growth II

1

Further Increases stat gain on levelling (requires previous) [0.2]

Blessing of growth III

1

Maximises stat gain on levelling (requires previous) [0.5]

Child of luck

x

Doubles stat gain on luck

Titles

Reborn Human

Reborn through a magical ritual

Bonus skill experience

Skills are not just some random buff, they are a blessing from the system inscribed into your soul. Knowledge and personal learning do not generate skills, but skills can improve upon what you have learnt. Taking crafting as an example. Making a bow without the aid of the system will not generate a 'skill', however, being able to do so will interact with the 'bowmakers blessing' skill. A person without knowledge taking this skill will be gifted the ability to make an average bow but a person who can already craft a bow before taking this skill will be able to do so faster, more efficiently and more precisely. The same is true for magic, the skill allows a person to do the basics but they must experiment to get better. An average person normally only has four to five skills during their entire life but they are as powerful as they are rare.

Now for those of you who don't know the system, I will explain why my choices and number of skills is broken as hell and a further explain a few of the choices.

Firstly blessing of growth is normally considered a dud skill, it offers a minimal increase in stat points and is required for it's following skills however since you only get a skill point at levels 1, 50 and 100 it would require using every level available in an entire layer to reach the maximised skill. During that same period of time, a person who took a 'child of 'insert'' skill would have doubled their chosen stat and still had 2 other skills to assist them. In my case, however, gaining all three at level allows me to massively increase my potential stats.

Offensive casting, Energy Syphon and Natural Regeneration are considered good skills and are quite often taken by others. Triggered Spells is viewed as a possible second choice skill but is still disliked due to lowering the spells damage and Fusion Spells is seen as trash since if you can cast multiple low-level spells to fuse into a high-level one you could just as easily cast a high-level spell, to begin with. the reason I chose it was because I knew of combinations left behind by the pheonixians.

As for my stat choices, Mana Sense and Mana control are a given for anyone wanting to be a true mage. Ki Sense and Ki control are essentially mana but for internal use. Physical and magical resistance is for staying alive because despite what many would have you believe constitution does not cover defence, it simply increases health and resistance to disease or poison.

The affinities are a different story as any mage with mana control can cast low tier spells of any elemental type without restriction so long as they know the pattern but having an affinity boosts the power of low tier spells and allows a person to cast high tier magic. High tier is different from high-level. A powerful mage that is not affinity blessed can cast a fireball that can melt rocks or condense the fireball into a small white-hot sphere without a problem, but only a mage with the fire affinity could summon an elemental or use a flame that will only hurt enemies. A mage with an affinity but without mana control is known as a specialist since they can still cast magic but only of their specific element.

Lastly luck. Is the system so omnipotently powerful that it can affect causality itself? No, luck is a false stat. The system provides two types of probabilities with the first one being a straight calculation of odds where it gauges your skill in comparison to the task. an example of such would be listing the chances of a coin showing heads as 50% and increasing this probability as you become more skilled at applying the correct amount of force to control the outcome. The other calculation is if the system can complete the given task. it is not that the system can't complete the task it is whether or not the resources allocated to a person by the system are sufficient to do so. In short, the higher the “luck” stat the more resources the system allocates. Now that the explanatory wall of text is out of the way we can return to the cave.

After finalising my choices I felt empowered, energies that I never knew existed surged through my body as it changed on a cellular level. Condensing what should have been more than a lifetimes worth of change into a few minutes... and then the pain arrived. Just as quickly as the feeling of omniscience arrived it departed and I was reminded that I was a mortal playing with secrets that were meant for gods.

I quickly checked my health to see if I had doomed myself, only to see it state that I was perfectly fine. Two days I spent in a foetal position lying on the floor. I can honestly say I was not crying but the only reason that was true is that I lacked the liquid to produce tears. Unlike the de-levelling ritual, I was unable to lapse into unconsciousness. the first could be explained as a sudden pain then nothing while the second was like having burning hot spiky metal caterpillars crawling under your skin while someone smashes your bones with a hammer. normally such a feeling would only last about ten minutes but I had just chosen 9 times the options and the effects where multiplicative. When it all ended I ate my grass pasta used magic for the first time in my life to summon water to quench my parched throat before I dragged myself into the cave to sleep.

In my stupor, I forgot to create any form of defences. this single act of stupidity would unknowingly lead to a fated meeting with someone who is now both my friend and one of the biggest pains in my ass this side of the universe... Oh, please don't tell her this. and if “you” somehow bypassed my protection magic to be reading this... I don't mean any of what I say in the following chapters so don't curse me again!