Whispering into the princess's ear, “I’m going to let you talk, please don't do anything stupid.” I removed my hand from her mouth. My heart was beating like a drum as the princess called out “Richard, there is only one reason I would go into the bushes by myself and I swear I will kill you if you peek!” Turning to face me she looked at me quizzically, “So jack. Your not dead or captured. Care to tell me why you are in this forest and how you got so much stronger so quickly?”

Looking at the loli dressed in armour I replied, “Well, I escaped the cave through healing until I was outside the damage range before running away because I don't want to be anybody's slave. As for why I am here I overheard this was a great place to level and since personal power is the only thing keeping me out of manacles I trained like a mad man.”

After a seemingly endless silence, I prayed that what I said next would work. “Emily, the way I see it there are three ways out of this situation. The worst is you calling the guards, you end up dying by my hands because I won't go down without a fight and then I get killed in the end. The second worst is you let me go but betray me leading to me once again fighting to the death or killing myself, gaining you nothing. The best option would be letting me go so I can get stronger but I will owe you a favour.”

With a somewhat comical expression, she replied, “Why should you owing me a favour be better than having your corpse?” I laughed as I ignited a flame in my hand, “Because have you ever known anyone else to gain twenty levels in a month and have access to both a healing speciality and mana control at level 1.” I was talking out my ass and hoping she would neither read too much into my story or call my bluff.

She suddenly lost the mock expression and for the first time truly looked at me. “You are double gifted! No wonder you managed to escape that place.” Tapping her chin she was lost in thought. “I will let you go namely because I know the slave crest won't work and having a favour from a double gifted is rare. But you will have to swear it upon a magical oath.”

Knowing this was the best way out of the situation I agreed. Using a simple combination spell of mind and soul magic we forged an oath. Little did the princess know I could annul such a thing using Ki if the request was too high. I said, “Farewell princess, lets hope next time we meet you don't have to pretend to be taking a dump.” Before running into the forest leaving an angry but blushing princess behind.

The following days seemed to blend together as I constantly moved camp so as to not be found by the princesses men while slaughtering my way through the local fauna. It dawned on me as I killed a fox, only to realise it was protecting a pup, that I would have never done such a thing before the system. I suddenly understood it was only the continual repetition of positive stimulation provided by the interface that somehow numbed the reality that I was killing living creatures not for food but just for my own growth.

This realisation, however, broke something inside me. Memories of a dark room and a tortured dracon appeared as I unknowingly started crying. Slowly this experience transitioned from watching a movie to realising I myself was the monster committing these acts. Overwhelmed I remembered what I did to stop my mental degradation the first time this happened and once again I cast the spell to seal the memories. Deciding not to risk it I added the memories of the fox that triggered the breakdown to the seal and the world went dark.

I awoke in a glade. I must have been exhausted because I didn't recall falling asleep. Wandering back to my camp I decided to rest for the remainder of the day since collapsing was neither helpful or productive. I spent time smoking monster meat and cleaning my equipment before going to sleep under a beautiful star-filled sky.

The dawn sun dragged me from my slumber and I got up to begin a new day. The birds were singing, the breeze was gentle and there was a turtle inside my barrier's perimeter. Looking at the unexpected guest with identify revealed it to be a Mirage Turtle. A strange and incredibly rare monster with the unique ability to cloak itself from all 6 senses and negate low-level magic. The only reason I could see this non-aggressive creature was because it was devoting its energy to negating my barrier instead of hiding. It did not take long to work out why as the creature was heading directly towards my bag containing rare plants.

This was literally a blessing that walked into my hands. Deciding to make this valuable if stupid turtle into my familiar I set up the ritual circle before bating the monster with the rare plants. The plan went off without a hitch and soon the turtle disappeared in a flash of light, replaced by a turtle tattoo on the right side of my chest.

Familiars are a strange part of the system. Everyone can have up to three and once bonded they are bonded for life. Some familiars can be used as offensive pets while others are kept for passive buffs. They can level and evolve just as regular monsters or can undergo special evolutions if the right conditions are met. Despite all these benefits they are rarely used by normal people simply because they force the owner to split their experience.

The process of making a familiar is incredibly simple. Involving a two circle, one square formation and a sacrificial item. As long as the monster enters the ritual and accepts the sacrificial item they become your familiar. Making something as stupid as the turtle a familiar was as simple as taking candy from a child but getting a mighty wyvern or high-level monster to accept is a task in and of itself.

Both abilities provided by the turtle were spectacular and with a great selection of evolution paths listed in the pheonixian knowledge, it was an almost perfect choice. The best part is that this was my luck stat in action since this particular type of turtle, like a selection of other monsters, use a system skill to locate its food and the system had tweaked this skill to guide it directly to me. Deciding it was about time I accepted my level-ups, I spent my points on luck before looking over my build. You may be asking, why not just level up when you can? The answer is simple, you will get more experience as a level 5 killing a level 10 than if you were equal levels. at the same time, you can only stockpile 1/10th of you luck stat worth of levels. This is the systems way of preventing people from reaching maximum level from killing slimes for three hundred years because creatures 5 levels below your level provide minimal experience and once you are ten levels above them they provide none.

Name

Jack

Age

0

Level

9

Statistics

Strength

68.6

Dexterity

39.8

Constitution

39.8

Luck

105.6

Mana Sense

29.8

Mana Control

29.8

Physical Resistance

58.6

Magic Resistance

58.6

Ki Sense

29.8

Ki control

29.8

Healing Affinity

29.8

Space Affinity

29.8

Status

Health

398

398

Stamina

398

398

Mana

298

298

Ki

298

298

Alignments

None

Class

Resurrection Seed

4

Rebirth of a myth

Class Skills

Proto-Dragon Skin

Passive - Doubles stat gain on Resistance

Active – invalidate one magic attack every 24 hours

Proto-Phoenix Wings

Active – Flight, Doubles spell potency while active

Dragons Blessing

Doubles stat gain on Strength

Phoenix Blessing

Gain bonus Affinity for each 25 levels

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

Familiars

Mirage Turtle

6

Active – magic reduction sphere every 24 hours

Active – sensory shrouding every 24 hours

Titles

Reborn Human

Reborn through a magical ritual

Bonus skill experience

Behemoth Hunter

Gain stat points for consuming the heart of boss monsters (0/5)

Stats gained 0

“Just one more level till I reach ten,” I thought to myself wondering just what I would spend my 2 precious skill points on. I could put them into Offensive Casting and increase my spell damage by two levels or I could increase my regeneration.

It was not worth putting them in Fusion Spells as that would only increase the number of known spells and that was eclipsed by the pheonixian knowledge. Triggered Spells was equally useless as that simply reduces the material costs. putting it in Blessing of growth or Blessing of growth II, III simply doubled its bonus to a maximum of 1, so a single point in III might be worth it and child of “stat” skills began at their maximum level.

Eventually, I decided I would max out Blessing of growth III and place the other point in Offensive Casting. Figuring the easier it is to kill high-level creatures the more use I would get out of my magic. though as level 10 would also invalidate the experience earned from the mass slaughter of bugs I decided to max out my stored level-ups before hitting double digits.

I wondered if there was any way to add a 'ding' sound effect to levelling just to make this repetition less mind-numbing. luckily It would be much later when I discovered that people created a video streaming option that piggybacked onto the system. just imagine how distracting thousands of interesting videos could be when you are trying to focus.