After the exhausting day, I couldn't stay awake for too long, I guess modded perks can't do much when your natural stamina is very low. The uneventful night passed quickly and I woke up early the next day, with my stamina replenished, anxiety and stress hit me hard.

Why is mom hiding so many secrets?! Why does she want me and dad to know nothing about her past?! What aggravates things is that she could settle her grudge with the empire as her friends implied, but she refuses to hear anything about it!! Curiosity burns in my chest pressing me to activate [Oracle's Insight] to unveil the truth.

[Oracle's Insight] (M) (MAX): Active skill that reveals the secret of the world to the user.

When I readied myself to active the skill my mother's sad face flashed into my eyes and I remembered the promise I made, my heart sunk in guilt and I couldn't feed my mana into the skill, I can't break the promise I made her...

But what if the empire ruins the childhood she wishes me to have?! What if our village gets attacked and something bad happens to my dad?! He is just a classless farmer!!

My internal dilemma lasted for what felt like hours, between doing what needs to be done to protect my family and keeping the promise I made to my mother. By the end, I decided to grab the stick from the middle and fed my mana to [Oracle's Insight].

Right after, I felt the skill activate and sent it my question. Does the empire represent any danger to my family?

"No"

What?! That's it?! What happened to the chatty skill who can't stop revealing the secrets of the world!!

"I can tell you more about the Emrosian Empire and why it's looking for your mother desperately, but that will break your promise wouldn't it?" The skill responded with an amused voice. This skill is too sentient for my taste.

"Hump!! And me who tried my best to provide an answer that alleviates your anxiety and let you keep your promise!! What an ingrate!!" The skill spat rebuking my thoughts.

Okay!! I'm sorry!! I didn't mean to be ungrateful!! It's just hard to get used to hearing a voice in my head!!

The skill stayed silent clearly still mad at me, it's true that in my last life AI implants were a common thing, but I was never a fan of it, you never know who's spying on your thoughts!! But I have to admit that [Oracle's insight] is really helpful, especially now when I'm just an infant and can't investigate by myself. What surprises me is how smart it is, It was able to determine how much info to divulge without letting me feel bad about my promise, and I didn't even need to ask for that, which is beyond the abilities of any AI I heard about!! She feels alive!! Wait did I call her a 'she'?!

At that moment someone knocked at the door and I can hear mom opening it. Curious, I cast [Magic Eye] to see a blonde woman holding a baby in her arms rushing inside our house.

"Please Tabi!! I beg you!! Save my child!!" In a half sobbing tone, the woman implored mom for help.

"Alright!! Let me s-...." Before she could finish her sentence, mom opened her eyes wide with a shocked expression on her face. "Clarice!! What happens to this child?!" Mom asked the blonde woman while unraveling the baby wrapped in brown woolen cloth. When I saw the baby I knew exactly what happened I didn't even need any skill to inspect it.

"Henry found her in the forest, she was fine, but this morning she became like this" forcing her worlds between sobs the blonde Clarice tried to explain the situation when she saw the body of the baby she turned her face to the side from the horror and fell to her knees crying silently.

The baby was a mangled mess of green flesh, whatever it used to be it was infected with Orc spores and is transforming into one...

The Orcs are one of the most notorious races of the game Babylon's Gate: Infernal Revenge. In the game, Orcs are a fungal sentient hivemind that propagates by infecting other living beings and transforming them into Orcish creatures.

When an Orc King succeeds to leave a dungeon it signals the start of a major game event, the only way to stop such a calamity is by killing the Orc King and nuking the areas infected by his spores, with every creature living there.

To know that such a plague is in our living room right now!! What is this Clarice thinking!! Why did Henry bring the baby instead of burning it right there!! Don't they know how dangerous this can be?!

"Listen Clarice this is critical, did you or Henry feel different since you brought the child? Maybe you noticed few green spots on your skin? Or felt extra hungry or tired? I need you to answer me!!" Mom asked Clarice while stepping away from her, I think mom perfectly understands the risks here.

"No not really I don't feel any different, what are you doing?! Why are stepping away?! I need you to save her!!" The woman pleads earnestly to my mother.

"You have no idea the shit you put us in by bringing this child here!! You cursed the whole village!!" Mom turns to the kitchen table to grab a jar of oil and a burning stick from the oven she walks towards the baby.

"No!! No no no!! What are you doing Tabi?!" Clarice stands between mom and the child in a desperate attempt to protect it.

"I will do what I have to do!! I will save our village from doom!!" With her high strength stat, mom brushed the blonde woman to the side as if she was nothing, then proceeded to empty the oil jar on the child.

"PLEASE TABI I BEG YOU!! I CAME HERE FOR YOU TO SAVE HER NOT TO KILL HER!!" Clarice jumped on mom to stop her but to no avail. The Berserker was too powerful for the poor classless woman. Even though mom didn't move, she couldn't resist the supplication of the grieving mother "Please...I don't wanna lose her...I don't wanna lose a child again..." The words of the woman turned very faint as she fell on her knees losing all hope to save the suffering child.

"I can't!! There's nothing I can do!! And if I don't end the baby's suffering now!! what happened to her will happen to all of us!! She is infected with Orc spores!! She was probably just a small animal and turned to look like a baby during her Orcification!!" With trembling hands, mom tried to convince herself more than Clarice, she was probably shaken by the idea of burning alive what looks like a deformed green human baby.

"What do you mean by Orc spores?! She is clearly a half-orc!! She looks exactly like Old So'lk!!" Trying to reason with the redhead, Clarice continued to plead on her knees.

"You know nothing about the Orcification process!! Old So'lk's Orcification was probably stopped by a strong mage who broke the tie that binds him to the Orc king!! It's a delicate technique that I can't perform!!" Mom replied to the crying woman while hiding her tears, it was hard for her to do what she had to do.

"Aren't there any solution?! Any alternatives!! Take my life if that can save her!!" In a last plea of mercy, Clarice embrassed mom's leg asking her to trade her life for that of the child.

Mom wasn't indifferent to the woman's supplication, she stood silent for few seconds, while I felt shivers run down my back. I don't know why but I have a very baaaad feeling about this...

"Maybe...there's a solution..." Mom's dropped the stick back into the fire and paced fast toward the bedroom where I am laying.

FFFFFFFFFUCK!!! GET OFF ME!! GET OFF ME, YOU CRAZY WOMAN!! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?!

It didn't matter how much I cried or wiggled in her strong hands she walked back to the living room to lay me to the side of the deformed green child, the poor thing was in such a state no wonder it couldn't even mutter a sound.

"Your son?! How is that a solution?!" Surprised Clarice looked at mom expecting an explanation.

"Don't worry I have seen him do things even the best wizards couldn't do, I can even say that he is the strongest mage in the village right now" mom flashes a confident smile to Clarice while she keeps pushing my hand into the hand of the Cursed child. "Come on honey do the thing!!"

I WILL TELL DAD!! I WILL TELL HIM ABOUT EVERYTHING!! HOW IN THE FUCK IS THIS A HAPPY CHILDHOOD YOU WANT ME TO LIVE?! YOU ARE INFECTING ME WITH THE ORC SPORES YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!

"He doesn't look very happy, are you sure that what you are doing is ok?" Clarice interject as she looks at the baby who turned red from screaming side by side to her green baby.

"Hehe, he is just extremely excited to help!! He reacts like this very often" mom keeps her strong grip on my arm as I feel the weird disgusting Orc mana crawl under my skin.

FUCK!! HELP!! SOMEBODY HELP ME PLEASE!! I DON'T WANNA DIE!!

"He looks terrified and in pain, maybe we should look for Mira she can use water magic" Clarice grimaces pained from the sight of the redhead baby freaking out and screaming.

"I said he will be fine!!" In her passive-aggressive tone, mom was addressing me more than addressing Clarice.

FUCK YOU, MOM!! AND FUCK YOU CLARICE!! I HATE YOU ALL!!

The foreign mana keeps invading my mana ways!! if I don't do anything, I will end up becoming a spawn in an orc army!! I take a deep breath to calm myself. My crazy mother won't let me go if I don't save this child!! so I better start quickly!!

To start, I tried to push this strange mana out of my mana ways just like I did with the curse but instead of ejecting my body the foreign mana fed on mine and became stronger.

"Is it normal that his hand is turning green?!" Clarice couldn't help but wonder.

"Come on baby!! You can do it!!" Mom was so focused she couldn't hear a word of what Clarice said.

And at that moment, pain started hitting hard.

OMG!! WHY IS THIS PAINFUL!! WHY AREN'T MY PERKS AND SKILLS DOING ANYTHING!!

From the pain, [Thought acceleration] activated automatically and everything slew down around me to a stop, I felt like I could process a million ideas in just a heartbeat, and I fucking did!!

First, the pain was due to the orc mana starting to alter my cells and tissues in the process called 'Orcification' it's funny that no one thought about that name in the game.

Second, I feel pain because there's no pain resistance skill of perk in the game. Due to regulations, game developers made sure to tune down the amount of pain players can feel, even the darkest fucked up games didn't break that rule, and Babylon's Gate: infernal revenge wasn't an exception to that rule, that's why no one thought of making a modded pain resistance skill or perk.

Third, my overpowered skills and defenses aren't protecting me from this invasion for one simple reason, it's not causing me any damage, when I checked my health bar there was no change, and the condition section of my stat didn't reveal anything, for my skills and defenses I'm not being attacked.

A million ideas run through my mind but none of them will work to get me out of this situation, I thought I have made the ultimate build!! A god among humans!! But here I am on the verge of death because of a stupid fungal infection!!

"Cough...you didn't try me though..." I hear a feminine voice in my head that I'm pretty used to by now, it can't be mom or Clarice since I'm still under the influence of [Thought Acceleration]

Oracle?! Is that you?! How did you activate without even me feeding the skill with mana?!

"Is that really the most urgent thing you want to know?!" The skill replied with an angry tone.

No!! Of course not!! How do I survive?! How do I get out of this?!

[Oracle's Insight] is requesting control over your skills

Yes/No

What?! What does this mean?! I need an explanation!!

"I am sorry Gabriel but there's no time to explain what I'm about to do, you either trust me, or you become a mindless Orc".

Fuck is that even a choice?! Why do I feel like you planned this from the beginning?! What are you trying to achieve?! Are you trying to hijack my body or something?!

"I am your skill dummy!! I can't even think about hurting you or taking advantage of you!! Time is ticking!! If you take too long to make your decision then I won't be able to do anything!!"

Fuck!! I can tell with certitude that she is up to something!! she knows all the secrets of the world after all!! she definitely knew that this was going to happen!! I have to choose between instant death or trusting a skill that is OBVIOUSLY plotting against me!! Fuck Fuck Fuck!!

Oracle!! If you fuck me over!! I swear that I will find a way to fuck you back!!

I click mentally on yes and everything fades in front of me, the pain lessens, and I feel all my skills activating and going overdrive.

What are you doing?! Damn it!! Stop it!! This is worse than the Orc spores!!

I felt like my mind was going to shatter from mental pressure, while my soul was agonizing from the overuse of skills and mana. It's like my whole body was one big nerve jolting with pain.

WARNING

Your soul has reached a critical state please refrain from using skills

STOP IT NOW!! FUCK!! IT HURTS SO MUCH!! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?! BECOMING AN ORC WAS DEFINITELY THE RIGHT CHOICE!!

WARNING

Your soul has reached a critical state please refrain from using skills

The warning window flashes in front of me over and over as I feel my soul rip apart, my mental state went through so much stress that I couldn't think anymore. I couldn't do anything and everything was pain. I didn't know how much time passed before I started feeling relief on the edge of my soul.

Congratulations!! You have fused all your skills!! To create [Empress of Fate]

[Empress of Fate] (Transcendent) (MAX): Sentient skill with powers beyond the system's boundaries,It let you acquire the following sub-skills:

[Volt of Infinite Knowledge]: you have access to all that was, is, and could be. Every secret is but a whisper in your ears and every skill and knowledge comes to you innately.

[Primordial Temple]: Your body is a temple only you control. Only you decide what hurt you and what makes you stronger, Only you decide the limit of your strength and power, Only you decide when to live or die.

[Genesis of creation]: You have the power to create and shape anything you desire the way you desire with no cost or conditions.

[Weaver of rules]: The world is at your mercy shape it as you desire. Twist the rules or break them, alter them or change them. You command and they obey.

You leveled up!!

+ 10 stat points

You leveled up!!

+ 10 stat points

You leveled up!!

+ 10 stat points

Congratulations!! You cleared the hidden quest Save Zo'ha.

Please check your quest list

Congratulations!! You gained the transcendent title Ascendant*

Ascendant: No system caps will apply to you.

*Transcendent titles won't appear on your tag

Congratulations!! You successfully tied a Blood Oath Between you and Zo'ha The half-orc Queen

See!! I told you that I will save you!! The feminine voice in my head resonates again Gabriel?! Gabriel can you hear me?! I just close my eyes and let everything fall into the background while I submit to mental exhaustion.