Chapter 1

Thirteenth Time’s the Charm

“Kyle Goldman I have your entry level results if you would like for me to read them off to you?” The same robotic voice calls out, the same way that it always has for the previous twelve iterations of life. It is a voice I know far, far too well. It was once the voice that told me of a great and promising future, one where the sky was the limit. No longer would I be a ward of the war system. Instead, I would be an integral cog of the military war machine that was the Alliance. Once settled in as a vital piece I would be set to spin and rotate knowing each basic need were met and satisfied. I would have food, shelter, and clothing, the three things that all agreed were integral to life. On top of that I would receive a military stipend, far less than what I could make in the private sector if I proved myself as a capable asset. The only problem was, establishing oneself in the civilian sector required contacts and connections, both of which could only be obtained while in the military. So I was stuck, or had been, this time regardless of what happens I will renounce my Officer candidacy. An act that would normally be met with ridicule and ire, but this time I am prepared for such a backlash.

This time I will live my life for me and no one else. End of the universe be damned. Oh yeah, the scourge will invade sometime within the next ten to twenty years. Why the range you ask? Well, it depends on what we do to draw their attention. If we continue with standard westward expansion into space, we will make contact within the next ten years. If we stop everything and do nothing, our signals will still reach the scourge within the next twenty years, and these will be violent and disruptive enough to make them go crazy and attack everything in sight. That would begin their purging plight, where they travel the universe trying to remove all forms of the signal the root cause of all their anger and frustrations in life. To put it in other terms, they don’t like technology and as far as I can tell the electromagnetic pulses that are being subtly generated by all our equipment causes violent pains to them. They would be okay with the status quo, but human expansionism is too much for them. So they then assemble every member of their swarm and go on an all-out offensive.

So that’s it, how humanity as a whole ends. Wiped out by an overzealous wave of space naturalists. I know what you are thinking, irony right. We all saw the stories where technology would ruin the human race, and it actually happened. Though it happened, or rather will happen in a way not quite predicted by science fiction. At least it hasn’t been predicted by science fiction, yet. Maybe I could fix that, start a story about a brave soldier exploring the deepest expanses of civilization, only to meet up with and fight as the lone hero against the swarm of monsters. Then I can add the final part, the ultimate irony where he is back stabbed by everyone he has ever met in his life, only to die wasted and alone on the front lines of a war that is now ultimately meaningless.

I think about the question for a minute when I am pulled out of my jumbled thoughts of being reincarnated, when the electrical voice calls out and says my vitals and statistics.

Name: Kyle Goldman

Age: 18

Race: Half-Human*

Attributes

Physical Attributes

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 12

Agility: 13

Endurance: 12

Cognitive Attributes

Perception: 12

Intelligence: 11

Willpower: 12

Power: 13

I look at my baseline Attributes and realize I still have a long way to go. So, a quick understanding about Attributes, ten is considered average. Twenty is the standard human maximum. Anything above twenty shows that you have alien genetics added to your make up. Now-a-days having one’s genes spliced is necessary, thus the half-human part. It is random luck of the draw as to what genetics you received while in utero to help with your gestational period. All, doctors were doing a lot of experimenting, trying to come up with the best integrations to help make the best next-generation soldiers. They succeeded, if only technically in my creation. My genetics allow me to have a much higher basis in Power than others are even capable of. Unfortunately, that is my only Attribute that can go beyond the standard human limit of twenty, but of all the attributes to be able to build up that is likely the most important.

For those of you who are new to the system or have not yet undergone your Awakening Ceremony I will explain. There are two sets of four Attributes that make up your baseline abilities. There are the four physical: Strength dealing with how much you can lift and the like. Dexterity, which is required for skilled tasks like flight, firing weapons and anything that requires accuracy. Then Agility, which determines how fast you can move and how flexible your body is while moving. Finally, there is Endurance, which basically tells you how healthy you are and how much punishment you can put your body through before passing out.

Then the second set of Attributes are you mental or cognitive attributes. The first and often most overlooked Attribute in this section is Perception. Perception is how much of the world your five, well six if you awaken as a magic wielder, senses can identify around you. Intelligence is the ability to process the input your Perception is giving you and let you react accordingly. This is how we can reason, deduce plans of action and so on. Next is Power, without Power of at least ten you cannot manifest any type of magical or psionic potential. There are a rare few who can manifest both, but they are a dying breed of people. The main problem with those who are both magically and psionically gifted is that they are sterile. Hard to make a generation of unstoppable killing machines if they die out after one use. The last mental attribute is Willpower, this is both your focus for wielding powers, but also resisting powers being used to corrupt your mind or body. One could say Willpower is more important than the others, as it will also help you recover your mental and magical energies faster, along with giving you a bigger well to work from.

I fell for the trap of increasing Willpower first in my first life as well. That was of course until I learned my true calling in life, my seemingly bottomless Power attribute.

“You may now select your difficulty and world you would like to enter for your first trial.” The voice says as it begins to lay out the entire training program again. I am still not quite certain how this place works, or why it seems to only work one time, but in all my lives I have only been able to have this complete immersion once. This is an ancient precursor ruin, one that is believed to enter the realms of heaven. I’ve seen other ruins like this one, others that I could enter at a later time, but none that offered fifty levels of challenges all at once.

This temple to the old Gods, this is the reason why humanity is doing so well in the cosmos. Every human, regardless of origin is forced to come here after their eighteenth birthday. Then and only then can they enter this place. And you guessed it, lucky me, my birthday was at the end of last month. So here I am today, along with all the other yahoos from the Delta Five cluster of stars. This is all our sacred day to partake the trials and fully join the ranks of adulthood.

My first time I had been nervous and chose the easy difficulty level from level one. The challenges were easy, most being simple puzzles. I kept thinking that eventually there would be more to the challenges, that they would scale in difficulty as I climbed higher through the levels of the trial. But the difficulty never changed. Finally, towards the end I tested my luck, going to intermediate difficulty at level forty. Then on my last level I went to Advanced difficulty on the fiftieth and final floor. That was when I was granted a wish by the Gods. I knew to be wary, that the old Gods were evil and not quite benevolent to humans. So I chose my words carefully, or as carefully as a self-important eighteen year old could come up with. I wished for two things in one wish. To live forever while constantly being able to improve myself and my powers.

Or something like that, the exact wording escapes me at the moment. But suffice it to say, I wanted to be immortal and wield impossible powers. To my surprise the wish was GRANTED. After that I never thought twice about the odd wish, just living my life to its fullest. Looking back my first life was likely my most normal life, I became an officer from the few Attributes I managed to unlock from the easy and intermediate levels of the Awakening ceremony. Then married the girl of my dreams, all to lose her to my sadistic brother. From there I signed up for every hard mission the military had to offer, until I eventually starved to death on a desert planet we were trying to terraform. That led to my first rebirth. I awoke over with a start to be back here during the awakening ceremony.

Since then, I learned a few things about the trials. First one could gain attributes to distribute as they pleased during the ceremony. The only problem was that the awarding of attributes was based on the level of difficulty chosen. For those that took the easy route, they would only gain one attribute every ten levels. For those that took the Intermediate route, they would gain one attribute point every five levels. Finally, those that took the advance route would gain one Attribute point every level. This meant that the maximum number of attribute points one could gain from their initial run would be fifty total attribute points.

The advance route was tougher as it pitted you against thinking monsters, ones who could adapt their strategy based on what they observed you do earlier in the level. Fortunately for me I found a cheat. My first few times through I fought my way with vorpal swords and blasters like a fool. It wasn’t until around try number ten that I just used Mind Rend to rip apart the minds of all the enemies who came before me. It was hard to adapt to the fighting style of an attacker when one couldn’t even see the magical manifestations of the attack. Also, with the fact that the monsters could adapt to changes, it also meant they were sentient. Sentient creatures of course meant they had a mind, a mind that could be easily torn apart.

Mind Rend is easily the easiest cheat ability, and as far as I know it is one of the rarest of Psionic powers. I am even able to tear apart the mind of a scourge with my high level in the ability.

“Once you enter at a difficulty you cannot lower your difficulty to continue. Thus, it is advised to enter at a lower difficulty level until you feel comfortable increasing slowly. Know that while this is only affecting your spiritual avatar, anything that happens to you in the tower will have a permanent effect on your real body. Thus, if your spirit dies in the tower, your body will also die. Now I will give you a moment to choose your initial difficulty level.”

“Advanced or maximum difficulty.” I say, not even waiting for the timer to begin. My mind has been racing ever since I got back, racing and hoping that I didn’t ruin this one time. Even the loss of a possible Attribute point would be enough to permanently hamper my future growth. While I wasn’t going to go the military route, it would be dumb to not have an excessive amount of Power available, especially as I effectively gave up having children to get that ability.

A general rule of thumb is as follows, use your Attribute points to max out your mental or cognitive Attributes first. The physical Attributes can all be increased through standard workouts and the like. While it is exceptionally hard to increase ones Intelligence or ability to process data more efficiently. Thus, it is recommended that you spend any Attribute points gained on these Attributes. In particular, the Power is the only Attribute that has never been increased while inside an Awakening Trial, thus it is often recommended that all attribute points be spent there. My first life I did just that and spent all six of the Attributes points I had gained on increasing Power. At the time I had a monumental nineteen points, a level of power many only dreamed about. It wasn’t until my next few times through that I realized how limited I was by effectively being a one trick pony. By only having Power and none of the other Attributes increased to help I missed so much. So, what if I could rip the mind apart of any sentient enemy? What good was that if my Perception was too low to notice the enemy until I was well within striking range. Or so what if I could see the camouflaged enemy if my mind couldn’t process that the stone in front of me was not in fact a stone at all, but a hidden enemy.

So it was that I developed a plan sometime around last life. Max out Perception, Intelligence, Willpower, while keeping Agility, and Dexterity at fifteen points each. Then put the remaining points into Power. This meant that Strength and Endurance would remain at their current levels, but that is fine. There did seem to be a physical threshold for Attributes that happened at around fifteen points. Thus, Agility and Dexterity being pushed to that level. With this build I would have twenty extra points to put into Power, giving me thirty-three points in the lofty Attribute. I found that so long as my other cognitive attributes were maxed out, I could wield that much Power easily.

So now you might be asking, if Power is so important and I can only increase it the one time. Then why would I increase Dexterity and Agility to fifteen from the start as well, when I could have used those five points to have even more points in Power? The answer is simple, I hate running and speed drills. To get to fifteen that is all one can do to get their Attributes to that level. So, to avoid countless hours of speed drills, I will cheat this once.

“Very well then, you may proceed to your first trial.” The voice says. Then from behind him a portal opens revealing a dense jungle. Good the pack animal environment. I think to myself, as I enter the first training zone ready to take on the trials, with one goal in mind. I want to get a perfect run, again.