Sigh.

I would’ve appreciated having more time to think about my decision concerning the blessing, as there were many options that I still haven’t checked yet. A boost to the fire affinity was on the top of my wish list, so I asked ‘Loki’ if he could increase my affinity as a part of his blessing.

He said that as much as he wanted to help me, each blessing had a hard limit of benefits that could be offered. He told me that I could accept the blessing of another deity if I wanted the fire affinity so much.

‘Pick an extra blessing if you want’, huh? I am pretty sure that he’ll make me regret doing that…

‘Loki’ might’ve given me the freedom to take other blessings in addition to his, but I suspected that it was just a test to see whether I deserved his attention or not. He had been supportive so far, and he was the only deity that tolerated people with Latent Abilities like me.

I didn’t like the other deities’ attitude anyway, so his blessing was the only real option.

I’ll thank him for his help so far, and tell him about my choice.

“It’s somewhat late to say this, but thank you. Sending me back in time was a priceless gift, it was a second chance for me to have a better life,” I said, “The system shop was also indispensable for me; I owe most of my current success to it. Hell, I wouldn’t even have my current class if not for the class change pill that I got from it.”

I tried to be as earnest as possible, as I was truly grateful for these gifts. I was about to tell him that I would accept his blessing as my only option, but he interrupted me all of a sudden.

He started laughing loudly. I was confused about his actions and waited for an explanation

“You’re welcome, kid!” he said, “I just remembered something funny. Remember when you wanted to buy the manual class change pill? I was the one that picked the automatic one for you! It was a funny prank, wasn’t it?”

Suddenly, I felt angry and frustrated with this deity. I had been pissed off for a while about that event, but I brushed it off because I thought that the system automatically interrupted my command halfway through due to a bug.

Now that I found out that the event was deliberate, I was pissed off.

It wasn’t funny! My class might be powerful, but it’s terrible to experience the pain of being burned alive on a daily basis! A weaker class with no drawbacks would’ve been a much better choice…

It took me tens of seconds to control my emotions. I was glad that the class was powerful, else I would’ve reacted violently and tried to hit ‘Loki’. I kept my silence and stopped talking to him, I even started re-evaluating my decision of choosing his blessing.

He must’ve noticed my emotional turmoil, as he instantly teleported to my side and spoke with a serious tone of voice.

“Don’t let the emotions cloud your judgment, kid,” he said, “You don’t know how manual class change pills work; let me tell you. Once you buy it, a curated list of ten random classes appears in front of you. Their descriptions can’t be seen unless you bought access to them in the shop, and your points weren’t enough to do that.”

He has a point…

“Even if you chose the best one out of those ten classes based on intuition, you would’ve wasted too many points on the manual pill. You see, I picked a very good class for you and you’ll learn to appreciate its offensive prowess; it used to belong to my previous chosen one before he got killed….” He added, but melancholy seeped into his voice when he started talking about the previous owner of my class.

So, he’s claiming that his ultimate goal behind giving me his past chosen one’s class was for me to save some shop points? For fuck’s sake, I had to spend the points that I saved up to buy the [Shut-Down] skill!

I took a deep breath and calmed my emotions down; it wasn’t healthy to cry over spilled milk, and my class still had its positives. I was alive thanks to it, and that was what mattered.

I didn’t expect [The Burned Man] class to hold such importance for the mysterious entity, and his sad tone of voice revealed that the destiny of his previous chosen one wasn’t good.

I asked him about what happened to the person that he talked about, and he said that some deities killed him indirectly. The interesting part was that he was a Glitcher too!

Oh shit, does this mean that I am destined to die because I am a Glitcher? Why does this guy even involve himself with Glitchers so much?

I asked ‘Loki’ the questions that were on my head, but he said that the only way for me to find out was by accepting the blessing.

“Alright,” I said, “I’ll accept your blessing.”

I opened the Blessing menu and scrolled down to find ‘Loki’s blessing. I accepted it, and a feeling of dizziness hit me.

-Congratulation! Host Jason Stubbs got blessed by [???]!

-Would you like to choose another blessing?

[Yes]

[No]

Warning: The decision is final; you can’t choose an additional blessing if you decline, and you’ll have to choose one if you accept.

Nah, I don’t want to be involved with those deities.

I chose ‘No’ and the system screen disappeared.

“Alright then, it’s time for a little history lesson,” said Loki, “Now, follow me”.

He walked toward a certain wall, and a door opened. He entered and motioned for me to follow him. The room had little light, so I couldn’t make out the details of the surroundings. The only thing that I noticed was the great number of cables on the ground.

‘Loki’ snapped his fingers, and a certain object started glowing in front of us.

It was a spheric pod, and it reminded me of science fiction movies that I used to watch. Its color was silver, and it had a radius of around a meter. A single thick cable emerged out of its lower hemisphere, and it separated into many thinner cables which were spread around the room.

Once we were in front of the mysterious device, ‘Loki’ tapped it twice with his index finger. Then, its upper hemisphere separated into two portions, and each of them moved sideways to expose the pod’s interior.

There was a black seat inside it, and there was a large control panel on one of its inner walls.

Is he going to send me through space or something?

“Sit down,” he said as he motioned toward the black seat.

“What for?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.

He tapped the ring that was on his right index finger, and a small black disk appeared out of it. It was pitch black, and it was smaller than his palm. He held it with both hands and stared at both of its sides intently for around a minute.

“All is good,” he said, “This little disc is a priceless artifact, as it contains vivid memories of a certain person from the past. The interesting part is that he lived before the system was a thing. Get in the pod, it’ll allow you to see his memories from a first-person view.”

I guess this disk contains the information about ‘The Reign of the Uppers’ that was mentioned in the blessing...

I asked ‘Loki’ about my assumption, and his grin confirmed it. I inhaled, then went inside the pod and sat on the seat. ‘Loki’ fastened two seatbelts around me, and he inserted the disk into a certain slot in the pod’s control panel, then he fiddled around with the buttons for a while.

What are the seatbelts for?

Before I was able to ask ‘Loki’ about that, the pod closed around me and he was already five meters away from me. He grinned and waved his hand at me. All of a sudden, a viscous liquid started leaking from the pod’s walls. I didn’t understand much about the ordeal so I thought about using force to escape, but I trusted ‘Loki’, at least a little.

It didn’t take long for the liquid to fill the pod, and I was completely submerged. I couldn’t breathe anymore, and I cursed ‘Loki’ inside my head.

Out of nowhere, my seat started spinning around itself with increasing speed, and I felt nauseous. I felt my consciousness slipping away from me, and I was sure that I threw up at least once.

Then, everything went dark, and I couldn’t stay awake anymore. I started dreaming about something, but I didn’t remember anything about it.

Suddenly, I felt something pinching my cheek, so I opened my eyes.

“Wake up, Jason, It’s not time for you to take a nap” a certain voice called for me, and I was sure that I’d heard it before.

I opened my eyes, and I saw the familiar ‘Loki’ squatting next to me.

I looked around me and discovered that I was on a grassy field. The ground felt wet, and I realized that it was muddy once I got up.

I need a bath as soon as possible; my back is completely covered in mud.

I took a look at my hands, and their color was much paler than before. I was wearing brown shorts and a beige shirt, and both of them were haggard.

My limbs also seemed shorter than usual, and I was barefoot.

“Where the hell am I?” I asked ‘Loki’, and was startled when I heard my own voice. It was the voice of a young boy, and it was too different from mine.

I had a guess, but it seemed too wild to be true. I pinched my left arm, and it felt rather painful. I grabbed some mud and put it inside my mouth; it tasted as sour as the mud from my grandparents’ garden, and I nearly puked due to the foul taste.

I am currently inside a different body!

I inhaled, then asked. “This is temporary, right?”

‘Loki’ still had his usual form, but he seemed to be floating and his body was translucent.

“Yeah, no worries,” he said, “they say that the best way of learning is by interacting with the source material, and I agree! This is the best way to have an enjoyable history lesson!”

“…Ok.,” I said, “So, what year is this?”

“Welcome to the last year of the Antecedent Era,” he said, “We’ll learn about an important chapter of history; a time in which Glitchers reigned supreme!”