"It's so dark... it's cold?..... where am I? Am I dead? Why's there just.... nothingness?" said the boy in a sober tone, seemingly calm in the icy void.
There was a supreme calm all around him and in him. He felt comfortable like he had been wrapped in blankets by his mother on a chilly winter night. But, in the same breath, there was a sense of nothingness. No sound, no sights, no nothing, just endless emptiness. This mixed into the boy's calmness turning into an uneasy torrent of emotions within him. He felt claustrophobic.
When the boy was contemplating his current situation he heard a voice in his head, 'You've had a hard time, haven't you?'
The boy heard a sublime, womanly voice echo in his mind. It was a warm, angelic voice filled with womanly charm. The boy found comfort in the voice and it washed the uneasy and suffocating feeling of emptiness away. At the same time, he questioned how he even heard the voice, since he couldn't actually hear anything. It was almost like the voice was his own internal voice talking to him.
'I'm sorry I let this happen to you. This wasn't supposed to happen.' continued the heavenly voice.
'What has been done cannot be undone. I am sorry for that. But, I am willing to give back what I have stolen.'
"What is this lady talking about? And where did her voice come from? Where am I? Who is that?" the boy thought in a confused erratic manner. The situation he was in was so strange, he didn't know how to make heads or tails of what was happening.
The holy voice sought to resolve the boy's qualms, 'I know you are confused about your current circumstances. I'll tell you. Simply, you are dead. But, this isn't the afterlife. It is a space you were brought to after going through that portal. It is what you might call Limbo.'
After hearing those three simple words: "you are dead," the boy felt as if his stomach went empty and he felt nauseous. The kind of feeling you get when you are free-falling, the bottomless emptiness. At this point he wanted to escape reality, not knowing what was going to happen to him. Yes, he brought this upon himself, but it didn't help knowing this fact. The calmness the heavenly voice brought was entirely gone and all the boy felt was hopelessness. He felt like having a panic attack.
'Do not be afraid because you are dead. I am a goddess of another world. You may not believe it but that is a fact,' continued the goddess in a comforting tone trying to soothe the boy. 'I can't apologize enough for the life I've robbed you of as I cannot send you back. Your body that passed through the portal was destroyed and I do not possess the ability to grant you a new body in your original world. However, I can offer you a new life in the world I help govern.'
"What is this nonsense? Goddess? A new life in another world? What the heck is she talking about? This isn't a hallucination is it, or a dream?" the boy questioned as everything that was happening seemed to come out of a fairytale. "Ouch!" the boy somehow mentally pinched himself to see if this was real, he could feel the pain even though he was dead, thus he thought this must be real and not a dream. How else could he explain what was going on? It was too vivid to be a dream, despite it's lunacy.
"You say you're a goddess, yes? Then why was that horrid wormhole opened in the classroom?" the boy inquired.
'I am very sorry about that... I was cleaning and accidentally dropped a summoning scepter in my room. It got damaged when it fell and it opened an unstable bridge between our worlds and you happened to be caught up in that...'
"...So...I was killed...because you dropped something while cleaning?" the boy said sounding dejected in disbelief with an undertone of anger at the stupid way in which he had been killed.
'I'm very sorry about that, at least you aren't completely dead yet, tee hee,' the goddess responded in a cute voice trying to act innocent and liven the mood.
The boy seething from the absurd attitude of the goddess roared out in anger, "Because of you, I died! I had friends that cared about me and I was actually beginning to enjoy spending time with others, and now this?! You know I was on track to go to an Ivy League college?! I would have been able to learn so much there! But now?!?!?! I get killed by some stupid ass goddess' clumsiness and all you do is go 'tee hee'!?! Also, stop apologizing so much, it's fucking annoying, I don't need your damn apology!" After yelling this, the boy stood there mentally panting out of breath from his tirade seemingly calming down after venting his troubles, restoring his previous calm and rational mind.
There was an awkward silence in the empty space where neither the goddess nor the boy said anything for some time. The goddess was the first to break the silence, 'I'm sor- Ahem! You can't go back to your own world because your body from there has died. I can't directly influence your world to the point of resurrecting a life, as I've said. So, you now have two options: either actually die and become nothingness, or be revived in the world I help govern.'
The boy didn't have to think and responded, "Of course I'll be revived in your world, I'm not satisfied with all that I've learned yet! How could I die when a chance to learn a lot is in front of me?" He quickly accepted his reality. If he was dead, he couldn't do anything. It was better to survive to fight another day, as the saying goes. He was going to continue amassing knowledge even if it meant turning the world against him.
'Fufufu, well then, since this is my fault I will give you a few gifts before you go down, you know, as a sign of sincere apology.'
The emptiness suddenly changed and filled out to a room that didn't look dissimilar to a Greek temple. The goddess appeared within an ever-present, sacred, white structure, she was adorned in a beautiful silk robe and her skin glistened like marble. She had waist-long, curly, golden hair that was like stands of gold themselves. Looking into her eyes was like looking at the vast oceans as the blueness of her eyes swallowed you. In all aspects she was more beautiful than the finest works of art, an indescribable aura of beauty hung around her that not even the world's best artists could capture.
She stood in a hall where Corinthian, white, jade-like pillars decorated with many sculptures of the goddess stood on either side with the flooring being of gleaming marble and the metope of the columns were covered in paintings depicting stories and mythological tales. The hall of pillars led to a hundred-meter tall room where a throne sat in the middle of the farthest wall.
A large fresco painting plastered the massive ceiling, which was one of the goddess interacting with creatures and people in the world she governed. Other than that, two statues sat on either side of the throne that looked like guardian angles with the rest of the room being empty.
The goddess walked over to the throne and sat down. She then turned to face the boy with a pleasant smile on her face and spoke to him, "This is my abode, isn't it nice? Well, it's not like you care anyway. Let's get this show on the road!"
Disregarding the goddess's attitude, the boy stopped to realize the situation. Looking down at himself, he appeared to have a sort of ethereal form; he could see through his body, but it looked like his body before going through the wormhole—clothing included—but he couldn't touch himself. He had long come to terms with the fact that he had physically died, but seeing this intangible form was still quite amazing in itself.
After moving on from his current appearance, the boy looked up in front of himself where he found a large board spring out of thin air, displaying a lot of information; the board was like a digital holographic display board.
The goddess started to explain what this floating board was, "This is how you will gain your gifts. It will be based on your previous life, you know, the one where you just died; your talents, accomplishments, past, present, and the future—had I not interrupted—and the like will be converted into points that you can spend on gifts. So, now it's time to calculate!"
With the short and not really helpful explanation, the goddess energetically pulled down a lever—as if she was a game show host—that was connected to the board. The board then started to display memories from his childhood up to his time before dying. It also showed images of things he couldn't comprehend, it almost looked like DNA but was being processed and analyzed like someone was reviewing a novel for how good it was, in essence, it was reading his potential, or so the boy thought. The whole experience was surreal and nostalgic. Just seeing these images made the boy feel a flurry of emotions, both good and bad, but more were bad. Above the images being displayed a number was ticking up with each passing moment.
[4863... 4866... 4878]
It continued like this for the remainder of the flashing of the images until it finally stopped with the last image where he died in the wormhole and a clap of the goddess's hands. The final number displayed:
[5177]
"Wow! What, did you save a country when you were alive?!? Why do you have so many points?!?" the goddess said in astonishment. "Well, aren't you the lucky one? In any case, now is the most important time; it's time for you to select your gifts!"
The board changed, getting rid of the previous image of the boy's charred corpse in the wormhole, and displayed a list of categories of different gifts for the boy to choose from.
[Weapons Skills] [Magic Skills] [Combat Skills] [Labor Skills] [Life Skills]...
These were the main categories of skills the boy could choose from.
Seeing as he didn't want to miss out on the chance to gain an edge in this new world, he decided to carefully look over every skill there was. He was in no rush, so he perused the skills as if he were reading a book next to a fireplace sipping a glass of fine wine and enjoying the atmosphere.
With the hints being given about the world he was about to go into, he believed that it would be one that relied on swords and magic. A vastly different society and place to modern-day Earth.
While looking over the different skills, a certain category caught the boy's attention. He didn't know why it would be there, especially since it didn't fit his vision that a goddess would have. The category read:
[Cursed Skills]
This intrigued the boy since it was contrary to the image of a holy goddess. Why would a being give out a "cursed" power, which could also be interpreted as an "evil" power, when they were "holy" or good? It made him question the being that sat before him. If a supposed "holy" being gave out something that would be deemed "cursed" by their followers, wouldn't that sound red flags in people's mind? Why would you follow or worship a contrary being? It intrigued the boy, and his curiosity got the better of him.
[Cursed Skills: Skills that are considered taboo and if discovered can cause people to either fear you or become hostile towards you, or any number of emotions. There is a possibility that adverse or harmful effects will occur as a result of such skills. WARNING: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK]
[List of skills: All Consumer... Blood Control... Conquest... Death, Demonic Mana, Demon Lord, Dragon's Blood, Dryad... Envy, Evil Eye*, Evolutionary Body, Extreme Growth... Famine... Gluttony, Goddess Shop, Greed... Lust... Monster's Friend... Necromancy... Patience, Pride... Sloth, Soul Harvester... War, Wrath...]
He read through this skill list. Even before reading, though, he realized that these skills seemed extremely strong when compared to the rest. Some of the skills were ridiculous when he considered the power they could give. With a lot of them referencing powers from religions from Earth, such as the deadly sins or the powers of the four horsemen of the apocalypse or powers of Solomon's demons. He thought there might be a catch for such powerful skills, however, and he was right.
[Dragon's Blood: The blood that flows through your veins will have the power of a dragon and will give you access to the powers of a dragon.]
[Cost: 4000]
After seeing this absurd amount of points for the skills, he understood why they would probably be considered taboo or cursed. They were very expensive and very powerful, additionally, they would make him seem less human. It would also make those in power feel threatened, most likely being an instigator for the reason as to why certain skills were considered cursed.
Despite this, some of the skills weren't exactly powerful right away, but down the line, they would become incredibly powerful. Thanks to this, the skills that had potential were cheaper than the ones that were flat out overpowered. The calculation for the expense of a skill was based on the immediate return on investment.
For example, the Evil Eye* skill, which had a further category list that broke up the different types of evil eyes. Some were absurdly powerful:
[Eye of Death: Everything that is captured in your vision dies.]
But, there was an accompanying cost:
[Cost: 10000]
The boy really would have needed to save a country for him to even think about purchasing something like this.
On the other hand, there were others that were not so strong and more affordable:
[Eye of Understanding: Everything that is captured in your vision is "understood"*.]
[Cost: 500]
Obviously, there was at least some common sense put into the exchange system. Well, for the most part.
The boy kept searching and finally came to a conclusion as to the skills he would choose.
He thought while reviewing them, 'With these skills, I will be able to survive and be able to increase my capacity in a theoretically exponential manner.'
For him, he had already accepted that he was going to be thrown into a new world and he didn't exactly know what to expect. The world could be a rainbow land of ponies for all he knew or a hellscape of volcanic crags. What he did know was that survival was the priority, as well as future returns on his immediate investment. He mainly picked skills based on versatility and growth potential. So, he finally started choosing his skills.
"First, I would like..."