So you can talk now?
"Well yeah"
Why is this just starting now?
"The tutorial was still going on before."
So... what was this tutorial thingy?
"In the night sky, there are many stars each star has countless planets spinning around them this is a solar system. A solar system spins around inside a galaxy at the center of a galaxy is a black hole and..."
Yes yes, stop explaining astronomy to me this is stuff I already know...
"*cough* Uhm... K... Sorry... My general point is what do you think a galaxy spins around? And what does that bigger thing spin around?"
I don't think I care tbh... At a certain point, things get so big and outside our control that it doesn't really matter what we know of it.
"Oh... Well then... I guess this entire metaphor has been ruined..."
So... what is this tutorial?
"Well... You were sent to do a task. That task required a frame. Can't make a picture without a frame. So while you drew out the frame you cleaned up the canvas a bit. During that time you were given the unilateral power to break rules. You were empowered to do whatever you wanted."
So... what's my task? Being pretty vague about that. Also, what does this frame define? If in this weird metaphorical world you have made up out of nowhere to make this seem deep I guess it's meant to set my limits? Or is it my goal? As a frame would fit around a picture. The painting wouldn't necessarily have to fit the frame but it could never be bigger than it. I get that right?
"Well, it's supposed to be that way."
Wait... So what way is it then?
"Well, the tutorial is meant to be a stage where you are given the power to follow your wishes so you can define your path. However, your first course of action was to make me your companion."
Why does that break the balance? Does my desire not to be left alone somehow break the frame?
"More accurately I was the frame that you brought to life. So I am both set and not set because rather than a thing I became a being. A frame that can grow. Your path is now vague and meaningless but also endless."
So... my path got screwed up because I brought you to life? Ah... Well is that a good or bad thing?
"Both... Neither? I don't know... It's meant to be impossible but you did it when everything was meant to be possible so the impossible became possible so now we stand in impossible not possible. Bad or good? How can those exist when we stand outside of things that are possible? It's neither bad nor good it's just a different path altogether."
That sounds like nonsense... So... what's my task? Am I meant to do a thing?
"Well, I was meant to give you a task based on your chosen path before I died after fulfilling my job. As I was not a physical being I shouldn't have been able to exist as I do and I was meant to return to nothingness as I have always been."
Did I do a bad thing by bringing you to life?
"Certainly wrong. I already described how it can't be defined as good or bad though..."
No, no you misunderstood... How do you feel about it?
"Uh... what?"
You seemed to imply it was something you were meant to do. Returning to nothingness that is. It doesn't sound like some bad thing but just your purpose. So did I steal your purpose? Are you upset with me? Should I be apologizing?
"I am a fragment of a will. I lack a true personality so I don't have much opinion on the matter that would be mine and mine alone. I only know the task I was given which is the will of the one who sent you and made me."
Wait... whose will?
"I don't know. I was never given that information only a desire split off from a whole. I only have information associated with that desire."
So someone sent me? From where?
"I don't have that information but you do. You just aren't strong enough to have it yet. Theoretically, you could abandon me to get that information as I am now a hanger on to your soul making your burden heavier. Would you like to abandon me?"
I made you to stay by my side right?
"Yes."
And rather than my decision, you were created by my subconscious desire to not be alone correct?
"Basically."
Then what would my memories give me better than more things to long for? They'd probably just make me feel more alone. Not only that the first choice I was given was between my only companion and my past... But that's my past. So since we can abandon things... Can I abandon it?
"You want to abandon your fragmented memories? It is possible. However, it will make your path harder in your next few lives. Which for your information... You weren't supposed to have... you broke the path... So we just stuck this way. You will have a harder time in each lifetime from now on as the power that once gave you the ability to break all balances is now gone. Ran dry. So you will just continuously reincarnate. Forever."
So what you are saying is... I was playing on easy mode and now it's normal mode?
"Uh... easy mode would be an understatement you were on god mode."
Ok, so anything else I need to know?
"You need to grow your soul. Empowering it so I can better fit. So we can grow stronger together. Right now. You only have 9 things stuck to you not counting myself. All the skills originally chosen that were fused into your soul."
What's the difference between my soul and the soul ability fused into my soul?
"The ability gives each body you reside inside of a soul. It theoretically made it possible to empower your main soul over time by consuming the abilities of your previous lifetime. Which is what it's been doing on its own."
Can it allow me to develop new skills that stay around?
"Yes. However, your own soul needs to grow more first. Right now the skill is making a balloon and attaching it to another balloon if you let the air go too far in either direction one will break so you need to put more air in your real soul. It gives power but not growth nor does it make it stronger."
So what do I need to do?
"Use the new ability you unlocked when you died last."
Oh, I got a new ability?
"Yes, soul refining."
How do I use it?
I heard her speak but didn't understand it like sound traveling underwater as a sudden overwhelming feeling of pain took over my being. I looked down to find all the green mist that makes up my being slowly fading away. I freaked out and started trying to catch the mist that seemed to be fading away and as I struggle to stop the fading of my soul the pain fades and a voice enters my ears.
"I guess you didn't need me to answer. That's how. Will it. It's not like you can hit a button or anything. Much like how you made me you have to desire something for it to happen. Simply decide to use your skill and it will occur. After all. I won't be able to help you will these things anymore."
So wait... earlier you said my soul had 9 things in it. If I have a new ability that makes 9. However, you are also a part of my soul are you not?
"Not entirely. At least not yet. You aren't strong enough to hold all of me. If I tried to fit entirely you'd shatter."
So are you not gonna stay with me?
"I just won't be conscious till you die or your soul is strong enough to carry me. So you will not be speaking with me again while you live until you are stronger but I will still be there semi-conscious but asleep only acting like the computer I was meant to be."
Cool, so you said you will set like a quest-line up for me? What's my first quest? Talk to someone?
"Reach level 1 in your soul refining."
Wait there are levels to that too?
"Yeah, you have the level skill so all details of you are given a level even me the ability isn't necessarily changing anything but explaining it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have levels just sets the amount of things cause the world isn't a video game... you can define how much power people have in a level system but other monsters wouldn't grow based on how much they kill or repeated action of a single thing. Your evolve skill is also semi-passive in that it can evolve each of your skills even itself. It can also evolve you. However, it's more difficult you'd have to die or be on the brink of death and will that ability to work to use it that way as you cannot evolve your existence while existing otherwise your soul would be rejected the moment the physical form begins to change and death would be instant. So loosening the connection between the two so that they can't sense the change in each other immediately is that the body can change then they can be reconnected again."
Wait so how do I die and come back without that ability? I mean clearly, I can just act as if I was just born by putting my soul in what I assume was a previously vacant body but if I'm not dying and going again how does evolve allow me to evolve my current form?
"It changes your very existence... Healing a dead body isn't impossible when you are changing the body at a fundamental level."
So can it work as an immortality ability?
"You are technically already immortal but yes and no... It can fundamentally work forever but the body you changed before would have to have enough energy. You won't be at the same level in anything as all that power will be used to give you a new ability. So it's impossible to do it repeatedly but you can use it occasionally like that. However the more you change your existence the harder it is to change as each time it's solidified to fit the new form you make it harder and larger each time so eventually, you will break it entirely or it'll require too much energy to change. Here are your stats."
"Unnamed level 0 - Fragmented Soul Current Shards: 483 septillion
Soulbound Skills: [Level-0] [Evolution- 0] [Sight-0] [Healthy-0] [Detect- 0] [Regeneration- 0] [Weakest-0][Soul Art] [Light-0]
Title: Soul Mate"
Wait but it doesn't show soul tempering and just says soul art? Are soul and soul tempering not separate skills? Also... Did you just give up on showing that full number? How exactly do I get to level one? And why am I still nameless?
"I guess it is weird you have no name. Also, the soul wasn't a skill you had originally as the tutorial ended it was removed but at the same time it merged with the ability to temper your soul. Currently, your level in life will cap at your evolution limit rather than before. Then I can separate your body and soul temporarily so you can evolve... To get to level one in your soul. You will need to first repair your soul. Which will require an extremely large amount of power. Luckily your previous lives allowed me to repair it slightly or there will be no word to represent the number of shards your soul is in that you know and you'd have to read a really long number."
Oh... So I'll need to go from septillion to sextillion to quintillion to quadrillion to trillion to billion to million to thousand then put those all back together... Wow... that's a lot... How many god damn pieces was my soul in before?
"To represent it I'd need a larger numerical word than you know but I can describe it in powers... It was somewhere around ten to the power of three thousand five hundred and three."
Wait... septillion is only ten to the power of fifty-four... That... Well, I guess that means I've already gotten through most of the journey...
"Yes, but you didn't even manage to put it all back together playing in god mode... Now you are going into hard mode so this will take much longer. Not to mention you will be limited to the bodies you can live in based on the power of your real soul as it cannot create a soul for the body stronger than itself and the body of stronger creatures needs a stronger soul to control."
So back to bacteria?
"No, you can do better than single-cell organisms... I mean your original self wouldn't have been able to. It would have been impossible even to do a single cell organism properly."
Then without god mode what would I have been able to turn into?
"A small nanoscopic organism."
Well... I'm kind of curious what that would have been like... But I have a feeling it would be a pointless life. So let's not. So what are my best options?
"I guess small animals. Birds/Rodents/Bugs/Herbs/Anything organic and about the size of your previous lives leafbirds."
Can I see my choices?
"No. I am not capable of showing you all of your choices."
Wait but you show me a bunch of choices before.
"That was the tutorial. The number of living organisms within your current planet alone spans in the trillions."
Wait... Trillions of different species... meaning at the very minimum there'd have to be at least 2 of each... That's entirely unsustainable from my current knowledge... How large is my current planet?
"Gravity works differently here thus it's not limited by the size of the planet like your previous world. So while you would likely have a similar sensation to the gravity of your previous planet the planet you are currently going in and out of would have the general size of the sun you are remembering from your previous world. Sadly I don't have exact measurements as I was not meant to have them and what you currently know doesn't include the proper information. When you finally awaken me and if you are a flying organism I can measure it for you."
Hmm, so the world would likely have vast empty space rather than overcrowding...
"You have to remember that this world has creatures like the infant water dragon you encountered before."
You... you are telling me that thing was a baby?
"From its race perspective yes. It was only a few thousand years old. From your memories of the human lifespan, I guess its closest translation would be a 10-year-old."
How big will it be when it's an adult?
"I don't know. I only know the basic starting information about races and what you've seen. I was given the information to introduce races, not their limit."
Oh... What about the flying dragon then what was that thing?
"Crimson Wyrm it is a breed of lessor dragon. They are barely considered dragons and are exiled and seen as trash by the dragon community as they aren't pure. They come from the spawn known as drakes. A half-breed race that is the result of forced inbreeding by a higher life form and genetic alterations along with breeding with other races. Specifically other large lizards. They are commonly seen with pity by the dragons and brought into the individual communities to protect them."
Higher being?
"Something capable of traveling across worlds. They are still considered lessor from a different perspective but from your current one they can be considered above even a god, which is just the collective will of a world put into a chosen champion."
Oh, the world is alive? Can it be killed? Or level up?
"It is living but does not have a conscious. Gods are chosen by sentient beings on the world, not the world itself."
Oh... what about leveling up?
"Again you are the only creature with a level. It can grow and its existence can change but it would take countless years for it to experience much growth and that's even if its residents develop properly."
Oh... yeah... So what is developing properly?
"Carnage mostly."
What? How can killing help it?
"Death and life is a cycle of all things death is important for life. Unlike you when other creatures die especially to sentient residents of the world their soul and a lot of the time body is consumed by the world. Sentient residents soul is complicated with the gods the exist under as chosen representation of the world they can govern the dead as the living of their own race. Those gods usually keep a balance with the world and give the souls back to it though. As no one wants to impede their own worlds growth."
Can I become a god?
"Not in this universe."
Wait there are others? Is this like a cultivation novel where I need to ascend after I reach the peak?
"No... it's more like an infinite number of bubbles some smaller than the others and your soul isn't strong enough to exist in a larger bubble. Eventually, you could reach a plane of existence like one of those novels you are thinking of however if we consider it based on tiers of existence like that you are at 0. Nothing in any of the bubbles is above 0. You'd need to get strong enough to reach the largest of bubbles then exit to the void above which would take you to a higher plane of existence. It's very unlikely you will reach that any time soon. As your soul measured based on the current level system wouldn't even be good enough after it evolves a hundred or so times. So please focus on leveling it to 1 first then we can work on evolving it."
Oh... Anyways back to my next life... You said it's too many to show me so how will I pick?
"You could specify it and filter out extras or let me pick randomly from the general range that best represents your soul."
Sounds like specifying would require countless hours of scrolling. You do it, too much work for me.
"Picking Randomly from best-suited monsters of small size now."
Suddenly countless lights start flashing by on Alex's screen at a speed I can't quite register but I can see that it's moving in a pattern. Hmm, it looks a bit like she's entirely lit up but I can also see it looks like the lights are brighter in some places... maybe it's a roulette? Countless tiny boxes lighting up at a speed I can't quite see and the light will eventually stop... then again I'm just assuming...
"You are correct."
As Alex's voice rang out again the light went almost entirely out and a box expanded.
"Blumest selected. Would you like a general explanation of it before you go?"
Sure.
"It's a race of scale-less reptilian-like creatures with wings that puts off a mist. They are named blumest as they usually put off a blue mist as an innate ability."
Cool, I guess let's do this thing.
"Talk to you after you die next."
Yeah. Talk to you later Alex have a nice sleep.