"What do you think Leroy Agu Shentai?" The voice used his true name given by his mother and not the European American surname given by his father, Leroy Apollo.
"So... let me get this just right..." Leroy said rubbing his temples. ".. I am not dead but have been snatched up by some asshole "Deity" who was going to kill me for my soul and a bunch of others from my former Company. But you saved me from that, cause you are wanting my help.. which is fine. You saved me and all so you get to ask this of me. But... umm how the hell am I going to do that?"
"By working to find some artifacts for me of course." The voice was coming from a giant Computer Terminal. Mixed with all kinds of different technology at levels and unsavory things that caused Leroy's head to hurt something fierce. Some of it looked old, and some of it was so far in Sci-Fiction it made his head hurt when trying to correlate it to something normal. "Missions and saving people with value to them."
"Umm in case you haven't noticed, I am in a wheelchair and I am missing a lung from that scaffold piercing me when trying to treat Rexford when medevacked him. How in hell am I going to do that exactly? Saving anyone at this rate when I haven't even finished physical rehab? Not to mention what will happen to my body."
"Well, you have some Faith already generated from acts done over the years doctor. Some Aspects structured and solidified in your Soul are already taken from some of the things you have done. You really should not have killed..."
"I would do it again in a heartbeat. She should not have hurt him or betrayed us." Leroy waved at the machine not wanting to hear it. Long since made peace with all his actions, almost before he even did them. "Just let me come to terms with everything. Like my early separation from my body and such."
"No time." The Terminal floated a screen in front of him. Different values of his body and how it would take for him to advance. "I recommend replacing your body with artificial components."
"Yeah no... that just sounds ugh right off the bat." Leroy shook his head at that. "How dangerous of a place am I going to exactly start off in?"
"Difficulty Level 1, I do not want you to die." The Afterlife Terminal showed a place with people just walking around normally. Nothing visible that was of note for a few minutes. Then the window closed. "The less you know, the better. Figure it out once there will help in fitting in better. Try not to spoil matters if you want to gain more. Aspect power is generated in all sorts of ways."
"Fine." Leroy scrolled through what was available for him to take on as a body. Besides his legs that were busted, he needed to deal with his lungs that were failing. The original one anyway. The artificial one was wonky since day one. "Any regen or something?"
"Healing Factor can help. It will be painful. I recommend getting it up to higher tier to be able to control it better. Sometimes, an injury can go a long way in fooling people. As well as drawing sympathy."
"Umm, I don't see anything. Oh, wait.." Leroy stopped at a screen to the far right. The cost was really high. "I will get the living one in the form of a bacteria. It is the cheapest and grows by throwing things in it with different infections to heal my original body. Doesn't say to what extent though."
The Afterlife Terminal made quiet calculations in regards to that. Inside of Leroy's Soul was that of the Flame Vortex. A type of Core that burned with that of Deity's long passed and dead. A power that his very Spirit itself pulled from the confines of the Afterlife when he was born.
Equal parts empowered and restrained the body of his birth parents giving their traits to him. However like a few of those he was close to, his Spirit made it his own by turning traits into power for him.
However the Earth Leroy was from was long lost to power and those who started to exhibit died aearly from natural causes or the various Deities snatched up to move to the Afterlife or other methods.
"The remaining of your Faith, I recommend buying Stamina increase for your body back there. Mixed with the Healing Factor, your recovery will be extremely high. Which will definitely be needed if you fail and Rexford fails where he is currently at." The Afterlife Terminal voice was a little persuading. As if it was insistent but not too much he gets it. "I would not worry about weapons for now. There will be a lot of them later if your Earth goes to shit."
"Ok. Stamina increase it is." As his body tingled, Leroy noticed a few bit of Aspect energy was left. "Well.. ok. How did that happen?" As the changes worked, he put a few things together. "No way, that simple."
"Certain purchases drop depending on what you already have inside you. Others will be worse. But that is a road to cross when you get there." The Afterlife Terminal opened a portal behind Leroy. "Good luck in cultivating."
The portal engulfed Leroy sending him away. The Afterlife Terminal ran several calulations to help prepare the lie it fed to the Champion. For it was a Pseudo Deity in it's current state and had done something horrible by pulling him to this location away from the eyes of the Pantheons weho had sights on the Doctor.
.
I am where?-
.
Leroy moved about the town getting used to his legs and free movement. He would not lie, it was great to stand on his two feet again. A few jumps up and down and he was feeling even better.
However, he had information flowing in his head about the person this body used to belong to. He was the child of the Dark Tigerfire Family's youngest general and a dancing girl of the Alkebulan. The mother who birthed the body here was long since dead as well as members of the performing Troupe she was a part of.
Imagine that nonsense of all of them getting killed so easily and mysteriously. Leroy of course assumed it was foul play before tucking that information away,
As for the Dark Tigerfire Family's youngest general, he was nowhere to be seen after attacking a neighboring kingdom who were part of the attack on his lover's people.
Luckily before the body Leroy now inhabited was set up to be killed, in which they succeeded as far as typical stories go he now found himself, in a terrible situation briefly. Unfortunately, the previous Leroy instead of being a better person took pride in being his father's child and hurting those under him.
No wonder he was able to be killed like this. Worked in current Leroy's favor as he was not wanting to pretend to be someone else anyway. Too much of a hassle.
"Oh boy this is great!" Leroy reached for the sky. A smile so big the sun was jealous also. He gave a sniff smelling something odd. "What the hell is that smell?" Following his nose was both good and bad. "No way."
The area he was in was the dump site for corpses and garbage.
A few people were chewing away at another. Made no sense they did so actually. Served no purpose. Since the stomachs of those eating were already ripped out by something. Everything they ate fell out from the opening.
Another group of people were moving away. They spotted Leroy who waved at them slowly. He was still dealing with everything mentally himself and was only broken from musings do to the smell.
Thrown into a corpse pit is not something anyone really wants to ever happen to them. Discarded like yesterday's trash really showed little regard for people.
A few more people dug into the pile of corpses looking for anything worthwhile. One of the items those who killed Leroy was in the mix still. Of course the current body holder didn't care about it and turn a blind eyed to the belongings getting snatched.
Rolling off the mound then heading off, Leroy got rid of the clothes he had on and took the belongings that hung out to dry. Simple clothing and a robe to go over his head like everyone else he saw.
Memory served enough that the hamlet nearby was always looking for workers and even gave room and board to be used. It would be best to go there and get a stable footing before doing anything else. Bad enough some residual pain could be felt internally.
'Do I need to eat something for everything to work or is it just a slow passive method of the Healing Factor?' Leroy was annoyed as he could feel phantom pain physically from the assassination and mentally from the pain he went through because of the accident. 'So far this looks bad for what I was suppose to have. Even worse since this is a cultivation World. Another Dimension....'
The walk helped to fix his mind as best as possible to the situation. But it was so annoying true that he was not on his Earth that he felt a bit of hysteria sitting in. Military training and Medical training only helped to keep him focus enough to keep from lashing out.
The euphoria from having fully working lungs and walking on his own helped out to distract from the situation. However the smell of corpse still lingered in the air around him.
Another thing he would have to do is go and shower off correctly. Before he used dirt to do it but that was not a real good method to get out the full ordor.
Arriving at the Hamlet due to his slow pace, Leroy was happy they had no trouble giving him a room. He only needed to chop some wood, plow the earth, fetch water, or skin some animals to pay. He could even ride with in the morning to dismember the bodies to feed to the various beasts.
"Haaa..." Taking a deep sigh when entering the room, he plopped down on the mud floor. The Hamlet Leader had talk a good deal nonstop when he caught Leroy reading a book cover. So few could real certain material correctly. "... at least I can go and do some Scribe work when tired. Maybe I can get him to lend me the books to do from here?"
As he sat there getting his bearings, the screen projected by the Backdoor Terminal appeared. The display was annoying but he couldn't do anything about it. He was ticked since nothing showed in regards to what he picked before spending Aspect Points.
Status: Leroy Agu Shentai
Health: 10 Qi: 10
Power: 1 Defense: 1
Willpower: 20 Intellect: 20
Connection: 0
Flame Vortex: Body Tempering I
Cultivation:
'What the heck is a Flame Vortex and where the heck is it? What are with these numbers next to attributes? Is it an accurate reflection of myself or something else?'
Racking his brain for a few hours, the Champion didn't come up with anything besides a few guesses. Defense would have to correlate with Health, he tested if it would by pinching his skin and cutting himself with his fingernails.
It took a very long cut to actually change the screen for his Health by one. Even letting his blood flow for a bit to change another number. Stemming blood loss was easy but seeing the blood seep back inside was amazing.
He only felt a burning sensation flow through him as a type of energy moved around to heal him, that was the assumption. The value of Qi changed on the spot to reflect it. Other notice trait was that he felt energized and was not even close to sleeping now.
Working out in the hut until exhaustion helped get his mind over the situation. Any time he pushed to far and tore a muscle the burning sensation would happen and his Qi would drop.
"Food..." Leroy was hungry and out of Qi to restore himself from overworking, so he moved outside. "..hopefully I can find something to eat out there. Maybe something like potatoes or other produce."