Charles stood up from the floor and dusted himself. As there was no dust in the reincarnation center, this was merely a habit. Although Charles was no longer a human, his mind still was.
"System." He said.
A system menu that only he can see appeared in his vision.
On that top of the menu says [Overseer System] while the status is displayed beneath it in the center.
[Name: Worker No. 0392 aka Charles Shovell]
Race: System Worker (Soul)
Title: Overseer of Reincarnation center (Earth-21)
Health: 0
Mana: 0
Attributes: None
~Skills~
Overseer job skills level 3 Max.
Thought Manifestation Level 1 (Max level cap)
Immunity to all damage types
Immunity to all debuffs
There was a "Quests" icon with a red exclamation mark in the top left corner and right next to it was an email icon.
Charles ignored the quests notification and went straight to the icon with a hammer on the top right. It opened a new screen where he had a couple of choices to choose from.
Warp
Search
System Call
Message
Charles chose the Search option with his mind. Then a transparent 3-D hologram of Earth appeared. It was a translucent aqua color lined with grids and no other details.
Charles searched the deviant and the translucent hologram of Earth was colored in as the screen zoomed into the deviant's current location. As the image zoomed in into the countries, they showed more color details until a bird's-eye view of the cities replaced it.
It zoomed in further until it centered the camera on a boy who was studying some math on his desk at home.
Hikaru Suteki — class S deviant.
The boy was a regular human.
Charles brought up his timeline and skimmed through it.
A powerful parasite infected Hikaru, but he resisted and wrestled for control. He took over the parasite's body instead.
Because of the parasite's unique physiology combined with his efficient mindset, he became stronger at a frightening pace. With every opponent he defeated, he became stronger.
Charles got to a point in the timeline that was highlighted. There was a time distortion here caused by a third party, creating a new timeline.
"What? What is this!"
Soon after that, he could no longer scroll past as there wasn't a timeline to speak of. It was broken off and time became wibbly wobbly, so to speak. It was constantly in a state of flux. The end scenario was always changing.
Hikaru's fate was indeterminable.
He could catch glimpses of different scenarios happening.
One moment Hikaru dies in the hands of the Royal Guards of the hive and then the timeline vibrates out of existence, and another replaces it.
"Death from radiation poisoning… Hmmm. I can see how this is a class S deviant. He's completely free to choose his fate…"
It certainly was a difficult problem. Someone who cannot be controlled by the System, which itself is the epitome of control poses a very dangerous threat to the System's plans.
Charles then searched for the strongest potential reincarnators. He filtered and arranged them in descending order. In front of him was a list of profile tabs separated by names.
"Roland, Edward, Su Jin, Satoru, Lee Hyun, Kirito-"
Charles read their names out awkwardly as he couldn't pronounce some names well. They were on the top of the list and significantly differed from each other in strength, but the differences weren't vast in the top ten.
Although he filtered them out on the system's approximation of overall combat strength, that didn't mean Roland was the best choice to send on this mission. For example, if it forced the top ten into a battle tournament, Kirito would win first place 66% of the time.
If it was a battle royale, Sung-Jin would win 76% of the time because of his versatility. Although none of these people have reincarnated yet, the system predicts their future capabilities.
If the tournament mode was to capture the flag, defend the castle, rescue the hostage, etc. the winning contestants would be different every time.
The best reincarnator must be a good matchup to Earth-21's enemies and the personality must also be considered.
Charles could feel a headache coming up.
'Sigh~ It's always like this. Aren't I immune to all ailments?'
The system had granted him immortality. Even a God shouldn't be able to harm him, although he wouldn't bet on it. Immunity to all damage types and debuffs should include stress headaches, right?
He had asked the MS (Master System) before and the MS rarely answers these kinds of questions but when he nagged about it too much, the MS got fed up (probably) and told him: "[Status check completed. No issues detected]"
This made him think maybe it was a manifestation of his thoughts. A "psychological headache."
If that was true then there was nothing he could do. He tried meditation but it didn't work either.
After much deliberation, he thought that Sung Jin was an excellent candidate because of his ability to outgrow his projected limits.
Charles was about to get started on Sung Jin until he realized his mistake. Sung Jin was on the right track but isn't necessarily the best candidate.
He changed the filter settings to people with the highest growth margins and unpredictability.
When a new list popped up, it blinded him.
"Agh!"
Different colors and brightness levels highlighted the profile tabs to show their match strength.
The name at the top glared at him as if the curtains in a dark room were suddenly ripped off. It was so bright he instinctively shielded his eyes with his arms.
In the thousand years that he had worked here, he had never seen a name as bright as the sun.
He thought that after a while, the light would dim, but it was still shining as if a flash bang had frozen in space.
Only after he selected the tab that the light disappeared.
Elijah Whitlock: 15 years old
Hair type: Curly
Hair color: Brown
Eyes: Hazel
Occupation: High school student
Blessings: Essence of the Goddess of Fortune
Note: Favored by the Goddess of Fortune
"What?"
Charles squinted at the last text.