Darkness.
It was everywhere.
I couldn't feel, see, breath, hear.
I can't exist.
'Where am I? I can think?' I pondered to myself in this endless void. 'Am I dead?'
"No, yOU ArE NOt DeAD."
'What is that voice? God?' I hear it inside my head.
"IF ThAT iS WhaT YoU WiSH To cAlL Me thEN YeS I aM a GOD." the voice responded.
'If I'm not dead then what is going on?' I asked the mysterious being.
"YOu ArE AlMoST DeAD," it stated. "Do YOu wAnT POWER?"
It asked me this with a very high amount of emphasis on the word power. I started thinking about everything that had happened to me so far. 'What do you mean?' I asked.
"I WiLL GivE YOu ThE POweR YoU DESIRE."
'What I desire?' I asked.
"YEs" It responded.
'I want power,' my thoughts were getting clouded at the thought of being strong.
'Give me power,' I told it. 'I'll do anything.'
"GoOD, HahAHAhaHaHA," the distorted voice started laughing maniacally.
Everything lit up at once, I was blinded for a few seconds, however, I slowly gained the ability to see again.
Once I could see again I looked around to find myself lying on a bed in a small wooden room.
"Where am I?" I questioned as I looked around.
'You are in your soul plane.' a feminine voice responded, once again it felt as though this voice was speaking directly into my mind.
"Who are you?" I asked deciding that I wanted to figure out what this thing was before I continued.
'I am your guide, I am here to help you on your journey to gather strength.' she responded.
"What do you mean my guide, how am I supposed to gain strength?"
As soon as I said this a partially transparent screen appeared in front of me.
"What is this?" I asked as I read what the azure-colored screen said.
'Based on your previous actions, and based on your memories, I have decided that this is the best and fastest method to allow you to obtain strength.
The screen reads:
[System Menu:
Character Creation
Status (Locked until a character has been created)
Skills (Locked)
Inventory (Locked)
]
"Character creation, Status, Skills? It's like a video game!" I was shocked. I've read many manwha, mangas, and web novels where the characters would have something similar, but I never even thought that I would ever ha...never mind, not even gonna continue the thought.
If my time as a nerd that was obsessed with stuff like this had taught me anything, it was that with this, I could become unstoppable.
"Thank you," I said gratefully to the voice in my head. "Is there any way I can know your name?"
'I do not have a title that can be addressed. You could always, however, give me one.' She said.
"Give you a name??" I pondered for a second, using my incredible name-giving skills. "I'll give you the name...Echo."
'Alright, my title from now on shall be Echo. By the way, your physical body is almost dead so you should probably do the character creation.' She stated.
"Oh, wait...How is that going to work?" I asked Echo.
'When creating your character, it will take all living creatures within a 100-meter radius and use that to decide your race and what your starting skills, status, and race will be. After that, you will be able to genetically modify your appearance to match however you want it to look. However, it will be limited, for example, if you absorb a human with black hair, then your appearance cannot have red hair. Things like that.'
"Makes sense. Wait, what if it is only animals that are near me? Will I just be an animal?" I asked because I was hoping that no matter what, I could keep a human-like appearance.
'Yes.' She answered bluntly.
"Oh, okay," I responded with dread. "By the way, how much time has passed since I 'died'?"
'You have not died yet, the spear that was thrown at you has not even reached you yet. Time is currently moving at 1/100,000th at the same speed. However, it is not stopped.' she responded in her usually bland way.
"Oh, and you said that we are in my soul plane. What is that?" I asked as I looked around and found a door.
'You are currently in your soul. this is the very essence of your being. For right now it is just this wooden cottage, however, after you get a race and evolve further to become stronger, it will develop beyond that.' she said.
"When can I come back here?" I asked.
'You will do so every time you sleep or lose consciousness.'
"Alright, well I guess it's time." I looked back towards the screen in front of me and thought about the character creation screen.
WHOOSH~
All of a sudden I was transported to a pure white space. In front of me was a model of a man and the character creation screen was there. the man had no hair, clothes, anything, even his face was blank.
I looked at the screen.
[NOTICE:
All living creatures within a 100-meter radius have been absorbed.
Creatures absorbed include:
Vampire
Juvenile 100-Tailed Winged Shadow Panther
Worms x127
Beetles x17
]
"Is there any way for me to take at least the worms and beetles off of here?" I asked.
'Yes, but that is it. Also, due to the levels of the vampire and the panther, both races will be brought to their base level for the character creation.' She informed me.
"Okay, that makes sense." I focused my attention on the man that was there and a new menu popped up.
[Character Creation:
Race (Please Choose One):
100-Tailed Winged Shadow Panther
Vampire
100-Tailed Vampiric Winged Shadow Panther Mutant
]
"Wait, so I get to choose my race?" I asked.
'Yes.'
"The last one seems like it would be the strongest, ill choose that one," I decided.
All of a sudden, the medel of the man started to change, 2 furry black ears popped out of the top of his head and a long black tail came out of the small of his back, some facial features also appeared. 2 deep crimson eyes with cat-like pupiles appeared on his face, and a mouth with thin lips opened up to reveal a full set of almost completely human teeth, however the 2 canine teeth appeared to be longer, like those of a vampires. on his hands and feet long sharp nails about an inch in length appeared.
All of a sudden, the body start to shake as 2 massive black wings appeared from it's shoulder blades, the total wingspan was about 2.5 meters.
[Character Creation:
Racial Integration: Complete
Character design:
The User will be able to design the body to their specifications.
]