A shimmering tranquil lake reflected a depressed-looking skeleton's face back at him.
Cal had travelled deeper into the dungeon and arrived at the lake that his party used to rest at during their expeditions. There were no monsters or signs of life nearby, taken over by a sense of nostalgia, Cal decided to rest here for a while.
He held his face over the water and inspected its bony structure; it was only when he saw a skull looking back at him that his mood plummeted. He looked like every other dungeon mob, indistinguishable from the mindless creatures that wreaked havoc around his home.
'Oh, my handsome face… ah! My striking jaw and chocolatey eyes! They've been snatched by the oh so cruel hands of fate!' the boy lamented, tracing his bones around his jaw. Cal thought a bit too highly of himself at times, sure he wasn't a disgusting mass of faeces but "handsome" was pushing it, however, compared to his current appearance, he would've been a knockout.
The boy tapped his ribs like an instrument and then lowered his attention to his "hips" area.
The skeleton's jaw unhinged as realisation struck him like lightning, he stared at his hips for a while before his thoughts started to churn again.
'M-my… my THING!' Cal slightly shook, trembling in the dark cave.
'IT'S GONNNEEE!!!' Cal held his arms up and shook them at the sky, cursing the heavens.
'OH GODS I'VE BEEN CASTRATED BY FATE!' the skeleton dropped to his knees and wiggled his feet while slamming his fist onto the ground.
'Why?! If you could twist reality enough to put me into a skeleton's body, would it hurt to add an extra feature?!'
'You- you took it before I even tested it out! That's like taking eyes of a blind man! Sure I wasn't really using it but what if a miracle happened! I might've wanted to use it someday! No, I definitely wanted to! Did you think I wouldn't want it huh!?' Cal balled his bony fists out and shed imaginary tears of blood.
It took him a few minutes to relax before activating his brain for the first time in a while.
'Skeleton's are the lowest of the low in terms of strength but… what if I evolved?! Maybe if I managed to become a zombie or something…'
Cal shuddered.
'NO I DON'T WANT A ROTTEN SAUSAGE!' he screamed in his mind.
Cal steeped in these thoughts for a while; the boy was putting off the main issue of being turned into a skeleton by focusing on a more "trivial" matter while causing a ruckus. His subconscious wanted to imagine that his 'hoohaa''s presence mattered more than the fact that he was essentially an outcast from his society from this moment on.
Thoughts of Cal's family and friends interrupted his tantrum but he immediately quashed them down so he wouldn't have to think about it. Sure, it wasn't the healthiest thing for his mental state but it reduced his pain in the moment and that's all the skeleton cared about.
It's all he could afford to care about.
'Sigh'.
It took Cal a while before he managed to fully accept his situation, his travels through the five stages of grief was a short yet painful one.
'No more wallowing.' Cal groaned internally, shaking his skull.
'Get up dumb*ss…'
Cal grunted in his head and crept back up on his feet, picking up the dagger he had gotten from where he woke up.
On his way down the dungeon, he had seen many mobs in groups making their way up, since he didn't have a death wish, he passed on trying to take them on.
The deeper he went into the dungeon, the more scarce mobs got.
Cal took one last look at his surroundings and clapped his hands.
'Right! The first order of business should be to get some points! Just need to kill some-'
'Oh sh*t' a stray thought made the skeleton stop in his tracks.
'This aint the Deva system.'
Cal hadn't taken the time to understand the Brahma system to any amount; he was preoccupied fighting moths and mourning the disappearance of his "spaghetti and meatballs"
'I guess I could experiment with it, do some trial and error?'
Cal wanted to sigh out loud, conducting tests, making hypotheses, forming scientific conclusions, these were all things he had done at his brief stint at the mage academy and he loathed the work he was forced to do there.
'Ah crap, maybe the things those old codgers taught us might come in handy.'
'First, let's take stock of the system and try to understand it…'
'Brahma system, open sta-'
[Yes creator?]
From the bright expanse that the screen was moments ago, words that looked as if they were drawn gracefully were etched onto the page.
Cal's jaw slacked open for the second time that day.
'It talked?!' Cal hunched over and stared intently at the screen.
[Yes I can talk~!]
'You…' Cal thought, squinting his imaginary eyes.
'Do you listen to everything that goes on in my head? Were you listening in just before?' memories of Cal's "breakdown" flashed through his head.
For some reason or another, the system took an extra few seconds to come up with an answer.
[No.]
'Really? You're sure you-'
[Uh huh yup~!]
'A-alright…' Cal decided to drop this issue. For now.
'How can you talk?' Cal asked, tapping the orange interface.
[The same way you can!] it chimed.
The skeleton wanted to retort but he let it pass.
'Why didn't you talk up till now?'
[I was just born! What, did you deliver a speech as an infant?]
'Er… no' Cal rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as he made small talk with this new "creature".
The skeleton stared at the orange screen for a while, the system he was previously acquainted with only acted as a tool to be used by him and not as an entity who could talk.
Luckily, the system took hold of the conversation, reprieving him of needing to use his sub-par social interactions skills.
[You must be pretty confused right? Waking up with no skin and all!]
'Yeah! What's up with that!?' Cal asked, thrusting his bony arms into the air.
[Well, I'm not entirely sure but it probably has something to do with your skills!]
'Skills? I had a skill like that?!'
[Not necessarily! They just levelled up~ Check your status screen!]
Without Cal's command or request, another orange screen popped up beside the first one.
-------------------------------
[SKILLS]
HIGHLIGHTED SKILLS:
-> Relentless || Level ? (E+?)
-> Will || Level ? (D+?)
-------------------------------
[Here! I'll show you the ones I'm talking about~!]
Right beside the rectangle Cal was using to talk to his new "friend", a smaller one of similar shape popped up showing two of Cal's skills. He had glossed over them the first time round; a nerfed status screen and a new form of energy overshadowed the existence of these two skills by a lot.
'Oh, these ones?' Cal thought in a surprised tone, he would've had a confused look on his face if he had been back in his human body.
Innate skills are those that you receive from the very moment your own system is created, albeit at the lowest level. A gargantuan amount of research has gone into the manipulation of such skills by various Mage academies, yet the general consensus is that these skills are hereditary. Nobles and rich politicians often choose their spouses solely based on their innate skills as they have a higher chance of giving birth to a genius who can elevate the status of their family, this led to a deepening divide between the strong and the weak.
Cal had never met his real parents nor had he heard of them, with the innate skills he had, the boy could only assume that his ancestors would have been people on the poorer side who went through many hardships.
The skills he had, while rare, never amounted to much. Most skills that were valued in Cal's society were those who increased the fighting capabilities or mental prowess of the user, something such as giving the user more drive or motivation hardly got any of the limelight.
Cal was only confused for a few seconds before he noticed the unusual markings next to the skills.
'Um… what's up with my level?' The skeleton queried, jabbing his finger at the "?" symbol.
[Truth is, I have no idea!] the system chimed merrily.
'No idea? Weren't you supposed to be a tool of the gods? How can you now know?'
[…]
[Did you just call me a tool?] Unlike the system's previous messages, there was a noticeable lack of a chime.
'Oh wait sorry… is that offensive?'
[Duh! Skeleton boy, I was just born ok? You're essentially bullying a child!]
'Um… a kid? Sorry it's just that I've never seen a kid so orange… or rectangular'
[…] A chimeless message with three dots appeared.
Cal sensed a disturbance in the chakra.
'Or! Or a kid so smart! Or uh… bright! Yes yes! You're very bright!' Cal didn't have time to come up with a proper compliment, so he used the illuminated surroundings of the system to embellish it a tad more.
[Oh wow, Thanks~!] A cheery chime echoed through the dungeon as
This system was a bit too easy.