Chapter 2 - The prison cell

Zarin's excitement reached almost the lowest point as the mountains turned into a flat plain. He knew that he probably had no chance to explore those places, but staring at them could keep a man operational.

"Now that those Earthy distractions are gone, you should be with me."

As he heard that sentence, Zarin's eyes were confused and unhappy.

'Does she not know that I can't speak?' he thought.

He tried to speak again, just in case, but no sound came out once more.

This time, Ais noticed his inability to let out any sound, and the revelation reappeared in her eyes.

"Oh… how silly of me. I forgot you couldn't speak in your Spirit form. I guess we can talk when you are at your new body."

Zarin's excitement reappeared once again because of that sentence.

They referred to him as the 'chosen one' before by Ais, and now she said he would get a new body.

This was like a dream-fulfilling moment that he and most likely many other people had. He probably would be sent into a world different from Earth that needed an individual like himself to stop a great evil from taking over.

He couldn't wait to see what that world would look like and his advantage. Since he was a 'chosen one,' he should have some advantage, like a weapon or skill, or something similar, to help him fulfill his mission in his new life.

"I guess we can only use the spinner for now."

Ais stood up, still in her flat-chested form, and turned around.

'At least the back view is still great.'

Since he was in the afterlife, Zarin had tried not to have impure thoughts, but Ais had curves in the right spots. Zarin was confident that even monks who have spent decades of meditation to rid themselves of the human flesh's needs would have some reaction after checking her body.

Either that or he was just too weak.

As Ais turned, she hit the floor with the tip of her right foot, and a structure appeared out of nowhere.

The structure was a metallic spinner that looked to have dozens of options. Of course, some options covered more space than others, but reading them, they looked less fancy and not that special to Zarin's eyes.

While he was checking every option on it, there were some interesting ones, like the ability to turn into a Dragon or the ability to create Dark Holes. Still, some less overpowered powers like heat vision, telepathy, or telekinesis, all looked outstanding.

Ais pushed a level at the side of the structure, and the spinner turned at an incredible speed. However, after a couple of seconds, it got slower.

In less than a minute, there was the last pick.

One option covered the least amount of space, meaning they were pretty rare. Being able to turn into a dragon was an option like that, but it wasn't the one that Zarin landed on.

The option the spinner stopped at had written on it 'Dice Master.'

"Oh, a Dice Master? That… that sounds boring."

Hearing that, Zarin was confused and worried. He wasn't sure what being a Dice Master meant, as it wasn't as clear as the rest of the powers on the spinner.

"*sigh* Well, there are no re-spins, so we can just hope for the best."

Ais made the same move with her foot and made the spinner disappear as fast as possible.

"Well, next, the transfer will begin. So get out of that place to start your adventure. Have fun and see you soon…hopefully."

Darkness filled Zarin's vision, and slowly he got his sight once again.

He felt he was back in a body, as he could breathe and feel things. But then noticed that he was in a cell, wearing clothes full of holes, and his hands were chained.

The chains were long enough for him to move a bit around the cell, but he couldn't reach the door close to two meters from him.

He tried to break the chains, but his new body didn't seem more potent than the one he had before.

Not much time passed as the door to his cell had opened, and a person wearing metal armor entered.

The person had a spear at hand, but he left it at the entrance as he approached Zarin.

"Can you hel…" Zarin tried to speak with the new individual, but he got interrupted by the guard's fist reaching his face.

The person kept throwing one punch after another, and Zarin could hear his bones breaking after a point. He had screamed as he had never done in the past, as he had never felt being beaten that heavily in his life.

Darkness had covered him, but not long after, his vision was back to normal, and he was in the same cell. After a couple of seconds, the same individual repeatedly came into the cell and beat him to death.

Zarin had tried to fight back, but his body was too weak to do anything, and the chains didn't help his situation.

He had lost count on how many times he had died, and he had grown somewhat numb to it. Fewer screams were letting his mouth, and he had reached the point that he could expect every move that came to the second.

But even with him knowing what would come, he could do nothing to stop it, as his reflexes couldn't keep up.

'Why did she let me get here like that? What was the purpose of the choice of the spinner?'

He had tried to focus many times on enabling his ability, and he had found out a couple of things.

First, he had a Status Window that currently looked as follows.

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Zarin (LVL 1 DICE MASTER)

Race: Human

Exp: 0/100

HP: 10/50

SP: 2/50

MP: 0/100

STATS

Power: 10

Agility: 10

Mind: 10

Defense: 10

Endurance: 10

Luck: 100

SKILLS

Dice Summoning (D-Rank - Lvl 25/100)

Dice Manipulation (D-Rank - Lvl: 25/100)

Pain Tolerance (PASSIVE) (B-Rank - Lvl: 1/20)

SPECIAL DICE

None

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Zarin had tried to focus more on everything in his Status window to get more information about them, and only got panels appearing just for his skills.

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DICE SUMMONING

Description: You can summon any kind of die in your imagination, buts their size is limited to normal. Once a die leaves your hand, it will disappear after 30 seconds. If you summon another die over the limit, the previous dice will disappear in the order you summoned them.

Dice Limit: 2

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DICE MANIPULATION

Description: You can program a die to land in a specific way of your choice. The choice needs to be decided when it starts its roll. The die needs to be created by you for the skill to have an effect on it.

______________________

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PAIN TOLERANCE

Description: Your body has adjusted to the many hardships, so your threshold is more significant than average. When a foe gets a critical hit to you, there is a 10% chance to turn it into a normal hit.

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Other than standard six-sided dice, he could create dice with more or fewer sides. However, the least he could do was four sides, and the maximum was twenty. He could also choose the color of each die, but he couldn't pick their size.

At one time, he had tried to make pyramid-like dice and use them to throw them at the eyes of the guard, but its helmet was covering most of his face, making it impossible. He had thought of putting some dice in his way to make him trip, but the guard was perceptive enough, even if he tried to turn them into a color that would blend with the floor.

Nonetheless, he had tried using his dice as a weapon or ways of distracting the guard, but everything failed.

He had tried to use his [Dice Summoning] and [Dice Manipulation] as much as possible. They had started as level 1, but they had reached the current level after so many times and plans that failed to use them. He seemed to have reached a bottleneck, though, as their progress had frozen no matter what he tried.

As for his [Pain Tolerance], even if it appeared dozens of death ago, it kept staying at level 1. Still, he could feel its effects to be great with and without it and understood the difference between a D-Rank and B-Rank Skill, with the latter being stronger.

At that instance, the guard had once again opened the door to Zarin's cell and started his way at him.

"Do you want to play a game?" Zarin said as fast as he could before the guard started its beating.

He couldn't think of any other way to use dice, so he tried the typical reason one would use them.

He already had some dice created on his hand to show them on guard.

The guard stopped for a moment, which was the first time Zarin had noticed him doing so.

"I have some free time," the guard said as he approached Zarin.

Zarin had hoped at his heart for the first time as the guard reached him and didn't start pummeling with his fists.

"How about each of us throws a die, and the one with the biggest result wins," Zarin suggested.

The guard nodded and made a gesture for Zarin to go first.

Zarin rolled one die, and it landed on its highest value — six since it was a six-sided one.

"How lucky of you," the guard said as he reached to ask for a die for him.

Zarin gave him the die, and he secretly made the other one vanish. He then put all his focus on that die.

If he had only one die summoned, he could keep it from disappearing, but he needed to focus on it with everything he had. His limit was keeping a die up to 30 seconds out of his grasp, which should be enough for the game. He also used his [Dice Manipulation] Skill to decide at what face his dice would land.

The die rolled a few times as it finally stopped. The result was a five.

Zarin made it land that high on purpose to make it look like the game was fair. Of course, he could make it land at a one, but that could lead that other person to get angry and start beating him up.

"Next turn then. I will roll first."