Tom was flying. He looked around in amazement. There are floating glowing orbs, millions of them all moving in the same direction like a river in the vast space.
-"So this is it. I died" sighed Tom.
-"At least Carol and Cris are fine".... "It wasn't a bad life" Tom ruminated about his ups and downs. He was a hardworking person, a loving husband and carrying father. Tom did believe in this conviction. He pointed his gaze at the cosmic view of millions shining spheres.
"Are these souls?. He wasn't a religious person, not really a believer of the mystic and transcendent, but the evidence of both was right in front of him. Tom thought about his life, lamenting of his unfortunate demise. In time he accepted his circumstances. Such is life – time to reap and time to saw as they say, he may have died but at least his family was safe. Tom felt how his mind was sinking, his memories slowly fading into the oblivion. It was nice and cosy feeling, like sleeping in a cloud.
-"A final rest, a well deserved salvation for my mortal troubles " Tom thought.
Oh just how wrong can a person be sometimes. In a instant, a bright light shot trough him, shock him up and pulled him back from the embrace of the oblivion. A blue circular sphere formed around his incorporeal body and then PULLED. Tom felt the acceleration, lights began to merge in a lines ...then puff.. Without much of a fuss he appeared somewhere.
Day 2 after Tom's death
Tom found him self standing on a round plate approx 3 meters in diameter. He looked amazed at his transparent hand
-"I have my body back now. Or kind of?" Tom exclaimed. Then he looked down. The platform he was standing, was covered in bright glowing glyph or runes -thousands of them interconnected in a strange 3d network. Most of them started to fade but some of them remained charged.
- "Those glowing ones must be keeping me alive" He pondered, as a constant flow of invigorating energy was penetrating his body. He raised his head and looked around. He was in a large room as big as a basketball field. The glowing circle was in the right corner of the room.
-"Is this going to be my judgement? " Tom thought, but the surroundings somehow didn't fit in the concept of a Judgement hall. It was more like a warehouse or workshop. A very messy and a very magical workshop. To his left there was a long table all the way to the next wall. It was filled with many gadgets and trinkets of unknown purpose. Some were glowing, some are moving on their own, others were emitting strange buzzing sound. Next two walls were painted in some kind of mural and when he focused on the details he discovered that those were actually drawings of the same complex runes in a staggering numbers connected in a multi layer patterns.
Tom moved his sight to the last part of the room. He gasped. Crouching between pile of boxes and chests was an Angel. He was digging something from the pile of stuff and mumbling words which Tom could not hear well.
-"Here you are. A "demon barrier breach" rune array. It's quite outdated but should do the trick". exclaimed happily the Angel and turned around towards Tom.
Then he jumped back in surprise.
-"HA! What? Who are you?" asked the Angel
Tom was flabbergasted. He carefully inspected the Angel in front of him and frankly wasn't impressed. The fellow was tall, with lanky figure. His face was thin, a messy, short golden hair. His left aye was covered by monocle with the same glyph he saw in many places in the room. Most impressing was the Angel's uncovered aye. Tom had never seen such pure and beautiful blue in his life. And of course the wings. Tom suspected that their original colour was white, but currently being covered of layers of dust and grime. Angel was wearing a long coat like those lab technicians in the construction site. Same as the wings, the coat was in a terrible state of disrepair and filth.
The angel kept staring him and Tom felt awkward. Entire situation felt surreal.
-"I am Tom Tailor from planet Earth. I think I died back there" finally the staring contest was broken. Tom lowered his head pondering over his tragic fate.
-" Ah yes, yes. Summoning array finally snatched a soul under those pompous higher ups noses".
-"What?"
" Your soul was captured from the reincarnation cycle and was brought here via summoning array".
"What? Why?"
" Let me look at you, Tom" The angel bend closer and his monocle started to glow in faint blue light.
Several minutes later the process finished.
"B minus grade soul; Source world Earth, human male, a descent positive disposition. Excellent! You are fit for the task."
"Task?" Tom was getting confused
" Well, you are going to help me to complete my lifetime work project, which will finally prove my superior skill as a [system architect].
"Ahh, look sir Angel. I am a total mess at the moment. Whatever you are speaking, I got less than half of it. Summoning arrays, souls, grades it is all mumble jumble to me".
Sigh… The angel shook his head and after pondering for a minute said:
- "Yes, I think that you will need more the information in order the project to succeed. So where to begin HMM?
- "What about starting with your name?" said Tom
-"Ah well, where are my manners. You have to forgive me, I am kinda stuck in the lab the most of my time. The angel actually looked embarrassed. This didn't fit with Tom's concept with angels being divine, perfect etc at all..
-"I am Kornelius, having [system architect] class".
-"And you are an Angel?"
-"Angel? Huh no. My race is a Celestial".
-"Race like a human?? " Tom was shocked
-"Well yes, I am a mortal, same as the dwarves, elves, beastkin and other mortal races. Well my lifespan is far longer than the human's, but I can very well die from old age.. Huhu, not that this will ever happen considering the war.
Tom mind went spiralling, jumping from one thing to another. It all sounded like the fantasy fairytales Cristine was reading online. He actually read few of her favourites in order to keep in touch with her.
-"So you are saying those fantasy stuff are real? Magic as well?"
-"Magic or more correctly -Arcane spell craft and rune craft are well explored phenomena powered by Mana. Mana is a universal phenomena widespread in the Multiverse. All sentient beings, who possess a soul are entitled to harness it to the different extent" said Kornelius.
- "I don't think we had something like this back home".
-"Well the Multiverse being huge and having thousands upon thousands of inhabited worlds has few very special places. Those places we call "Soul wells" where the new souls are being born and later they join the cycle of reincarnation across the Multiverse. Your home world Earth is one of very few worlds of this type. A well defined feature of the "soul well" worlds is their very low mana saturation. That's why [unified system] is not working there, and the inhabitants can not interact with the arcane.
Tom remained silent processing the things he just found out.
-"system??"
-"Let see, next -all sapiens in the multiverse governed by the forces of light are entitled to the [unified system]
- "Yeah you mentioned it before several times."
- "The system is an incredible tool that help an individual to master skills and arcane at vastly improved speed. Those being martial, arcane, crafting, mundane etc. "
- "huh, will I get the system as well"? asked Tom
- "But of course, but yours will be unique, one of its kind"
-"How so?"
- "Well I have been developing this new and unique [system] class for the last 350 years. This class I designed is specially crafted to combat demons. The unfortunate is that being untested and officially not recognised it won't be connected to the [unified system] and won't be able to draw resources that should be helping you advance in power"
- "So, I will be a test pilot of a crippled system??" exclaimed Tom
- "Yes and No. Don't underestimate my intelligence Tom". Kornelius grimaced with an unpleasant look.
"I have already thought of some backdoors and tricks to bypass this restriction". Look I will explain it in terms you are more suited to understand:".
-"Let say your system is a computer. It will be fully operational, but will not be connected to the network where you need to download basically every bit of software. So the trick is that you will be connected to myself and you will get the stuff via my [unified system] as a proxy.
"Well that sounds neat"
" Yes, yes. All general skills and abilities should be available to you this way. Of course you will have to earn them. System doesn't grant anything for free".
"Earn? How?" asked Tom
"The fastest way is by generating contribution while slaying those filthy demons"
"I have to fight demons??! I .. I am not a fighter, I was an engineer". explained Tom
"Well Tom, welcome to the real world. You natives of the soul wells worlds are quite pampered, protected by shielded environment and defended by FoL legions. Those brave warriors fight and die everywhere on the frontline worlds to hold the demons invasion."
" Is the situation with the demons that bad?" Tom was getting worried. Suddenly everything didn't look Harry Potter magic and more like Star wars situation.
Kornelius face stiffened.
-"It is that bad and even worse. We are losing the war Frontlines are collapsing... Many worlds fell and are falling to the hands of demons as we speak. Their inhabitants becoming a demon food, eaten and consumed to fuel the growth of the countless hordes of demon spawn".
-"That's terrible" Tom was mortified.
" Yeah, that's our miserable reality. For example, your birth world Earth is going to fall in the demons control in about 3 years as far as I know."
"What??? NO!!! IMPOSSIBLE" – a awakening shock bolted in Tom's mind and pushed him out of his semi-dreamy condition. He had accepted his death and was just going with the events not much carrying about stuff.
-"NOOO, You are lying! It can't be happening". Tom was going nuts.
-" It is at most certain. Divination spells granting 95 percent probability".
-"My family is there! What is going to happen to them?! asked Tom already guessing the answer.
-"I am sorry Tom, demons will probably eat them. And by eating them I mean both their bodies and souls."
-"The forces of light! You said they have an army! May be we can ask for help" Tom was about to have panic attack.
-"As far as I know demons will launch a massive invasion. So big that there is no proper response. Don't think The FoL will stay idle. While significant part of demon forces are being engaged at Earth, FoL will launch a counterattack, liberating many worlds of strategic importance. Of course the loss of another soul well world with so many people is a net loss in the overall picture".
Tom dropped on his knees. Hands shaking. He was thinking about Caroline and Cristine. They should have been fine. Their finances being solid. They should have been able to live long and happy lives in comfort. Then he thought about the people there. What was the Earth population? may be about 8 billion? He gasped in horror.
Tom raised his semi-transparent hand. He was a dead man. A ghost. He can't lift a feather, what about a gun. Who is going to save Cristine and Caroline? He raised his head towards Kornelius. He was his last hope.
-"Kornelius, you have to help them! Please! My wife and child don't deserve to die. Please I am begging you. I… I will do whatever you want of me just.. just do something." Tom was weeping, but no tears were coming from ethereal body.
The celestial looked startled. Then he started walking around in an obvious deep thought.
"Please God, Please god, Please…" Tom said many prayers while waiting for Kornelius's answer.
Kornelius stopped moving like a sudden epiphany has been achieved. Then he looked at Tom and explained
-"I am sorry, Tom. I wish I can go and help. The extraction must happen once the invasion start and the planet's barrier collapse. I am mere researcher, a man of wisdom, not fit for battle. There will be a real carnage, a true Armageddon and I won't be able to escort them safely to the evacuation gates. My chances are close to zero.
-"Sigh... Once again I am sorry I am no help."
For Tom the world just ended at that moment. His eyes became vacant.
-"BUT" Kornelius looked directly at Tom's eyes "I believe you will have a better chance to do it personally. Hmm yes, yes. Especially if the prototype class worked as intended"
"Huh what? I can. I CAN??!" Tom jumped and banged on the translucent barrier circling the summoning plate.
-"Ok, listen I have thought of a plan. It is not perfect but it could work. I will send you to the world Terra. A very similar to your home world, almost a mirror copy. It was "soul well" world that demons captured about 20 years ago. Then the demons made some clever decision. Instead of destroying it, they turned it to a human farm. Demons repurposed the planet's barrier and now it works for their defence. The have risen artificially the mana saturation and now the world can support level 24 both demons and humans. Any being higher than that is ejected outside by the world's barrier. Now Why would the demons go to such hassle instead of just eating everyone you could ask. It is related to the demon's life cycle. The infant demon called larvae needs a sapient body where it will grow slowly by feeding on the host's soul. Quite like the parasites. Once they grow to the equal of level 24, the larvae consumes the host flesh and soul and evolves to a "lesser demon". This one can feed on a demonic essence in addition to mortal souls. So it goes back to their home worlds where it can safely grow further.
- "So my goal is to kill those infant demons or larvae or whatever?"
" -Well, your main goal is to grow strong. Reach lvl 24 in one year or sooner. The stronger you are at the end the better are chances to succeed with your goals, as we will have more leverage to bargain with the command"
"You! You promise you will help me with my family?"
"Of course, you help me - I help you… partner?!"
"Yes, partners we will work it trough" Tom finally relaxed a bit. The fact he gained external help made him lower the sense of doom. He took some time to refocus on the objectives. A cold resolution settled on his face.
"Ok, I think... No.... I CAN do it. The hell of it, I will make it happen by all means necessary... Send me in" said Tom
"Good good, let's do it. I've been preparing for this for a long time.
Kornelius went in frenzy around his lab – activating different tools and gadgets. The entire room lightened in bluish light from the runic entrenchments. The summoning circle hummed and stated to power up.
"Here are some final words before you go, Tom. Once your soul arrives, the system will construct for you a random human male body at the age of 18. It will be your permanent body until the time you die, so get used to it quickly. No refunds there. Once soul and body synchronise, the system will initialise. Then, me and you will establish a permanent [system] link as our systems will be paired. I will try to guide you at my best abilities and give you a tutorial on the system, although it is quite intuitive and easy to comprehend".
-"Understood" Tom was quite anxious. He was going to fight real demons. Yet, he was ready. He was determined to succeed at all cost. There was no turning back".
"Ready?" (Kornelius)
"Yes"
"Good luck, Partner"
The summoning circle hummed, the runes flaring bright blue light. Tom was once again catapulted in a light vortex, traveling at an absurd speed.