{Content Warning: Description of blood, dried and fresh. Mention of Self Harm (non-graphic)}
Nova realized that he had entirely ignored the scars on the arms of this body because he had accepted the scars on his actual body. It didn't even register to him. So now armed with this new information he was forced to reevaluate the situation.
How old were the wounds? Why would the original do this to himself? Is this why the original owner felt regretful and apologetic towards this guy who seemed to care for him?
Due to Nova's sudden realization and the fact that he wasn't used to this at all his expression became strange. Skyler immediately picked up on it and his rough calloused hand tightened it's hold on his wrist.
"Tristan..." Sky said with a distressed tone, "Did you cut again?"
Fortunately Nova had seen enough of this body while changing to answer that question!
Unfortunately the answer was yes....
There was a part of his upper thigh that was wrapped with bandages. Since Nova didn't notice the old scars he had assumed it was a normal injury and just moved on to searching for information in the room.
And he truly wasn't used to being the one acting in Task Worlds... as soon as the question was asked and he realized the answer Sky took one look at his expression and knew it as well.
Skyler immediately got up and walked over to the bathroom. As he did Nova felt his heart drop. He once again lost control of the body as he quickly jumped up and blocked Sky's path forward, cursing in his head at how obvious these reactions were.
Brown eyes gazed down at green ones, stuck in an awkward silent stalemate.
"....is it really that bad? You won't even let me see the room?"
Nova unconsciously bit his lip as he fought against the urge to deny the obvious and push the man out of the room. He won the fight and sighed as he moved over and allowed him to go in first.
....it was bad. It almost looked like a murder scene and it was possible that it truly was.
You could only transmigrate into a body that was weak enough to accept another soul and the body had to be one that could handle your spiritual energy.
It was a very narrow point of access that needed to be achieved.
If the body was high quality then it was likely that it used to house a person with alot of spiritual energy. Bodies like this were extremely likely to have very very strong residual emotions and to reject foreign souls. These were the bodies that were transmigrated into in those high difficulty task worlds.
If the body was lower quality and had less spiritual energy than the soul transmigrating into it then it would be easy for the soul to occupy it. However, if there was too much of a quality difference, both the body and the soul would be rejected by The Law of the World and face a variety of consequences.
A body's quality would temporarily lower when it was weakened. This was why many transmigrations would begin with an abrupt start, injuries, and emotional turmoil in order to gain a better body to house the soul.
What weakened a body the most was death.
The Original Owner's soul would lose its connection with the body in death. During this, if a foreign soul wanted to occupy the body it would be much easier.
Nova put two and two together while looking at the bloody room from behind Skyler's back and feeling his thigh aching now that he was paying attention to it.
The original owner 'Tristan' had certainly bled to death.
There was just too much red in the room for it to have been anything else.
It was pretty large bathroom that matched the size of the bedroom connected to it. However, the appeal of it was taken away by the state it was in.
The wide shower was dry and had a deep brown colour in between the tiles where the grout should have been white. A rusty metallic smell coming off of it. The separate white bathtub had small red fingerprints all over it but it was the murky crimson water that remained in the tub undrained that really made it seem staged like a true crime film. And the part that truly made Sky's heart heavy.... Above the sink was a broken mirror. Clearly punched with broken shards of glass that still had red splattered on them. Bloodied tweezers lay on the edge of the sink alongside a box cutter, it's silver metal was still slowly dripping a deep red onto the floor....