At this moment, Dane was sleeping soundly in the crib Priscilla had crafted for him. Morning had already arrived in the Monster Realm, but as he slept, his mind slowly began to register the sounds that had been echoing through the room for some time. Eventually, the noise was enough to stir him from his rest.
'Ha?!...
Dane said inwardly to himself, his eyes still blurry, and the sudden influx of various lights did not help him one bit.
However, there was also a weird charging sound coming from all around him. Because of this, his eyelids began to flutter open... slowly, stubbornly, to a room bathed in pulsing violet light coming from all directions of the room all at once.
The crib trembled.
And around him, the air crackled with an insane amount of magical energy. At the intense sight of this, Dane blinked, trying to focus.
Confusion hit him like a bat to the head, causing him to question the current situation.
"What the hell?!...
He cried out, a little scared.
Layers upon layers: massive outer rings etched with jagged runes, smaller circles nested inside them like Russian dolls, each humming at a different pitch. Some glowed blood-red, others seafoam green, all spinning in different directions.
But soon all this will further change when all the complex magic circles begin to shrink, collapsing inward toward the crib... or rather towards Dane.
They warped both space and time as they moved. Dane at that moment, however, was mesmerized, while from the outside he looked like he was about to be swallowed up in a cacoon of magical circles.
From the inside, he saw something he could not explain; before him, he saw himself, or rather, he saw multiple variations of himself in this moment.
The magic circles shifted, displaying countless alternate realities, each one a different version of this very moment. Dane couldn't grasp how many variations existed; only that they seemed endless and too much to even bother processing. Then, suddenly, they all stopped, freezing on a single possibility.
In that reality, he was dead.
Something or someone had stabbed him, piercing his small heart and ending his life before it had truly begun in that world.
It was clear to Dane that it was not him, or rather it was an alternate version of the original owner of this body that his soul is possessing.
Either way, Dane's soul of that reality soon began to rise from the body, clearly about to return to the Clear Tower, but before it went off to the Spirit World, an unseen force pulled him back coming from the direction of this reality.
It wasn't his soul being taken itself, but rather the information within it was being forcefully pulled out. As the magic connected to the original Dane latched onto that information, extracting everything but one thing, his destined death in that reality.
What remained in the soul of that world was the fate of its death, as the original version of this body took everything else.
That information, the Lore of the alternate version's soul, was then pulled into this world. From there, the crib immediately absorbed the stolen information. Though Dane had no awareness of what was happening, the crib was about to serve its ultimate purpose after so much trial and error.
Because at this moment, after the crib took the information, it began to break down and reassemble the information it took from that alternate version, merging it with all the data the crib had gathered through many attempts to adapt Dane's body for survival.
Right after it did that, Priscilla's unnamed spell activated.
At that moment, the entire room was blinded by the magic circle cacoon around Dane, till eventually it soon died down, and the sound of monster hounds barking outside the old mansion could be heard as they were clearly startled by it.
The same could be said about the other animals in the stable out back, but as the light died down and Dane opened his eyes, the light show seemed to have finished.
Causing Dane to open his eyes again and ask out to no one in particular.
"I..i-is it over?!...
The question was simple; however, the reply he got was not.
[Notice... New World Feat Recognized]
[Unique Lore achieved: He Who Strayed From the Stars Till There Were None]
The voice that rang out was not the Omni Harem System, but rather the Universe System.
[He Who Strayed From the Stars Till There Were None: Stars shine; they inspire, but they're never alone. They form in clusters, move in constellations, and burn out in brilliant explosions. To be truly one of a kind and stand apart, you have to give something up. You have to leave behind what is familiar, step into the unknown, and become something the universe wasn't expecting. Dane was once just a human.... small, fragile, and utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
But the Monster Realm did not care about who he once was. Surviving here meant more than just adapting. He had to change. He had to become something impossible or never heard of... a human who didn't just resist Miasma but thrived in it. Someone who could turn what should have been his downfall into his greatest strength... As a result, through the use of ancient magic, he evolves from a mere human into a Shinso human.
To be a Shinso human is to embody humanity's unyielding core, the stubborn spark that thrives in the face of all odds. There can only be one Shinso human in the world at a time, for their existence defies balance. They are living proof that even a species deemed weak can rewrite its destiny]
The universe system explained, causing Dane to say in surprise.
"A Shiniso Human...
But he did not have time to ask, as the Universe System began to explain the Lore ability that comes with this Lore.
[Unique Lore Ability: Resolve of the Unbroken]
- Description: The Shinso's willpower hardens into tangible force. The longer one fights, trains, or struggles toward a goal, the faster his body and mind ascend to meet it. Fatigue dulls, wounds knit quicker, and impossible tasks crack under relentless effort.
- Example: A month of training condenses into a day. A mountain's summit becomes reachable... not by magic but by sheer stubbornness.
[Additional Abilities Unlocked]
[Eternity]
- Description: With this ability power, the subject achieves eternal youth. Your aging halts at 30, and your prime is preserved. Diseases, toxins, and mortal frailties dissolve in the holder's blood. You will never gray, nor will you ever wrinkle.
[Eyes of the World]
- Description: With this ability, the user can see and interact with things that are invisible and also have an affinity for things that are invisible, or things made up of energy; they can see the flow of energy and its behavior.
[Local Adaptation]
- Description: Whatever condition is said to be considered the norm of a collective society, the user of this ability will instantly acquire traits needed to sustain their existence among the population without error or compatibility; this is possible due to a Shinso Human being a unique being, a one-of-a-kind existence.
...
...
...
...
...
....
These were the abilities granted by his new Lore, a result of his evolution from human to Shinso Human. To say he was pleased would be an understatement. And sure enough, the changes were immediate.
Looking around, he could now see two distinct types of energies. One was dark, heavy, and suffocating and was flowing in every direction, but the crib blocked it out. The damn thing was like a thick fog of pure blackness, a twisting sea of shadow that radiated corruption. There was no doubt in his mind... This was Miasma.
The other was harder to define. It shimmered like starlight, flowing endlessly in every direction. There was so much of it, too vast to count, and it had an almost translucent, dreamlike quality. He thought it might be Astrum, but he wasn't entirely sure. All he knew was that he was seeing the world in a way he never had before.
"Woww... this is... this... is... so clear...
Dane thought to himself; on the other hand, the voice of the System chipped in.
Saying as such.
『Host, you have evolved into a higher lifeform... a Shinso Human』
The system's voice echoed, confirming what the universe itself had just declared. Yet, aside from his newly heightened vision and a fresh perspective on the world, Dane didn't notice any immediate physical changes... at least, not yet.