Hate to Apathy

I Am Alive... Relatively Speaking

I stood up. It was morning. The sun rose up slowly over the horizon. You really wouldn't get that in my world. I looked around. Underneath me was my dead, decomposing body. There was rubble everywhere, but there were apparently survivors... excluding me, of course. I died. They were already starting to rebuild... or cleaning up before being able to rebuild. I went back into the library. Funnily enough... all the books were burnt to a crisp. There was, however, a single book, chained together to stop anyone opening it. So I opened it.

Inside the book was various different magic-like things, and just like the other books, I acquired new knowledge. I then dropped the book, but didn't at the same time. It went through my hand. It seemed I could only materialise for a small amount of time. The book had given me knowledge about Chaos. Just Chaos. And it was the most beautiful thing I had ever had the chance to know about.

I first went over to my dead body and possessed it. I had learnt this from the Dark magic book. So now I had a body. A body that worked and didn't look too out of place. I dragged my body up off the floor and made a show of looking around in horror. This was weird, even by my standards. I threw a rock up. I left the library and went out into the open air. Once out, I heard a few shouts, a couple of crashes, and then the front of the building fell away, revealing a priest groping a small child... lovely...

This happened due to a series of extremely improbable events. The rocks flew up when I threw it. It hit the ceiling, which caused a small hole to appear, which caused the priest who was standing there at that exact moment to trip and to release the child. The child fought back, and the hole caused some extremely unlikely structural damage which caused only the front of the building to collapse. I love Chaos...

I walked away from this scene which was now causing quite the commotion. I decided to go back to the church. I wasn't going to stay. I wasn't even going to see them in person. I was just going to write them a note, thanking them for heir hospitality and their kindness, yada yada yada. I did so, almost without a hitch. The half-elf girl saw me. I waved quite cheerfully to her, placed the note on the table, then went to leave.

"Come with me." She said. She was confident and had a very firm grip. Quite strong too. I nodded and followed.

She took me by the hand and brought me out of town. She brought me into the forest. She then looked at me.

"Listen... I know I haven't met you for very long, but..." she took a deep breath. "I think... never mind. I didn't say anything!" I looked at her concernedly.

"Wh-what? What's wr-wrong"

"Nothing. Just know that I'm going to become the strongest hero, and that when I am, you better be ready!" She Shouted. She then marched off into the general direction of Lescatie. This girl, Primera, was quite amusing.

I followed in her steps for a while until I reached the wall. After that, I went to the area around the South Gate, found my hollow tree, and finally put on my top hat, tailcoat, and waistcoat. I also put on my black gloves, and I then fixed the scarf on my neck, and I then smiled to myself. I'm back to eccentric!

I looked back at the city. I predict it would be back at full power in about five years. That's enough, right? Anyway, that doesn't really matter to me. I read from those books that this world has a form of... how to put it in 'my world' terms... uhh... levelling? But it's not exactly that. It's somewhat the same, but at the same time, it's very different.

It was simply a ranking system. There were different rank categories for different people with different jobs. For example, I... that's a bad example. I have no idea what I am or what 'job' I have. All jobs start with novice, then apprentice, then student, then learned (pronounced learn-ed), then scholar, then expert, then master, then... I suppose the god of this world was drunk at the time... know-it-all. Then you move on to the next job. You could have your jobs and rank measured by a learned appraiser. I wonder what I have...

For races, it was a bit different. It depended entirely on what you were born as. You started off as lesser, then greater, then divine. After that, you evolved into something depending on your species and actions up until that point. A natural mutation, one might say. Humans, for example, could become Enlightened, or Corrupt, or a plethora of other things! I, however, was no longer human. And I love it!

I guess my first step is... to get stronger! I also read, the higher ranked job, number of jobs, and rank of species all played a roll in one's life length. I read about how someone who had evolved once and reached divine rank could theoretically live long enough to be able to watch an entire civilisation rise and fall, and then still have a normal human lifespan left to live.

My only problem is... I have no idea where to start. I could start by killing human merchants on roads and pretend it was bandits, but something tells me that wouldn't be the best idea. I'd be fond out. But then again, I have problems with killing non-humans, now that I didn't need sustenance and no monster has done me harm yet. Well... except for that one skeleton, but I won't take that as a declaration of war! I'm a reasonable person! I think...

Okay. So if I can't get stronger by killing things, which I wouldn't do anyway, I'm a pacifist, I would have to focus on an artisan job. Smithing is too brutish for me. Tinkering or Mechanic is a bit too fiddly. Rune-ing (as in carving runes) is alright, but a bit boring if I'm honest, and Enchanter falls into the same category. Maybe Researcher, but then if I did anything involving life, I would be doing experiments on life.

Hang on! I'm being an idiot! None of those are for me... I have, or had, a masters degree in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and Maths! I was even about to do a Psychiatry degree in a week or so. I should be a Scientist! I read about that somewhere too! Apparently, not many people wanted to become that, because it was too complicated and didn't give short term rewards like magic does, so it's a largely unexplored area! Wait... if I've already done all this in science, doesn't that mean I'm already a... know-it-all... Scientist. F*ck... Back to the drawing board!

Well if I can't to any of that, I will become a researcher. No... I'm going to make a job for myself. An Omnituens. Someone who observes all. 'All-seeing', as is the definition of the word. Yes, I shall begin as a Novice Omnituens. I still have no idea what race I am though... I'm probably undead, but I'm no zombie, or normal ghost, since I can materialise, and I'm not a skeleton, and I certainly wasn't a ghoul. I'll find out one day...

Either way, I set out on my adventure to see everything.