“Saturn, what is all this?” The holographic pop-ups in his mind startled Eli.
“That is the system. Something that you, or at least a small part of you, have created with a few others many eons ago.”
Dumbfounded. “What? A small part of me created this? Eons ago? Huh—”
“You were once a god, Eli. A powerful god. One who stood above many others. Four eons ago, you were slain—your soul shattered, on the brink of annihilation. I was your personal artifact at that time. I barely managed to save the core fragment of your soul before fleeing to this desolate universe on this lone planet. I had to raise your fragmented soul through countless reincarnations. And now, here we are.”
Eli felt that what Saturn told him was the truth.
He doubted it, still.
It sounded as ridiculous as a burning pig falling from the sky.
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
Saturn sighed. “I am afraid not. Why else would I pick you as my host? Why else would I direct a crab to your boat? Why no one else could see me but you?”
Eli pinched his cheeks hard, trying to get out of his nightmare. “Fuck!” he howled, “that hurt, dammit!” He opened his eyes. He eyed left and right. “Wait, why am I still here? Isn’t this a dream?!”
“Yes—and no. It is a lucid dream you are experiencing inside my inner space, a perfect simulation, including your bodily sensations. Now please, I need you to focus—we do not have much time.”
Eli panicked. “Do you mean to tell me that all my life was a lie? Am I someone else? Would I change to someone else?”
“No. As much as I would like your former and glorious self to return, it is nigh impossible. Your precious memories, ego, personality, feelings, skills, power… Gone. Everything—gone. The only things I could preserve are your perfect attunement to time magic, your innate unique skill precognition, and your system rights as a system creator. You are both a shadow of a god and also you. Your recent memories and feelings all belong to you and you alone. And nobody could change that.”
Eli stared at him, a little more relaxed.
Saturn continued, “Now then, let us quickly review the system before I fall asleep.”
Eli nodded, curious.
“Think inside your head the word Menu.”
Menu.
Menu:
[Status]
[Evolution]
[Quests]
[Inventory]
[Current points: 0]
“What’s this?”
“That is the system menu. It shows you all the available functions of the system. I will brief you on each of them. Please think Status.”
Status.
Status:
[Name: Elijah White]
[Race: Human]
[Gender: Male]
[Overall Evolution Rank: Level 0]
[Strength LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Vitality LVL 0] [(0/20)]
[Toughness LV 0] [(0/10)]
[Agility LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Dexterity LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Cognition LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Senses LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Immunity LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Mana Core] [(0/1)]
Attunements:
[Time – Perfect]
Racial Skills:
[None]
Unique Skills:
[Precognition] [0/10]
[Time Stipend: Current regen: 1 sec/day. Current max capacity: 1 min. Current time saved: 1 min. Current Sub-skills: Back.]
“It looks like something out of a game or something.”
“It is the representation of your current Status and skills. Currently, you are completely unevolved, and you have not developed your Mana Core and Precognition. That is why they have no level. You only have unique skills—Precognition is your unique skill. As for Time Stipend, that is my ability. We will discuss it later. For now, concentrate on strength.”
Eli tried to concentrate on the Strength stat. A pop-up suddenly formed in his mind, describing it.
Strength: A representation of your muscular strength and power. Affects Muscular strength capacity, Explosive strength, Lifting capacity, Leaping capacity, and Bursts of speed. Warning: Increased strength requires greater food consumption. Causes strain in your body.
Eli asked, “What’s this?”
“The description of your strength stat. It is like how the stat describes. In any case, you may check the other stats later yourself. I am running out of time. Check Time Stipend.”
With both trepidation and excitement, he checked the skill.
Time Stipend: The only ability of its kind in the entire multiverse. Able to accumulate the water of the rivers of time itself passively, using it for heaven-defying feats.
“...Is this your ability?”
“Yes. Gathering energy from an intangible place called the rivers of time, I can then use that energy to use meta-time abilities, such as turning back time to the whole of existence.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Please, check the Back sub-skill.”
Time Stipend – Back: The ability to use accumulated time from Time Stipend. Can reverse time absolutely, even death itself. It can be used while deceased as long as the soul is not destroyed, so long as the time you are dead does not exceed the time accumulated. To use it, you need to say Back out loud or in your mind and specify the time you wish to go back. Only the mind will go back in time.
“You’re shitting me!”
“No. It is as you read it. It can reverse time—it is your ultimate trump card. Please, focus. Do not, I repeat, do not use it lightly. Use it only if your life is in danger. Understood?”
“Okay.” He nodded. “I won’t try to test it out.”
“Good. I will take your word for it. Let us now proceed to the next thing. Go back to the menu screen, and select Evolution.”
Evolution:
Choose upgrading method:
- Refinement
- Evolve
- Skills
- Mutations
Saturn overtook his curiosity. “This is the evolution menu. Here, you can refine your stats, evolve once they are all maxed out, mutate if certain conditions are met, or upgrade skills. For now, select Refinement.”
Refinement:
Please concentrate on a Stat to start funneling points into it.
[Current Points: 0]
[Strength LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Vitality LVL 0] [(0/20)]
[Toughness LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Agility LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Dexterity LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Cognition LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Senses LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Immunity LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Mana Core LVL ] [(0/1)]
Eli asked, “What's this?”
“It is a refinement. A process where you insert points, or rather, quintessence into your body. It would then stimulate it into evolving, improving you as a whole. For instance, if you put points into strength, even with your current meager strength, you might match a weightlifter of your world in terms of strength. That said, whether your body would be able to handle it is another story, however.”
“...”
“A word of warning. Refining is an energy-consuming process and will require food for each point you spend on it. Prepare rations beforehand.”
Eli nodded. “...How do I get points?”
“By killing things. For example, crabs you kill in your factory. Normally, you would be limited due to several factors. Some include the purity of the kill and also the power gap between you and the crabs. However, due to you being a system creator and also the fact that the crabs are systemless, you can get the full point value out of killing them through any method. Now, check the Skills menu.
Skills:
Racial Skills:
[None]
Unique skills:
[Precognition LVL 0] [(0/10)]
[Time Stipend: Current regen: 1 sec/day. Current max capacity: 1 min. Upgrading it would increase time regen by 1 second and max time capacity by 1 minute.] [(0/1)]
“As you can see, you do not have racial skills yet. They are obtained through evolving or mutating into a new race as well as a few other methods. However, unique skills do not require that since they come from your very being and are not racially inherited. And this brings me to a point.
I want you to upgrade Time Stipend to ten seconds before focusing all your points on Precognition until you reach level zero. After that, I want you to garner all your points into Time Stipend until you reach a bottleneck. Am I clear?”
“...Why?”
“For self-protection against force majeure and other nasty things. You can also train Precognition after it is developed. Hurry up and check the Quests menu.”
Quests:
Main Quests:
-
N/A
Side Quests:
-
Basic training
“Nice,” Saturn said, “it appears that the system favor is already in effect. Go ahead and check the quest.”
Eli checked it and...
Basic training: A healthy body and a mind lead to a healthy soul. Do not neglect your body. Train it. Each day, train according to the system’s requirements.
Details: Each day for 30 days, train according to the system’s instructions, and receive tonics and supplements.
Rewards: Each first and second successful day of training would give you 1 LVL 0 Tonic and 1 LVL 0 Vitality supplement. Each third successful day would give you 1 LVL 0 Tonic and 1 LVL 0 Immunity supplement.
Penalties: None.
“What’s a tonic? What's a supplement?”. Eli asked.
“Tonics are potions that increase training effectiveness by ten times and remove muscle fatigue after training, so the actual effectiveness is even more than that, at around twenty-five to thirty times.
At level zero, supplements increase a specific stat by one point. It is one of the methods to use refining without using points. But it is a luxury item—the ingredients are scarce. Usually, people prefer monster meat over these. Your planet does not have them, by the way. You can attribute this quest to the system’s favor toward you.
For both of these potions, you will not have to eat. They have an abundant amount of nutrients. We shall now go over the last thing on the list. Select the Inventory.”
Inventory:
[Current size: 0 cubic meters. Every 0.2 cubic meters cost 1 point.]
“Is this…a storage space?”
“Yes. An empty one. You would need to invest points into it to expand it. Then, you could store things inside. Like supplies, weapons, miscellanea, etc.” He grumbled. “I am reaching my limit now. Before I sleep, I will leave this book here for you.”
A book materialized in front of Eli. It had strange glyphs on it, thick as a telephone book.
“I—have...compiled...most of my...knowledge there… It should...prove...useful… We will speak again… Once you...upgrade...Time Stipend...to sixty...seconds...per...day—”
The glow of giant hourglass flickered out.
Everything fell into silence.
Eli stared at him.
“...Saturn?”
No reply.
His abrupt shutdown spoiled his eagerness.
“How do I get out of here?” He looked about. Then he looked at him again. “Hey!”
“...”
“...Fuck. I don’t wanna get stuck here forever. I wanna get out, goddammit—”
With a flash, he disappeared.
I had to raise your shattered and fragmented soul through countless reincarnations.
there have been about 5000 - 10000 generations of humans, far away from countless, do his earthly reincarnations include prehuman life? was there a dionsaur Eli? When Saturn fled here when the universe was baren, that must have been 10 billion years ago or even more. Am i over thinking this? nonsense!
Precognition is your own unique skill
based on the old version, should this not be described as a sense instead of being a skill? I didn't much like how it was always described as a blocked nose, but i also have no idea what other senses can be used to compare it.
Eli was an amoeba, a dinosaur, and whatever else too.
Changed precognition to a unique skill, since I didn't want it to be an extra stat. I will also change the lore about it. I also removed fate magic, as it contradicts with time magic too much and could get weird fast.
Thanks for the chapter.
Can't wait for the next chapter! ? 2nd!
Did you forget to adjust his stats up and down according to his mundane capabilities, they're level 0 (0%), was that intentional?
Yes, it was. I decided to change it a bit. I thought it would be too annoying to do it the way I did before, so I decided to do it like this. Even if you used refining, you could still be obese and untrained. I simply added tonics for this purpose, and now they won't increase his refining, but will just train him physically.
@bignt A perfect body in all aspects hasn't become impossible to obtain, right? You just have to put in the work of getting fit and gitting gud? Do you absolutely need tonics to achieve absolute peak level 1 status in both your stats sheet and your real body, or do they simply accelerate the process significantly? What about Vitality, Cognition, Senses, and Immunity? There really isn't a clear cut thing you can do to train those outside of refining. 'Brain Training' exercises do nothing to improve your Abstract Reasoning ability (IQ), for instance, they just train what already exists to help it be quicker and automatic.
@0xFFF1 Basically, refining/leveling up raises the 'base' of your body. Like the base abilities. A normal and untrained man weighing 198lbs should be able to deadlift 155 pounds. The same man, once trained for a number of years, should be able to lift about 335lbs, or in other words, an intermediate weight lifter.
Refining simply raises the base from say 155lbs to 335lbs.
As for the difference between leveling up and refining, it is the same as in the previous version. refining changes your base frame to suit your power. Also, the difference between the two is that of 10% overall difference in all aspects by the end result. However, just because you become refined, it does not mean that you are fit. You need to train for that separately.
If you didn't understand, it is fine. It would be explained in the following chaps, or in the separate novel I will build named Saturnpedia.