After forty or so minutes, Lilith and Carmen had finished their packing and met back up with Kali. “Sorry for the delay.” Lilith said. “Things ended up being a bit more scattered than we thought they would be.”

“It’s fine.” Kali replied. “Not like we’re really on a time limit here.” She waved a hand, and they were back in the room where Raphael was sleeping. “So, I want to explain a bit about what’s going on, and how we’re going to do things. I can’t just…willy-nilly change the magic system, not in any way that is cheap enough to do or even easy enough to do. The last time I tried, we ended up with the eldritch, and the whole ‘driving people insane’ thing was not intended. So, I’ve had to figure out another way to do things.

“Fortunately, I’ve figured out a way around that. You see, I made yet another mistake when I was designing Perfect Chimeras. They’re supposed to encapsulate everything the magic system has to offer, but…that street goes both ways. If I start giving a Perfect Chimera abilities from outside the system, the system’s going to do its best to integrate those abilities into itself. I can hijack that process to change the system in a much more…natural way.

“I consulted my old Administrator about this, and she helped me figure out what to do. I did a test run when I gave you The King in Yellow, and I’m happy to say it’s worked perfectly; the eldritch should no longer be driving people insane. At least, not by accident, I’ve retroactively added that as a ‘feature’.

“I knew it wouldn’t hurt you, though, I made very sure of that before I even thought about testing it on you.” She said hurriedly. “This process is totally safe on your end. When I was designing Perfect Chimeras, I made a point of making sure they were way more resilient than most things to stuff that’s not normally in the system.”

“So…you’re going to give us this new system first, and then you’re going to use that to spread it to the rest of the world?” Lilith asked. “Seems simple enough.”

“Broadly speaking, yes.” Kali said. “I’m going to make sure there’s a couple months where only you have the system so you can get a head start on everyone. Once the system switches over, everyone has to start from square one, albeit with increased growth rates until they reach the point they were at before. I want to cement the idea of you being much stronger than them in their heads, so they don’t get any funny ideas.”

“That’s all well and good,” Carmen said, “but what’s everyone else going to think? If we just vanish for no reason for a couple of months, people are going to panic.”

“Right. So, I was thinking of a sort of…compromise. I want you to stay at Tunem’s academy and pretend you’re Lilith. I’ll cast a spell that prevents other people from remembering you, so they should just see you as Lilith. Furthermore, since I know things would get lonely here for Lilith, I was planning to bring Siph here as well, both to keep her company and to help us out in our endeavor. She should be able to greatly increase the efficiency of what we’re doing.”

Carmen nodded. “I can handle that.”

“Good. After we’re done talking here, I’ll duplicate your stuff so no one thinks anything is up in that regard.” Kali paused, looking over to Raphael. “That just leaves the matter of Raphael.”

“What about her?” Lilith asked.

“I want to keep her here with us.” Kali said, somewhat nervously. “I don’t like how she’s been treated by Elenoa, and I thought…well, I can’t really stand for that sort of abuse. I can’t just put a blanket stop to it without greatly reducing people’s agency, but I’m personally involved with Raphael, so I don’t want to just let it go.”

Carmen nodded. “I agree. Though, the final decision is up to Lilith, of course.”

Lilith thought about that for a moment. “I’m fine with it, but what’s everyone else going to think? Will Raphael be blocked from their memory like Carmen?”

“Yes.” Kali said. “Siph too, for that matter. That block will be lifted after the system gets officially implemented, of course, but until then no one will come looking.” She paused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “I think that’s everything I need to explain right now…wait, no, one last thing. I’m going to have to temporarily disconnect you two from each other, I don’t want Carmen automatically getting the new system when Lilith does, it’ll make keeping her cover hard.”

Carmen nodded. “Sensible. When are we doing this?”

“As soon as you’re ready.” Kali replied. “Just let me know when you are, and I’ll knock the both of you out while I tinker with things. I don’t want any unnecessary complications arising during the process, so this should be easier for everyone involved.”

“Alright, I guess I’m ready, then.” Lilith said.

“I as well.” Carmen agreed.

Kali smiled. “Perfect. I’ll see you in a few hours, then!” She snapped her fingers, and everything went black.

“Hey, you, you’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked into that Society ambush. Same as me, and that angel over there.” Kali said, jerking a finger at the still-sleeping Raphael.

Lilith blinked, sitting up. “What?”

Kali giggled. “You heard me.”

“So…I wake up, ready to help in this massive, world-changing plan, and the first thing you say is a meme?” Lilith said. She took a moment to look around, noting the absence of Carmen. “Where’s Carmen?”

“Already gone. I woke her up a few minutes ago. And as for the meme, I wanted to get us off on the right foot. We’re doing serious work, yes, but that doesn’t mean we need to be serious all the time. Seeing as how you’re going to be rooming here for a bit, if we were all seriousness all the time, I think we’d actually end up with decreased productivity rather than increased. So, rule one, try to keep work and life separate. It’s gonna be a little harder than normal since we’re going to be working in the same place we live, but you have to make time to relax, or your mental state is going to get bad pretty quickly.”

Lilith nodded. “Seems fair enough. When’s Raphael going to wake up?”

“Whenever she feels like it. She’s not under a spell anymore, just regular sleep. Anyway, how are you feeling?”

Lilith paused, moving a little experimentally. “Like garbage.” She said after a bit. “I feel tired and weak.”

“That’s to be expected.” Kali said. “I had to set all of your attributes to what I want the ‘average’ value to be, so you’re a fair bit weaker than you used to be. I’ve gone ahead and given you a Skill that’ll expedite the process of getting you back to your old stats, but it’s gonna take a couple of levels. If you want to check, go ahead and focus on viewing your status, you should get a pop-up window. Ignore all the sealed stuff, that was part of setting the average, it’s temporary.”

Lilith focused and was greeted with a pop-up window, similar to the ones she would receive upon getting abilities before.

Lilith stared at Kali, trying to figure out where to even start. “Uh…”

Kali smirked. “Questions, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, um…a lot. First off, what’s this whole ‘Original Sin’ business? I don’t seem to recall doing anything particularly sinful, but also…how do I have both Pride and Humility? Aren’t those kind of opposites? And what’s with the level and Class stuff?”

“Yeah those are opposites, but do you mind if we talk about those last? It ties into some later plans, so it’ll probably make more sense if we talk about it after you know a bit more.”

“Fine by me, I suppose.”

Kali motioned for Lilith to take a seat on the bed next to her, and Lilith fully stood up and walked over to do so, wincing as she realized just how…vulnerable she felt.

Kali gave her a gentle smile. “You know, your body’s actually in slightly better condition than it was before you became a Perfect Chimera. You used to live like this all the time.”

Lilith stared at her, shocked. “Really? That seems…wrong. I hardly noticed a difference after I became a Perfect Chimera, so for it to be this bad…”

“You acclimatize to power gained from new stuff fast, but losing it doesn’t give the same sort of…auto-adjustment that gaining new things does. So, you would hardly have noticed as you just got stronger and stronger.” Kali explained. “Give it some time, you’ll be back to normal in a few days.

“Anyway, let’s start from the top. Fortunately for you, you’re getting the information straight from the source instead of the pop-up window everyone else is going to get, so if you get confused feel free to stop me and ask questions whenever.”

She paused, looking at Lilith’s face carefully. Apparently satisfied, she continued. “So, this works kinda like a game. You get experience for both your Class and Racial Class when you either do tasks related to them, or you ‘defeat an enemy’. That can be anything from killing them to convincing them to stand down, to beating them in a cooking contest. So long as it can be reasonably called a ‘victory’ and both sides are trying, it counts. Though, some things are only going to count for certain Classes, a cooking contest isn’t going to give experience to a Soldier Class.

“So, you level up, and as you do, you get some new Skills and better stats. Aside from Racial Classes, Classes have a maximum level of one-hundred, and once you hit that you have a couple of options. You see, all Classes have a modifier that affects how much more experience the next level up will take, and you can have multiple Classes at once, but all those modifiers stack.

“So, you can choose to reset a Class. Doing so lets you keep any Skills you got from it, as well as any unlocked other Classes, but removes all the stat points you gained from leveling it up and removes it from your list. You only get experience in one Class at a time…” Kali paused, frowning. “Well, aside from Racial Classes, but those are a little different. Anyway, you have one ‘main’ Class you can gain experience in, and you can switch that main Class at any time you want.

“You’ll lose any experience you have towards the next level, though, so…don’t just do that all the time. Honestly, I don’t recommend having more than one Class that isn’t at maximum level, since you’re unnecessarily increasing the experience it takes to get you to the next level while that’s the case. Just focus on leveling up one at a time.

“Racial Classes are what became of Domains. Each time you level one up you get a “Skill Point” that you can use to pick what ability you want from them, so they should be a lot more user friendly than Domains were.

“As for Progenitor, it’s a special Class I’ve made for you. It effectively has no cost for experience scaling, so it should level up super fast, provide a bunch of stats, and won’t really count against you in the long run, so you can just…leave it on if you would like. If you want to know more go ahead and focus on pulling up its information. Usually people can only see what will be unlocked next, but you’ve got King’s Knowledge, so you should be able to see everything.”

“Alright, give me a sec here.”

“What’s the rank and bonuses?” Lilith asked.

“Bonuses are how much your stats will increase when you level the Class up. Rank is an indicator of how rare something is. From most common to least common you have Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythical, and Unique. Unique means that there can only be one of those at any given time, and of course, Progenitor is Unique.”

“Right, I think I get the gist.” Lilith said. “So, what was this about the Sin stuff?”

Kali straightened. “Right. So, basically, the Sins and Virtues give super powerful Skills. You get a Sin title if you’re the person that fits the most of…something. For instance, Pride is having the most followers, Greed is having stolen the most things from other people’s statuses, Gluttony is having earned the most amount of experience in a short period of time, that sort of thing.

“Virtue titles are…more complex, though. They’re based on merit and analysis of a person’s psyche instead of a simple checklist, and being a Sin doesn’t actually weigh in on that at all. And…well, right now you’re the only one in the system, therefore you’re the only applicable target and must have those Sins and Virtues. Pretty neat, right?”

Lilith frowned. “Won’t I just lose them immediately when we give everyone the system?”

Kali winked. “I have a plan for that, but that’ll have to wait until just a little bit later. I need to make absolutely sure everything’s stable before we go there.” She crawled over to the other side of the bed from Lilith, grabbing something Lilith couldn’t quite see from a nearby nightstand. She turned around, pressed a button on a small remote, and the TV flared to life.

“But we can talk about that later. We still have a couple of hours before I need to go pick up Siph, and we can’t really start until then, so…wanna watch a movie?”

Lilith shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“Perfect!” Kali said, crawling back over to Lilith and handing her the remote. “Go ahead and pick something, we have…literally everything, so go nuts!”

Fighterman481

Well, the chapter ended up being a bit more exposition-heavy than I might have liked, but exposition is important every now and then, I suppose.

Uh...there's also that giant window, that's a thing too. That's likely the last time we're going to see Lilith's status "in full" like that, because it's simply too long otherwise. There's too much random stuff clogging it up. Still, it probably should be showed at least once so people get an idea for how it works.

And if anyone was wondering, this arc is going to be less window-heavy than it was in the original. They have their place here for sure, but I want to start fading them into the background earlier than I did in the original, as they're more...uh...the cherry on top, if that makes sense? Might not it's like 5 AM right now so...

Anyway, as you may have noticed, I'm experimenting with bringing Raphael along for the ride this time. I want to be able to have a bit more...interaction on Lilith's side of things that isn't...well, revolving around windows to some extent.

And I want Carmen in on what's happening this time. That whole detective subplot really didn't work and/or add much to the story, so I'm axing it and it'll be replaced with something slightly different.

Uh, that's all I can think to say right now, so next time we'll...well, I'm not totally sure. This arc is going to take some playing with, I'll see what feels good I suppose. Uh...look forward to semi-new stuff, though, I guess?

And, as always, thanks for reading!