A large all-white space
Two figures, one male and one female, were standing in front of a large sphere. A globe depicting a world that was not Earth. A third figure, an androgynous youth, was floating in the air with their legs crossed, tapping away on a smartphone.
After a few minutes of silence, the man turned to the woman and spoke, "Oy! Where d'you git off?! Tryin' to get 'er into yer good graces so early?! Ain't this supposed ta be ah ceasefire?!" The man turned to the Androgynous Youth.
Looking up from their smartphone, the Androgynous Youth spoke, "It's fine, a god's gift wouldn't work for Stahlia anyways, the [Pantheonic Blessing System] is inherently incompatible with her [Custom Class] by its very nature; this will only make things more interesting." The man's face turned red, and he opened his mouth to protest. The Androgynous Youth's eyes turned cold, "I said it's fine. Is that clear?"
The man could only nod, cowed before the youth's gaze. To any onlooker this would have been a curious sight; the man was tall and well built, strong abs and arms well-tanned and oiled. Cowed by a youth of indeterminate gender who looked as though a strong breeze might have knocked them from their airborne perch.
The woman was nonplussed. Without looking up from the globe she intoned; "What exactly is the custom class pray tell? You said it was something even you could not do. I find that incredibly hard to believe."
The Androgynous Youth opened their mouth to answer when all of a sudden they burst into laughter. "Pray tell, what humors you so? I was asking you a serious question." the woman asked of them. The Androgynous Youth shook their head.
"Nothing you said was so funny, the pawn simply discovered he is a she. ‘Momma, where is my penis?’ Ha!" Shaking their head, the Youth tossed the smartphone over their shoulder, where it promptly vanished into thin air.
"To answer your question, quite a lot is different. For one, the amount of soul potential [Custom Class] requires is insane. I would say that it's more than a tier six or seven class, like the [Aspirant] or [Lord] class systems. ninety-nine out of a hundred times, trying to acquire [Custom Class] would make your soul pop off." The woman raised an eyebrow.
"More energy than tier six or seven?" she intoned. The youth nodded.
"More than ten times tier six, almost twice as much as tier seven. Compared to the regular system it doesn't even compare. I would wager that even some of the lower gods might not have a big enough soul to adequately support it."
The Youth pulled out their smartphone and waved it in front of the man's face, "See? I told you. The blessing failed, it got blocked and couldn't activate." The Man grunted by way of response.
The Woman waited to see if the Youth planned to continue, but when they did not, she asked another question, "But most of that potential would be taken up by the [Divine Authority] you added, would it not? Any soul that could host a seed of divinity would be able to use the [Custom Class] I should think."
The Youth sighed and glanced down at the phone. They grumbled to themselves while pretending not to hear the Woman's question, "What a boring sister..." Pointing the phone at the globe, the Youth flicked their finger across the screen, sending a small stream of light into a small dot that had just appeared on its surface, "There, as long as that class change doesn't kill you, it should make things more interesting... and for good measure, this." The Youth tapped their finger on the phone screen, sending one extra small particle of light into the dot.
They turned to the woman, "I saw what you did, interesting.” They said, before flashing a grin, “Alright, I’ll tell you; stop looking at me like that.” The woman nodded, before returning her expression back to one of neutrality.
The youth glanced down at his phone briefly before taking a deep breath, “So, you know how the system usually works. Based on how much Soul Potential a person is born with, quantified as mana, the system assigns them a tier-one class. By fulfilling various obligations, they can go about improving their soul’s potential. The system frames this as ‘leveling up’. Upon reaching certain thresholds, the system will either derive a higher tier class or, if they lack enough spare potential, grant them a new class line. Classes grant skills according to their tier, as well as augmenting their holder with buffed stats, while the system allocates any spare potential to grant talents based on the user’s actions.”
The youth took a breath and checked their phone. Suddenly, their eyes snapped up and they glared at the man, “You sent a demon to her.” The woman looked up at the man, anger clear on her own face, despite her earlier actions. However, she knew better than to speak up and further agitate the youth.
The man grunted, “Aye, that I did. Considerin’ you let ‘er get away wit tryin’ tah bless ‘er, this much should be just fine. No?” The man jerked his chin towards the woman, who quickly averted her eyes. The youth furrowed their brow while checking their phone.
“Which one did you send… Ah, that should be fine, in fact, her getting involved with this should make things way more interesting. I’ll allow it.” The man breathed out in audible relief, while the woman opened her mouth to protest. However, catching the look the youth shot at her, she held her tongue.
The youth was about to continue the explanation, when all of a sudden, an alarm began blaring on their phone. Quickly checking it, they smiled, “Good, the auto retrieval mechanism worked this time; I won’t have to go out and do it manually. Oof looks like we got an extra, sorry about that… Here, I’ll give you the courtesy to make up for it.” The youth pointed their phone at the globe and sent a beam of light from it down to a spot, all while holding a disconcerting grin on their face. The woman frowned.
“You certainly don’t look sorry.” With a chuckle, the youth ignored her and continued their earlier train of thought.
“Very few people have enough potential to achieve a tier-six class, even fewer can get a tier-seven. [Custom Class] should be impossible for a mortal to properly use, not because it comes with a built-in divine authority, but because it lacks the safety features inherent to the system. Unlike how the standard classes are balanced, with more cost-intensive abilities being segregated, [Custom Class] allows the user to select any ability from any tier, at any time. As long as they have enough potential to afford it. Of course, that does nothing to prevent the long-term side effects of… YOU BITCH!”
The youth suddenly appeared in front of the woman, with their fist implanted into her sternum. The woman collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. The youth stood up and waved a hand, causing a door to appear. “I fucking told you that a [Pantheonic Blessing] was incompatible, why the fuck did you try and force it. She is MY. Toy. Not. Yours.” The youth stepped through the door.
The man looked down at the woman, “Ya shouldni half done that.” She groaned and stood back up before dusting herself off.
“I’ll live. Besides, what’s done is done; our sister doesn’t like reverting causality if he can help it.”
The man nodded.
“Indeed, our brother might be a stickler for the rules she set, but that just means he follows them herself.”
Before long, the youth returned, “I fixed her soul so that your fuck up won’t disintegrate it. Hands. Off. My. Toy. You hear me?” The woman nodded, a solemn expression fixed on her face. “Seriously. I hate directly interfering with the soul, it’s so tiring.”
The youth stopped for a moment, recollecting themselves, “Where was I…? Right. So basically, the regular classes are built in such a way as to protect the soul of the user, if there isn’t enough potential then the system gives a tier-one class or no class at all. If there is enough, then the user is allowed to acquire a higher tier class. For safety though, everyone who gets a class starts at tier-one. Custom Class bypasses all of this, letting its user take any ability, of any tier, at any time. Limited only by their quantified soul potential, ‘Life Points’. Do you understand the difference now?”
The woman nodded, “Thank you for explaining it to me… incidentally, you have that other soul, are you going to incarnate it?” The youth glanced down at their phone.
“This? Yea, in a few mortal years. We’ve been sending a lot of them over recently, the constant influx of high potential souls is stressing the system, so I’ll wait for it to recover a bit.” The youth returned to tapping away on their phone, it was clear they were done talking to the woman. The woman and the man went back to overseeing the globe.
All was quiet for a few minutes until, suddenly, the youth jumped down and opened a doorway while exclaiming, “Oh shit. OI, what the fuck! Nononono don’t do that. You shouldn’t fucking do that yet. You’re not strong enough for that! DAMNIT! FERMINA! THIS IS YOUR FUCKING FAULT!” The youth ran through the door. Before it shut, the man and the woman heard them greet someone.
“Yo George! Looks like you died again huh? Man, you just aren’t very lucky.”
The man glanced at the woman, “Seems attached to this’un huh.”
The woman glanced at the shut door for a moment before responding, “Indeed, our sibling certainly seems to have taken a liking to this soul. The next game ought to be quite fun indeed.”
Informative chapter but it ends up really confusing and hard to follow what with the random breaks in conversation and especially with the time difference between the divine realm, Earth, and Stahlia's world.
I'll try to summarize it but let me know if I got anything wrong or missed something worth mentioning.
So the 3 that are talking are the "Gods of creation" that runs New Life in order to collect pawns for a game of some sort for entertainment. Their identity in Stahlia's world is still unknown, especially since we don't know what is factual in the religious lore. The man and woman could either be the god/goddess of dark/light or they could be the two greater kings of the nine hells. Androgynous guy might be the god of creation that did those breaths and swipes to create Stahlia's world since he's so knowledgeable of the system.
In the whole span of their conversation in the divine realm, Stahlia's world was in a fast forward that 10+ years passed throughout the conversation while on Earth only 3+ days passed.
At the start androgynous guy bent the rules to give Stahlia a blessing at the dedication saying it won't work anyway since it's incompatible with custom class. Buff man didn't like that so he sent a demon after Stahlia. Later the woman had Antenora forcefully activate the blessing which could've destroyed her soul if androgynous guy didn't fix it.
Meanwhile Franklin, the MC's friend on Earth, used the second account MC made and ended up in a queue to be sent to Stahlia's world a few years late with whatever character he made. It implies we'll see other reincarnated people if we hadn't already.
Androgynous guy had also forced a class change on Rosial to one that's more rogue-like since he know she'd end up kidnapped since he wanted it to be more entertaining.
Lastly, in the unknown future, Stahlia had messed up somehow, in part because of the custom class and forcefully activated blessing and the androgynous guy has to fix it again but also decides to have a conversation.
An tidbit that remains mysterious is when they mention a sister. Is there another character that's not on the scene that they're mentioning or are they both referring to the androgynous guy when they say 'sister' and 'he'?
"I'll live. Besides, what's done is done; our sister doesn't like reverting causality if he can help it."
The man nodded.
"Indeed, our brother might be a stickler for the rules she set, but that just means he follows them herself."
One mistake. Androgynous Youth did not give the winter blessing; the Woman did. This ticked off the Man, but Androgynous Youth allowed it to happen because it wouldn't work; this is why they got so pissed off when the woman went and forced it to activate later.
Our Sister/he Our brother/She is just me f*cking with the reader. They are refering to Androgynous Youth in both instances.
Thx for the conclusion, I thought I got what this chapter meant, but after reading your comment it turns out I did not at all.
This is a pretty revealing chapter about a few things. For the sake of my sanity while typing we are going to abbreviate the beings as MB, FB, and AB.
AB brought Geogre/Stahlia as his current game piece.
In response MB set a demon on their trail, the early kidnapping attempt is probably move one from this female pronouned demon.
FB thought that Rosail was boring and AB sent her the class that ended up getting her taken but AB also gave her something extra. Probably to help with her reunion with her sister.
Stahlia dying is almost certainly from trying and failing to break the kingdom while still very young but in a world of magic and miracles death is usually much less permanent.
Also it does sound like poor Franklin is dead and just waiting to be used.
For the sake of my sanity while typing we are going to abbreviate the beings as MB, FB, and AB.
No fair! what about my sanity?!
Lemme guess... Male B*tch, Female B*tch and Androgynous B*tch?
So I guess that Locked Seed is not a tree.
Also it seems that these gods dun goofed. It might take a while, but Stahlia will probably get to kick a god in the balls for all the crap she's going through.
Do they even have balls? Maybe they have an innie not an outie.
@Psycholor then again, kick an outie hard enough and it becomes an innie, do the same to an innie and it becomes an outie again on the other side :p
Wow, gods are d*cks. Not really a surprise, though; the pantheon as described already paints a bit of a picture.
@psycholor Just wanted to say thanks for the chapter and the great storytelling.
Wait. Stahlia died? Or is there someone else called George? Maybe the friend who discovered the inconsistencies in the so called suicide?
Also, it seems like the gods don't care about the kingdom at all. And the smartphone god doesn't seem to be known among the mortals.
It seems she died again.
> Wait. Stahlia died?
Who knows? (Other than me )
> Maybe the friend who discovered the inconsistencies in the so called suicide?
His name is Franklin
> Also, it seems like the gods don't care about the kingdom at all.
I dunno, I care about my Xbox.
> And the smartphone god doesn't seem to be known among the mortals.
Oh they are. Just hasn't come up yet.
And that's all you'll get from me :)
@Psycholor is the smart phone god the moon god. Are there more than 12 gods(other than those hell gods and the sun and moon duo) since he mentioned lower gods?.
And can mortals improve their soul potential to get higher tier class if they were born with low potential.
How much spare soul potential does Stahlia still have and what happens when she reaches maximum. And is she is receiving her own soul potential (LP) in installment. Or is she gaining them by her achievements.
Can she even get the next tier of custom class since it is 7th tier class . And will she get any benefit for getting the next tier of custom class. And what's her total level cap.
@Loliconhanter All good questions. Only going to answer a couple of them though.
> Is the smartphone god the moon god.
Pretty sure something got lost in translation. The term is Dark/Darkness/Night/Black god. Not moon god. Regarding who the Androgynous Youth is, no comment.
> Are there more than 12 gods(other than those hell gods and the sun and moon duo) since he mentioned lower gods?.
Most worlds have gods. Earth has hundreds. The New Life world presently has 12, but used to have 13 around 1000 years before the story. Light and Dark duo. Not sun and moon. The Nine Hell Kings are not gods. They are at most, Demigods. 1-8 was intentionally vague regarding them, but the hints are there. btw, three of them have already shown up. Have fun theorizing.
> And can mortals improve their soul potential to get higher tier class if they were born with low potential.
Yes, that is the whole point of the system; It raises potential and quantifies it to bestow abilities. The upper limit is when the soul cannot improve more without breaking. Yes, I did steal this concept from Kumo Desu ka. My version has diffirent reasons though.
> How much spare soul potential does Stahlia still have and what happens when she reaches maximum. And is she is receiving her own soul potential (LP) in installment. Or is she gaining them by her achievements.
LP total. No comment. No. Yes.
> Can she even get the nest tier of custom class since it is 7th tier class .
There isn't one, Custom Class exists outside the normal system. The only reason Androgynous Youth gave it a tier was to compare the amount of potential it needed.
> what's her total level cap.
1,337,420,695,318,008
@Psycholor Demigods. 1-8 was intentionally vague regarding them, but the hints are there. btw, three of them have already shown up
Let me guess, I'm pretty sure one of the them is Rosial, the god did say he sent a demon to her.
And the king/mr 4 could be a demon(because the story needs somewhat strong antagonist.
For the 3rd one it could be the elf maid,
@Loliconhanter If that's the case, the kingdom is probably doomed anyway. One way or another.
@Xyll-246 it is already beyond f*cked up. It could just be trying to lay low and have some fun in the mortal word. It doesn't have to be the king it could be his close retainer or some one close to him. Because I couldn't imagine a demon directly training and spending too much with mortals (shadows). The demon could be manipulating the king.
@Psycholor
> what's her total level cap.
1,337,420,695,318,008
lmao
@Loliconhanter I don't think the elf is one. @Psycholor said that hints were there, and the elf has had maybe five lines total? that isnt a lot to establish any hints.
Rosial being a demon would be interesting, but I feel like that would just make it guaranteed that Stahlia joins the demons side. Besides, based on the order of the flashbacks? commentaries? (the thing where the cellphone god was reacting to early chapters, Rosial was born before the demon. If anything, the demon lines up with dominie being introduced and Rosial getting white vanned.
And the king/mr 4 could be a demon(because the story needs somewhat strong antagonist.
Yea one of the kingdom's higher-ups is definitely one of them. Its too much of a trope to not do it. I would guess that its the third prince though; he also showed up in time with the "you sent a demon to her?" line.
@LoliWithAGlock there are not many established characters yet. So far the established characters were the mc's family, Steve, her fiance's family and her fiance. And it is unlikely a demon would start a family and considering a god has to give up on his divinity to start a normal family with a mortal(13th god) it is very unlikely it is demon.
And the most suspicious minor characters is the elf with the silver hair and red eyes.