He was swimming in darkness.
He knew that he was just an infant in his new mother’s womb now… But he felt very tired… What’s wrong with this body?
He quickly called the system screen in his mind to check on his situation.

Sh*t. His soul was more damaged than he anticipated… What about his skill cards?

Even most of his skill cards were gone… Thankfully he arranged the cards so that this regeneration card was the first one in his imaginary deck, just in case. So it was the one closest to his soul and one of the two remaining ones… With this, his soul would heal slowly.
Now he needed to check his new body… He should have had 100000 Mana points at the very least for the healing to go smoothly…
He quickly used the Identification skill on himself… draining whatever Mana he had.

WHAT? What the f*ck was wrong here? A normal human would have 10 of each… was this his Karma haunting him again? Probably not.
His body was still growing, which means his attributes would probably normalize by the time of his birth. Hopefully.
No wonder this body had no soul, he was poisoned to death… But who would poison an infant or his mother with an A-ranked poison… Those things are not cheap and could only be found in dangerous places.
Whatever, from now on this is his body… If he died now, He has ways of avoiding his soul being disintegrated, but he would have to go into the void and wait for another world merger… He doesn’t want to do that.

All he needs now is to be born, then grow up and go kill all of those idiots who stole his skills… If his guess was correct. His Soul containing skills and blessings were scattered among the babies who were born that day… How many are there? 13 Main ones and another 10242 were marked by the ceremony.

He needs to get his things back!

His skills were his unlimited cheating, He designed those himself to grant him access to system features… That’s the only way he can access most of the system's energy as a human.

All of them are X ranked… Would their new owners be able to use them? Of course not, as you need to know a skill name. X-ranked skills need an X-ranked detection skill to find them. In addition to that, a high Soul Level was required for the really crazy skills. So their current holders would probably be ignorant of their existence and only blissfully benefit from their passive effects… Sh*t. Each one of those was enough to create a monster.

No matter what, he had to get his stuff back. After that, he would grab his position as the Emperor and live the blissful life he planned.
It won’t be easy… But completely doable, as he had the world system by his side. This might be fun…. He wanted to laugh evilly, but his body had no vocal cords yet.

Maybe he should try to start practicing martial arts in the womb… that would be cool…
He quickly recalled one of the easy energy practices he knew about…
He couldn’t remember it… What's wrong with his memory? He should have memorized entire libraries…
It was his soul damage…or maybe his body’s intelligence…. Only 3? He would have been a complete idiot if not for the support of his soul. DAMN IT!

For now, it seemed as if he could only go to sleep as his skill healed his body and soul… Too bad he only had so little mana, not allowing his Regeneration skill to display its full potential.
Was his situation just a coincidence or did someone do it deliberately? He didn’t know. But time would tell.
Now, He could only wait and plan what to do later… He had no energy left for planning…
He cursed silently and fell into a deep sleep.
…

Five more months passed like that. His soul was only 1% healed, but his health and Mana have been fully recovered.
He made sure to use his Identification skill on his mother when his Mana recovered a little.

She was poisoned as well… This must have been passed to him. As for her skills, they were not bad at all. And having two talents was something quite important in this world.
He sighed and decided to return to sleep… Nothing better to do.
And like that, he spent his time doing nothing until at last, he felt a change in the womb. It was time to go out…

…

One day, he was rudely awakened by the feeling of him getting pushed out…
When he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was the face of an ugly old midwife taking him out of the darkness he was in.
He had been born at last. The emperor was born… Long live the emperor…. No one said that of course, not here anyway.
“Congratulations my lady… It’s a boy…..Ahhhhhhhh” The midwife screamed and dropped him to the ground.

“Ah… Be careful..” A woman yelled with a tired beautiful voice.
“I…. I am sorry. He is ok, don't worry.” The midwife quickly held him again and checked him for any damage.
Through his barely working eyes, he could see that he was in a lavish room that had a big bed in its center, and on the bed, a very pretty woman was lying. This one was supposed to be his mother… Oh, there were two maids with sneaky eyes to the side as well.
“It’s a boy my lady, what would you like to call him?” The midwife quickly asked as she sighed in relief. The boy was fine. Mostly.
“Ah…..Ray, like the pretty sun ray that struck me when I did that ceremony…” The woman whom he could now identify as his mother said.
“Oh, a good name.” The midwife said before spanking his butt to make him cry. But he didn’t, he was busy looking at his stats screen.

What shitty attributes… It seems like the damage to his soul was more extensive than he expected… And his shitty Mana was depleted after just one inspection….
And on top of that, he was still poisoned… The regeneration skill could only offset the damage, not cure the poison. His only solutions were to either get his PERFECT RESISTANCE X skill or to grow up enough to make an elixir… If he could remember any of the recipes or go find one of the stacks of resources he created and his around the continent.
Damn it… He was still too young for that!
Another spank woke him from his contemplation.
“Fu********k” was the first word he spoke, after the midwife spanked him again. He began to cry with sadness after that…
“Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….”
No, he was not crying, men did not cry, he was acting that’s all.
“What a healthy boy,” The midwife said with a strange look on her face. Did he just say fu*k? It must be her mind playing tricks on her.
“Can I hold him?” His mother asked.
“But he needs to be washed.. and you are too tired, my lady.” The midwife said,
“It’s ok,” His mother said, making him open his eyes just barely to see her beautiful face. “Why are you not giving him to me? I want to hold him,” She commanded.
“Ahh. Please don’t be surprised, my lady.” The midwife said giving him to his mother.
Why would she be surprised?
“Ah….” His mother said… then froze for a second and hugged him. “Don’t worry I will not let anyone bully you “ She said after realizing why the midwife dropped him moments ago.

'You are strangling me, woman!' he yelled incoherently, making the midwife alert his mistress.

“Be careful madam. He is still fragile,” the midwife wanted suddenly, making his mother quickly soften her touch… That saved his life!
What’s wrong with these people… was he going to be killed before his first birthday? He contemplated as he glanced sideways to see his reflection in a wall-mounted mirror.
“Ah….” he had just realized why the midwife dropped him before…. What abomination is this?
He was not ugly. A baby can’t be ugly. He was just extremely not pretty…..

Despite being very young, some things were very clear. Every feature on his face was parts of an inch far away from where it was supposed to be. Not that much that it destroyed his face. As any of these slight imperfections would look great on other people and give them some character. But the combination of all of these created a “Unique” look and a “Unique” Character.

He sighed… Unfortunately, this was the way this world worked… attributes were directly related to physical phenomena.
His only way to fix himself is either leveling up z and putting more points to his charm or regaining the lost parts of his soul and attributes… Wait, he had just noticed something… He can’t level up!

His level was now 9999999999999999999999, which guaranteed him the ability to use all of his skills, but the problem was that he can’t level up without a huge amount of Exp that is impossible to get in a 1000 years!
Damn it!

Ray kept weeping for a while after that, no matter what they did, he didn’t stop… He was very distressed... It’s not that he wanted to, but this body naturally expressed his true feelings.

A thousand years were wasted for nothing. What should he do? Should he commit suicide and try again? When would he get another chance? A million years later? Wouldn’t he lose what was left of his sanity by then? And how was he supposed to commit suicide like this? He couldn’t even move his limbs voluntarily.

A warning made him stop crying, despite his eyes tearing up…. Damn it… He couldn't even cry without losing his health.
“Did he stop crying?”
“Yes, he must have gotten tired.”
A sudden loud knock on the door startled everyone in the room.

Without waiting for permission, a grand man with a grander golden beard entered the room with an old butler, making the maids and the midwife bow respectfully,

“We have seen the duke,” they said.
“Congratulations my lord, it’s a boy,” the midwife said.
“Oh, let me see him…” the duke said as he looked at Ray…… He froze.
“I think he will be a valiant warrior in the future… All enemies would run away at the sight of him,” his mother said smartly. “He looks just like your granduncle!”

“Ahh… Yes… Many great warriors had fitting looks… Not bad,” he said, “ We will test him with his new brother and sister next week,” he added as he left the room after giving his wife a kiss... none for the baby!

Penelope smiled sweetly at her husband as he left then coughed a little.

“The young lady must rest…. I will take the young master for now.” The midwife said, making his mother nod and give him back to the midwife reluctantly, then drink a bowl of medicine and fall into a deep sleep.

The midwife took the baby out of the room with one of the maids and then silently closed the door.

As the Midwife Held him, Ray began to look around inspecting his surroundings, the house he was in was made out of a lacquered wooden structure held on decorated and gilded grand columns. It was like those traditional eastern big houses in his previous world, with interconnected rooms and courtyards

“The young lady is lucky being one of the duke’s five main wives, if any of the concubines had a baby this ugly, the duke would have killed them both…” A maid who couldn't hold her tongue said as they walked across a wooden corridor.
“Shhhhhhhh.” The midwife shushed her. “The walls have ears…” She said as she walked for a few more minutes toward another room overlooking a small well maintained courtyard... This one was supposed to be his.
“Should we give him some ‘Medicine’ too? I didn’t expect him to be born successfully,” the maid whispered as they wiped his skin with a wet cloth.

“No need, look at his flimsy arms… This guy would pose no danger to the mistress of the young master… On the contrary, he might cause LADY Penelope more problems,” the midwife said with hatred, especially when she pronounced the word LADY.

“We just need to wait for the appraisal, If he has any hope, we can always fix him then! “she added.

“Shall we try to fix the other two babies? They will be bringing them to the main mansion later,” the maid asked with disgust as she laid the baby on a silk covered table and began to wipe him with a wet towel.

“No, that would create too many problems. And they are concubines' offspring anyway. If they turned out to be especially talented, the mistress might decide to take them under her wing.” The midwife said as she held him and laid him on a soft bed. He was now clean, but not any prettier, maybe a little uglier after his features were made clear.

“Now about the…..” The midwife began to whisper something, but his consciousness could not hold any longer as he felt very tired and could not remain awake.

There was some kind of scheme here…. He was too sleepy for that… Damn this lousy body.

Akaichi

This chapter was changed.