It didn't feel like I had gone through something traumatic.
The closest example I could give was what it felt like to stub one's toe.
The pain—both physical and emotional—I could feel at some point between my death and... here, had blazed like an inferno and made me want to curse the offending party and return the agony to them a thousand times over.
But like every toe/couch leg accident, the flare of pain no matter how intense, was short-lived, the inferno of sensations lasting naught but a few seconds.
I had really died, and yet somehow I lived.
The mountain of time and work needed for me(or anyone sane for that matter) to come to terms with such an impossible thing didn't need to be said. Yet, I had somehow found the time between my death and rebirth and gone through the long, almost endless process already.
Against my better judgement, I wondered why I had become this way, forgetting that whoever did this to me wasn't keen on offering any elaboration as they'd left all my previous questions unanswered.
To my surprise however, I actually got a response this time. I stopped my head mid-turn as said answer slotted itself into my mind like it was the most normal thing—
Psycho-Conditioning: Assassins do not pick their targets, they are mere bullets fired at the Imperium's foes. Your mind is strengthened to withstand the rigors of combat and cold-blooded murder, allowing you to act without hesitation, fear, or guilt when you deem it necessary. It also hardens you against trauma. This does not significantly alter your sense of ethics.
Monday-O-Meter: The tension, the jitters, the anxiety, your very own heartbeat; there are many things that could make or break you just before the decisive fight starts. Your mind may even wander for a half a second while exchanging blows and that will spell out your defeat, maybe even death. Perhaps you would lower your guard after the final attack, just for your enemy to get a chance to sucker punch you. Many things can go wrong without the proper focus, an attribute that you do possess now. A cool head to perfectly analyze things to the best of your ability, the skill to ignore all the distractions when you want, and much more.
Cleansed: Physical and mental defects such as nearsightedness, depression, or asthma are cleansed upon taking this supplement. In other words, you will be left an entirely healthy human caring nothing but what your fellow man cares about like air, water, and sleep.
That… explains things… I guess. Between this insanely fantastical development and my theory about death activated or induced socio / psychopathy, I didn't know which held more weight, but I knew which one I wanted to believe.
Going over the wordy descriptions that had made themselves permanent guests in my mind, I had no choice but to grip with the fact that I hadn't just been reborn, I was mostly likely in a world that wasn't my own.
Someone or something had set this all up and given me these powers and maybe more (I hoped), for some purpose they refused to share with me, the one to actually do the work.
I paused at that thought, hoping for another lore dump to come and open my eyes further. Seconds crawled at snail's pace and turned into a minute before I gave up.
Fine then. I'll figure it out myself.
I brushed the dirt off my clothes and looked around. There had to be a reason I woke up in this creepy, dungeon looking place.
Spinning around on my feet in this—cave system—I'm gonna call it a cave system, I felt my mood jump a few percentages higher. There was light. Little green crystals dotting the upper sections of the various walls like a continuous, luminous thread.
They were by no means close to the might of modern light bulbs, but they outlined things well enough.
Craggy. That's the word that came to mind when I took in the drab and dull sights.
Misshapen rocks jutting out at random places, no stalactites, shockingly, and an uneven and rough ground that guaranteed permanent changes to one's spinal curvature should they spend even a minute with their back on it, and…
And I'd been sleeping on it for who knows how long. I frowned, my hands ceasing their cleaning sweeps, my left moving to my torso and right reaching for my back.
The first thing I noticed was the texture and consistency of my body. I was not metal or wood hard. No it was more like excited and muscles engaged to the limit hard. I felt great too, like a mild version of a post-workout high, except one with seemingly no end in sight.
I arched my back and held my arms by sides, twisting from side to side and noting how my body sang. This was me losing weight and becoming fit all over again but on a more intense and extreme level.
Noting the larger and cordlike definition of the muscles lining my forearms but finding them inadequate as answers, I pulled up my shirt for a closer look.
'That's not possible' jumped to the tip of my tongue at the speed of light, but everything I'd experienced so far smacked it back with the mental equivalent of a spiked baseball bat.
I had abs before I died, and my benefactor in all their graciousness had made it so my effort in obtaining them hadn't gone wasted. Except, they'd overdone it.
What was it that people said about those traps they thirsted over? His abs have abs of their own? No normal person looked like this. Not unless they were on some potent steroids or had some insane genetics or both.
Even then, this would seem excessive and unrealistic in both cases. Looking down at my abdomen and waistline, the only image that seemed to match with what I was seeing was how comic book artists drew superheroes.
The thought made me shake my head and drop my shirt. Am I in a comic book universe? Is that what this is? Like before, it seemed I'd asked the right question as my mind welcomed another update, a larger one compared to the first.
Strength: Herculean-"Honestly just choose your physique. Your power mildly outperforms what humanity is actually capable of in all ways, allowing you to classify as someone truly superhuman."
Stamina: Perpetual-"When do you stop? You classify as having superhuman stamina, capable of running marathons, then celebrating with a victory lap through the night. Sleep is sometimes a need."
Agility: Ninja- "Like right out of the movies. Run the tightrope, slay the dance floor, quadruple flip from a standing start, your mastery of your body is second to none. Technically superhuman agility."
Flexibility: Flexible- "You're pretty flexible. At this level you can bust out the party tricks like getting a leg behind your leg, bending your fingers backwards. Hey, maybe even get a back bend in there."
Reflexes: Lightning- "Is it really a metaphor? Eyes on a gunman and you could dodge every bullet they fire, then deliver such scathing burns that they'll give up on the spot. Superhuman reflexes."
Charisma: Silver- "Your charisma is impressive. Rousing the spirits of others to follow your lead - or manipulating them into ruin - is your forte. As a politician or lawyer you'd be making bank."
Body Modifications:
Endowment: 50 percent increase in penis length and girth with appropriate and matching increases in testicle size.
Rejuvenation: "Scars, balding, missing teeth and nails, a person's body can undergo a lot of superficial damage and degradation over the course of their lives. Wouldn't you love it if that problem could just go away? What sounds like an infomercial now becomes possible. With a purchase of Rejuvenation, superficial damage or degradation to your body will naturally heal in time. Get your jaw bones knocked loose from a nasty punch? Give it a couple weeks. Spontaneously combust? After your stay in the hospital ends you should be looking good in no time. No burn scars, hair back in order, it's going to be just wonderful. As a free addition, you can selectively toggle the effect in order to keep some sort of scar you think is especially cool looking, or blend in better with the general public who can't regrow teeth."
Grooming: "If you've ever seen someone with absolutely gorgeous hair or flawless skin, there's a whole routine and regiment that goes into maintaining such things. Money, time, a variety of products, discipline, it's all needed if you're wanting to look your best. But what if it wasn't? Your body acquires a maintenance effect as if you frequently visit a spa retreat. Your hair is always voluminous and silky. Your teeth are shiny, white, and straight. Your skin is soft and smooth everywhere it needs to be, and pimples will be a thing of the past. You might still get filthy and need a bath, but good god do you clean up well. As an added bonus, you can erase facial hair and body hair, or stall out its growth to a specific length in case you like that light stubble look and hate shaving."
Diet:- "Your digestive system, metabolism, and daily nutritional requirements have been optimized. Not only can you more efficiently convert fat and foodstuffs into energy, but you can go longer with less food, and remain healthy with less good food. Waste production is drastically lower than what it was before. It's much easier to stay thin and burn weight with the lightest of exercises. Letting yourself go is now something of an active effort, though if you buy other purchases to make yourself look a certain way, those will take priority."
Tolerance: "Pain is a wedge. When driven in, it can make the wisest and strongest of us second guess their decisions or make simple mistakes. It is the natural mechanism that teaches us what is dangerous, and what is a threat to our being. We can help you surpass pain. Tolerance is a mental mod that allows you to much better deal with pain in two parts. It mildly dulls your sense of pain without removing the sensation of it. The second allows you to more easily tolerate pain while keeping your head. While you may still feel pain and acknowledge it, it will be more difficult for it to control you. No longer will pain so easily dominate your life and decisions. Now you can take risks that others shy away from simply because you've built up some tolerance."
Comic Book Body: Okay, this is a comic book world, which means a couple of things. First, everyone is reasonably good-looking in comics, unless it's important for them not to be. You get to customize your appearance and can be anything: rugged, masculine, seductive, androgynous, delicate, feminine, cute, intimidating, or even monstrous. Or a combination of the above. If you are conventionally attractive, then you're at least an eight out of ten. If you aren't, then there's still something about you that's attractive in an exotic way or maybe you have a very expressive face that makes it easy to see who you are inside. As a bonus, your hair always looks nice and never grows longer than you want it to, your body is always clean, you never have to deal with blemishes, your wounds don't leave scars unless you think one would improve your appearance in-which case it heals exactly how you would imagine, you don't have to worry about unwanted body or facial hair, you never have a foul or unpleasant body odor, and you don't have to brush your teeth or do other tedious body maintenance tasks. Post jump, you can toggle on and off any exotic or inhuman features you elected to give yourself. Second, in comic books, a small child can outfight a grown man, an octogenarian can be more spry and active than a twenty-year-old, and people strong enough to lift tanks look more like models than bodybuilders. Your physical appearance has no bearing on your abilities or vice versa: If you have ever been an adult, then you have the physical attributes and mental faculties of an adult member of your current race regardless of your apparent age. Nor will your abilities or faculties erode in your old age. Likewise, your musculature isn't directly proportionate to your physical attributes: You can be at the pinnacle of strength but only look like an average person, a massive muscle-man can still be as flexible and as quick as a gymnast, or someone in really bad shape could look perfectly fit. In short, your musculature is exactly as large and defined as you want it to
be without any impact on your actual abilities, positive or negative.
Sadly, I had to ignore the plethora of no doubt juicy details and divert all available brain power elsewhere. I stood rooted to the spot, heartbeat picking up slightly at the hair raising sight a few meters away.
Covered in pure white fur, a wolf so big it stood about half my height had its red glowing eyes locked on me, its twin tails flicking behind it in what I could only assume to be anticipation.
Every urge and sensibility I had cultivated as a member of modern society screamed at me to turn around and run. However my knowledge of wolves and the abilities I possessed—both known and unknown—grounded those emotions and kept me from jumping into that dark hole with sharpened spikes at the bottom.
Turning your back to run upon encountering a wolf or a pack of them was a hundred times out of ten a bad idea. That seemingly natural course of action triggered their predatory instincts, pumping arousal and excitement into the portions of their brain responsible for reward and hunting.
But that was for normal wolves.
This creature looked like one no doubt about that. However the redness of the eyes engaged in a staring contest with my own and the red blood vessels pulsating all over its body prompted me to temper the trust I had in my knowledge and listen to my baser instincts.
Slowly, I slid my right foot back, maintaining eye contact while wondering if I had anything that could help me survive this. An answer came, and I would've smiled in happiness had the wolf not dropped all pretenses and threw its legs forward in a charge.
Jujutsu(Base):In this world, all but a few humans possess a form of spiritual energy known as cursed energy, which is produced when feeling negative emotions such as anger, fear, or grief. Most humans, however, have no control over this energy. As such, it leaks freely from their body, causing it to congregate and coalesce into cursed spirits. There are an incredibly rare few who are born with the ability to control this cursed energy, though – people known as sorcerers.
You are now one of these sorcerers, granting you the ability to manipulate your own cursed energy. While you aren't capable of anything particularly special with this alone, there are a good number of benefits to this. For one, you are able to perceive cursed spirits and other spiritual entities with your senses, something usually impossible for non-sorcerers without specialised tools. Additionally, you're able to channel this cursed energy into your body to enhance your physical abilities to superhuman levels, with greater results coming from greater investments.
The above are but the most basic of uses of cursed energy – for more specialised and powerful ones, you'll need cursed techniques. With this alone, you're capable of some basic barrier techniques, which let you create (often spherical) walls of cursed energy to close off an area. The most common form of this is a curtain: a large, pitch black sphere that prevents those outside the barrier from seeing what's happening within. Barriers can also be hardened to make entry or exit more difficult, though be aware that the more difficult it is to leave a barrier, the easier it is to enter and vice versa. In addition, you also have the capability to summon shikigami: creatures resembling cursed spirits created from your cursed energy. These require an intermediary such as a talisman to summon, tend to be rather straightforward in terms of abilities, and won't be particularly strong, though this may be changed with some practice.
Unfortunately, aside from barriers and simple shikigami, most cursed techniques are innate, and as such cannot be learned. It's also entirely possible for a sorcerer to be born without a cursed technique, and as such you will not receive one from this alone. The Cursed Technique section later on will allow you to purchase one for yourself, though certain other, riskier methods may also allow you to obtain one.
Fighting the near overwhelming urge to turn and speed away, I planted both feet and slid them apart a bit, knees going a bit low as my arms came up to shield my face and neck in a guard position.
The physical motions flowed with a perfect, practiced ease, the spiritual ones a little less so.
I had neither possessed nor manipulated any form of internal energy until today, so my first time, no matter how much mastery the power afforded me, proved to be a little slow.
As though my thoughts called its potency into question, the new knowledge and power joined hands to reveal the reason for this slowness. It was me. It was my doubt.
To that, I cursed. Of course I'm gonna second guess this nonsense. What do you think this is? A movie or some anime?
Nipping that burst of anger in the bud, I focused on flooding my body with the negative energy, noting how the momentary burst of emotion boosted my efforts.
I didn't know how much energy I had in the tank, but I wanted every inch of it flooding my body and gaining the benefits outlined. I was not keen on dying a second time, much less in such a gnarly way.
Halfway to my position, the whisk-like tails of the wolf lit up with crackling red electricity before flicking toward me.
I was already moving when I saw the bright red sparks, diving to the side with the intent to roll out of the way.
Its reactions matching mine, the monster adjusted its aim at the last second, the tightly controlled lightning leaping off its oversized tails and catching me in the arm on my way down.
The elegant fall and roll I pictured were shafted to an alternate reality, the electricity travelling from the limb to my whole body and dropping me in a sizzling and convulsing heap.
My body was usurped by the lightning, but my mind, soul, and cursed energy operated and flowed unimpeded, allowing me to reinforce the former and wrench back the stolen control bit by bit.
The pitter patter of paws echoed closer and closer until a maw dripping with saliva and lined with teeth I didn't want anywhere near me grew larger in my vision.
Outwardly, I was certain my face was a picture of calm. Inwardly however I knew the truth. No matter how much these powers tempered my emotions, it wasn't a complete or absolute thing.
I still experienced them, just in ways and amounts that didn't impair judgement and action. I was scared shitless and I was angry. And cursed energy, true to its nature, responded to these triggers like a vacuum to dirt and stopped fighting my attempts to call on it.
I'd been trying to move my arm this entire time, so when the cursed energy finally overpowered the effects of the electricity, my fist flew like an arrow held against a bowstring for too long.
BAM!
The jaws closing around my neck loosened and disappeared, the creature they belonged to launched away into a nearby wall with a thud and the barest hints of a crack.
I remained on the ground, metal on my tongue as I wrapped my hands around my neck to slow the effects of the gift the bastard left me with its fangs.
The increasing warmth and wetness on my fingers, combined with the agony that came with the wound and my own attempts to mitigate it, drove me into even deeper despair than the monster's jaws.
I instinctively went to the only place that had given me answers today. My powers. I asked for anything, mentally pushing words like healing, regeneration. An answer came immediately, and I wasted no time using it.
Focusing on the mass of energy filling me to the brim, I shoved aside my surprise about its continued flow and strengthening despite my condition and manipulated it against itself.
Guided by the ability, the freshly downloaded knowledge, and my unwillingness to go back to that darkness, I converged more of the cursed energy on my neck area and made them clash in a way I could barely describe.
The effects were immediate.
A sigh of relief oozed out of my lips as a soothing sensation enveloped my neck and the wounds there, the magnified sensation of itching assaulting the area but for a moment.
I sat up, blinking repeatedly as I felt for my neck, way past the doubting stage now. This was real. It was all real.
Looking to my left, I saw the damned monster wobble on its feet amidst whines.
Fucking monster.
I shot to my feet and took bold steps towards it with my fists clenched, the dual reinforcing and healing energy suffusing my body giving me the needed courage. I was going to put this creature in the dirt. I'd like to see it try to kill me then.
Despite its disorientation, the monster managed to launch more lightning blasts in my general direction. I didn't even need to dodge though, my punch proving more damaging than I imagined.
When it saw that I was still moving and gaining on it, it turned tail and ran.
Forgoing the worries about my inability to control my enhanced speed in this reinforced state, I pushed against the ground and the world warped, the cave wall appearing within kissing distance.
BANG!
Whatever it was made of, the wall rebutted me quite easily, the cartoonish indentation of my body not happening like I expected.
I instead bounced off it like an equally hard rock, falling on my back on the patch of ground the whimpering wolf just vacated.
Eyes narrowing at the powerfully muscled legs and longer than normal tails covered in fading electricity, I reached forward and grabbed one of the latter, my enhanced strength and durability ensuring my grip was unbreakable.
Ignoring the monster's futile attempts to ramp up the red static on its offending appendages, I stood up and yanked on the one in my grip, dragging it off its feet and swinging it in a wide, nearly 360 degree arc.
BAM!
I slammed it into the nearby cave wall, a splotch of thick and vibrant red left at the point of collision and its formerly pristine white fur. It didn't get up when I dropped it. Probably because it couldn't.
Still, I wanted it dead, not injured.
Crouching down and watching its movements like a hawk, I reached for its neck and found my target after a brief search through its dense fur. The drawn out effort to end its life didn't ensue.
As soon as I wrapped my hands around it and squeezed, I heard a crack, the tiny tremble of life I could feel through my palms ceasing like I flipped a vital light switch.
As I stood back up, I gazed at my bloody hands and the marks they'd left in the monster's fur. Some of the dried liquid had been cleaned.
Bending down once more, I pressed both hands against the body and smoothed my hands through the dense white hair, doing away with the uncomfortable crustiness of blood bit by bit.
Out of nowhere, a familiar spike of ozone flooded my nostrils as red arcs of writhing electricity, these ones more intense than last time, raced over and through me.
Unlike before though, I spun around sharply, my body still my own. I hadn't stopped the flow of cursed energy for even a second, ramping it up bit by bit this whole while.
I came face to face with three more wolves, each of them identical to the one laying at my feet. They growled and moved to encircle me, the sound of their footfalls nonexistent.
Watching the saliva drip from their maws and their electrified tails swish about, I locked eyes with the one in the center and pushed off the ground, using it as a focal point.
The familiar blur of the world reoccurred and ceased, and I was before the creature, right leg raised in an arc and whipping towards it.
BAM!
The kick, bearing the full might of my amped strength and momentum, struck the stunned monster where its head and neck met.
My shin forced the point into a U shape before launching it away with a burst of wind, the wolf bouncing along the ground like a soccer ball, blood splotches left at every point of impact with the ground.
I leaned into the kick and spun, ducking and throwing my fist up in an unforgiving uppercut, the ambushing wolf folding around it and earning a trip to the cave's ceiling.
A familiar but heavily muted tingle raced through me as another lightning strike found purchase, a set of powerful jaws wrapping around my leg not a moment later.
With a scream of anger, excitement, exhilaration or maybe all three, I brought my fist down like a sledgehammer, a loud bang echoing in the empty underground along with a crack.
The gripping force on my leg loosened and the monster stepped back with wobble, the indent of my fist on its head proving the extent of damage I had done.
I raised my fist once more to put an end to this, only to feel my eyes bulge out their sockets as a force not unlike the car that ran me over slammed into my back and sent me staggering forward.
White hot agony lanced up my spine and down my legs as I fell forward, memories of my death occupying my thoughts for that brief moment.
Clarity and calm returned right as my face hit the ground, the impact serving as a slight boost to the efforts of the mental perks.
No longer surprised at how my control of cursed energy and its flow seemed to have experienced another small but noticeable improvement, I converged a substantial amount of it on my back and converted it into its reversed variant.
Sensation returned to my waist and legs less than a moment later and I spun around, getting to my feet hastily while I watched my ambusher, the white furred creature ignoring me entirely.
Frankly, the wolves and this gloomy cave should have been enough. Their twin tails and ability to sling blasts of lightning should also have tickled the right neurons. Well, they did tickle them, just not quickly enough.
This seemingly innocent, albeit large rabbit with legs that would put Chun Li's to shame served as the final push. This place really was a dungeon. Well they were called labyrinths, but their design, purpose, and number of levels suggested otherwise.
Questions upon questions burned in my mind, but I didn't have the luxury to attend to them now.
Not at this moment when the critter responsible for making me relive my death stopped chomping on a wolf leg and raised its head to look at me.
With reinforcement buffed even further, I dashed from my position and arrived near the creature in less than an instant, my fist sailing through empty space.
Having caught a blur of white going upward, I turned around and faced the same direction, just in time to see the rabbit push off the air with its oversized legs as though the former were solid .
I threw my fist forward to meet it, and the creature twisted its body right before the collision and slammed its feet into my knuckles, the resulting blast of air and rebounding force separating us.
I planted my right foot strongly behind me before pushing off it with measured strength, arriving near the somersaulting monster with my fist in tow.
A slight twitch of its ears followed by a flexing of its legs and my attack missed completely, the creature landing on the ground a few meters away, the mockery in its glowing eyes apparent.
In my experience, mockery or taunting was done with the intent to make the recipient instigate violence. Imagine my surprise when the rabbit vanished after conveying what it thought of my efforts with its gaze.
Aided by cursed energy and it seemed my own innate reactions, I reacted… not quite fast enough. Unlike the rabbit which had the distance to build up momentum, my punch was hastily formed.
The chances of me losing out were too high for my liking. But then it hit me. Why did it have to be a punch?
My fist opened up like a claw contraption millimeters away from the rabbit's paws and the latter slammed into my waiting hand with bone shattering force, but I paid the painful protests no heed and clenched it tight.
The rabbit's legs held strong, not breaking under the stone crushing grip. Sadly for it, I wanted it dead, not injured.
Ignoring its struggling attempts and funneling more cursed energy to my hand and arm, I raised the monster up high and brought it down even faster, a white streak tearing through the air and smashing into the ground with the force of a bomb.
Tiny pebbles of varying size went flying from the impact, a small crater with spiderweb cracks originating from within and spreading outward left in the ground.
I kept my grip on the crater's occupant and lifted it, blood dripping from its head and enlarging the pool filling the cracks below. The rabbit had stopped struggling, its ears, mismatched arms and legs hanging loosely.
Leaving it to drop with a wet thud, I performed a cursory scan of my surroundings, poised to face any more white furred monstrosities. I found none. None that were moving at least.
I distinctly remember there being another creature more dangerous than the wolves and rabbits on this floor, a bear with arms as tall as it was if my memory served me right.
However, it was nowhere in sight and I had no intention of seeking it out. At least not before I dealt with the wealth of unread messages in my head and came up with something that resembled a plan.
The first thing I did after perusing the new information was to take a look at my right hand, at the single ring with a blue gem inlaid at its center. My rings had carried over to this life, the blackbands giving my hands the extra oomph behind the blows they dealt.
Due to the monsters not giving me the chance to catch my breath,Ididn't get to investigate what exactly made the one with the gem different. Now that I had learned its purpose though, my distaste for the monsters grew to new heights.
I had an honest-to-God storage ring. The technical term was "Treasure Trove" but that did nothing to change the amount of excitement I felt.
A passive flash of intent directed towards the artifact returned a mentalimage outlining its safeguarded contents. The number and varied appearances of the items brought forth more questions and amped my desire to start rummaging.
But I fought that desire and looked around for any movements or new arrivals I might have missed during my brief daydream.
The scan confirmed that I remained alone and surrounded only by my deadattackers, so I wasted no time and formed a sign with my right hand right in front of my face.
"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure,"I said, the incantation rolling off my lips while I funneled cursed energy… somewhere.
High above me, solid black ink dripped onto reality like a spill, flowing down an invisible glass sphere. The little illumination in this place got cut off once the barrier fell completely, leaving me in darkness once again.