Chapter 2:
1,782 years in the past, at a dark alleyway
“Kuak” A young man with black hair wearing ragged clothing, buckled his knees and gasped for air, his black eyes glared at the three smirking young adolescences, two men and a woman, their frail bodies were sickeningly white skin, violet hair that reaches the nape for the man standing in the middle while the man standing to his left has his head shaved and the woman has a violet punk mohawk hairstyle, behind their grinning violet lips were rows of ragged sharp teeth, all three of them were wearing matching black mage robes decorated with spikes and skulls, the three pairs of blood-red eyes stared back at the young man.
The man in the middle casually walked towards the young man and lifted him by the neck then pinned him to the wall, the young man futilely struggled while glaring at the man “What’re you lookin’ at huh, freak?”.
“Kekeke, Krun, do you think he can speak while you’re strangling him?” The woman asked sarcastically while laughing.
“Hmm, guess not. Then I’ll just have to…” The man, Krun, tightened his grip around the young man’s neck causing his black nails to dig into his skin, “… force him to.” the young man grunted, his vision started to turn hazy from the lack of oxygen.
“Hey, hey, Krun stop.” The bald man said causing the other two to stare at him weirdly. Seeing the two of them stare at him weirdly the bald man smirked, “What? having a screaming punching bag is better than the regular ones.” he stated with a matter-of-fact tone.
“Hahahaha, that sounds fun, Brod. Don’t you think Lura?” Krun laughed madly then asked the laughing Lura. After tossing the young man he landed near Brod’s feet causing him to smile widely.
The young man slowly stood up with the support of the wall and glared at Brod, his struggle and glare caused Brod’s smile to become even wider, Brod clenched his fist and struck the young man’s face, due to the strong impact to the head the young man lost consciousness. “What the? Did he just fall asleep?” Brod asked disappointedly then walked closer to the unconscious young man. “WAKE UP!” kicking the young man causing him to roll a couple of times on the ground before crashing to a nearby trashcan. “Tsk.” Seeing the young man still lying down around the garbage Brod clicked his tongue.
“I guess he’s out,” Krun said with a tinge of laughter.
“Damn it, what kind of freak is this weak?” Brod angrily asked.
“Well, he’s no fun sleeping. let’s go.” Lura said slightly disappointed that their entertainment was gone.
“See you around freak. KUHAHahahaa…” Their laughter slowly disappeared into the distance.
After a few minutes, the young man slowly opened his eyes, his face and body were sore, after breathing in and having a whiff of his surroundings, he gagged from the disgusting smell of garbage. Without being able to move slowly closed his eyes enduring the smell of garbage, his body started to tremble, warm tears started to flow. 'Why, why am I so pathetic? They were beating me like a stray dog, I wasn’t even able to do anything.' The young man began to cry.
[Analyzing mana. Mana's signature is 100% identical. The host has been located]
Zarel heard a silky soft voice in his head, shooting his teary eyes open from the shock. With some of the pain subsided he was able to slowly seat down with the support of his arms and the garbage bags around him, “W-who’s there.” He asked weakly while looking around warily but was not able to see anything. ‘Was it just my imagination?’
[Beginning assimilation.]
Followed by the mysterious voice an incredible amount of pain within his body came out of nowhere. “RAAARGH!!” the pain caused him to scream aloud. The pain he felt earlier seemed like a joke compared to the pain he was currently feeling. The feeling of his insides being stretch to the limits, sliced to piece, and being burned altogether causing Zarel to frantically roll on the garbage bags. ‘Am I going to die without even seeing my family again?’
After a minute of screaming and rolling on the ground the pain slowly disappeared as if it never happened to begin with. Zarel slowly opened his eyes, his once black eyes now have a tinge of silver to them, with the pain miraculously disappearing, Zarel stood up confused, surrounding his vision was a mercury silver light. “What’s happening?” he asked knowing there was no one to answer him, but to his shock…
[Assimilation successful. Greetings to the host.]
“Wh-who's there!?” Jumping back, he looked around vigilantly with wide eyes from the shock.
[Greetings host, I am the Artificial Spirit Lifeform or ASL.]
“What? A-ASL? Wh-where are you?” Seeing no one around Zarel asked frightenedly.
[Here.] The mercury light surrounding Zarel’s vision instantly brightened.
“You’re inside my eyes!?” he yelled from shock
[Negative, I am assimilated with the host.]
Staring at the air blankly, ‘assimilated, doesn’t that mean whoever’s speaking is inside my body!!?’ he thought to himself. After a few seconds, he regained his senses “How are you assimilated with me?” He bewilderedly asked.
[I am an artificially created spirit lifeform with no physical body given the sole purpose of supporting and assisting the host, the only way for me to assist and support the host is to be assimilated.]
Not knowing how to respond Zarel stood there with a dumbfounded face, the phrase ‘I don’t get it’ seemed plastered all over his face. Forcing himself to digest the information given to him by the ASL, there was one thing he wanted to ask after understanding parts of it “Why am I your host?”.
[Your mana was the one who wakened me.]
Once again, Zarel stood dumbfoundedly. ‘Mana was something I hardly heard anymore after getting lost, but since my father was a mage. the word ‘mana’ isn’t that unknown to me…’ remembering his father who was a war mage and all the times he would show of to him and his sister with spells, fire that came out of thin air, water that dance in the air and much more unbelievable that Zarel could only dream of. Every time his father would show off his mother would then tell him off that casting spells weren’t allowed in the house. Remembering his family Zarel’s eyes moisten a little, shaking his head trying to get the thought off his mind. But there was a problem with this answer and that was… “How could that happen I don’t know how to use mana?”
[The host that activated me came from a different timeline; due to circumstances I used an ability of mine to travel back in time in order to locate the host.]
After standing for a solid minute staring at nothing like an idiot “Timeline? You mean from the future?” Zarel finally asked in an excited tone, remembering all the old mangas, animes, cartoons, movies, and comics he’s read back at home about time traveling.
[Affirmative.]
Receiving the answer he was hoping for, Zarel's smile became wider ‘Does that mean I’m some kind of protagonist from something like in the anime, and manga I’ve seen?’ Zarel jumped from joy, then remembered he was still surrounded by garbage, after walking deeper in the alleyway away from the garbage can he humble himself. After taking deep breaths to calm himself down, he asked hopefully “Can you time travel again?” thinking that if he could time travel, he could prevent this entire event from happening.
[Negative]
Zarel’s face darkened, his hope was immediately shattered, “Do you have any other ability?” Zarel asked grasping at straws, immediately afterward a mercury silver window containing texts appeared in front of him.
[ASL’s abilities:
{Status Window}
- Shows the host’s information about him/herself specifically the name, age,
race, state of health, mage level, current mana count, mana density, mana
control level, cognitive ability, magical affinities, intrinsic abilities,
blessings, and currently known spells, and techniques.
{Analyze}
- The ability to analyze and show the information of an object, person, and
spells that the host’s mana has fully interacted with.
{Soul Count}
- The intrinsic ability of an ASL, to absorb and contain soul-energy of beings
slain by the host. The amount of soul-energy will be use for the abilities
{Calculation}, {Optimize}, {Library}, and {Adapt}.
{Calculation}
- To calculate a solution for a problem with the given variables. The
assist of the ability {Soul Count} may be needed for more difficult problems.
{Optimize}
- Any spells and techniques analyzed with the ability {Analyze} and the assist
of the ability {Soul Count} will be adjusted to the potential limit or to the
point of evolution of a new spell, or technique
{Library}
- Containing all the knowledge of all the previous hosts, and souls absorbed
available for the current host to access with the assist of (Soul Count).
{Adapt}
- The ability to learn new abilities or change according to the most common
situation. Requirements: unknown.]
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