Ch. 1 Gifts
" Am I... in hell?" I asked myself or someone because the amount of stress was high as I looked at a beautiful garden with its colorful flowers surrounding me.
I heard a chuckle behind me, I glanced back to see a hooded figure, " This the garden of Eden. I'm sure that not even hell would be able to purify your soul."
' Who is–'
" I am the creator. I brought you here for your karmic value. It's high to the point that it overshadows your sins."
" My sins..." I looked at my scarred hands, remembering the blood on my hands.
" I see. If I had sins from my life. Then why did I have a high karma?" I looked at the creator.
" Don't you remember your last moments before dying?" The creator asked.
" I..." I remembered a missile, large enough to destroy half of the world and plunge it into a wasteland. A nuclear fallout.
I stopped it but at the cost of my life along with a few others, my comrades... my team.
" I stopped... a nuclear fallout from happening." I muttered, answering the creator who nodded.
" Correct, you stopped a nuclear fallout from happening. Saving billions of lives. For that, your karmic value has reached at a very high level." She explained as she took a step forward and held out a manga in her hand.
" Which is why I want to give you a new life. One that I'm sure you'll find familiar."
I grabbed the manga, " Attack on Titan?"
" Yes, your favorite." She smiled under her hood.
" Why do this?"
" Because of your karmic value has tipped the balance of reincarnation, and as every soul that is about to reincarnate, they will be given a few gifts in exchange for their karmic value."
" But for you, I am willing to let you choose your own gifts."
The manga in my hand changed into a book.
" You can choose your gifts from this book." She explained.
I opened the book and saw lines of gifts that explained their strengths.
[ Gifted: +25% Learning speed, +5 skill slots. -50% Skill experience required.]
[ Lucky Coin: Heads for lucky encounter, Tails for unfavorable outcome.] ( Time Limit: 5 Minutes. )
[ Gambler: +2 Luck ]
[ Boxer: +25% damage for unarmed fighting]
" There's a lot." I muttered.
" I suggest you choose special grade Gifts, it's the only way to lower your karmic value to normal level, and you need eight gifts in total."
' Special Grade?' I flipped the pages to find them at the last section of the book. I started looking through the list of gifts and chosen a few.
[ Chance Manipulation](S)
[ Able to manipulate a possibility or event. ] ( Cooldown: 2 hours )
[ CQC](S)
[Fighting unarmed at close quarters guves the user a +50% damage and +50% defense.]
[ Blade Master](S)
[+50% speed, +50% % damage, +50% defense when wielding a blade. ]
[ Cat-Like-body](S)
[+75% balance,+75% reaction time, Night vision, and +50% flexibility.]
[ Prodigy](S)
[100% Learning speed. +8 skill slots. +100% exp gain.]
[ Iron Will](S)
[ Ignore 50% attacks, ignore 65% pain.]
[ Book of Status](S)
[Gives the user a system in the form of a book. ] ( Chance of granting the user a special skill )
[ Charmer: +5 Charm ]
The last one was to fill my ego, and I don't regret it.
" Great choice, but it seemed your karmic value hasn't been depleted enough... now that's problematic, If you take on more gifts, your soul wouldn't be able to handle it... unless..."
" Do you want a specific background and appearance?" The creator asked as she gave me a book along with a quill.
" Sure. But how specific?" I asked.
" Like becoming an Ackerman or becoming Eren's brother." She explained.
I nodded and started to think for a while on the background and appearance description.
After thinking for a while, I was able to come up with a background and appearance.
For the background, I decided to become Hange's little brother.
" Usually, this I would send you into the world as a stranger, but using your karmic value as this, it'll make be part of the main characters." The creator explained as I looked at my character design sheet.
" There's also something I added as well. Instead of attaching onto your soul, these will instead be attached with your physical body instead. I call them traits." She said as she gave me a few pages of paper.
" You must pick at least three traits."
" Three traits.... isn't that no different than a gift?" I raised an eyebrow as i saw the creator covering her mouth with her finger with a smile creeping up.
I ignored the uneasiness in my heart and looked into the pages of traits. A few caught my eye.
[ Dexterous Hands ](B)
[ +3 Agility ]
( Makes the users' hands agile and used with perfect control. )
[ Mithril Core integration ](S)
[ +2 Strength and +2 Endurance, -1Agility ]
( Gives the user a special skeleton frame mixed with Mithril. The user will not suffer any broken bones. )
[ Analytical Eyes ] (S)
[ +3 Intelligence]
( Gives the user the ability to see and analyze data from their surroundings and feed the user info.)
This good a trait for my eyes since it could be useful for stressful situations.
But the thing that bothered me was that my brown eyes turned to silver. I didn't mind since I could cover them with sunglasses to avoid unnecessary attention.
" That's done... now for last page..." I turned the page to see my status.
[ Cain ]
[ Strength:2]
[ Endurance:2]
[ Agility: 2]
[ Charisma: 5]
[ Intelligence: 3 ]
[ Luck: 0 ]
These were status from the gifts and traits I chosen.
" The numbers... what Limit could they reach?" I asked looking up at the creator.
" Twenty is the highest number you could achieve, 10 is a normal human. I should also inform you that you still have left over stat points to use for your status. And also a another thing to note, most skills you learn must need a certain level of points to activate." She explained.
< 21 unused stat points >
' Strength, Agility and endurance can easily be leveled up by physical activities and the same could go for Intelligence for using my brain.' I looked at the status before narrowing my eyes.
' But I should also add a little boost incase something goes wrong.'
[ Strength:2 ]
[ Endurance:2 ]
[ Agility: 2 ]
[ Charisma: 5 -> 16 ]
[ Intelligence: 3 ]
[ Luck: 0 -> 10 ]
Ultimately, I only choose to level up the two status since I could improve then on my own.
" Rebirth, right? Like starting off as a baby?" I asked.
The creator gently nodded with a smile, " Yes, you'll be able to regain your memories a few months after your birth."
" Regain? So I'm not..."
" No, of course you won't." She shook her said as she guided me threw a pearly white gate.
" Now, you have a life to live. If you gave any doubts or wish to talk to, you can always visit me at the church." She smiled as she gently pushed me through the gate as I felt myself being pulled.
I closed my eyes and waited for the warmth to die down until I found myself wrapped with a blanket.