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Death, and Rebirth

My name is Hope, and I once was an ordinary healer. I'm 18 years old, and am now undead. Allow me to regale you with tales of my life before I died. Well, no. Allow me to tell you how I died. I know it like it was yesterday... why? It really was only yesterday! It's no bother to me to say it. Wait, who am I even talking to? Who would hear this? God? Maybe I'm in some novel, and the readers would read this? No, that would be a fourth wall break in the first paragraph, that never happens. I think. I'm not sure... Anyways! My death!

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"Shit! My arm's been mangled, the rest of my party's dead, and I'm low on MP! All because of the stupid leader's actions, leading us into a monster village. Now I'm going to die too, my HP is going down fast" (Hope)

I sat, resting against the wall of a small cave as I cursed that bastard's name, trying to heal my wounds even as I felt death approaching me. Even when I was 99% dead, I still kept healing myself, hoping to live somehow. That was when I felt an orb-like object appear behind my back from out of nowhere, startling me enough that I didn't notice myself die as I kept healing myself, even as my vision went black. However, I heard a monotonous voice.

[System alert: Creature ID 427069420, rank C, personal name Hope, has been registered as dungeon master. Scanning master's attributes. Attributes found, numbering three: Healing; Holy; Death. Dungeon creation based on attributes failed. Diagnosing reason. Reason found: Conflicting attributes. Dungeon master gains dungeon based on race instead. Dungeon master race: Unknown. Diagnosing reason. Reason found: Dungeon master's race is in process of changing. Dungeon Core interference in said process found. Interference in process predicted to be beneficial. Dungeon creation based on race failed. Dungeon master gains blank slate dungeon instead...]

'What... this is... the World's Voice... but... a dungeon? What are the odds... of that? Wait...' (Hope)

The World's Voice explains your status, as well as giving information about level-ups, skills, and items, if the needed requirements are fulfilled. As for the dungeon... When a dungeon is formed, the Core appears in a random location, and the closest living being of the Core's rank or greater becomes the master, be it a person or a monster. It then forms one based on the master's attributes or race. There's more, but I don't know it. However, my attributes are only two, Healing and Holy, so I don't know where Death came from. People normally don't have that attribute. Ever. Also, my rank is D+, not C, and my race is definitely Human, which has no evolutions, so I don't know why that would be in the process of changing. What's going on?

[Request for information received. Dungeon master died during registration process, so Dungeon Core preserved dungeon master's life-]

'Call me Hope, please' (Hope)

[Preserved Hope's life by turning Hope into an undead. What variety of undead is undetermined at present. Rank may increase further in the process. Process has been unnaturally influenced by continuous application of healing magic, even in death]

[Race change has completed. Hope may check status. Body reconstruction shall now begin]

'Okay... Open Status' (Hope)

[Name - Hope]

[Race - Lesser Light Lich]

[Race History - Human]

[Rank - C+]

[Level - 1/20]

[EXP - 0/10]

[Class - Dark Healer]

[Class Level - 1/25]

[Class EXP - 0/10]

[Class History - Healer, Cleric, Priest]

[Affinities - Healing, Holy, Death, Dark]

[Current Potential Classes - 11]

[Skills - 11]

[Passives - 9]

[Class/Race Skills - Dark Mending, Shadow Light, Tame Undead]

[Class/Race Passives - MPR Boost (M), Control Undead, HPR Boost (M), MPE Boost (M)]

[Previous Class/Race Skills - Heal (3), Cure (2), Dispel (2), Purify (2), Holy Light, Banish Undead (2)]

[Previous Class/Race Passives - MPR Boost (S), MPE Boost (S), EXP Boost (M)]

[Other Skills - Recover, Dungeon Management]

[Other Passive Skills - Status Concealment (Max), Status Sight (Max)]

[Stats]

[HP - 147/147]

[MP - 244/244]

[HPR - 40%/h]

[MPR - 85%/h]

[MPE - 72.72%]

There's a lot to explain in this, to those who don't know. There are some parts that I don't know as well, but we'll start with what I do know. First, there are levels and EXP. When you max out your EXP, you go up a level and your EXP goes down to 0. You gain EXP by doing manual or magical labor, killing monsters, using skills, and so on. As you level up, you need more and more EXP to gain another level. When you reach your level cap, you evolve, or can change classes if it's the class level that got capped, which resets your level to 1. When I was alive, I was a level 54 human, which has no evolutions and no level cap. The average level for a human my age is around 20, so I'm a rather high level considering that. I don't know what this 'Lesser Light Lich' is, so I won't talk about that now. Onto my classes.

Healer does what it says, it allows you to heal wounds and status afflictions, such as poison or paralysis. Cleric deals with curses and spiritual energy. Priest does both better, and deals with Holy magic and thus, laying undead to rest. Priest needs you to have capped both Healer and Cleric. The two prerequisite classes need you to have Healing and Holy affinities, respectively. I don't know about Dark Healer, but I have some guesses, so that's going to be saved for later. I had been at level 28/30, EXP 391/415, when I last checked, right before I entered the monster village. Considering how much healing I did because of that hell, I wouldn't be surprised if I'd gone up a level or even two. Anyways, how about we discuss ranks?

Both people and monsters have ranks, ranging from F to A and then S, with smaller distinctions in between, so it goes C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, etc. Even if you are the same rank as a monster, it might be an easy or impossible fight, depending on your equipment and affinity with the monster. A swordsman would struggle against a ghost, and a fire magician would struggle against a water bear. Speaking of which, let's talk about affinities.

A person can have any number of elemental affinities, and there are ten in total. Those are Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning, Ice, Healing, Death, Holy, and Dark. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, which I'll explain at some point. Well, I said they could have any number, but usually someone wouldn't have conflicting elements, such as Healing and Death, or Holy and Dark. You also have weaknesses that increase the damage you take from an elemental attack, which are simply what your elemental affinities are weak to, but those are canceled out if you have the element you are weak to. Lastly, we have the skills... and the stats. Stats and general stuff about skills first, I think.

HP is your health, if it reaches 0, you die. MP is your magical power, which you need to use some skills. HP and MP both recover naturally, MP at a base rate of 10% of your maximum every 12 minutes, or 50% in an hour, HP at about 15% an hour. Skills are learned by fulfilling some requirements, or when you change to a given class or race. Some you activate intentionally, some are always active. The ones you activate intentionally, often have an MP cost, or a cooldown between uses, sometimes both, but rarely neither. The (2) or (3) after a skill shows that it's been leveled up due to getting it twice or something from different classes. If there's a (S) (M) or (L) after it, it means there's a small, medium, or large effect of the skill. If it boosts something, like MPR (MP Recovery) it's often a 10/25/50% boost, for S/M/L, respectively. Those stack, by the way. MPE is MP Efficiency, and the lower it is, the less MP you use. Base is 100%, and so you use the needed MP for a skill. 50% uses half of the needed MP, and if you manage to get it to 0%, you have effectively infinite MP. However, unlike just about everything else, those boosts stack multiplicatively, not additively. Therefore, my MPE Boost (S+M) skills give me a 72.72% MPE, not 65% like one would hope. As such, it should be practically impossible to get to 0%.

Finally, my skills... For the active skills I know about, Heal heals wounds, Cure cures status afflictions like poison, Dispel removes curses, Purify removes negative auras, which facilitate the spawn of undead and increase the potency of curses. Holy Light is a spell that summons some powerful light that can burn people and monsters, and does especially well against those weak to the Holy element. Banish Undead does what it says, doing immense damage to undead. Recover is a stronger version of Heal with both a higher MP cost and a cooldown, though it's only 30 seconds long. Compared to the ones you can use once a day, that's nothing, at least. Tame Undead probably lets you control undead, but I may be wrong. Dungeon Management, Dark Mending, and Shadow Light I'll come back to later, I think.

For my passives, HPR, MPR, and MPE I went over before. EXP Boost (M), which I got from being a human, raises EXP from doing anything by 25%. It starts out at (S) before becoming (M) at level 50, and (L) at level 100. It's a shame I couldn't get that high, but it's better than nothing, right? After that, Status Concealment... I have no clue how I got that, but I've heard of it. It lets you change what status-viewing crystals and skills can see... but the (Max) after it makes me think that nothing, but nothing, can see through it. That's good... if my body still looks normal when it's done being remade, I might still be able to work as an adventurer. Status Sight is one of those status-viewing skills I mentioned, and the (Max) part probably means that it can see anything not hidden by another (Max) skill, as it can see it if it's hidden by something with a lower level than it normally. Control Undead probably lets me control undead I've tamed, and dungeon management... probably lets me manage my dungeon. I'll ask about those two as well.

Now, we have the questions to ask, let's ask the World's Voice those questions. First off...

'What is a Lesser Light Lich?' (Hope)

[Answer: a Lesser Lich, the weakest kind of undead with sentience on par with a human's, albeit a human of about 5 years old, is a C rank monster. The Light Lich is one which has the Holy attribute, and thus is immune to Holy magic and is healed by all four of Healing, Death, Dark, and Holy magics, instead of being hurt massively by Healing and Holy like other undead. They also often have more humanlike thought processes and forms, as opposed to looking skeletal or like a walking corpse]

YES! My body looks more normal than a normal lich's would! I can be an adventurer, even now!

'What do Dark Mending and Shadow Light do?' (Hope)

[Dark Mending is the equivalent of Heal that works on undead as well as living beings, though it works better on undead. You are better off using Heal on living beings, especially with the upgraded version you have. Shadow Light is a combination of Holy and Dark magics, dealing damage to any of those you have registered as foes, be they living or undead, and healing undead allies, while not affecting living allies]

Shadow Light seems... really overpowered. I mean, Holy Light uses 8 MP normally, so 6 for me, and even if this uses twice as much, that's still 20 or more shots before I run low on MP. Dark Mending would be 5 MP base, or 4 for me, if it's like the base Heal. My new Heal, by the way, costs me only 2 MP and heals twice as much as a base Heal.

'What is the Dark Healer class?' (Hope)

[It is a class only available to those who have both the Healing and Death affinities. It allows for the healing of undead and living allies, though not the curing of status afflictions. It also allows for the ability to stitch corpses together or replace and strengthen bones in undead, among other things]

'What does Control Undead do?' (Hope)

[It allows you to control a number of undead up to five times the skill level, and to store them in an extradimensional space for later use when you wish to do so. Tame Undead is needed to control an undead not made by yourself. Would you like to hear about Tame Undead?]

'Yes, and then I would like to hear about Dungeon Management' (Hope)

[Tame Undead always works on any untamed undead with a one-rank difference, and has a reduced chance to work on those closer in rank. However, if the undead is willing, it will always work. You only have one chance to tame an undead, if it fails, you can't use it on that one again unless it is willing. Dungeon Management allows one to interact with and control a Dungeon Core, and spend DP, as well as control and see the map of the dungeon from the menu]

I could guess basically all of that... oh well. That's all of my questions, I think. Now to wait until I have a body.

Note: what the World's Voice says is always inside of [brackets], Hope's thoughts/requests to the World's Voice are inside of 'single quotation marks' and all speech is inside of "double quotation marks"... I had something else to say... Oh, right. Unlike my other works, this one is going to be released whenever I write another chapter. I have no backlog, I just started this a day ago. We'll see how that goes.

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