Ch.1 I'm dead now

Back on Earth Frank was an ordinary biotechnology student doing his research about cell regeneration. You see, he was fascinated by magic from his childhood, but he knew that there is no real magic in this world, so he had casted his eyes on science instead. He thought that he can substitude magic with science, and after studying for a big chunk of his life he understood that science was in no way worse than magic. But even after understanding this he had never let go of his thoughts about magic.

Others said to him: «If you like the magic so much, why didn't you study physics or chemistry? They are the most magic like.»

But he would retort, saying: «Magic in my opinion is the individual power, not the power that you get from some gadget or whatnot. In my definition it's something that you do using your own body or mind.»

«So, as you might have understood already, the biology can allow you to get ‹individual power› through genetic modifications. But I'm not saying that physics or chemistry can't do that by different means, I just like biology more and it's slightly easier this way».

On that day, November 13, Frank was sitting in the college laboratory doing his research. He was wearing lab coat under which were warm black sweater and pants, He also wore fur boots with thick socks. His face had oval form and he had wavy long dark brown hair tied in a ponytail, his eyes were the shape of almond, he had aquiline nose and his mouth was small. He was sligthly plump and his height was 180 cm.

He was researching regeneration mechanism of plants, he coudn't research animals because it was forbidden. Sadly.

He knew that what he was doing was already done before, but he just couldn't understand how it works without seeing it for real. So he was seating there watching how the cells divide in the microscope and typing something on his computer, when suddenly a loud fire alarm sounded.

*RIIIING*

Frank panicked a little, almost falling off the chair, but after 10 seconds of stupor he came to himself and started hurriedly saving all the data on his flash drive which took him almost 2 minutes because of how nervous he was. Then he started running in the direction of the fire exit, one of which was close to the labaratory, thankfully.

He was running in the corridor when abruptly he heard a sickening sound.

*CRACK*

He saw the ceiling start sagging over him, he was scared shitless but he still started running faster.

It didn't help him though. With another loud *CRACK* ceiling fell. All he managed to say was: «OHHHH.... FUCK. It wil hurt like hell» before falling into eternal darkness...

~Or so he thought~

He woke up in the dimly lit room made out of light brown bricks. He looked around and saw that the room was in the form of rectangular parallelepiped with square ceiling and floor, it was made out of strange light brown material. The room was big around 5 m^2 and the ceiling was at the height of aroung 3 meters. There were three doors in three walls, one wall was without door, there were some words written instead.

Language with which the words were written looked strange, Frank has never saw it before, and the words were written with blood-like substance. Even stranger was the fact that he could read it.

[WELCOME TO THE AFTERWORLD].

[You are in the Endless Crypt - the place where souls of the dead come].

'So the souls are real? I thought that the brain was the ‹soul›'.

[You see, the souls are born when the body is, and die then the body dies - there is no Reincarnation Cycle (were no, I mean)].

[The only way to be reborn is to have a strong enough soul to be able to live without body for enough time to posses someone else's body, or create one yourself which is much harder].

[I've created this place to help strengthen my soul, but after strengthening I've decided to leave it for others' use and now it's kind of ‹Reincarnation Cycle›].

[You can leave then your soul is strong enough, or you can stay, do watever you want].

[Now let's get down to rules of this place:]

[1) If you die you get absorbed by the crypt

2) If your soul is weakened enough (for example after dealing with ‹the devil›) you become the resident of this place (monster)

3) You can strengthen your soul by a lot of means, but you need to discover them yourself

4) You can't stay on the same floor after beating it's BOSS for more than a month or you'll be absorbed by the crypt

5) The lower the floor the stronger the artificial monsters and residents are

6) If you go UP to the floor you have already been to, you will meet the crypt's retaliation - a lot of strong artificial monsters will appear, and they will not be restricted by the rooms

7) There are lots of artificial monsters roaming the floors, but some of them (the lower the floor the more) are the souls that were turned into residents. They are much stronger than the artificial monsters and they have some intellect too.

8) If the soul is swallowed by the resident then the resident will become stronger and it's intellect will increase].

[Everything else you will need to discover by yourself].

[Have fun].