Chapter 3: First Floor

The ambiance of an expanse registered; it was rather cool.

Incarnate ^8001 awakened to the taste of dirt, and the ruthless pelting from grains of sand to his face.

He blinked a couple of times and then stood up from where he had been lying down.

He felt very stiff, and oddly restrained, quite like unwashed armour, full of dirt at the joints.

He stretched subconsciously, but his condition barely improved.

"Why do I feel so...?" he had began, when it finally smote him. "I have a body! I can speak!"

The new Incarnate looked at his body and fondled every part of himself that didn't resist.

He indeed had a body, but it was unlike the one he had in his previous life.

He found himself to now spot soft, reddish skin that was unusually sensitive, and thin limbs that thankfully looked and felt like those of a human, though marred by dark fingernails and an excess of tendons around the forearms and thighs.

He felt quite tall, at least compared to his old self, but couldn't confirm it just yet. In fact, he couldn't confirm anything else related to his appearance without a reflective surface.

Blinking a couple of times, he had begun to look around when the same glowing tablet from before appeared in his sight.

[Welcome, you have successfully reached 'Bahathraden, Compound Demesne of Fallen Authorities'!]

[You have arrived on the FIRST FLOOR, the Ruins of the Deserted King, Alabas]

"Ruins..." Incarnate ^8001 mouthed.

The Ruins of the Deserted King.

It was an ominous name.

Already, he could feel the reality of what he had learned previously: a trial of ten Floors.

He had arrived at the first.

As the odd voice had said, it seemed his choice for a path to follow in his new life matched with this place. A territory full of Authorities.

Kings. Emperors. Lords.

The new Incarnate had chosen the path of the Demon Tyrant in the end, casting aside the Prodigious Young Master path. There was the risk of being killed due to adverse attention, as he had reasoned with the Handsome Blonde Prince's path, but Incarnate ^8001 felt much promise in the path of the Tyrant.

The tag 'powerful' attached to the path he chose was more attractive to him than the 'prodigious' one. He had actually subscribed to the opposite idea at first, but changed his thoughts after understanding the types of worlds the Tyrant and the Young Master would be a part of.

The latter set him towards a 'cultivation' world, which, as the Incarnate grew to understand, (as with everything else) had no shortage of geniuses and prodigies. An ancient world, on the other hand, would probably have no shortage of powerful people as well, but the Incarnate wasn't just going to be some random powerhouse.

He was going to be a ruler in this ancient world.

Of course, Incarnate ^8001 did not want to be like his old King, but he quite liked the idea of seeing how he would do in a position of power even while loathed. If he had the power to defend himself, he had the luxury to explore everything he desired, right?

He wouldn't necessarily have to rely on his subjects either, and this ancient world he would be plunged into attracted him so much more.

What would it hold?

As he dazedly thought of all this, the glowing tablet before him displayed a string of information that pertained to him.

===

Name : None (Incarnate ^8001)

Privilege : 1

Race : Hollow Demonling

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Far Ji (Unique Quality) : None

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STR : 1

AGI : 1

END : 1

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-???- : 0

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Kanva (Acquired Skill) :

None

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SeiJo (Equipment) :

None

===

Incarnate ^8001 didn't have to dissect all the information by himself. The moment he set his eyes on one aspect presented, he understood what it meant at once.

"So, I don't have a name. Not that different from before," he said, a subtle, sullen look on his face. "Hollow Demonling? So, I begin as an actual Demon? Well, the word means something different here, I imagine."

His physical attributes were given numerical form in order to easily keep track of them.

STR for physical strength, AGI for speed, and END for resilience and stamina. The last attribute seemed to be inaccessible at the moment, which the new Incarnate found suspicious.

He wasn't given nearly as much information as he would have wanted. Maybe he would be provided with it gradually the more he rose up the floors. Perhaps that's what ‘Privilege’ on the tablet entailed. This concern of his was given more credence when he analysed Far Ji, Unique Quality. It confused the Incarnate a bit. The little he was allowed to glean expressed that a Far Ji was a kind of extraordinary, supernatural product that exceeded the norm. But what exactly counted as a Unique Quality? How did it differ from Kanva, which was a expressed a little more clearly?

Apparently, Kanva meant Acquired Skill. Skills were singular, supernatural techniques that could learned within the Compound Demesne of Fallen Authorities.

It seemed surreal to the Incarnate that he could acquire supernatural abilities. It appeared so illogical and absurd.

How would he acquire these skills? That was, for now, unclear as well.

Equipment was straightforward. He had none.

Apparently, the lousy brown tunic made of cheap fabric over Incarnate ^8001's body didn't count.

"Good to know," he said.

With a simple desire to look past the tablet blocking his vision, it disappeared, leaving him able to see what was ahead.

Thick, broken, off-white pillars, supporting nothing but a dark night sky created a corridor before him. Between them was an immaculate yet worn stone tiling that abruptly ended to give way to a massive desert marred with broken and destroyed buildings. These buildings were much too large for the average human to live in, as the Incarnate assessed.

Aside from the ominous feeling they inspired, the Incarnate found them rather beautiful in an otherworldly sort of way.

He walked forth.

The foundations of these countless, grand constructs which looked to have housed even more astounding beauty in their prime, before whatever fell and degraded them, were most of what was left.

Incarnate ^8001 stepped on the sand hesitantly.

In the night, it didn't assume its golden purity, but instead looked like a dark, lumpy sea in between the constructs.

A heavy, cool wind walloped the Incarnate and he shivered.

'Cold...'

There was no moon above, but somehow, there was some dull highlight over everything that allowed him to see.

He trudged forth, though with more than a little caution.

'It doesn't look like there's anything living here...' he thought, making sure to look in every direction every five seconds.

When he could, he would walk through the innards of the broken structures, making sure to look for anything of value.

There was none.

There was no threat either.

This continued to hold true thirty minutes later, as Incarnate ^8001 moved aimlessly.

The only thing of note was that the sand rose higher and higher in the direction he chose to persist in.

'What am I supposed to do here? I imagined I would have to fight or find something,' he thought.

So far, there wasn't any indication that he would find so much as a fly, much less some ancient relic, which left the new Incarnate a little underwhelmed by his first magical experience.

He didn't continue to find the same odd, lifeless structures for long, however. As he trekked up a particularly high mound of sand two hundred meters from where he had started, he witnessed a chilling sight.

Behind the mound and a few paces away, was a massive, conical pit in the sand that ended with the same rugged stone tiling at its bottom. Trapped within and around it this pit were the ancient skeletal remains of hundreds of people – at least they resembled human remains. Some were wearing tunics much like his, only hideously worn out.

Others were adorned in sets of armour with peculiar branding on their chest plates, or luxurious robes and cloaks.

Many of the skeletons weren't fully intact. Some only retained what used to be hands, and for some, heads.

Those among the hundreds with their limbs still attached, had their hands raised, their mouths agape, as though they had died calling for something.

The view of this collective somehow made goose bumps appear on the Hollow Demonling's skin.

'What happened here?' he thought, feeling awe and fear brimming from his gut.

But this wasn't the worst of it.

There was something else; something on the other side of the pit, casting into it a deep shadow.

It was a statue.

Even from a distance, it appeared rather large. It took the shape of a fat man with nine, lively eyes on a face that was frozen in eternal laughter. Its body, past the depiction of two incredibly thick arms locked together in a prayer, turned bulbous and curved. Its base, which settled firmly on the sand, looked quite like that an egg.

The moment the new Incarnate's gaze fell upon this great statue, he was overwhelmed by terrible weakness, and discovered for the first time that he had three hearts when they beat loudly against his chest, creating a horrific rhythm that only he could hear.