Jester opened his eyes and faced the new world for the last time. Born a few seconds ago, he couldn't hold back his tears.
His eyesight and hearing, along with other senses, were weakened, making it hard to perceive space.
Alternatively, he saw a message the system displayed:
«Archetype System V0.5»
<Name: -< p>
<Archetype: -< p>
<Archetype Tier: -< p>
<Archetype Progress: 0%< p>
<Archetype Skills: -< p>
<Archetype Monsters In Your Care: -< p>
<Quest: Get Your First Archetype!< p>
«Reward: Bonus Skill Based On Your Archetype.»
'Damn, it's empty,' the child, barely opening his eyes, had to figure out the concealed system.
It was dry with no collected data, except for the mission asking him to obtain an archetype.
He had never seen anything like it in his 12 past lives.
Despite being in a foreign and unprecedented situation, he came to terms with it and decided to wait until he grew up.
It was fast, but he had lived many strange lives, and his thought process had changed.
As his hearing returned, he stopped crying and heard several women chattering.
He could speak more than 20 languages, fluent in most of them, the language he heard now was completely foreign, but he could still comprehend it.
It was as if he were listening to a translation.
"Lisa, have you thought of a name for your boy?" someone asked his mother, to whom the boy turned his attention.
She was a young woman with short black hair and a soft, friendly expression. She looked tired, and pain lingered on her face, but she thought about her son with incredible happiness.
"Baki and I agreed on the name Jung, and we like the way it sounds." Then she looked at her son and kissed him on the forehead.
'Guess my name is Jung now,' the boy thought, accepting the new name as easily as his mother's peck.
He had changed so many parents and attended several births of his own that the whole process lost any signs of awkwardness.
The name Jung was immediately added to the system's list. Each subsequent change would be recorded just as easily.
The mother and her supportive friends admired the baby when the doors abruptly opened. Snow and wind brought by the storm entered first, followed by a young man with tears in his eyes.
Baki, Jung's father, struggled to speak, his emotions overwhelming him.
He looked at his wife and then his son, tears rolling down his cheeks, but still smiling. "Are you okay?" he asked his wife and cuddled his son.
"Yes, yes, I'm okay," Lisa answered, her eyes welling with tears of joy. "You are too heavy." she laughed and pushed Baki's muscular body.
The man obeyed his wife and looked at his offspring.
He was a dark-haired young man with a stern, sharp face. His expression was so happy it seemed beyond his nature.
"Hello, little Jung, I'm your daddy." He caressed his son's fingers and tended to his small, delicate body. "And this is your great mommy. It's thanks to her you were born so healthy and strong."
'I like this guy,' Jung thought, looking at his father with unaccustomed eyes. He had never heard such dialogue and could already tell he was in a good family.
Then his body ran out of energy, and he wanted to sleep.
They led him to Lisa because it was important for a child to feel his mother's embrace for his first sleep.
Jung slept soundly, unbothered with his new life or the alien system.
A few hours later, he woke up hungry. The boy didn't hesitate and immediately started wailing, waking his parents, who were hugging each other, and demanding food.
As his lips touched milk, he pooped and fell asleep right away—a routine he refined in his first few days.
His moments of wakefulness were so few and short that, for a week after birth, Jung heard practically nothing about the world.
The following week, his energy increased a little. Although his passive days were spent eating, sleeping, or pooping, he gained a few extra hours to listen to his parents talk.
He made numerous discoveries just by observing his parents.
In this world, an archetype was a defining trait assigned from birth that shaped an individual's power, skills, temperament, and determined their role and potential.
Baki represented the Lover Archetype and was classified as an IV tier.
How he received the archetype, or by what means he could increase it, was still inexplicable to Jung.
He clearly remembered his life living as a Lover Archetype. It was his original existence before reincarnation even started.
Jung lived on Earth, leading a peaceful life, and it was the only time he fell in love.
Lisa, his mother, carried the Sage Archetype and represented the same tier.
The boy could recall years spent as a Sage Archetype. He randomly chose how to live, trying to find reasons for his uniqueness.
Of course, he found no success.
Jung encountered even more revelations: Lisa seemed tired from a long day of work, but Baki cured her fatigue by speaking to her.
These qualities likely represented the abilities of the Lover Archetype. Jung recognised them in the colours and patterns he saw around his parents.
A few months later, Lisa also used abilities fitting her archetype.
His mother was simply reading a book, but magical runes flew around her as if providing knowledge and indicating her progress.
Such sights were no longer unfamiliar to Jung. He sometimes saw magical powers used by his parents or guests, which were not rare in his house.
It was through conversations with guests that the boy grasped intriguing information. Instead of playing with children, he preferred spending time with adults.
Jung discovered people were born with archetypes and began to unleash them at age 10. Each person was given a specific one, and as a rule, it was impossible to change.
'Do I not have one because I've already gone through all archetypes? Then what should I do? Do I have the option to choose?' he thought, wishing to grow up quickly to study this magical world.
Jung learned how individuals strengthened archetypes. Pills dropped from monsters they slew were the source.
He was two years old when his sister, Elara, was born. It was a life-changing moment for him.
Elara was an albino, with white hair and light eye pigment.
The child was strong and energetic, even more than Jung, but doctors said she wouldn't live past 20.
It wasn't due to her condition. Specialists said Elara had a rare disease, with albinism as one manifestation.
She would need help from her archetype, not external forces, but internal ones. Saving her life was in her own hands.
Their parents were worried about her condition.
Jung, too, felt the same. He had never had a sister or brother before.
He had lived 12 lives without knowing such connections.
Being an older brother was a new experience, which made him as attentive as his parents.
At age 2, Jung spoke fluently. His parents recognised him as a genius since he could also have witty, cunning conversations.
He wasn't evil or rude. He constantly showed affection, as if understanding in 2 years what he tried to learn in 20 as a jester.
'Time passes slowly,' he thought bitterly, but he looked at Elara happily.
The sleeping girl was the creature Jung wanted to protect at all costs.
Still, he was bored. Three years had never passed so slowly, and who knew how many more it would take to unleash his archetype?
Meanwhile, he understood why his parents forbade him from leaving the house or walking without their presence.
Maskera wasn't a safe planet. It wasn't super advanced, and it resembled Earth right after the Middle Ages.
Jung heard of monsters, but the situation was worse than he thought.
His family didn't live in poverty. They resided in a peaceful area of a fairly normal, safe city, but no one felt completely secure.
Even though no one in the city had seen a monster for decades.
Jung hoped reading books might awaken an archetype. Unfortunately, his desires went unfulfilled.
"Why doesn't it work? How do I unlock the archetype?" he said wistfully as he flipped through illustrated pages.
[To Get The Archetype, You Have To Kill The Corresponding Archetype!]
This was the voice of a woman Jung heard in the dark space after his death.
He didn't think he'd ever hear an answer from the system and was quite surprised.
"Wait, you can talk?"
The system will go through more than one evolution, wait for it.
And most importantly Stay Silly!