60 Death

Divine Essence Fire exploded from Jim's body, striking out at Karna. Karna began screaming in pain and rage.

[Chaos Energy Resistance Skill Obtained]

[Rejuvenation Protocol Initializing]

[Error: Protocol Failed]

[Host Death Confirmed]

[Preservation Protocol Initializing]

[System Entering Hibernation Mode]

Jim suddenly woke up, he was floating. He couldn't breath, he felt weak. 'What is this? What's happening? I can't move my body!' No sight, no hearing, no feeling of touch.

He couldn't tell how much time passed. He didn't feel hungry, didn't get tired. He couldn't cultivate, couldn't use magic, couldn't use skills. The system didn't respond. There was no stimulation, only his thoughts and floating, helpless, endless.

'I seriously died, huh...Then how am I aware?' With nothing else to do, Jim lost himself in thought. New recipes, magic circles, philosophy, Jim kept himself mentally busy.

Suddenly, Jim felt something tugging at him. He was being pulled, 'Where is this taking me?' Suddenly, pain, touch, sound, sight. Looking around, he was in a primitive village. The ground was covered in snow. A dozen simple unadorned huts were set up using improvised materials.

"Kraa!" An inhuman yell sounded out ahead of Jim. Looking over, there was a creature with blue skin, humanoid, muscular, taller than Jim. Its face was twisted, ugly, snarling. Clad in untreated pelts and holding a large battleaxe, he approached while looking intimidating. Around himself were similar creatures, but smaller, thinner, nude, and with green skin. 'Wait, I'm the same height as these guys.'

Looking down at his hands, they were green. 'I'm...not human?' While lost in thought, the blue skin came over and started striking the green skins. 'What the hell?' It seemed to be trying to bark orders at them, but they were uncooperative.

Eventually, they began moving in the direction the blue skin sent them to, Jim followed along. Looking back, a vortex opened and spat out more green skins. 'Hold it, I'm a monster now!?'

Trying repeatedly, the system just wouldn't seem to respond, he couldn't open his status, the shop, skill list. Jim felt like he had been stripped naked.

Reaching the destination, it was a natural cave. At the entrance were crudely made buckets, apparently all the green skins were supposed to grab some and head inside. 'Too damn dark.'

Small glowing bugs covered the damp floor of the cave, wiggling around eating the abundant moss. The other green skins pounced over and began eating the bugs. 'Are they seriously that tasty? Appraise.'

[Moss Crawler]

'Whoa!' Jim hadn't expect it to work, given how the system didn't. 'Appraise.'

[Goblin]

[Level: 0]

[Strength: 1]

[Dexterity: 1]

[Vitality: 1]

[Agility: 1]

[Magic: 0]

[Status: Chaos Seal]

'...Crap.' Using appraisal on himself obtained a terrible response, all the guys around him had similar results. 'Okay, alright, I'm alive.' Looking back to the bugs crawling around, Jim grabbed one and tried biting. It tasted terrible, but his instincts suddenly took over.

Violently tearing apart the crawler and gulping it down, Jim was repulsed at his actions. 'Why did I do that?' Taking a moment, Jim controlled himself from lunging at another bug. 'Right, I'm a monster now.'

Jim noticed the others had gotten full, most of them began storing bugs in their buckets, while a few just walked out of the cave. Jim figured collecting some himself was the smarter choice. It was difficult controlling himself, but after filling the bucket, he headed outside.

Jim was startled at what he saw, a group of larger goblins were tearing apart and eating the ones who had just left the cave. 'They even eat their own kind? I have to get out of here.'

The blue goblin walked over and inspected each bucket, one goblin that had only gathered three bugs was instantly killed and thrown to the crowd. 'Appraise'

[Name: Apostle Krin]

[Race: Goblin]

[Strength: 700]

[Dexterity: 300]

[Vitality: 600]

[Agility: 500]

[Dark Lord's Apostle, Kin Eater]

'I seriously can't take him down right now. A stat discrepancy has more effect than I thought.' Recalling his fight with Karna, Jim had assumed his many skills and clones would make the fight easy, only to be quickly slaughtered.

Jim's status values rising always had slight effects, while skills would have a pronounced immediate effect, thus fooling him into believing skills were far more important.

The group of goblins were led to a slightly larger hut, inside was a collection of weapons and tools. Bent Swords, Chipped Axes, Broken Daggers, a collection of flawed items were haphazardly tossed on the floor.

Krin seemed to be urging the group to choose an item. Jim chose a knife that was in relatively good condition. Soon after, they were directed outside of the village and sent into the woods. 'Are we supposed to hunt?'

While everyone was wandering around aimlessly, Jim ducked out of sight. Activating his stealth abilities, he snuck back to the village. Grabbing a large bag he had seen before, he headed into the equipment storage and stuffed the bag with as much metal as he could. 'Not having Inventory is really inconvenient.'

Sneaking out of the village, Jim headed as far away as he could before he got tired. 'Ugh, this body is so weak.' Dropping the leaf-covered branch he had dragged to hide his tracks, he checked the surroundings. Detection wouldn't activate. 'What the hell?' Needing to search by sight, he spotted a hollowed out dead tree nearby. Crawling inside, it was just spacious enough. He did his best to hide the entrance to his improvised shelter with the surrounding snow and leaves. 'I can't stay here long...'

Detection still wouldn't activate, neither would mana sense or qi sense. 'What's happening? They worked fine as a human.' Jim began testing his other skills. Over 90% of his manually activated skills no longer worked. 'Is it that Chaos Seal thing?'

Although he expected it from the 0 Magic stat, he found himself unable to use spells. The worst problem was, he couldn't cultivate. Serene Mind, Copper Body, Jade Crane, nothing activated. 'Could it be...I no longer have spirit roots?'

'Do I really have to start from square one? No crafting assist, no tools, no cultivation, no magic, no inventory, I can't even train with improved rest.' Jim sighed at the work ahead of himself.