Prologue 2

Adair opened her eyes to see nothing but complete darkness.

She was surprised to wake up in the first place, especially in such a strange place devoid of any light, but the former Goddess assumed that this might be some sort of penalty level set up by the Galactic Empire for those who had failed the test and got eliminated.

With that thought she started wandering in a random direction for the next few days in the hopes of finding out what this test would be about. When the days turned into weeks, Adair started to suspect that something had to be quite wrong with her situation. 

As a citizen of the Galactic Empire she had been indoctrinated to believe that everything done by the higher-ups would always be for the greater good of the people. Driven by this belief she had taken part in the civilization test which had led her to her current conundrum.

'Actions above all else!' had been the official motto of the Galactic Empire. No laziness was permitted! Every minute had to be spent doing something specific and productive, whether that action be eating, sleeping, exercising or something of that nature. All that mattered was that the citizens had to be doing something productive to the point that they had different regulations for the length of their prescribed recreational time.

Therefore, it was not only unlikely, but frankly impossible for this to be a penalty test set up by them. There were hundreds of more 'effective' punishments compared to sending someone into this void with nothing to do for no apparent reason.

'Maybe it has to do with me becoming a mortal and using that ritual,' Adair concluded. She had been aware that turning mortal was a desperate attempt to stay in the game. No normal contestant would have attempted what she had done. In fact, now that she thought about it, all participants had been strictly warned against even attempting to do so before the test had officially begun. 

"According to the rules set up by the First Leader we are required to teach you this part for the test. Still, as High Instructors of the Galactic Empire we strongly advise against using it. Apart from the First Leader no one has ever been able to successfully use the ritual."

"Unfortunately, despite all his wisdom, he has not shared his personal knowledge about the benefits or detriments in regards to that particular ritual. Through our own experiments we've discovered that it will theoretically allow any of you to directly defend your empire for a time. However, that is accompanied by a high risk of you losing your Divine Soul and turning into a mortal. In fact, you might not even be able to return to the Galactic Empire even when the test is over."

Adair now regretted taking such a rash action. She was aware that her hot-headedness was one of the vices she had so far failed to get rid off, but to think that it would come to haunt her in such a spectacular way… 

A few months into her journey exploring the black void the former Goddess had realized that losing her capital city would not have necessarily resulted in her disqualification. Even if Xavier had taken over her capital city, she should have been presented with the option to remain in the test and wait for an opportunity to rise again.

She would have just needed to wait for Xavier to be defeated. Then a new ruling deity could reinstate her as leader of the city, and that way, she could re-enter the test as a vassal under the new power. Although coming back like this would mean she would have been forced to act as a faithful helper of whichever God agreed to resurrect her, it would still have been preferable to outright losing or ending up wherever she currently was. Alas, it seemed pointless to complain about that now.

Years started to fly by and during all that time, Adair reflected on her actions and mulled her head about how she could have avoided her fate. After all this time, the former Goddess did not go crazy like most people who were put in solitary confinement. In fact, she felt that it was not too different to her former existence as the Adairians' Goddess. 

In both instances, she had been unable to talk to anyone for long periods of time. Very rarely had she had the opportunity to speak to other Gods. It had almost always been a 'party' when one of the other Gods had invited them primarily to brag about their progress. As if that had not been bad enough, the atmosphere had always been tense because they all had been at risk of slipping-up and giving away crucial information to their opponents. 

As for interacting with the mortals? That had usually only happened once every few decades due to how much Divine Essence that process consumed.

  A few years of solitude were therefore nothing to cry home about for Adair. Before when she had been a Goddess she had meticulously planned what to do for her people, and now she was planning on what to do for herself.

On the top of her agenda was revenge against her two most "loyal" followers! 

Just thinking about it made her feel depressed. She had hand-picked their ancestors and blessed them with this position. For millennia it had remained in their family, granting the Governor and her Head Priest lifespans far above other mortals. And still, she got betrayed by them at the worst moment possible. 

As the years continued to pass, she started questioning herself, focusing on the mistakes she had committed which might have led her people to betray her. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she might not have been as perfect a Goddess as she had presumed herself to be.

In the beginning she had gone overboard and had pretty much catered to her people's every demand. In the first few years of the test they had asked for her help to kill the destructive barbarians, so she had expended her Divine Essence to create her own Immortal Warriors

Whenever her people had asked for good harvests and better lifestyles, she had granted it. Even when they had asked for the advanced technology they had seen their neighbors using, she had made a deal with that greedy Vladimir by paying him in Divine Essence on top of the gold her people would hand over to the Vladimirians. 

Thinking about how she had spoiled her people rotten, it was easy to see that they must have decided to rebel against her when she had denied her people's wish to create divine troops to fight against the ones from the Xavier Empire. When she first realized this, it had made her even angrier. She swore to smite all of her people down for rebelling against her after all she had done for them!

Decades started to pass and her mind had come to the conclusion that ultimately it all was her own fault, as her style of being a Goddess to their ancestors had warped the expectations her current people had had about her. If she hadn't spoiled them in the beginning, then they wouldn't have betrayed her, and then she might still be taking part in the test, making her depressed.

During the first year  of her entrapment Adair had spent every day crying out for help, but nobody had ever answered her. Over time her attempts had become less and less frequent. Now that she was losing the will to live, convinced that everything was her own fault, she started praying.

At first, her prayer went to the First Leader of the Galactic Empire because Adair assumed that he had to be a God. After her prayer, she waited. She had no idea if prayers had distance restrictions or how long they took to reach the person she was praying to. 

Based on her own experience, there was little to no delay at all, but her treatment in the test had ensured that she had been extremely close to the people praying to her. On the other hand, right now she had no idea of her current location. To the best of her knowledge, she also had never interacted with the First Leader so it would be strange if he would react to her. 

After a month of constant praying without so much as a sign, she switched to another God. From that moment her prayers went to the God of the Void because that was her current location, so theoretically he or she should be the closest one who might hear her prayers. 

However, when these prayers also didn't work, she changed yet again. She prayed to the God of Space, the God of the Earth, the God of the Sun, the God of Light and the God of Darkness. She even tried praying to Xavier, Vladimir and Jonathan. The last one had been the first to fall in the test, so she had initially hoped to perhaps find him here at some point.

Alas, nothing worked. No matter who she tried to call, no one answered her. After decades of praying to every God she could think of, she had a random thought that she might be on the wrong track. Perhaps 'God' was only a title given to the people participating in the test, and they had no significance outside the test.

This realization caused another spout of depression in Adair. At this point, it had been close to 3,000 years since she had found herself in this dark void and she was starting to get incredibly lonely. She was even willing to forgive the people that had betrayed her. Anyone or anything that could make this space less lonely would be welcome. 

The only thing keeping her sanity in check was counting every second that passed, making her aware of just how long she had been in the void. Without this tick of hers, she was positive that she would have gone crazy by now. 

On a few occasions, she had tested her own mortality by deliberately stopping her breathing or by choking herself just to end the loneliness. Based on her tests, she determined that she couldn't harm herself, but that didn't mean that other objects couldn't hurt her. 

She tried to spawn her divine ax that she had before, but that did not work. She tried biting off her nails to see if it was not part of her if that would work. But that didn't work either. Eventually, she just gave up on this avenue of escape as well.

It hadn't taken long for her to discover that she was somehow able to live without any sustenance. After the first century she had wondered how many years she could live as a 'mortal', but once a millenium had passed, she had lost any hope about dying of old age.

In fact, she was quite sure that she had not actually aged. She might be unable to look at herself, but judging by the feel of her hands she had yet to get a single wrinkle, making her believe that she must still be no older than 20 when she had first entered the test.

Eventually, after several more decades had passed, Adair finally saw a bright red light heading towards herself. At first, it looked like a red laser bullet like the ones the Galactic Troops shot, but as time passed, the red light continued to grow in size.

It was too slow to be a bullet, not to mention too big. By the time it reached Adair it was vastly overshadowing her. It was at least as big as a 50-story high skyscraper and shining brightly. It made a whole bunch of clinking noises until a red interface appeared in front of Adair. 

[Greetings, I'm Reincarnation Machine X Æ A-12]

'So I am dead then, huh?' Adair thought to herself. 'If I'm to be reincarnated, then that means that I must have died. So was this Hell this entire time? Because I can't believe this could be Heaven, so perhaps Purgatory?'

While Adair was still wondering about the exact location of the place she had spent so many years in, the interface began to change.

[As an agent of the Federation of Reincarnation, I understand that you must have many questions. You've been selected as a potential customer of ours and have therefore been allotted 10 minutes to ask me any question you might have, which I shall answer to the best of my abilities.]

Adair was thrilled that she was no longer alone in this previously empty void, but she was also skeptical. Why had this 'Reincarnation Machine' only come now? She had been in the void for more than a dozen centuries. As far as Adair was concerned, she had done nothing different for the past few hundred years, so what had changed?

'Maybe this machine wants something from me? But what could I possibly have that might be valuable to it? There should be nothing special about me... Well, it doesn't hurt to ask and I should better hurry. I only have 9 minutes 47 seconds left to ask it!' 

"What would it cost for me to reincarnate?" Adair asked aloud. There was no keyboard for her to type her question so she assumed the machine was able to understand audible questions. 

[Good Question! 

Loading Answer to FAQ #3;

To reincarnate you with your memories intact, you will need to accede to the following three demands. 

Your current Divine Power will get absorbed by me and you will be unable to regain any of your current Divine Powers, even after you reincarnate.

Addendum: You're free to develop similar powers as long as they're not exactly the same.

You will never be able to hurt any 'allies' of the Federation of Reincarnation during your next life.

You will never be able to get reincarnated again normally or through special means.

Addendum: A higher-tier Reincarnation Machine might supersede this condition.] 

"I have two follow up questions. What are my current Divine Powers, and how will I know who is an ally and who is not?"

[Good Question! 

Loading Answer to FAQ #4+5;

It is impossible to tell what your Divine Powers are until after I've absorbed them.

Addendum: Since you've been trapped here, I would have to assume that they were powerful at the very least. 

For our customer's convenience, it will be easy to detect an ally by the color of their eyes. Everyone with a rose-pink colored iris is a valued customer of ours. Should you choose to accept our services, your irises will also change to this color after the reincarnation process.]

"You've just said I was trapped here. Where are we? Also, what time period will I be reincarnated to? Will I go back to the year I was born? Or will it be in the future? 

[Good Question! 

Loading Answer to FAQ #???+7+8+9;

You are currently located in in in ERROR ERROR ERROR. Unable to answer. 

...

...

...

Rebooting complete!

The time period for your reincarnation depends on the luck of the draw. 

Based on the studies we have done, it is entirely random

It is usually in a different era you were born in. 

You don't want any paradoxes happening, do you? 

Well, besides that, it is fairly random.]

While Adair had many more questions, she got scared since the machine had encountered an error. If it happened again, she might lose her only chance to escape this place. Still, before she could accept this deal she had two final questions. "Will I grow up to have the same body like the one I currently have? And for my last question, how safe is the reincarnation process?"

[Good Question! 

Loading Answer to FAQ #14+15;

There is a 95.4% chance you will reincarnate with the same gender and race you currently have. So in your case, female and human with the base of God *******. 

You have a 62.7% chance to end up with the same body you currently have, a 17.4% chance for it to end up drastically taller, a 18.6% chance for it to end up drastically shorter and a 6.1% chance to end up looking completely different.

For the second question, there is a 98.97% chance that everything goes according to plan, and you get reincarnated without any issues.]

[The time for questions has passed! 

As a potential customer, you've been informed about all the details deemed 'necessary' to come to a decision. 

Do you wish to accept our reincarnation services, or do you wish to refuse?]

With that the interface in front of Adair changed into a panel with two buttons. A giant green button with the inscription 'YES' on the left side and an oversized red button with 'NO' to her right side.

Adair was a bit unhappy about being forced to come to such a crucial decision so suddenly, but for all she knew this could be her only chance to escape this void. 

She had to accept or risk losing her sanity in this dark void of space. Just thinking about the possibility of having to stay in such a miserable place any longer made her reach forward. She felt like she would be a fool not to take this golden opportunity to escape. So she hit the big green button on the screen.

[Thank you for accepting. Please enter through the side door, so the process can start!] 

In the next moment a red door opened at the base of the giant mass of red light. 

As Adair entered, she wondered what era she would end up in. She also hoped that she would retain her current body. Over the past few thousand years, she had gotten very used to it. 

[On behalf of the Federation of Reincarnation I thank you for doing business with us. 

Please make sure you follow all of the terms and conditions after your reincarnation. 

We hope you will enjoy a great next life!

Process starting in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6...]