Chapter 1 Drive for Excellence

Everyday until I was four was a drag, I could only sit and watch the ceiling, cry for food and or for when I pooped or urinated.

Everyday, every month, for three years. My brain developed fast, when I was two I would vaguely make out sounds, a small amount of time later I had figured out language.

My family not poor not rich was a household of five, my grandmother, parents, sister. My grandmother had a heart disease and I watched what it had done to her.

She ended up corpse, dried up and before that gasping for breath for to offer a prayer towards he god that never responded.

Even if I hadn't recognized it at the time it was seared into my memory, I had truly become bored after she died. I recognized what was going on in surroundings when I was one but my boredom didn't come yet, everything was new, interesting and full of possibility.

A year later I thought I understood everything, I now could hear, all sound was new just like what I could touch and feel. I could hear now and I wanted to know what it could become, the English language learned like that.

That was when I was three, I had now sight, I could see what I was touching and with sight I had taste and then smell I could tell what was bad or a treat. Chocolate, brown without smell and hard, tasty, poop, or shit, brown, smelly and nasty.

Do not eat was I warned, I regret my actions even now. I was bored, I didn't want to see what I had already learned though, call me greedy all they wanted but I craved more. I wanted more treats and more knowledge.

I still studied my surroundings and I found what I wanted sometimes, but boredom always came back. But a day on a random month I forgot.

I had remembered everything but the date, it was rainy on day, clouds shielding my eyes from the light. I was exploring the house at night like I always do. I shouldn't both from my warning and my parent's.

They were bad parents but good enough to warn me to stay in bed or I'll have defects, I regret it as it may be very well be the reason I'm bleeding out on the ground.

But I had found magical book filled with unknown things, images that equated other images, I had found words. And like that I was off to the races.

English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, French, all learned in under a few years, I could have learned more but I was five now and had school.

I was excited to have peers but they were so dumb, having no knowledge of any language, I disdain school and still do but it had led me to something wonderful.

Math and sciences, I had myself top of class every week, every competition, I had learned fifth grade math at seven.

Eleventh grade math at fourteen, a P.H.D in mathematics and biochemistry at twenty. But I eventually was outclassed, by someone older than me perhaps but only by year.

Harribal, average at first but eventually my greatest rival, he was in college at twenty-one but suddenly became smarter than the rest of humanity.

The arts, he was that, entertainment, every joke hit home, literature, if Shakespeare was still alive he'd bow to him as a new god of literature.

I had met my match in math and he was beyond me in science, still I was still better than him in calculation and memorization. But as he advanced I slowed, I made inventions sure but they were never mind boggling like what he had made.

A serum to cure all illness, a bug that infects trees and let's them forever be healthy, a genome that when swapped with a another gives immortality.

Things chased by the past geniuses, all those achievements fell into his hand. And what had I to show for it? A green bullet that is made from environment friendly resources.

A special powder that disguised you, a bomb made with others including Harribal, a device meant to intercept seismic waves to prevent learning other people's locations.

I was at my lowest, Harribal was not kind either, arrogant unlike a man of his talent, I should have known something was up with attitude.

I didn't I know the bearing of someone great, as I am one myself, not a pushover but not arrogant as we are all wise to extent. So I only indulged in eating a little not much.

I still had to try to surpass him, but I had tried every way until I had no methods left, I had tried everything I knew so maybe something I didn't know might let me pass him.

Maybe a sacrifice was demanded, so I looked around, with my status most secrets were a open book I could look into, I had found it.

I made basket large enough to fit a small child and kidnapping one, followed the instructions in the book I found. With his neck split I had summoned a demon, he called himself The Holy Child of The Soul, he was quirky but with the promise of my soul after my death he would give me the talent necessary to best Harribal.

I accepted, I didn't believe in souls and I figured if it did it wouldn't convey pain. But as I accepted knowledge of what a soul is flooded my mind and I had gained clarity.

The one thing lost from when I was child, inspiration and with this new inspiration I took to programming like fish into water.

Making a artificial intelligence I was number one, yet with success I had a new fear, death, I had never really cared as if I died without beating Harribal I would be okay with that, at most really most really unsatisfied

Unsatisfied but inclined towards my fate. But this inspiration came at the cost of this fear of the pain of having my soul ripped, fear of having been bested again by Harribal. I now knew of gods, worlds, faith, divinity, transcendence.

Yet that day where all my knowledge goes away never came, with Harribal's inventions I could live forever, I thought I cheated the system but now I know no one tricks a god.

He will lie in wait for decades and when your least expecting fate will strike you down, what will happen? I know that pain but is it accurate?

I lay here bleeding out, the pain like a fire burning through my belly, my stomached exploded my eyes feels heavy I wish I could sleep, but I hold on for now.

I hope I live and I hope I never die, I'm going asleep now and when I awake I hope I escape from this nightmare...

Hold, hold, hold...

"Ah, hello Arthur. I've been expecting you." I snapped back and jumped up in preparation of what's about to come, that's his voice, a booming voice that sounds childish but filled with bearing of someone ancient.

We're in hall filled with gold and statues made of an unknown material, it's silver like, but it's tint is off and is not reflective.

On those statues are hundreds of faces, theirs expressions of, hate, malice and pain.

"Yes... Hello, Transcendent Holy Child." His smile was wide and he leaned back onto his golden throne, the face's on it screaming without sound morphing every second.

"You should know cheating the divine is impossible, there's no solution to the question of immortality except power. Of course unless your a transcendent or a god yourself." His smile is wide, happy at the prospect of another soul I believe.

"If this is the case take my soul without torment and kill my mind, that way even if you torment me I won't know." His smile curves up at this notion he folds his legs and taps on his throne.

"Ah, getting ahead ourselves, but no I can't do that I'll need your soul in pristine condition in order for me to create this artifact."

I felt my heart skip a beat, I know what this 'artifact' is, ten thousand souls stone, it's used to quickly strengthen a person's soul. Expensive because it's hard to maintain ten thousand souls in perfect condition and fuse them together, the pain for those souls is insane.

I feel dread but I hope to escape this, so stay calm, "I-Is there another option?" I tried to sound calm but I can't I felt that pain for less than nanosecond and it was terrifying, what if I stay like that for a year or more?

What about the pain being consumed, his smile widened while he stamped his foot down, it isn't loud it's terrifying regardless of his small size, "Of course, I would give you a way out, get me some souls, ten, heaven blessed souls."

"If you have read a story, they could tentatively called, 'protagonists'." He stood up and held one hand to his heart and the other in grand gesture flying his cape behind him.

"So will you take this deal?" My heart ached but I knew I would have not choice, I mean I did but torture or a few hundred years of work.

There is no competition, I calmed my heart and stood up straight, "I'll get you ten heaven blessed souls." His smile reached it's zenith and he snapped his finger.

"Well, well good choice, I gave you that knowledge in hopes you would pick the correct one, and you did not disappoint." I was quickly flung into somewhere but I try to ask one more question, "Who would I be killing?"

"I'll tell you just wait." I moved just slow enough to get one last look at his face, his smile fading into a solemn suffocating pressure.

I try to rush out there as fast as possible as soon as I feel it and as it's done I come out to this dark room with priests in cloaks, and the falls to their knees as they clasped their hands. "O'Four Saint Heroes Of Old! Please help save our world!"

Heh?