1 - Relativity

Scrambling to gather her things, Eva raced out the door. 'Shit shit shit shit shit, I can't be late to this- I can't believe I overslept!'

Eva was rushing on her way to a conference, She was just 19 years old, but she managed to get herself a massively sought-after spot at a small astrophysics conference. It was a meeting where she would present her theory and debate it.

She had been preparing for this moment for a very long time. Her new theory about the universe would blow away everyone there; she was confident it was the key to connecting the physics of gravity and space-time.

She ran through the streets of the bustling city. Currently, she was in Japan, traveling all this way for this life-changing conference between her and some of the smartest physicists in the world.

But.... little did she know, the brightest people die young. She was running through the streets, focused only on moving forward, failing to notice a hooded man running through the crowd holding a knife.

She kept running forward, and so did the man with the knife. Neither stopped advancing on the other, the man holding the sharp blade probably assumed she would move like everyone else- but she wasn't stopping.

Last second, right before she was stabbed, a middle-aged man with short black hair, a long black coat covering a suit with a blue tie, and a scarf wrapped around his neck pushed her out of the way and took the knife for her.

His two friends screamed as the man with the knife ran off... leaving it embedded in the man's stomach. Eva was horrified as she saw this- she would have screamed... if not for the fact that she and the mysterious savior looked each other in the eyes and BAM.

The world was spinning. Everything, everywhere- or was it her? She couldn't tell. She ended up sprawled out on the ground in the middle of a road... She was just hit by a car. The man who was stabbed trying to save her had a shocked and sad look on his face seeing this happen to her as he said a few last words to his friends before collapsing on the ground.

Eva though, she groaned as her mangled body was crushed under a car. She thought to herself throughout all the pain and screams of people around them 'Damn it all.... this really hurts....'

[Successful]

[Resistance Skill, Pain Resistance acquired]

'Oh god... I was.... hit by a car....'

[Successful]

[Resistance Skill, Blunt resistance acquired]

[Continuing]

[Resistance Skill, Physical attack resistance acquired]

'What..... what's that voice in my head.....'

[Successful]

[Extra Skill, Parallel Calculation acquired]

'I... I just wanted... to go to the... conference... I had such a.... big... future... ahead of me... I was going to.... to be a famous... mathematician... wh-... why me..?'

[Failed]

[Unique Skill Mathematician acquisition failed, skill already held by ######]

[Compromising]

[Unique Skill, Relativity acquisition successful]

As the voice of the world gave her skills, just like the man who was dying alongside her, she kept reminiscing about what could have been if she wasn't dying here.

'I.... I would... have.. sacrificed anything to... keep going....'

[Successful]

[Unique Skill, Sacrifice acquired]

She faintly heard the loud screaming of the many surrounding people. As her mind was fading, it felt almost as if her soul was leaving her body.

'I... I just needed... a little mo- more time...'

[Successful]

[Extra Skill, Temporal Manipulation acquisition successful]

'Heh... being at.. death's door must... have me hearing things...'

Eva thought she was imagining things before she died, there's no way some voice would talk in her mind about acquiring this or that. Her mangled body twitched the horrified screams of people in the surroundings echoed through her mind.

As her consciousness was fading into darkness, as her soul's final connection to her body was breaking, she had the same final thought as the man who tried to save her.

'Just let me... have some..... peace and quiet'

And everything went dark.

.

.

.

But then she returned to conscious thought. she didn't feel any pain... matter of fact- she felt the cold, hard, claustrophobic feel of being inside a shell. She hated the feeling instantly. The goopy feel of whatever was inside the egg, and how hard it was pressing into her.

She squirmed around inside of it, pushing, forcing herself through the hard shell. CRACK SCRAPE CKKK she forced her head out of the shell. Breaking different pieces off with her face. Trying to create a hole big enough for her to fit through.

Finally, when she pushed out through the very strong shell of the egg, she shook her face off to get the goop away from her eyes. She opened her eyes, and she was struck with pure awe.

She was in a large cavern, lined with underground lakes, glowing crystals, and an ominous... tempting... aura of something. She didn't know how, but she could feel it.

She could feel something that just- drew her to it... It drew her blood to it. She quickly snapped out of this and pushed whatever was calling for her to the back of her mind. She needed to understand what was going on right now.

Breathing in deep, and letting out all the rich air in a single long exhale, she calmed herself. Her mind felt- odd. It didn't take her too long to notice, but now that she was calm, she could tell instantly.

She was thinking two trains of thought at once. Very easily at that- how? She didn't know. 'What if it has to do with that voice I heard before I died...'

Parallel to her thoughts about the voice she heard in her mind as she died, she pondered the look of her physical body. She was a... small-ish lizard, with black starry scales. When looking at her body she was reminded of the starry sky above. Her shroud of dark scales made her nigh-invisible within the eerie cave she was encased in.

'What.... am I?'