The Book

How do people make important decisions?

There are factors that lead to these answers, like the consequences of choosing one over the other. This is something constantly portrayed throughout daily life.

You have to pick between wearing a blue shirt or a red shirt. How do you decide?

In this case, there is not much of a difference in consequences.

What do you turn to next? The answer is simple. It's whatever you want more.

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Soren didn't have much time. His body was was only a 5 for Vitality which by all means was his fault. Not anywhere near being good.

Soren being under the influence of 'Living life the way he wants' from his parents had made him decide to skip the first option, even though the situation was dire and could directly affect his foreseeable future.

He decided to look at what he wanted.

There were three sections he needed to look into: Abilities, Eternal Fight, and lastly Currency / Strengthening.

If he had time to, he would read all three, but was that in his ability right now?

He couldn't even breathe properly, so his blood wasn't getting any oxygen. If he even had blood leftover from all the bleeding out thats occured so far.

With time slowly running out and his body on the verge of taking a nightly rest, he opened up to pg. 50. The currency and strengthening section.

Everything on the first page, was concise and readily readable. The problem was he didn't need currency as he was about to die.

He hurriedly skimmed the pages, looking for where the strengthening section was. Thankfully the currency part ended fairly fast.

 He was in college his first life, so he had done plenty of studying and skimming through research reports. Soren quickly began reading.

"A Stat or a black spherical crystal is something that all candidates want. You can gain it when killing either humans or monsters. When used, you will gain a random stat increase. The range of increase thats been verified are from a 1.01x - 2.6x. The higher the stats are of said slain creature, will determine how much of its stats are transferred and made into a multiplier. Most cases the stat rise will be low especially on the lower worlds. Killing becomes much harder throughout the worlds, but theoretically there is no upper limit. However, there is a limit your stats can go on each world, but this limit is different for everybody. Typically they can increase their stats by around 10x in each world."

A hint of realization hit Soren as things came into place. Why there were not that many people in the demonic city. The reason smaller people could fight the massive guys and not lose. 

'They are off fighting and getting these Stat things which could double any of their stats. Thats.. overpowered even with the limitation.'

'Wait, don't I have one? Yeah, the business man gave me one. I should use it.'

Sorens body suddenly spazzed out, dropping the book to the floor.

The spiders leg was still inside his chest and was poking out the back. 

'It paralyzes me each time I'm hit? Thats so stupid and why was it delayed?'

Feeling his blood loss start to become lethal, he got anxious. He still needed to learn more from this book. 

A second passed and the paralysis went away. 

'I have to read the book.' Soren became resolved.

He started pulling his body off the spear-like leg. 

Pain flowed through his entire being. Each push off the spear being harder and harder than previous attempt. 

The leg was a full foot through and past his back due to how close the spider was when it attacked. 

Pushing and coughing up blood basically in tandem. He got himself off the spear and fell to the ground uncontrolled. 

Blood spewing everywhere, he reached for the book again, he had to find his spot and the section explaining how to use the black crystal. Once again wasting his precious last breaths. 

An eternity passed, until he finally found what he was looking for, the 'How To Use' subheading.

"To use the Stat, you simply press it against the center of your forehead and push in. Think of it like feeding your mind knowledge, but in this case, a permanent stat increase. It will then tell you which and how much that stat went up."

Soren immedietly dug into his robe that was somehow still intact even if it was blood soaked and ripped. He grabbed the Stat crystal and immedietly brought it to his forehead and pressed in. 

The black rounded off crytstal seemed to bypass his skull as it entered his brain and disappeared.

'Now what?' he thought while wheezing and coughing out even more blood. 

[-Vitality stat increased by 1.6x-]

[-VIT: 8-]

Sorens body changed on a cellular level. He didn't grow any taller or become any wider. Instead, he looked healthier, more alive which was quite a feat for the state he was in. 

His bloodloss stopped gushing out with a visible difference, his wind pipes seemed to resist the blood that was entering a little better too.

'Amazing, so this what using a Stat is like. Incredible.' 

Still dying fairly fast, Soren with his newfound strength that would keep alive a little longer, decided to read more from the book. 

The book was still open to "How To Use" section so he steadily went back a few pages, taking a quick glance, he saw the currency was the Stat. 

He wasn't interested in this right now so he went to pg. 35. The part on the Eternal Fight. 

This whole section was 15 pages which he did not have time to read. 

So, he went to the end of 15 pages and looked at the "Summary" subheading. 

Looking at it, he had a slight grin on his face, thankfull he was able to read more.

"Demonic vs. Heavenly. This is the premise for everything in the worlds. We are called candidates by the celestial beings, and pick a side. We are stuck with them until the end which is supposedly world 50. You can't change sides because they won't accept a candidate who has taken an opposing forces ability. We fight against eachother on the frontlines, each and everyday, trying to destroy the others stronghold. Once its destroyed, that world will belong to the winning side and they will monoplize it. There is a way to still win after losing your stronghold. Our ultimate goal is to become stronger than the heavenly side. Keeping morality is not a question in this death game. Do what it takes to win, or else we all suffer."

'This is a lot to take in, but some of it makes sense now, but how-'

Soren's face had turned from pale to blue now and was looking worse with each second. Blood had never stopped flowing from both his wounds. 

His body lost feeling and his head crashed into wooden flooring next to the dead spider. 

'So this is it? At least, I read, 2 of the sections.'

His eyes closed fully and finally embraced the death that bound to happen to him. 

His body, covered in blood, now peacefully lay next to the spider. His hand had coincidentily landed on the spiders leg. They were close enough to each other that one might think they were in love and just had a deadly lovers quarell.

Whether by luck or by failure, they're bodies were now next to each other forever.