the manual and the letter

I don't know why, but when I looked at the letter, I felt angry.

I looked at the letter, thinking about all the acceptable reasons he could give me to forgive him.

And to be frank, there were quite a few of them. There were a lot of them actually.

What made me hesitant though, was the question, "Am I ready to let go of all that anger toward him?"

In the end, I decided to put the letter in the box and read it later when I was at least a bit more familiar with the laws of this place.

Putting the box away, I grabbed the booklet and opened it.

It took me more than five hours to read the whole thing.

Not that it was long or anything, it wasn't even a hundred pages, no, it was the content that made me so slow.

The manual gave information on many things such as main jobs, monsters, magical ingredients, and a lot more.

The most interesting thing was the passing of time. It appeared that every four seconds in the subatomic world was equal to only one second in the upper world. Plus, spending time in the subatomic world slowed down your aging, letting you stay as young as a little boy even after hundreds of years if you didn't want your body to grow.

As for other topics, according to the booklet, there were five main jobs that everyone could choose as their profession, or they could simply choose a job outside of those.

Chef, alchemist, scientist, blacksmith, and runesmith.

I could understand the first four, but the thing that confused me a little was the fifth, Runesmith.

Runesmiths were people well-versed in the field of language and could basically change the programming of the world to some extent.

All these jobs, just like the techniques that were mentioned further in the booklet, had different grades of mastery. Novice, beginner, skilled, master, grandmaster.

According to the manual, one of the ways to assess the overall power of a race was by the number of grandmasters they had in each field of job.

The techniques were also used to assess the power of races, but not every technique, at the five levels of basic, intermediate, advanced, elite, and legend. Only the people who had reached the grandmaster realm in elite and legend techniques could be considered powerhouses.

Suffice it to say that each race only had a handful of elite and legend-level techniques, and they guarded them with their whole power.

After this, there was the issue of individual power.

Every person in the subatomic world had the opportunity to grow more powerful by absorbing beast cores and learning and mastering techniques on different levels.

There were 9 known foundational levels that each person, or fighter, as the book called them, could pass by absorbing beast cores.

To pass each of the foundation levels, each fighter must absorb three cores as their foundation core and then absorb as much core as their potential allows it to get to the next foundation level.

Usually, after absorbing each of their foundation cores, the fighters have the chance to gain a passive or an active skill based on the monster core they absorb.

As for the beast levels….

The beast's leveling was very interesting as well. It seemed like they were categorized based on their core size and the number of cracks on their core.

From level one to nine, the size of a beast's core could vary from somewhere between the size of a fingernail to the size of a handball.

As for the cracks, each crack represented a rarity. Common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary, and mythic, the beast's core could have from zero to five cracks.

Beasts had a chance to ascend in rarity by absorbing rare materials and other beasts' cores.

The starting point for each beast could be different based on a few factors such as genes, potential mutations, and . . .

The thing that made me a little depressed though wasn't the vastness of the subatomic world and universe. It was the lack of money.

In the upper world, when someone says money is power, they don't mean it literally, but here, money could literally translate into power.

The currency used by all the races in the subatomic world was MP or merit points. The more you contribute the richer you get.

Contributions could be done in several ways, such as hunting, exploring, sharing new knowledge, and . . .

But then again, how could a powerless kid like me contribute anything to such a great society?

To contribute in any way, I needed knowledge or power. As for knowledge, let's be honest, I wasn't the brightest in any field of study, and as for power, I needed MPs to get myself some quality cores to absorb.

'Wait....' Suddenly, I felt like I was struck by lightning.

I put the manual away and looked at the box next to me.

Grabbing it, I opened it again and looked inside.

"The rock… don't tell me…"

I was tempted to grab the rock and see if I could absorb it right away, but then I stopped myself and grabbed the envelope instead.

I looked at it for a few minutes with hesitation, still not feeling ready, but the anticipation was killing me.

I couldn't wait for another second to absorb the core.

Gathering all my courage, I opened the envelope in fast motion and started reading the first page of the letter.

"Hello, my son/daughter.

At the time I'm writing this letter, I still don't know if you are a boy or a girl, but from the bottom of my heart I wish for you to be a girl, and if you are a boy…. Meh, it's still OK."

I almost threw the letter away but stopped myself and read the rest.

"Since you are reading this letter, it means that I'm gone (such a cliché thing to say)"

Reading the letter until here, I stopped and thought to myself, 'Was he an idiot?' 

"Anyways, since I made sure that Lucile gave you this letter and my present at the beginning of your journey to becoming the strongest, it means you still don't know shit, and others (if I had to guess, Uriel) gave you a bunch of bullshit excuses about my disappearance.

Please don't blame them for not telling you, the situation is…. A little shitty to say the least and none of them want to put you in danger.

Just know this…. I love you (no matter if a girl or a boy(but if a girl a little more)) and your mother way more than you can imagine and if I had any other choice I would have even destroyed the world to stay with you…. But….

Let's not talk about these things. Anyway.

You can trust Uriel, Hercules, and Lucile with your life… they would rather die than let something happen to my child (I know Lucile is a bit of a knot job but he is good at heart, or at least that's what I think).

As for your path toward power… well, it might seem like I went overboard but with the help of Lucile, I made sure to enhance your affinities while you were in your mother's womb."

"Did that fucker experiment on me when I wasn't even a fetus???" I shouted and after a few deep breaths, read the rest.

"Anyways, the experiment went way better than we expected… long story short, you can practically absorb any core you want.

Although affinities are not set in stone until you are sixteen, I'm pretty sure that yours would have only advanced.

Now let's get to the ring. The ring in your hand is one of the very few legendary rank rings and it will help you extract and unlock much more of the potential of the cores you absorb.

It's a little picky when it comes to food, so remember, only feed it with cores above epic rank. You are welcome to try it with lower-rank ones, but I swear to god, you have more chance of seeing a princess eat shit willingly than seeing my ring absorb a core below epic rank. 

About the present, if you are twins, fight over it. The winner gets to have it. I wish I could have prepared two, just in case but when you see your present you will probably understand why I couldn't.

Now if you are a girl then goodbye honey and if you are a boy then piss off. The rest of the letter is for your mother.

P.S:

The following letter is for your mom. Don't open it if you don't want to be traumatized.

PPS:

Love you (more if you are a girl but a boy is all right too).

Not daring to read the next page of the letter after reading the clear warning, I put it away and looked at the baby-fist-sized rock inside the box.

It was light purple in color and semi-transparent. A tiny wisp of dark purple light was shining out of it with a retheme, like a heartbeat.

There were a few thin cracks on its surface, five to be exact. They all were pointing toward a specific direction like they were trying to merge with each other.

I carefully extended my hand and grabbed it.

"Mythic rank 2 infant Cosmochameleon beast core has been detected. Do you want to absorb it?"

I swear I could hear the excitement in the ring's robotic voice.

I was almost tempted to say no and see its reaction but in the end, I didn't dare mess with it and answered, "Yes."