First encounter

'Is this… real life?'

Once Cal woke up, he looked at himself and passed out again. It was only on the third round of waking up that he begun to accept reality.

'I'm a skeleton.'

Cal lifted his hands and held it in front of his face, staring wistfully at the thin bones that were somehow being held together. They looked much weaker than the strong calloused hands that were previously there, Cal made a bony fist and tried to take a breath.

The lack of lungs prevented him from doing so.

'I'm actually a skeleton…'

'And a weak one at that.'

'Deva sys- uh… Brahma system, please show me my status'

-------------------------------

{STATUS}

• Species: Low level skeleton

• Class: Null

• Affiliation: Null

[STATE]

• Health: 30/30

• Chakra 0/0

• Wisdom: 78

• Agility: 45

• Constitution: 9

[SKILLS]

INNATE SKILLS

-> Relentless || Level ? (E)

-> Will || Level ? (D)

AQQUIRED SKILLS

-> Null

ACTIVE EFFECTS:

-> Null

ACTIVE BUFFS:

-> Null

-------------------------------

'M- my constitution… my health…'

If Cal had a heart, it'd be broken right about now.

Cal traced his bony fingers around the "9" that had replaced the "980" which previously held its place. Cal found himself being thankful for not having eyes right now as he was sure his tear ducts would be working overtime.

'KUH!'

'All those farmed goblins… skeletons hunted… Mercenaries killed…for nothing? All those delicious beautiful stat points I worked so hard for…. GONE!'

Cal heaved another imaginary sigh and knocked the back of his skull with the dungeon wall, the blunt sound it made immersed him in his own sorrows a bit more.

Cal had placed such a large emphasis on becoming a great tank for his party that he had dropped every single spare point into his constitution and health.

Ironically this arrogance in his defensive capabilities led him to him being trampled by a horde he foolishly decided to take on.

'Maybe if I ran away, I would still be…'

Cal intensely stared at his bony fist before unravelling it and letting it drop to the floor.

'For some reason or another, I'm still conscious. I shouldn't give up hope yet.' Cal steeled himself and looked back up at his new status.

It wasn't just Cal's constitution, every other stat the boy owned had been reduced by a depressingly large amount, however, what interested Cal the most wasn't the numbers on the page at all.

'Chakra?' Cal thought, pointing his index bone at the new value.

Ki and Mana were removed from his status and had been replaced by a mysterious value labelled "Chakra". Cal hadn't heard of it before and as such was intrigued by the mention of this mysterious energy.

Ki was a force that relied on purifying, strengthening, and cultivating the inner energies of the body in order to showcase your strength from within; this led to greater muscle and bone density, increased organ sizes, strength, efficiency and many more things which made Ki warriors fearsome. Cal had focused on improving his Ki much more than his mana during his time as a human and as such had a bias about it being superior to Mana. He tried his skills out as a mage at one point but it only resulted in a disaster he wanted to forget, this led to him forming some unfair opinions on "cowardly mages".

'I thought monsters had ki and mana too… what's wrong with this body?'

Cal strained his mind and tried to search the archives of his memory for some mention of 'Chakra' but he soon gave up. Thinking a lot wasn't a part of his style.

Cal was about to get up and survey his surroundings when a monstrous growl made him leap to his feet.

"GUHHAAFGA!" the roar came from the darkness.

'OH SH*T!' Cal leapt up into the air, his bony legs cluttered and clinked together as they awkwardly bumped against one another, Cal managed to stay standing by leaning against the wall as he gripped the cracks with his bony fingers.

From the darkness, a creature that looked as if it was born of nightmares stepped forth.

*Kzzxxxk*

*Kzzxxxk*

Long sharp claws scratched the rocky floor of the dungeon as the 7 ft tall beast hunched it's back and trudged forwards. It had a muscular build from its legs to its neck and was covered in scars and patches of dark fur. It's doglike face was contorted into a ferocious expression, daring somebody to defy it.

The Gnoll carried two large clubs on either arm. It looked heavy to Cal yet the beast treated them as enlarged toothpicks and held them high.

Beside the Gnoll, the thin skeleton was sweating buckets. Figuratively of course.

'Oh god'

'nononononononononononononononono'

'A GODDAMN GNOLL?! WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING SO EARLY UP IN THE DUNGEON?!'

The skeleton had no face yet even the bones on his face looked like they were scared stiff. The dungeon got exponentially bigger and more dangerous as you delved deeper into it, the small size of Cal's surroundings proved to him that he was very close to the entrance/exit of the dungeon.

'First that crazy-ass monster horde was somewhere it shouldn't be and now there's a beast of this size at the entrance?!'

The Gnoll stopped right in front of the newly born skeleton and turned it's neck, pointing it's snarled snout at Cal.

The skeleton might as well have been a statue at this point.

"HGrur…"

The Gnoll made a low growling noise and tilted its head, surveying Cal. The Gnoll already had an entourage of skeletons following it around but it had paid them no mind, for some reason this creature was particularly interested in the ex-human.

'…' Cal was too scared to even think, even knowing the Gnoll couldn't possibly hear his thoughts, he silenced his mind.

Unaware of Cal's fears, the Gnoll lifted his club and pushed it through the status screen. The club went through the screen smoothly and came out the same way.

The Gnoll kept swatting the status screen for a while before huffing its nose and continuing on to the exit of the dungeon.

Only after the Gnoll disappeared into the darkness did Cal finally relax.

'Oh gods I thought I was dead meat! Or uh dead bones I guess…'

'But why did that bastard look at me that way? Why was he hitting the status screen, could he see it too?'

Cal pushed his hand through the screen and felt no resistance, the skeleton's imaginary brows furrowed.

'How did it know? The screen shouldn't be visib-'

Cal's thought was interrupted by a rogue beast.

*flplflpflpflpflpflpflp*

The large grey and black moth jump-scared Cal after flying through his status screen. Cal's highly trained reflexes were employed and he started waving his arms around, trying to swat the creature. Cal's spastic slaps had the opposite effect he wanted and made the moth get even closer to the panicking skeleton.

Cal broke when the moth made its way into his empty eye socket.

'waWAAWA?! GET OFFA ME YOU WINGED CRETIN!' Cal screamed in his mind, jabbing his index bone into his right eye socket and trying to scoop out the unwelcome guest; the gutsy moth eventually flew out through his ribcage but the memory had scarred the poor skeleton.

Cal could take on hordes of Goblins, Skeletons, and Kobolds yet anything with more than 4 legs instilled fear in the boy akin to a monstrous dragon. The skeleton had always felt that if you had more than 4 legs and wore your skeleton outside the body, you should forfeit your right to live out of respect for the un-repulsive creatures of the universe.

After calming down for a while, Cal noticed some other moths begin to *flplfplpflpflpflp* their way to him, the magnitude of fear that was struck into his heart was so great that his usually sub-par wit spun into action and he found the source of the problem.

'No way… could it be?' Cal looked up at the status screen and held his arm up, he moved out of the way and saw that his bones cast a shadow on the rocky dungeon walls.

'Holy sh*t… what kinda system is this?!' Cal thought incredulously.

The Deva system had never exposed its contents or existence to anyone else besides the user in all of its existence, Cal viewed it as a personal tool that dedicated itself to aiding the user while removing itself from the conniving eyes of others that sought out to harm you. There weren't any recorded instances of a system influencing the outside world through any medium other than its user.

'That's so strange… I mean, I guess that's one of the features of this new system? It can also act as a torch?' Cal tapped his jaw thoughtfully.

Unbeknownst to him, if the creator of the Brahma system had discovered the young man's thoughts about it being identical to its Deva counterpart but with a torch; they would've shed some cosmic tears.

Cal shook his head, thinking too much annoyed him. He gazed off into the distance from where the Gnoll came from. It was a creature who could rip him to shreds with a mere wave of its hands, but he preferred a quick death like that as opposed to the ones the Mages at the entrance would cast onto him. Out of the two paths, only one was viable.

The lone skeleton called upon the Brahma system to light the way and picked up a small, rusted dagger that laid on the floor before stepping into the darkness.