7

Looking down at my SOUL floating peacefully in my chest, I focused. I could feel the slight taint of moonlight in the center, so I pulled on it and saw the warehouse around me turn to grass; peering up, I had to choke back a sob.

I saw my house as it was before I found the Grimoire; it stood empty and cold under the watchful eye of the full moon. Slowly walking towards it, I observed the starless night. The only thing I could feel was the rays of the moon beaming down.

Opening the door with a little push instead of the shove it needed reminded me how different I am now; as I stepped in, I heard the clacking of keys on a keyboard. Looking at the kitchen table, I saw myself in my skeletal horror.

The doppelganger turned and focused the orbs ever so reminiscent of the full moon on me. His jaw opened, and I could see the long fangs where my canines had been.

"So, how are you doing?" He asked, concern evident in his voice

"Like shit, how about you?" He barked out a laugh that echoed with something deeper before responding.

"Considering I was born about twenty minutes ago, I'm doing great." Sitting across from him as he closed the laptop he had been using, I looked him in the eyes.

"Arent you supposed to be tempting me to kill people?"

"While yes, technically, I don't need to, you will do it all on your own" Glaring at him; I forced out.

"What do you mean by that."

"I mean, in the month you have been here, you have abducted four people and killed at least ten people. Before picking up that Grimoire, the act of harming somebody never crossed your mind except for a few scuffles with your brother." Slamming my hands on the table, I shouted.

"That was necessary! I didn't have any other options; the PRT is incompetent and controlled by Cauldron, and I am sure as hell not joining some fucking gang!" He rolled his wrist and spoke, humor dripping from his mouth.

"Sure you did; at the end of the day, it works back to two things." Rasing two figures, he moved the first one down as he spoke.

"You don't want to be trapped, all your life you felt trapped whether by social obligations, by people asking, hey why don't you join baseball, hey why don't you join theater, hey Aidan how about you join sound, hey Aidan how about you write or by school something you're forced to do eight hours a day five days a week. So now that you're here, you're free!" He then ticked down the other fingure"And second, that Grimore is screwing with your head."

Standing up, I shouted

"Bullshit! You simply don't want me to get any more powers, so you can tempt me into killing a fuckton of people."

"Ah, but once again, did you think it was all information you got? Bullet Patterns made you a literal Monster influenced by emotions such as HoPe and LOVE. What did Magus Education do?

It gave you an eight-year course on how to be a psychopath willing to do anything to become more powerful, and what are you doing now? Your talking to a vampiric version of yourself in your old house under the light of your new father."

Glaring at him silently, I slammed Castle Brunestud shut, reappearing back in my lab. I slammed shut my Grimoire, trying to force the words of the spirit out of my mind.

I then stood up and decided to fix my newest problem. In the last fight, I had started to run low on mana; running out of mana would knock me out, which was unacceptable. I grabbed the ruby I had made to store energy and decided to make it an energy collecter and receiver, able to hold mana across a vast distance and give it to me passively.

That would take a few days, and I needed to figure out a disguise that would allow me to pass in society without being arrested or killed.

I needed an item that I could wear all the time and that was made of semi-precious things that would let it hold a charge much longer. I decided on a necklace. However, I didn't have one, so I needed to buy or steal one.

While I would prefer to purchase one that was impossible in my current state, so that meant that stealing was my only option. Consulting my mental clock, it was 1:43 pm which meant that I would need to teleport to a store and then hypnotize the owner before leaving.

Holding the location of the pawnshop I bought the ruby from, I teleported to the place. Appearing in the store and looking around quickly, I saw that there was only one other person who was looking at an old beat-up poster of Legend. The owner stumbled back, hand grasping under his desk as I strode up.

"I need a necklace, and stop fumbling under the table" He froze and carefully handed me a simple silver necklace with an amber pendant. I then looked him in the eye and spoke firmly in german.

"You will forget the last thirty seconds and never talk about it to anybody"

His eyes glazed over, and he drooled a little before I took a step back and vanished.

Appearing back in my lab, I felt a tingling in thrum through my bones; however, strangely, while the book grew, my energy did not go down. Picking up my Grimoire and flipping through the pages, I saw a new page labeled The Way This Works, and under that was Adventurer Card which had a small picture of what appeared to be a blank business card. Pulling out the card led to it filling with words and numbers.

The card said that my Class was Wizard and quickly looking through it seemed to be quantifying my stats as if I was in an RPG. I cast a look over the stats, and my highest was Intelligence, with the lowest being Health, and the rest were in between; however, most were on the higher end. I didn't have any skills.

I id however have a few skill points, and it seemed I could spend them on either increasing my skills or stats. I pressed my thumb on the Health stat and saw it go up as my skill points went down.

Grinning slightly as the earlier day's negatives faded, I lifted the necklace in my hand and decided to sit down and get started on enchanting the necklace to disguise me. The next few hours passed as I focused my mana on the amber pendant, which would, through an illusion over my skeletal form, conceal and prevent people from trying to kill me. A

s the time approached midnight, I had finished the pendant and slipped it over my head; feeling a little buzz settle over me, I looked in a nearby shard of glass and saw my old self, skin and all. With an unneeded twist on my heel, I appeared back in my flat, falling on my bed. I decided that while I doubly didn't need sleep, I would still get some after the long hectic mess of today.

Waking up, I stretched and soon shuffled out of bed; one of the benefits of being a Monster was that I didn't feel grungy after waking up and could simply go about my day. Making myself the customary bowl of oatmeal, I sat down and thoroughly enjoyed the morning. Standing back up after placing the dishes in the sink, I stepped through space and appeared back in my lab, ready to get to work.

While the principle behind the ranged store/receive mana theoretically worked, putting it into practice would be a whole different thing. I then set myself down and started turning through my Grimoire to connect the various works of Enchanting and Formalcraft.

While it took a few hours to actually assemble a ritual circle that would work on paper, it was a breeze compared to the tinker-seeking compass I had built earlier. All that remained was to set up the process to link the seals holding the parahumans and send mana over to the ruby.

Stretching despite not needing to, I set to work. Bleeding out a bit of dust and connecting various german words, I soon had chains of dust and magic that linked all of the seals and led to a small circle where I would put the first chunk of ruby.

The next part, while easy would be disorienting, I picked my head off my shoulders and stumbled a bit while I got used to the new view. I then picked up the second chunk of ruby and stuck it where my brain would be if I had a physical one.

It took several tries as I had to believe that the ruby was a part of me which was helped by the feeling of mana flowing from it. After sticking it inside my skull I was forced to sit down as I was almost blinded by the sea of mana lurking behind my eyes.

The gem and rituals I used were as if I was pulling ocean water through a straw, and while I knew that Shards held a tremendous amount of energy, seeing it so vividly humbled me for a moment. As I sat soaking in my accomplishments, I heard a thunderous crash.

I darted outside my lab and saw a building tumbling to the ground, a luminous figure hovering above the fallen tower. I ran back and midstep teleported to my apartment and flipped on the new. The headline read Empire 88 and Protectorate Identities Revealed Caos in the Streets.

I slumped back as I remembered who I had captured yesterday and his obsession with payback and control. As I appeared back in my lab, I swore I could hear faint unrestrained cackling coming from the depths of my moon-white SOUL.

Powers Gained

The Way This Works

This world follows the same rules that it seems every new world does these days. On entering this world, you were given an Adventurer's Card which we'll describe later and the ability to gain and use skill points to level up. Skill Points are gained by killing monsters or other living beings and are automatically collected from them when the deed is done. Gather enough and you will be able to level up on your adventurer's card, increasing your base stats and learning or upgrading your existing Skills with your new points. You can't learn something you don't have the ability to learn, haven't been taught or that isn't part of your class. Ah, and Class? Another thing you'll automatically receive. This'll dictate your general stat growth through levelling up here and the sort of skills you can automatically learn and unlock via just skill points. Any fantasy RPG class can be taken, though your origin will limit you to specific types.

Adventurer Card

The sign of your adventuring nature. This is your Status Sheet, effectively. It denotes your level, statistics and any special abilities that you have. It's also proof that you're an adventurer and will give a good idea of how strong you are and how good an adventurer you are. If you ever lose it, it'll appear right back in your hand the next time you need it. You use the card to level up with skill points in this world, so don't let anyone else get a hold of it if you've got unspent points.