Rebirth

We got back to town at a decent time. I still had a little bit of time before I had to make dinner. Yuki should be home from school by now.

"Have you registered yourself at the way stone here in town?" Alex asked me, breaking myself out of my thoughts.

"Oh, no. I guess I didn't do that yet. Do you know where it's at?" I asked Alex.

"Follow me. I'll show you where it's at. I had a feeling you would forget something like that. Kind of sucks that the item you need to use the fast travel is a cash shop-only item, though." Alex said as she started walking.

Several minutes later, we found ourselves in the city's park district, where a tall black obelisk was located. There were several other players nearby attuning themselves to it. I walked over to the large stone monument and touched it.

A notification popped up, asking me if I wanted to attune myself to Riadence City and that this would unlock this fast travel location. I selected yes, and a brief flash of light enveloped my body.

"There, all done now," I said to Alex and Eri.

"Good now, in case anything happens, you can respawn here. We should have had you do that earlier." Eri said to me.

I just shrugged my shoulders at their remarks. "Eri, should I do my rebirth now or wait a bit more?" I asked.

Eri placed her finger on her chin and thought momentarily before answering. "There is usually a benefit to waiting until you are at the level cap before doing a rebirth. But your situation is unique, and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't do it now. Right now, your current stats are three times what your current level should be."

"Then let me do that then. I got this new race orb thingy I want to use. You know what abilities I will get with it?" I asked Eri.

"I don't know. That race mutation you picked up is strange, as it doesn't originate from the game normally. Also, neither Scarlet nor I had anything to do with its creation. It's as if it was created for you specifically." Eri responded. Her answer made me a bit wary about whether I should use it.

"Do you think it is safe to use then?" I asked Eri with a bit of nervousness.

"You should be fine. I have scanned that item, but it appears to be just a new mutable race. I can't quite discern its special ability, but it seems to be some kind of assimilation-based one." Eri told me.

It seems safe enough, then. Who knows what will happen, but a part of me wants to use it despite its risks. "I think I will use it. How do I do the rebirth thing? Do I need to die first?" I asked Alex and Eri.

"It's not reincarnation, silly. You visit the Shrine of Rebirth, and you will appear in that white room again with Eri…though I suppose she is right here with us." Alex said a bit sheepishly at the end.

"Just go to the shrine, and I will walk you through the process once you use it," Eri told me.

Eri then led us to where the shrine of rebirth was at. It was in a large church-like building located in the palace district. The inside was similar to what the stereotypical church looked like. Small statues of Eri were situated around the outer walls, with a much larger one at the back.

There were several other players near the various other statues. I saw one player that was a big muscley greenish thing. He had some tusks jutting out from his bottom lip. He touched one of the statues, and a beam of light shone on him. His figure disappeared in the bright light and was replaced with a new person. A tall, lithe yet muscular woman now stood in his place. They had the ears of an elf but retained some of the green skin. The tusks were also a bit smaller.

"Looks like someone else discovered how cool elves are," Alex said, pointing to the character I was looking at.

I found an unoccupied statue and made my way to it. I placed my hand on it like I saw the other players do. A notification popped up asking me if I wanted to rebirth. I tapped on the 'Yes' icon and soon found myself standing in a white room.

"Hello, again, Sarah," Eri said to me. She was floating slightly off the white floor. She was wearing her usual dress.

"Hello again to you too, Eri," I replied back. "So, how does this work?"

"I will show you a list of races available to you. You can choose the one you want. You will then choose physical and meta-physical traits between the two to create a new race. Then you will reenter character creation to adjust your avatar's appearance." Eri said to me.

I nodded my head and started to browse all the options before me. I saw all of the same races that were at the beginning. Solar Angel, Greater Demon, and Daeva were listed as new races. I was a bit tempted to select Solar Angel, but Daeva was calling out to me as if any option other than that felt sickening.

After some internal debating, I decided to go with Daeva. It was also the reason for my username Rejected_Goddess after all. The next screen I saw showed the different traits of both races. The elf's physical traces were the elven beauty, gracefulness, futa, magical sleep immunity, and telescopic eyesight.

Huh…I didn't know about a few of those abilities. I chose all those abilities and saw a number count at the top change from 0/15 to 5/15. I guess it limits you to how many things you can choose. The daeva side only listed question marks for its abilities. I didn't really like not knowing what they were. Seeing as I played an elf without knowing anything and was fine, I decided to select all the question marks. I saw the number change to 11/15.

I had debated a bit on whether or not I wanted to keep my futa gender, but I had grown attached to the extra appendage. It wasn't like I hated it or anything. In fact, it was thanks to that, I could say my life changed for the better.

I confirmed my selection and got a popup shortly after.

[ Elven Beauty and Angelic Beauty have merged into Ethereal Beauty.]

So that's what one of the question marks was. I tapped on Ethereal beauty to see if it had a description.

[Ethereal Beauty: Grants eternal youth and will always be at peak beauty standards.]

"Not bad," I said to myself. I then closed the notification window and proceeded to the next step. The character creation mirror popped up in front of me again. Still, before I could do anything, an error displayed in front of me.

[Error: Cannot proceed with character creation]

[Reason: Player hasn't sufficiently unlocked all aspects of current race. Adapting current appearance.]

"Hmm, this is strange," Eri said with concern.

"What happened?" I asked.

"It seems that your race mutation is incomplete. It's tied to a quest. It's hard for even me to see the details. Once you finish the quest associated with your race change, you will unlock full functionality. At the very least, the benefits you get from what you currently have are much better than what most players get." Eri said as she scrolled through what looked like code.

"Nothing we can do about it at the moment. Just finish up your character. You can always revisit the rebirth shrine later and change your looks once you unlock that functionality." Eri said.

I nodded at her response. I then closed the error and tapped on 'finalize character.' The room spun on me momentarily before I found myself back at the church. I looked around to confirm this before turning to Alex and Eri.

"Damn, sis! You look smoking hot!" Alex had said while catcalling me. "You got this sexy demon thing going on for you. The other players that chose demon or devil types for their rebirth will be jealous of you."

I looked over at Eri and saw she had a slight blush on her face. I wanted to tease her, but I held back for the moment. "I just need a mirror now," I told both girls.

Eri quickly conjured up a mirror with her magic. I stepped in front of it, and to say I was shocked about my looks was an understatement.

I looked hot. I don't mean to be a narcissist, but damn, I was smoking hot. My skin was pale but not sickly. My skin also had this subtle blueish-silver sheen to it. Giving it a godly appearance when the light hit it a certain way. I noticed my fingernails were more like black claws but still short enough to not be a hindrance. I still had my black hair, but it was a bit longer than it was previously. My face had changed slightly; I had a cute button nose and small pouty lips with a healthy pink sheen. My eyes were the same magenta eyes I had before.

Finally, I noticed two black horns atop my head. They started near the back of my skull, jutting to the front of my head. The ends of the horns then curved upward slightly. It gave me a regal appearance.

"Holy…shit!" That was all I could get out. I don't think I even needed the character customizer. This body was perfect.

My musings were interrupted by a loud notification that also seemed to get the other players' attention.

[World Quest Initiated by Player Gwyndolyn!]

[Rise of the Demon Lords: The Demon Lords are stirring once again. The armies of Heaven and Hell are tasking the players to stop their demonic corruption.]

[New Zones Unlocked: Celestia and The Nine Hells]

[New Factions Unlocked: Celestia, The Nine Hells, and The Abyss]

"Shit. I am so sorry, Sarah. I wasn't able to stop your name from appearing." Eri said to me with regret.

"Well…shit." That was all I could say.