Chapter 1: Different body, same world?

Elrica woke up to a hellish burning in his eyes, struggling through the pain he barely managed to squeeze one of his eyes open, as a small tear trickled down his cheek he looked around his completely unfamiliar surroundings.

Scratching his eyes and wiping the tears that fell he opened both his eyes to survey his surroundings, looking at his hands they were pale white, they were far smaller than usual his fingers were also thinner.

Elrica's heart dropped, these weren't his hands.

Touching his head, he felt at his thick long hair, grabbing a strand, he brought it Infront of his eyes. It was black.

This wasn't his hair. He previously had blond short hair yet this was completely different.

Pushing off the floor, Elrica unsteadily stood up, this wasn't his body. He had become far shorter and thinner than he was.

With his new awareness of his body, Elrica noticed a distinct lack of something between his legs.

Shakily bringing his hand to his crotch, he confirmed his suspicions. He was female.

Looking around his surroundings, it was night time and he was in a forest, he noticed a small pond nearby. Elrica walked towards it while vigilantly keeping watch of his surroundings.

With everyone step he took he realised just how weak this body was.

'Definitely soul level one.' Elrica assessed.

'No weapons, no rings, no items, no armour. Definitely a new arrival.'

Touching the finely made dark grey dress he was wearing 'and one from a sheltered world.' Elrica noted.

Arriving at the pond Elrica looked down at her reflection before being stunned both because he recognised this body but more so because he couldn't see his attributes.

In the spectral world, one could see deeper information about anything by starring at it's reflection, that included individuals.

By staring into their own reflection one could look at an in-depth status page that displayed all they physical, magical and spiritual attributes in numerical value.

This was an unbreakable, absolute law of the world with no exceptions. That was supposed to be the case yet that absolute rule was being broken right before Elrica's eyes.

Elrica moved away from the pond and tried again a few times but nothing changed.

Grabbing a small branch from ground she put it above the water and stared at the reflection, no information showed up concerning it either.

Giving up after a few attempts, Elrica walked a distance of 20 or so meters away from the pond before leaning back on a tree.

A source of water attracts living creatures so being too close would be bad. Being too far would also be troublesome if he got thirsty.

Traveling at night was a bad idea so Elrica decided to organise his thoughts while waiting for sunrise.

First off he recognised the identity of this new body. He didn't know her actual name, she was so old that nobody knew it.

She was simply known by her title, the warped mother of blades.

'But how is that possible, she's an entity who's at least at level 250 so how is this body so weak?'

'Being reborn back in time in her body also doesn't make sense as I can't even see my information or the information of anything for that matter.'

'I have no answer so I'll have to go with the worst case scenario of being in a level one body with no access to the benefits of this world.'

Thinking about that, Elrica's mind couldn't help but wander to the best case scenario. Somehow escaping the spectral world and ending up in another world.

The spectral world was a world like none of the ones he knew about, it housed an uncountable number of creatures and strange species yet none of its population actually was native to it.

It was a place people ended up in without a clue of how and even if they did it wouldn't take long before that knowledge faded into obscurity.

The Spectral world trapped it's denizens souls making it so that they could simply pop back into existence after their demise, each time having lost a part of their soul and growing more muddle headed until their whole sense of self extinguished leaving only a mindless undead that continuously got weaker untill it was nothing more than a moving counter part to a pebble on the roadside, insignificant and easily overlooked.

All one could do in this world was fight, kill and acquire the souls of others, use them to increase their attributes and strengthen their equipment, all so they could hold on to their ever fleeting sense of self.

The thing that everyone yearned for and seeked towards insatiably was an escape, whether by going back to their own world or by going to another.

"Even if it ended up being another hell it would be at least a good change of scenery." Elrica muttered softly, also noticing his new voice for the first time though he wasn't surprised.

Elrica dug the ground with his lithe and slender fingers, uncaring for his chipped nails or the soil that accumulated under them as he fished around the ground.

After looking around for a few minutes, Erica finally arrived at what he was looking for, feeling something squishy and delicate between he fingers he pulled his hand back up and and wiped the dirt off to reveal the small worm wriggling between his fingers blowing the dirt off it she popped it into her mouth, it predictably taste like dirt but Elrica didn't care.

There was a chance that his worm had some sort of poison or lethal effect for eating it but that was just a chance while starvation would certainly be deadly.

Elrica spent the rest of the night digging for worms while, from time to time he would spot an animal come to the pond to drink or while the sounds of chirping animals was a constant, forests we never quiet, contrary to some people's imaginations.

'The wild life seems pretty uniform.' there were no huge variations of size or anatomy, an uncommon sight in the chaotic land of Spectral.

Just when Elrica was chewing on that information and a tasty worm had he heard a sound that made him jump.