Chapter Two: Lich
Victor loved his fruit.
Thuds and echoes of collision of bone against wood echoed deeply into the forest and jungle of his island. The young man was pounding his fists against the tree without pause or stop, and had been doing so for an hour. He hadn't twitched a bit even as his fists bleed and his knuckles splintered, screaming at him to stop.
He saw little point, especially when he had a fruit that was as busted as his.
Victor paused in his abuse of his fist, before placing his palm against the tree he'd been abusing and calling on an aspect of his power. Like a switch was flipped, Victor's flesh dissipated into black smoke, revealing white bone. The smoke started to weave itself into a thick robe of black material, and a crown of gold rested itself on his head over the hood of his robe.
Rings of gold and jewelry decorated his form, created out of that same black material that came from his flesh and organs. The previously handsome young man, even with a scared and wounded face was now a horrid sight to witness. His face was rotten, his cheeks gone, leaving a gaping mouth of black and rotting gums with the roots of his teeth visible. His nose was gone, and the base of the nose was revealed. His eye sockets had widened, and twin pin pricks of white pure light stared out of his skull without feeling. Before the lich's gaze, all was indifferent in the world. All was lesser.
From his mouth a small leakage of black miasma, a black gas, slowly drifted down through his dark and shadowed robes, before coiling around his revealed arm and seeping into the bark of the tree.
The tree wilted, rotted, recoiled, and burst and roiled as it fermented and decayed down to its base components. Necrosis took over the tree, and from these reactions a stream of pure untainted life filtered back into the Lich.
The processes reverted, his robes falling back into pristine flesh, his knuckle no-longer split and only the evidence of a white scar on his skin would show that he'd ever been hurt or damaged before hand. The young man smiled up at the decaying and dead tree, its bark dry and black in his wake and putrid puss leaked from its wrinkled bark in attempts to fight off whatever had attacked it.
The young man thought of his key-word and a screen appeared before him.
Name: Victor 'Vic' Vici
Title: The Zombie
Age: Fourteen
Race: Lich
Level: 1
Status: Healthy
Attributes:
Body: 1.2
Mind: 0.7
Spirit: 1.3
Devil Fruit: 3/100, The Zombie (NOVICE)
Victor grinned at the status, strength filling his limbs and a spark in his unbeating heart. Raising his hand to the air, the young man whistled softly. The sound carried, before a blur landed on his arm.
A small bird, one of its eyes carved out and its bones broken and snapped when he found it. A whisper and an infusion of miasma allowed the Mythical Zoan to puppet its body, letting him see through the white spark of soul-flame in its hollowed eye-socket.
He pet the bird on the beak, before sending it away and started walking towards where he needed to go. Once more, black smoke washed off his form, before it dissolved into robes. His posture grew in size, before a man of three-meters covered in a bulky robe made from the shadows themselves stalked into the forest.
...
Victor didn't vocalize the impact as a massive ape flung a heavy rock at him, his forearm clicking and fracturing at the attack. The ape snarled, revealing massive fangs in his mouth as it warned the approaching 'thing' to halt and leave. It rose to its feet, banging its fists on its chest, before flinging itself at the stalking lich.
Victor sighed, miasma leaking out of his jaws and collecting inside his fingers. The soul-flame in his sockets sharpened down to pin-pricks and he charged.
The three-meter corpse moved faster than expected, faster than any mere 'mortal' on his previous Earth. Olympic athletes would cry at the effort spent, a mere 'day' of pounding his fists against a tree needed to reach their speeds.
Victor had asked the Game what 1.0 of Body would look like, and it was an average taken from all humans on the Blues. Disregarding those on the Grand-Line and those with unique physics, Victor now had a 1.2 average strength, speed, and 'body' of the lower-seas. A 1.2 average of people who wrestle with fish and animals that'd kill the strongest men on Earth.
Victor and the ape crashed into one another, Victor lashing out with a knife hand coated in Miasma and the ape shoulder charging into the skeleton.
The knife hand penetrated flesh while the ape's fist cracked and fractured several ribs, yet it was obvious who came out on top in that exchange. Victor's free skeletal hand grasped the heaving and twitching ape's face and lifted the creature into the air. It went slack as the miasma inside its body wrecked havoc. The lich brought the creature close to his face and opened his maw. The ape struggled, only for the rot to speed up and the same black smoke that created his cloak started to be created from the ape's own flesh.
Soon, naught but a pile of bones rested at the lich's feet. His chest and arm healed to perfection, and he felt distantly stronger all for it.
{+0.1 BODY, +0.1 SPIRIT - Battle Rewards}
{LEVEL UP!}
The lich titled its head and spoke outloud in a grisly rasp. "One point to Spirit, the rest to Body."
Name: Victor 'Vic' Vici
Title: Of The Lost
Age: Fourteen
Race: Lich
Level: 2
Status: Healthy
Attributes:
Body: 1.8
Mind: 0.7
Spirit: 2.4
Devil Fruit: 4/100, The Zombie
{Would you like to specialize your martial schools?} The Game asked. {Martial Skill development is locked until this critical juncture is met.}
The lich titled its head and nodded. "Scythe or Sickles?"
{...Scythe. You'll need a large weapon, trust me.}
"Scythe Mastery and Unnamed Martial Practice, please."
{A lich with manors, how strange. Updating now.}
Name: Victor 'Vic' Vici
Title: The Zombie
Age: Fourteen
Race: Lich
Level: 2
Status: Healthy
Attributes:
Body: 1.8
Mind: 0.7
Spirit: 2.4
Skills:
-Martial Path-
Scythe Mastery: 1/100
The Path of the Scythe, one of warriors, farmers, and edgelords.
He Who Cuts Air. (Novice)
Unnamed Martial Practice: 1/100
The path of Martial Arts, one of warriors and fighters; brutish and wise both.
Life-Return: -/30
The ability to command one's body, to force it to obey to the will of it's master.
Six Powers: -/70
The powers and skills developed by the World Government and Marines alike.
-Technological Path-
Weaponsmithing: -/100
Shipwrighting: -/100
Marksmanship: -/100
-Spiritual Path-
Conqueror's Haki: -/100
Armament Haki: -/100
Observation Haki: -/100
Voice of The World: -/100
Devil Fruit: 4/100, The Zombie
"Wonderful. Any thoughts on unlocking Haki?"
{Haki can come later. It would be of most importance to develop a base. To do this, it would be recommended to build your body and skills in fighting.}
The lich hummed as he listened to the Game. He gestured up with his hand and the skeleton on the ground rose with threads of black leaching off his robe. "Rise, and serve." He demanded. The skeleton of the ape he slew bowed before him, stronger than in life, if enslaved to his will and thus without skill or intelligent mind and soul.
"I will first exhaust this island of resources, grow in power and strength while trying to build a ship." The lich decided. "Then I will become a bounty hunter and use that wealth to purchase the means to forge a decent blade for myself."
The lich's robe faded, and the mortal man who was a lich ventured deeper into the forest to develop his body and powers. Or, is it the other way around?