Prospect For Reincarnation: From Common Fodder to Calamity

Chapter 3: First Floor

The ambiance of an expanse registered.

Then a slight cool.

Something was prompted to react to the environment, which had a coolness to it.

Incarnate ^8001 awakened to the taste of dirt, and the ruthless pelting from grains of what felt like sand to his face.

He blinked a couple of times and then stood up from where he had been lying down.

He felt very stiff, and oddly restrained, as though he had gears that hadn't been oiled in a very long time. Of course, if you asked the new Incarnate what a gear was, he would wear a puzzled face. Perhaps to him, the better analogy would be, that he felt like unwashed armor, full of dirt at the joints.

He stretched subconsciously and found his condition to improve only slightly.

He was still so stiff.

"Why do I feel so...?" he had begun to speak when it finally smote him. "I have a body! I can speak!"

He looked frantically at his body and fondled every part of himself that didn't resist.

He indeed had a body, but it was unlike the one he had in his previous life.

He found himself to now have soft reddish skin that was unusually sensitive, and thin limbs that thankfully looked and felt like those of a human, though marred by dark fingernails and an excess of tendons around the forearms and thighs.

He felt quite tall, at least compared to his old self, but couldn't confirm it just yet. In fact, he couldn't confirm anything else related to him without a reflective surface.

Blinking a couple of times, he had begun to look around when the same glowing tablet from before appeared in his sight.

[Welcome, you have successfully reached 'Bahathraden, Compound Demesne of Fallen Authorities'!]

[You have arrived on the FIRST FLOOR, the Ruins of the Deserted King, Alabas]

"Ruins..." Incarnate ^8001 mouthed.

The Ruins of the Deserted King.

It was an ominous name.

Already, he could feel the reality of what he had learned previously.

Ten Floors.

He had arrived at the first.

As the odd voice had said, it seemed his choice for a path to follow in his new life matched with this place. A territory full of Authorities.

Kings. Emperors. Lords.

The new incarnate had chosen the path of the Demon Tyrant in the end, casting aside the Prodigious Young Master path because while there was the risk of being killed due to the attention, much like the Handsome Blonde Prince's path, he felt much promise in it.

The tag 'powerful' to the path he chose was more attractive to him than 'prodigious'. He had thought the opposite before but had recontextualized his thinking according to the type of world both paths presented.

The latter set him towards a 'cultivation' world, which he was given context to, as with everything else he was unfamiliar with, and he ended up denying the idea in favor of being a powerful ruler in an ancient world.

According to what he understood from the added clarity he gained, a cultivation world had no shortage of genius and prodigies, and while an ancient world would probably have no shortage of powerful people as well, he wasn't just going to be an anybody.

He was going to be a ruler in this ancient world.

Of course, Incarnate ^8001 did not want to be like his old King, but he quite liked the idea of seeing how he would do in a position of power even while loathed. If he had the power to defend himself, he had the luxury to explore everything he desired, right?

He wouldn't necessarily have to rely on his subjects either, and this ancient world he would be plunged into attracted him so much.

What would it hold?

As he dazedly thought of all this, the glowing tablet before him shifted what it displayed, and depicted a string of information that pertained to him.

===

Name : None (Incarnate ^8001)

Privilege : 1

Race : Hollow Demonling

---

Far Ji (Unique Quality) : None

---

STR : 1

AGI : 1

END : 1

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-???- : 0

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Kanva (Acquired Skill) :

None

---

SeiJo (Equipment) :

None

===

Incarnate ^8001 looked at the information displayed. He didn't have to dissect it all by himself. The moment he set his eyes on one aspect presented, he understood what it meant.

"So, I don't have a name. I see. Not that different from before," he said, a subtle sullen look on his face. "Hollow Demonling? So, I actually begin as an actual Demon? Well, the word means something different here, I imagine."

His physical attributes were given numerical form in order to easily keep track of them.

STR for physical strength, AGI for speed, and END for Endurance. The last attribute seemed to be inaccessible at the moment, which the new Incarnate found suspicious.

He had noticed this before, but he wasn't given nearly as much information as he would have wanted. Maybe he would be provided with it gradually the more he rose up the floors. Perhaps that's what ‘Privilege’ on the tablet entailed.

Far Ji, unique quality, confused the Incarnate a bit. What exactly counted as a unique quality? He would have to find out later on.

Kanva was easier to understand. As depicted, it meant acquired skill.

Skills were abilities attainable within the Compound Demesne of Fallen Authorities. It seemed surreal to the Incarnate that he could acquire supernatural abilities. It appeared so illogical and absurd.

How would he acquire these skills? That was, for now, unclear.

Equipment was straightforward. He had none.

Apparently, the lousy brown tunic made of cheap fabric over Incarnate ^8001's body didn't count.

"It's good to know," he said.

With a simple desire to look past the blockage in his vision, it disappeared, leaving him able to see what was ahead of him.

Thick, broken, off-white pillars, supporting nothing but a dark night sky created a corridor before him. Between them was immaculate yet worn stone tiling that abruptly ended to give way for a massive desert marred with broken and destroyed buildings much too large for the average human, as the Incarnate assessed.

They were much like the one he was in right now, though he had to say, the only thing more fascinating than their scale and the setting they sat in, was their beauty.

It was otherworldly.

Incarnate ^8001 walked forward.

Nothing he had seen in his previous life quite matched this.

The foundations of these countless, grand constructs which looked to have housed even more astounding beauty in their prime, before whatever fell and degraded them, were most of what was left.

Incarnate ^8001 stepped on the sand hesitantly.

In the night, it didn't assume its golden valor, but instead looked like a lumpy sea in between the constructs.

A heavy, cool wind walloped the Incarnate and he shivered.

'Cold...' he thought.

There was no moon above, but somehow, there was some dull highlight even for him to see.

He trudged forth, though with more than a little caution.

'It doesn't look like there's anything living here...' he thought, making sure to look in every direction every five seconds. When he could, he would walk through the innards of the broken structures, making sure to look for anything of value.

There was none.

There was no threat either.

This continued to hold true thirty minutes later, as Incarnate ^8001 moved aimlessly.

The only thing of note was that the sand rose higher and higher in the direction he chose to persist in.

'What am I supposed to do here? I imagined I would have to fight or find something,' he thought.

So far, there wasn't any indication that he would find so much as a fly, much less some ancient relic, which left the new Incarnate a little underwhelmed by his first magical experience.

He didn't continue to find the same odd, lifeless structures for long, however, because soon, as he trekked up a particularly high mound of sand two hundred meters from where he had been, while once again being peppered by a ruthless wind carrying silt-like grains, he witnessed a terrifying sight.

Behind the mound, a few paces away, was a massive, conical pit in the sand that ended with the same rugged stone tiling at its visible bottom. Trapped within and around it, were the ancient skeletal remains of hundreds of people – at least they resembled human remains – some wearing tunics much like his, only hideously worn out.

Others were adorned in sets of armour with peculiar branding on their chest plates, or luxurious robes and cloaks.

Many of the skeletons weren't fully intact, as what remained of others were what used to be hands, and for some, heads.

Those among the hundreds with their limbs still attached, had their hands raised, their mouths agape, as though they had died calling for something.

The view of this collective somehow made goosebumps appear on the Hollow Demonling's skin.

'What happened here?' he thought with shock, awe, and an overwhelming sensation of fear.

But this wasn't the worst of it.

There was something on the other side of the pit.

Something he only managed to distinguish from the surroundings after a while.

It was a great statue.

It was quite large, looking to be made of granite, shaped into the form of a fat man with nine, lively eyes on his face which was paused in eternal laughter.

Its body grew from fat to wholly bulbous past the depiction of incredibly thick arms which were locked together and formed at the bottom, not feet, but the base of an egg, which sat on the sand, casting a shadow down into the pit.

The moment the new Incarnate gazed fully upon this great statue, he felt incredibly weak, and discovered for the first time, that he had three hearts when they beat loudly in his chest, creating a rhythmic noise that only he could hear.