I feel like the darkness is surrounding me and lifting my body away from the world and placing me into the void. After floating in the nothingness for a little while, a small burning sensation starts near my heart and then spreads like wildfire all over my body and soul. The sensation grows and grows until it becomes unbearable and overwhelms my nervous system. I feel my soul being reshaped and molded as if I’m a marshmallow that got cooked over a fire by an inattentive child. The heat is blistering and my nerves are fraying and melting into nothingness.

  After what feels like eons, the pain slowly diminishes and fades away. My entire body feels like that marshmallow got dropped into the fire and is slowly sliding off the side of a burnt log. When the burning fades to nothing and all that’s left is my entire system feeling exhausted, the overwhelming sensation changes to a soothing chill that spreads throughout my body.

  Eventually it fades again and I lay in the void with the absence of all feeling. I slowly feel the panging of hunger and open my eyes again to the sunset in the forest. I mentally bring up my system menus and look for any changes in my status while scanning my internal channels and structures for anything of note.

  Information

  *Choose Class to Gain Points and Assign Stats for Level Ups*

  *New Skill Choice Available*

  Alaina Glace

  Race: Devourer Tier I

  Class: ???

  Level: 3

  Status

  Health Points: 50/50

  Stamina Points: 3/60

  Magic Points: 20/20

  Attributes

  Strength: 9

  Dexterity: 10

  Endurance: 9

  Constitution: 10

  Wisdom: 6

  Intelligence: 8

  Charisma: 8

  Luck: 10

  Skills:

  Survivalist Basics I, Shelter Building I, Assessing Eyes I, Instinctual Understanding (Basic) I, Energy Control II, Hunger I [Unique]

  Titles & Achievements:

  Ancestral Progenitor (Be the first of a race of your design. Congrats! Plus five percent effectiveness of all charming skills or spells)

  Revenant (How are you even alive?! Lived through a fight with an elite type enemy with 1 HP or less. +5% to Constitution and Endurance and gain the Iron Will or Steelskin skill)

  Traverser (You got yourself Isekai’d… Cool, I guess. Want a cookie? Gain Instinctual Understanding Skill)

  Racial Traits & Bonuses:

  +5% Constitution

  +5% Endurance

  +Hunger [Unique] Skill

  “How are you feeling?” Ivy says while hovering off in my periphery.

  “Exhausted beyond belief.” I reply groggily while reading through my notifications.

  *Multiple Blessings have synthesized and merged into new bonus race*

  *Class selection available*

  *Skill Selection available*

  “What does it mean if something has synthesized and merged with the System? Also is Vaelorym in charge of the system or is it one of those cosmic entities he told me about?” I ask rapidly.

  “If the merging is in reference to your blessings, then your Vaelorym’s Trace and my blessing mixed together to form something greater. Sadly, you lost access to either of the blessings, but the bonus they morphed into should be better overall anyway. Most of the time anyways.” She responds thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know what you mean by cosmic entities, but I believe the universe is governed by the power of the System so if that’s what you mean it could be them. Vaelorym is ruling deity of this planet and solar system. Out of curiosity, what did you get out of your Synergy?” She asks me with a small grin on her face.

  “It looks like it upgraded all my stats a little bit, gave me a new skill, and changed my race, I think. Will the System be able to give me information about anything in my Status Menus or do I need a Tutorial Crystal or something like that?” I reply while asking my own question.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “It should give you all the available information that you could know, except for in the case of the information that a skill gives you. Also let me use this contract skill really quick so that I can be locked into being your World Guide and then I can also answer questions about anything you want to share with me.” She comments as she starts drawing a sigil into the air.

  She quickly flourishes her fingers around in the air while flowing energy into her palms and fingertips and slowly a small white piece of paper phases into existence in front of her. The writing on the paper is indiscernible, but as she finishes the skill a small prompt pops up into my periphery and I open it with a thought.

  *Contract Initiated by entity Ivy the Forest Sprite*

  This will allow Ivy to become a familiar and your World Guide. As a World Guide she will gain access to whatever information from your status that you allow her to see at all times and will be able to help you in your quests!

  *Warning*

  The familiar bond can be broken by an agreement by both parties or by any governing entity with the consent of one of the bonded individuals.

  “Is there anything I should know about this beforehand or did the prompt that came up cover most of it?” I ask while skimming through the text like I would any old Terms & Conditions page from a video game.

  “It is a binding contract so it would be hard to get rid of me without meeting the criteria that it states. You will get slightly lowered experience being in a party with a familiar, but the split is much heavier in your favor compared to a normal party of other adventurers. You’ll also be allowed to choose what information you want to share with me about your statuses, but I recommend sharing everything after you go through it to see if I can get any more information to give you through my World Guide class skills. Oh yeah by the way, my whole class will change with this contract, but I’ll keep access to my healing and support magic to be a better familiar so that’s good at least.” Ivy answers calmly.

  “Wait, that seems like a really big deal. Are you sure you want to tie yourself to me like that?” I ask worriedly.

  “Of course! Being able to help a Traverser is rare, let alone one with a True Blessing from Vaelorym.” She exclaims with a giant goofy grin on her face.

  “Okay, well let’s do it then!” I respond, while happily accepting the contract.

  Congratulations! Entity Ivy is now your familiar and World Guide!

  Good luck!

  “Okay, let me look through my new acquisitions really quick and then I’ll share full access to my statuses to see what you can find out.” I say while bringing up my menus.

  “Take your time.” She responds curtly.

  I start out with my new race at the top and see if the System can tell me what it got changed into.

  Devourer: ??? Primal ??? Gluttonous ???

  “Odd. My race shows the words Devourer, Primal, and Gluttonous and then a bunch of glitchy question marks around them.” I say as I read through the weird description.

  “Sounds powerful and mysterious. Keep going so I can see them already!” She almost yells at me.

  Next up is my new skill and then to choose a skill from my title upgrades.

  Hunger I [Unique]: Augmentation Skill. Requires consumption of animal or enemy carcass to acquire traits of their physiology. The rarer the target or the higher quality of product, the more the trait will upgrade.

  Skill Choice Available: Iron Will, Steelskin

  Iron Will: Offers protection to mental attacks or charm effects of spells or skills depending on the Wisdom stat of the user and the Proficiency Level of Iron Will.

  Steelskin: The skin of the user will become hardened and more resistant to physical damage while retaining all mobility. Effect is based on the Constitution and Endurance of the user and the Proficiency Level of the Steelskin skill.

  “Question for you Ivy. How rare is it to get a hardening skill for your skin or a mental protection skill?” I ask while reading the curt descriptions of the skills.

  “Depends on your class, race, and available trainers you encounter. There’s plenty of variations of skills that do those things. Which ones in particular are you seeing?” She responds while landing softly on my shoulder and sitting down.

  “I got the Revenant title from that Roller Bear fight and it’s offering me the choice of Iron Will or Steelskin.” I answer.

  “Wow that was a waaaayyyy closer fight than you let on then. Your luck must be insane for your level! Both of those skills are some of the best you can get for their effects, but the best choice depends on what you want to do with your class or fighting style.” She exclaims while smoothing out her dress.

  “Yeah, it was pretty bad. For my class I have no idea what to do. Maybe I should give you full access before choosing so you can give your opinions on my best attributes or to see if my race gets a benefit from one more than the other?” I question.

  “Good idea!” She comments while lightly clapping with excitement.

  I mentally access the familiar bond and give her full access to all my information. I watch quietly as her eyes flit back and forth across the invisible screen. She straightens and her brow furrows and she sits silently for a few seconds.

  “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Good news is your Unique skill is amazing and works similarly to some monster skills that allow them to temporarily steal traits during a battle, but yours is permanent. I can’t tell without seeing it in action if you can choose what you take or if it will physically alter you permanently or if it can be turned on and off on a whim.” She says after bringing up anything she can about Hunger.

  “Bad news is that I’ve never seen or heard of this Devourer race, but it can’t be that bad of a detriment if it is one. Judging by how you kept your Progenitor Title I’m guessing you’re the first one, and seeing as it was a merge of a True level blessing it will most likely be very strong when upgraded.” She says while slightly frowning at the screen only she can see.

  “Based on your Unique skill and stats I would recommend taking the Iron Will skill as you’ll be getting plenty of physical enhancements from your enemies.” She comments after turning her eyes towards me.

  I sit quietly staring off into the distance and think back to that second image in the pond of me like a feral animal. Why would this System be trying to force me into eating meat? Especially by making me kill whatever the target is first! I think to myself while trying to wrap my head around the information that just got dumped onto me.

  “I really don’t want to hurt anything if I don’t have to and I don’t know if I could even force myself to eat any meat in general.” I respond quietly.

  “Your race may not give you the option. One of the downsides of it that I can see seems to be that if you don’t partake in “feasting” at least once every three days or so you will lose access to the skill and lose most of your stats while incurring a very long period of terrible weakness.” She says sadly while frowning and looking me in the eyes.

  “Feasting in this sense definitely means you need to eat some kind of meat during those periods. Whether that’s what you hunt and kill or if you buy it at a tavern I can’t say. You should have an internal sense that will work almost like a progress bar or something from your past world.” She whispers while looking down.

  “How do you know what a progress bar is?” I ask with sudden confusion taking the place of the sadness I felt.

  “When I became your World Guide I gained a basic amount of knowledge of your past world and slightly more information into the hobbies or interests you had. Also how dare you compare me to that pixelated chihuahua named Navi?!” She suddenly exclaims with a bit of an indignant huff.

  “I mostly tried to make myself laugh to cope with the sudden change of everything and anything I ever knew.” I say while giggling to myself.

  “Glad to know someone will at least get my references a bit then.” I say after my laughing calms down to a small smile across my lips

  I pick up the Iron Will skill while thinking about it and feel a pinprick of pain behind my eyes and then a small warmth spreads through my head. Looks like it’s a passive skill so at least I don’t have to remember to use it I think to myself while trying to reign in the influx of knowledge. I feel my stomach grumble from hunger and quickly study my internals to see if I can get a sense for if it’s my general sense of hunger or the skill.

  “You should probably get the rest of your skills activated when you can. It’s a pretty pricey endeavor, but well worth it for the free information you’ll gain from your survival skills.” Ivy says while surprising me out of my own head.

  “Oh, I activated Assessing Eyes by myself already and the Energy Control was already done and upgraded when I got here.” I respond.

  “That’s an extremely rare ability of yours to be able to activate your own pathways without getting the assistance of a specialist first. Might be from your increased Energy Control or could be that you have a strong, innate understanding of yourself that most don’t.” She says thoughtfully.

  “While I activate these can you try and figure out our next steps? We should probably make camp here for the night and then head towards a bigger city. Vaelorym said to get my affinities tested and I wanna gain a class and join the Adventurer’s Guild or whatever it is.” I say while focusing internally on the messed-up structures of strings that is the inactive survival skills.

  “I’ll gather some small kindling for you so we can make a fire. The nearest city to the northeast should have a guildhall. They all work as one bigger structure throughout the world. You could join up with an adventuring party if you’d like to after we get more information.” She says while standing up and looking around the wreckage of the fight with the Roller Bear.

  She flits off like a hummingbird and starts gathering small twigs into a pile about twenty feet away from me in a small grove of trees. I smile and close my eyes and enter a meditative state as I study the tangled strands of energy and slowly start untangling them.