***
Inside Ryūchi Cave, there was a sect of the Sage-Snakes that believed weakness should be culled at birth.
All the clutch of eggs to be born were thrown into a pit and left to fend for themselves alone.
Every hatchling knew deep inside what needed to be done.
As soon as they came out of the egg, they were already aware and able … they needed to be, those that didn't simply died …
Hunger and instinct taught them all they would need to know …
It was a ritual, the ritual of birth, for that sect of the Ryūchi Cave … the culling of the weak, their death would feed the stakes worthy to be raised in the Ryūchi Cave …
And among those Hatchlings still breaking out of their eggs, there was one egg that wasn’t hatching …
*** *** ***
There was something weird to be said about how the reincarnation business worked … Jay always liked to keep his mind active and pondering on the ‘possibilities’ he would encounter this time …
There were some bad runs before … getting your soul stuck into an inanimate object was just the worst … no movement, barely any perception, just the endless march of time as you tried your best to figure out the Magic Methods of that specific reality … the only good news you could have about it is the certainty of a ‘freer’ Magic …
Jay hoped he wouldn't have to deal with THAT again … it took what felt like a decade bashing his mind at the problem before he figured out how to kill himself and roll for a new vessel …
At least some of the worst ‘bugs’ were already addressed … no more ‘sharing’ space with a nascent soul because you got in a little too late in the process … while it could be a fun side project to Raise it, Jay no longer had the patience … no thanks …
Thankfully for Jay, his ‘trip’ was relatively quick.
*** *** ***
As any Veteran ‘Explorer’ would tell you, your first few seconds of awareness could tell you a LOT about the viability of your run …
In Jay’s first seconds of awareness, he already figured out that … he was stuck inside something …
[Jay] “ Alright … awareness almost straight on birth … “
Jay tried to move around, letting his instincts guide his consciousness as he acclimated …
[Jay] “ This ‘shell’ feels surprisingly mobile for a new born … I can't feel any limbs … “
Jay felt his body coiling and uncoiling, taking care to not break out of what he could assume, with his limited information, was an egg …
[Jay] “ Some kind of limbless creature … a hard egg generally means land based … “
Feeling more comfortable with his movements, Jay decided to get ‘out’ and see what the new reality had to offer …
*** *** ***
[Jay] “ Bad luck, bad luck … “
Jay coiled his noodle body and jumped like a spring … still getting used to how ‘easy’ it was to move …
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As of now, from what Jay could gather, he was in a pretty ‘standard physics’ reality … gravity works as normal, light behaves as light … at least from what he could see in the badly illuminated pit he was in …
As he was falling back to the ground, another snake tried to pounce him …
Abusing his form’s noodleness, Jay bent the part his opponent was targeting out of the way, dodging the pounce.
Jay cashed back into the ground using his form to absorb the impact … like a skinny tire, but green colored …
***
Jay knew that there was a really, really high chance he would end up as an animal of some kind … Sapient life is basically a requirement for any reality to ‘stabilize’ … That means finding sapient life ‘anywhere’ was almost certain … That doesn't mean it's the only ‘type’ available, or the most common … and as long as the ‘Hardware’ was able to take his ‘Software’, it was possible to hop into some of the more ‘smart’ but not quite ‘intelligent’ animals out there …
***
[Jay] “Snake eyes … Not the luckiest rolls here … but at least this will work for collecting information before rolling again …”
Jay now had to dodge out of the way from a bunch of hatchlings that seemed to be converging on him …
[Jay] “These ‘danger noodles’ aren't stupid, they are starting to group and gang up on the competition … Shit, they are starting to focus on me …”
Jay jumped and ‘rolled’ out of the way, preferring the silly form of locomotion to slithering on the ground … Each dodge bought him a little more time to figure out the general rules of the new reality.
Outside the ‘pit’, the culling was observed …
***
[?1?] - That one keepssss on fleeing … -
A voice said, half annoyed, half amused …
[?2?] - He movesss weirdly … -
[?3?] - Coward with luck, he will be culled soon … he hasn't eaten yet, he is the runt of thisss bach … -
***
Jay dodged another pounce, finally having some breathing room now that the chaos around him was lessened … as were the number of hatchlings …
[Jay] “I’m running out of energy … crap, I should have eaten some of the bodies … Are they getting bigger ? … Shit, they are getting bigger, that’s so unfair, I didn’t get the memo I was supposed to stuff myself full while trying to survive …”
Jay looked around, his eyes weren’t all that good, but he could make do with the blurriness … he could see the edge of the pit he was in … The rock was probably too smooth to climb, but Jay made some nifty discoveries running around …
[Jay] “Alright … I have this ‘inner-energy’ flowing inside my magnificent tubeness, but I can kind of feel that there is a LOT of it around me … my tiny body just isn’t using it for some reason … This feels like one the ‘freer’ kind of magic I like, but a bit more unwieldy, I’ll need to work on that … But let’s see if ‘helping’ the process along gets me some results …”
Jay saw that his opponents were once more trying to gang up on him, seeing that he was getting exhausted and was also significantly smaller, Jay made a risky move …
***
[???] - WHAT ?! -
A cacophony of voices loudly hissed as they saw the runt once more try to flee, only this time, something impossible happened …
***
The ‘magic’ present in the new reality Jay was in was ‘Chakra’ …
It was, in general terms, an energy that was present all around in a ‘crude’ form … most called it ‘Natural Chakra’ …
Any living being, just by being alive, ‘metabolizes’ some of this energy, producing it’s own ‘Life-Force’ or ‘Chakra’ …
It was a delicate and slow process, for too much ‘Natural Chakra’ was extremely toxic to an organism, that’s why most living things that evolved around it, only let a ‘tiny’ amount inside to be processed … It's an evolutionary ‘Limiter’ of sorts …
Over time, a living being adapts to it, being able to withstand higher and higher doses of ‘Natural Chakra’, it’s body able to process it ‘faster’ and use ‘more’ of it …
WIth the right training and conditioning, this process can be hastened, the ‘physical’ vessel slowly ‘forged’ into something ‘greater’ …
And when one is ‘strong’ enough, they can attempt to break past their evolutionary ‘Limiter’ … To make use of the ‘Natural Chakra’ in it’s crude and most powerful form.
You need a deep knowledge of yourself, your body and the ‘Natural Chakra’ around you to even try … You have to be willing to bear the pain of it, the deep and long lasting pain of your body being ‘poisoned’ almost to your death … But most importantly, you need an exceptionally strong ‘Will’ to push past that last barrier after the pain and on the verge of death …
***
Jay was well studied … the Empire had more than enough instructors to make even an average guy like him into a ‘good enough expert’ into pretty much anything, if you put in the work …
… And while there is a limit to what your ‘soul’ can remember by itself … The brain isn't a ‘decoration’ after all … You can make do with ‘experience’, it won’t be perfect, it will feel like you’re always learning something you already know, but it helps immensely with getting back up to speed …
So Jay had the Knowledge …
For a true citizen of the Empire … bodies are just shells … You can make tweaks, you can change out of it, you can even live without one as a ‘digital mind’ … Jay is used to jumping through bodies and forms even more so than the average citizen … As part of his training, Jay had to get used to many different forms, some that just didn’t mesh well with him at all … but he had to learn all the same … Jay’s mind is already used to viewing biological ‘pain’ as the ‘warning’ it is … it’s a ‘beeping’ alarm that can be ignored with little difficulty …
So Jay had the Willingness …
Being as long lived as he was, and with as many experiences as he had … Jay’s ‘spirit’ was strong enough to pull in the ‘Natural Chakra’ through brute force alone …
So Jay also had the Will …
Too bad he didn’t have the foundational piece of it all …
***
Inside Ryūchi Cave, there was a sect of the Sage-Snakes that believed weakness should be culled at birth …
This culling was a ritual, an entire generation of eggs were thrown into the ‘pit’, bathed with ‘killing intent’ and let to hatch …
The stronger ones would grow by eating the weak until the ‘Elders’ became satisfied with the culling …
This would produce a new generation of strong snakes, already bathed in the blood of the obstacles to their growth and ambition … True Ryūchi Snakes …
But this generation was a failure … an impossible failure at that …
An explosion rocked the pit, stone-like shrapnel shredded through the remaining hatchlings when the lucky runt of the clutch did the impossible in his desperation to survive …
The Hatchling tried to become a Sage …
It was impossible and awe inspiring the ‘strength’ of the hatchling's pull on the ‘Nature’s Chakra’, it told of a ‘spirit’ with untold potential … and the utter failure that it was …
As condensed as the ‘Nature’s Chakra’ was in the holy grounds of the Ryūchi Cave … The Hatchling killed himself in a spectacular manner … It’s body turned to ‘Stone’ at the same time it exploded with the excessive pressure of too much ‘Natural Chakra’ coursing through it …
It was a shrapnell bomb … And it killed every other Hatchling in the pit …
***
