Steam curled lazily off my shoulders as I stepped out of the shower and into the cool air of my chambers. The droplets of water clung stubbornly to my skin, tracing lines across muscle that wasn't really mine... well, not originally mine. I was slightly muscular to look athletic but not enough to scream "bodybuilder." I stared at my reflection in the mirror, towel around my waist, and sighed.
"I got used to Altera Earth way too easily."
Because it was true. The me who first opened his eyes in Phasnovterich's body on February 14th wouldn't recognize this version. Now, forty-four days later, on the first of May, Occultare was easy to use. It wasn't even conscious effort anymore and that scared me a little.
I dragged a hand down my face and leaned closer to the mirror. The eyes staring back weren't my old ones. They were Phasnovterich's and every time I looked at them, I felt that little stab of discomfort. Because along with this body, I had gotten his memories. Not a lot, surprisingly. I saw broken slideshow of a boy's life.
He has a father who is always bedridden, an aunt who also happened to be Chancellor of Reversa University, a childhood spent half in classrooms, half in corridors of stone, where House heirs and gifted Commoner Fluxers were tossed together like oil and fire and a sister. And… yeah. He has a sister complex.
The gaps in his life bothered me. Why do I have few memories? Why did they blur and dissolve the further I tried to chase them? I didn't know what happened to the real him. Did he die? Did he slip away into the cracks of existence when I landed here? Did some deity remove his soul out like bad code in a video game?
Every time I thought about it, my gut whispered the same warning: Don't unravel it. Because behind that answer was only more questions, and more questions meant more headaches. For now, I was here and that was enough.
And now, after weeks of dune climbs, rope burns, silent exhaustion and Nefira's torture disguised as training, Seirath had finally given me permission to enter the Library. I should have been thrilled. Instead, I was staring at myself in a towel like some washed-up soap opera star, thinking about how weird this world's calendar system was.
Because today wasn't just May first. It was Fool's Day. And Fool's Day here t wasn't the "haha, let's tape a paper fish to your back" nonsense from my old world. Fool's Day in MoDS was something else entirely.
It was a day of luck. And like all strange holidays, it had a lore story behind it.
The tale went something like this.
Once upon a time, the Goddess of Knowledge, who was always convinced she was the smartest , decided she was bored. Knowledge was good yes, but knowledge without entertainment was pointless. So, she turned her sights on her friend, the Goddess of Nature. She was serious, disciplined and the mother of forests and balance.
The Knowledge Goddess saw her as a target.
So, she devised a prank. Not a small one, mind you. She wove illusions of endless blossoms, made entire rivers reverse their flow, tricked animals into speaking fluent poetry and even tampered with her sacred apple tree, swapping the fruits for onions that looked like apples until bitten.
The Goddess, walking through her lands, nearly lost her mind. The birds were reciting limericks, deer were bowing like knights, rivers were flowing backwards and her followers biting into her "holy apples" and choking on raw onion.
She stormed up to the Knowledge Goddess.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
The Goddess of Knowledge of course, just smirked and said, "Oh, just testing your perception. Surely the Goddess of Nature knows the difference between an apple and an onion?"
The two goddesses nearly leveled the domain that day but in the end, the Nature Goddess realized something. No disaster had actually happened. It was just harmless chaos.
And then, every single mortal who had participated in the prank day (knowingly or not) found themselves incredibly lucky for the next year. Farmers' crops doubled. Hunters always returned with game. Miners struck veins of ore. Even gamblers won coin in back-alley games.
And so, Fool's Day became canonized as the "Day of Luck." The tradition stuck with mortals prank each other, laugh at the absurdity, and hope the goddesses smile on them with fortune.
The MoDS fanbase loved Fool's Day.
Forums filled with prank compilations. Entire co-op teams planned in-game stunts. Artists spammed illustrations of the Knowledge Goddess grinning like a gremlin while the Nature Goddess chewed an onion with rage-tears in her eyes. People roleplayed as people biting "holy onions." It became the community day of memes, jokes, chaos and a weird shared superstition that if you pranked someone well, you would be "lucky" for the rest of the year.
The fan-favorite were the rank wars. Players were coding custom mods to turn NPCs into chickens for 24 hours. Once, a server-wide prank replaced everyone's character names with fruit names. Imagine 3,000 people running around as "Banana_124" and "GrapefruitSlayer."
It wasn't just pranks, though. People leaned into the "day of luck" too. Every Fool's Day, the community was half screaming with laughter and half crying over gacha luck. And standing there in my towel, looking at myself in the mirror, I couldn't help but laugh. Because even here, in this strange world, Fool's Day was alive with a different origin and rules, but the same chaos.
I dried my hair as best I could, tied it into a ponytail while avoiding my long bangs, and pulled on my robes. Today was supposed to be quiet library day. It was my reward for weeks of dunes, ropes, and Nefira's "accidental torture."
The Fast Travel Rooms were at the forty second floor of the pyramid. When I entered, waiting for me, was a woman.
She wasn't what I expected. I half thought I would find another blindfolded tormentor like Nefira. Instead, she was radiant. Her skin was chocolate, softer in shade than Nefira's dark brown skin. Her hair was brown and very long. Her clothing was simple. She wore a white sleeveless robe, cinched at the waist, sandals on her feet but on her, it didn't look plain. When her eyes met mine, they weren't cold or sharp. They were… calm.
"You must be Phasnovterich."
"I am. And you are?"
She smiled as if she had been expecting that exact question.
"I am Hinesia, the first daughter of Seirath. I'll be your guide to the Library today."
I blinked, caught off guard by how casual she made it sound.
"Thank you. Should I call you Hinesia or should I be casual?"
"It's no big deal. Also, I was going to the library anyway. You just happened to need a ride."
"Convenient timing."
"Or fate."
I didn't answer that. Fate had been throwing curve balls at me since February. She motioned to the room.
"Shall we?"
I stepped in beside her. The moment my feet crossed to the white chambers, the hum intensified, crawling up my legs like static.
Hinesia raised her hand and traced a hieroglyph in the air. It answered her instantly with threads of light snapping into place around us. She didn't chant. Her control was so fine she simply willed it and the world obeyed. Light swallowed us whole, rushing up my throat, into my lungs, blinding me. My stomach twisted like I'd been dropped from a mountain, but there was no fall.
I felt solid stone beneath my feet again.
When I opened my eyes, I forgot how to breathe.
We stood before a massive building on broad daylight.
Pillars of white marble spiraled higher than I could crane my neck, etched with hieroglyphs that glowed faintly as if breathing. The gates were not gates but a colossal bronze door. Above it all was a dome that revealed the entire sky as the sunlight reflected all of it. Hinesia grinned, interested in my awe.
"You're not the only one who reacts like that."
"You mean… it looks like this every time?"
"Every time. And trust me, I've been here hundreds of times. It sill amazes me."
I tore my gaze from the dome back to her.
"This is… this is more than a library."
Of course it would be this. The MoDS devs had loved weaving myths and history into this place. Hinesia spoke, sweeping her arm toward the monumental doors as though she were unveiling the heart of civilization itself.
"Welcome to Alexandria University, one of the three largest Flux Universities."