Karma barely had time to react, and even if he had, there was no way he could have dodged the bolt of celestial energy that struck him.
He felt a wave of energy surge through his entire body. Like a current of liquid electricity flowing through his veins.
Strangely enough, the process wasn't particularly painful. Just weird and deeply uncomfortable.
Before he could recover, a robotic voice echoed inside his head.
[Soul Rewrite Complete]
[Connecting to the Noosphere]
[Installing Internal Lattice]
[Process Complete]
[System successfully installed]
Karma's vision cleared and the world stopped spinning.
He looked around, rattled.
What had just happened?
Looking more carefully, he could see that he apparently wasn't the only one who had been left dazed after being hit by that bolt.
Karma held his head as his thoughts slowly came back into focus.
Had he just received one of those classic systems from all the fiction he'd read?
The thought stirred something in him. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Even if his life was on the line, wasn't that so much more exciting than the one he'd been living up until now?
He didn't hesitate for a second. He quickly said the "magic words" you're supposed to say to pull up your status.
"[Status]," Karma said out loud.
Though oddly enough, the display window opened the moment he had the intention to check it.
Maybe it activated automatically, he thought.
---
Name: Karma Murphy
Race: Human
Age: 21
Level: 0
EXP: 0 / 1,000
Fortune: -10,000,000
Spirit (Colorless): 0%
Spells: [None]
Techniques: [None]
Skills 0/5: [None]
Physical Attributes:
Strength: 7
Constitution: 3
Speed: 6
Agility: 3
Gift:
Fate Devourer {Maljut — 0%}
Ability:
This skill allows the user to devour the good fortune of other individuals by marking them as targets, potentially driving their luck into the negatives.
Negative fortune causes the affected individual to experience a string of misfortunes until their luck stabilizes.
In the event that the user kills a marked target while the fortune absorption is active, they will also have the chance to absorb that individual's [Gift] and convert it into a [Skill].
Limitation:
This skill functions like a fortune vacuum. However, it cannot absorb fortune if the user's own luck is at zero or above.
The skill does not allow the user to increase their own fortune, meaning their negative luck essentially serves as the battery that powers it.
If the user's fortune reaches 0, they will no longer be able to absorb luck and must wait for their fortune to drop again.
Drawback:
The user is unaffected by luck entirely, whether good or bad, even when their fortune values are in the positives.
Items that attract good fortune will have no effect on them. However, this also means the user can equip cursed bad-luck charms to recharge their "battery" without fear of the side effects.
---
Looking at his status, Karma was thoroughly confused.
The first thing that caught his eye was, obviously, his staggering bad fortune.
"-10,000,000"
That was no small number.
He had no idea what a normal fortune value was supposed to look like, but a number that large was hard to ignore.
And compared to his other stats, it was absurdly out of proportion.
Maybe it was a side effect of his [Gift]?
He wasn't sure.
Nothing in the description pointed to that being the case, and Karma didn't remember being especially unlucky in life. Not to that degree, anyway.
So what exactly had caused a number that ridiculous was still unclear.
"Though apparently, it works in my favor," Karma muttered to himself as he read through his [Gift] again.
It seemed like the lower his fortune, the better.
He wouldn't suffer the effects of bad luck, and even if his fortune turned positive, he'd never feel it either.
On top of that, it meant he could absorb fortune from others indefinitely.
"I wonder how broken this actually is in practice. From what I understand, [Gifts] grow with you, so it's probably not that strong at the start," he said to himself, rubbing his chin.
He couldn't get overconfident yet. But he could at least say, without a doubt, that his ability looked promising.
He glanced around.
People were reacting to their [Gifts] in all sorts of ways. Some looked happy and thrilled, others confused, and a few visibly disappointed.
There seemed to be quite a range.
"Leding? That name sounds insane! What did I tell you, Marcus, you always pull the best powers," a nearby voice said.
Karma turned around. As expected, Marcus and his crew were making a scene.
He felt a flicker of curiosity hearing the name of Marcus's ability. On one hand, he knew it didn't matter how underwhelming it actually was since his group of yes-men would hype it up regardless. But on the other hand, that name rang a bell.
Leding.
The name of the first chain used to bind Fenrir.
Karma was genuinely curious about what that ability did.
But just then, the screech of a train pulled his attention toward the tracks.
He turned to see an old steam locomotive pulling into the station.
His jaw nearly dropped.
What in the world was a steam engine doing in a subway?
None of this made any sense.
"Choo choo! All aboard! Hahahaha," Belial laughed, watching the crowd with a wide grin. "Looks like I gave you just enough time to get ready, right? I hope so! Because the first game is starting now!"
In that moment, a thick cloud of steam flooded the station, and from inside the train came the sounds of creatures growling and snarling.
Were they really supposed to fight already?
"Let's see how many of you survive the first game: [Find the Den]!"
________________________________________
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