Chapter 63 You Support

Then, the unique monster slipped into the Pond of Vitality with a Ploof.

I certainly was different—unable to feel the heat or cold, I simply knew water was surrounding me. Also, I didn't blend into the pond's contents; it was thanks to both the skills Jelly-like Shapeless and Resistant Body. My watery body was separate, like oil in water.

The pond was so little, but now it felt like an immensity. Around me, as I was sucked deeper into the pond, the water burbled intensely. Another last ringing sound rang out before I entered a deep slumber.

❮ Main Quest: Character's Creation — Bathe in the Pond of Vitality. 1/1 — Successfully completed. ❯

Though I didn't have any, my eyelids felt so heavy. Shutting my eyes tight, my swelling drowsiness took hold of me. There and then, before my eyes, though I was unconscious, all sorts of notifications and information were offered to me.

Similar to how I understood the contents of my first notifications when I wasn't conscious of them, back at my place of birth, the restaurant Fresh Pasta & Associate, at present, I also could subconsciously understand them all.

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❮ The Player has successfully completed 'First Quest: Character's Creation' — Due to the completion of 'First Quest: Character's Creation' the Player obtains 3 reward(s) — 1st reward: The Player is now permitted the obtention of the Player's Character — 2nd reward: The Player can now start the Game. 3rd reward: Talk to the Dryad and obtain 'Rookie's Equipment'. ❯

❮ Additional information? Y/N

❮ Additional information? Y/N — 5

❮ Additional information? Y/N — 4

❮ — 3

❮ — 1

❮ — 0

❮ Additional information? — No ❯

❮ 1st reward: Character's Creation has been received — Due to the obtention of '1st reward: Character's Creation' the Player will create his Character — The condition(s) have been met: 'State of Sleep' and 'Sufficient Mana Supply' and 'Pond of Vitality' conditions have been met. ❯

❮ Character's Creation — the 3 item(s) 'Power Seed x999' and 'Power Seed x999' and 'Power Seed x999' will be used to power the Creation Process — Charging Mana Supply en cours — 0% — 13% — 29% — 51% — 95% — 100% ❯

❮ Character's Creation — The System now recollected all past obtained human data to intelligently generate a body from scratch. It had been quite the long task. Listing up all the previous Receptacles I had secured, such as 'Mortde Reinred, Human, level 45' or 'Swordsman Reinred, Human, level 75', it blended all the information together to find a creational pattern. But let's just ignore the tedious details of the process. After that was done, the System carried on.

❮ A Privilege has been found. Due to the Unique Skill 'Mana's Benediction' a Privilege has been obtained — 'Character's Creation' can be set to Manual — Manually create the Character? Y/N — 5 — 2 — 1 — 0 — No — 'Character's Creation has been set on Automatic. ❯

❮ Character's Creation — Analyzing of every past human Receptacle's code and creative pattern: done — Determining the Character's appearance: done — Shaping and modeling of the Player's Character: in progress… ❯

It was a long, long process. Or that's how it felt to me, at the very least. Needless to say, being knocked out probably altered my perception of time. At any rate, it felt slow and gentle. From within myself, I felt something blossom, and take shape. This whole Character's Creation voyage was an eerie process to go through.

Obviously not anyone went through it, and in fact, even with unique monster people who managed to qualify for the reward and obtain a humanoid form, the process was drastically different. The old man spoke of decades of experience and strength amassed before undergoing an evolution. Also, said evolution, with other higher-level monsters or demi-humans, was carried out over a rather long period of time and many steps. So in the two aspects of the evolution process, I was quite different. I had no such long years of experience under my belt. What was more, my evolution was also astonishingly quicker.

The System notified me: Five items had been found. Four of them had already been priorly mentioned—it was around four thousand of an item called 'seed of power' or something. Go wonder what that was. Now, a new item was mentioned. 'Holy Water of the Pond of Vitality'. Labeling unusual terms on each of the items, the System said they were consumables. Well, they were to be consumed by me.

Why? Don't ask questions. They were here so I just ate them. Immediately, other notifications assaulted my drowsy mind.

❮ Shaping and modeling of the Player's Character: in progress — 1%

❮ Shaping and Modeling — 5%

❮ Shaping and Modeling — 9%

❮ — 15% — Failure to proceed.

❮ Retrying — 15% — Failure to proceed. Report — Occurring Error(s): 1 issue has been found therefore the process 'Shaping and Modeling' has failed to proceed. Occurring Error(s): Working a solution — 1 solution(s) has been found: due to having the Unique Skill [Grand Devourer] and the Unique Skill [Mana's Benediction] — the Unique Skill [Evolve] has upgraded into Unique Skill [Advanced Evolving] ❯

What a mess. That System thing sure promised to be more complex than what I expected.

❮ Shaping and Modeling: Retrying — 15% — 19% — And, over what seemed to be a long period of time, it went all the way up to 100%, without any other Failure to proceed being issued. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, I felt myself blossom to life. Once I'd grown to the size of a young teenage boy my 'forced evolution' or growth had stopped.

❮ The Player has obtained his Character.

❮ The new Title 'Humanoid' has been obtained.

❮ Awakening in process.

❮ Welcome to the Player.

❮ Open your eyes. ❯

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​ Darkness. Everything was dark. Dark… and just out of reach. I couldn't grasp anything. I couldn't clutch and grab at my surroundings. My eyes didn't perceive and comprehend. My ears didn't pick and find. My whole body was plunged into darkness. Only sort of. Was it scary? No. It felt perfectly normal. And I was now waking up.

Natural though it might have felt, I still had loads of questions. All in one single question, it could be the following one. What happened to me? And I mean, what 'exactly' happened? The answer was: my toes. My toes happened.

I felt my toes by now. They were cold and moistened. Damp into the earth. My legs came after the toes. Now, I could feel myself blinking. Then, it was my whole body. I felt somewhat different, but like I said, feeling off felt natural, if that makes sense. As I slowly was going back to my senses, my thoughts were suddenly cut short—

"Open your eyes." It was but a murmur in the dark, but it sounded so powerful and loud. My whole being reacted to that quite aggressively. Was it the System's voice? All the darkness surrounding me instantly went away in a wild dance.

I couldn't see it escape, actually. It just went away. What replaced it was a nauseous blend of bright colors. Bright colorful things. Mostly all brown, green, and gray, but damn that was hot stuff for my eyes to see. My 'actual' eyes.

It was in fact the first time I really 'saw'. Without using a Receptacle, I mean. Or some kind of Mana Perception skill. It was the first time that I 'felt' the World on my own terms. With my own eyes, and ears, feet, etc. The unique monster I was didn't have eyes, ears, or toes. That human form did. Or should I say Character? Am I logged in all right, now? What do you think, System? Heh.

It came quite as a shock to me anyway. All these stimulations. The experience was new to me. Hence why I understood it destabilized me. The bright gray color of the sky fell down and assaulted my eyes. The pounding sounds of the rain falling, too, were harassing my ears.

And for my eyes were many other shapes and colors to see. And for my ears were many other sounds to hear. Well, I basically woke up. My muscles went from totally limp to tonically active—I jumped up, stared all around me, and gathered I was in the little pond. Or what remained of it, rather. Before, it had been no more than a circle dug in the earth, with the befitting holy water of life contained in it, like a certain glass of water in a restaurant.

At present, I saw the pond's walls had been bit through so much the pond was now ten times larger than before. What was more, it was also considerably deeper. Also, there was the angelic tree that guarded the pond. It also suffered considerable damage. Arching and leaning down into the huge hollow of the pond, the biggest trunk was now so shrunk and narrowed.

The tree was on the verge of death. Maybe it already was dead. The angelic tree had grown unworthy of its title and was now no more than a regular, desolated dead old oak. My surroundings, which had minutes ago been so full of life and green, had been sucked dry of their lifeforce.

The monster had taken it all in. Seeing the ravage the 'Character Creation' process did, the ravage I did, I dryly scoffed and held a fist out. Clenching it, the monster felt an energy so immense inside of itself it immediately understood what had happened. Were the so-called thousands of Seed Power, Holy Water of Life, etc. not sufficient for my evolution? No. The majestic, giant tree was now dead and hollow, and the earth had been gnawed through so much.

"Damn…" I muttered. "So I can't argue anymore, eh? I'm a monster through and through—"

…Ring! "Uh? Oh, all right."

❮ Your Character has successfully been created — You qualify for starting the Game. ❯

That's the moment I was hit with loads of notifications again. Somehow used to the System's intervention, I didn't sweat it. Crossing my arms upon my chest, with a listless look on my face, I waited for it to speak.

❮ Isekai Production presents…