В хронике моей... / In the Chronicle of Mine: 0.

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Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:23

Synopsis: Perhaps some people secretly dream of becoming an “Isekai.” Of being transported to another world, one filled with magic, princesses, elves, and maybe even a Leveling System. After all, what is there to fear about such a transfer if nothing at all is keeping you in your home world, and in the new place, you might not be as much of a loser as you were in the old one? The trouble for the Isekao, however, comes when people like you in a world of magic, princesses, elves, and the System don’t surprise anyone. Just another batch of souls brought by the Void, who have found bodies—no different from the hundreds of millions of perfectly ordinary locals of this world alone, not counting the neighboring ones. They’ve never been kind to one another, so don’t expect them to show kindness toward you.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:34

From the author: A very old RealRPG project that has suddenly been revived—one that could very well have seen the light of day instead of *The Uncalled*. Many of the System’s elements are inspired by Mark Kuzmin’s excellent but unfinished (now completed) series, *Skidblandir*. Not enough to qualify as fanfiction or even plagiarism, but a very strong source of inspiration. That said, it wasn’t the only one—I’ve borrowed plenty of good concepts from various sources, just so I could thoroughly mess them up and ruin them with my clumsy hands.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:37

Warnings: I did, of course, have some plans for hentai involving brainwashing, but I know myself too well, so I can’t guarantee it's actually going to appear here. However, aside from intimate scenes for mature kids, this piece of trash will also earn a high rating for its gore, profanity, descriptions of all manner of vices, and simply nightmarish creatures from the depths of the author’s imagination. Children should definitely not read this. And, forgive me, Lord, but I wouldn’t recommend my own work to adults either.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:38

So, as usual, I recommend exactly the same thing I do before any of my other works: don’t read this piece at all.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:39

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Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:39

You were walking, you fell, you woke up—in a cast. That’s how the unforgettable classic went, but as for him, Leonid Valeryevich Ptakh, fate spared him even the last two parts—and the cast, for that matter. Yes, he really was walking, calmly and steadily, content and almost happy, having finally received that long-awaited promotion at work and managed to ask Marina out on a date—they’d been exchanging longing glances for a month but couldn’t bring themselves to test the waters. He walked and walked, and then it happened. Literally—in the memory, which he now perceives so fully that he can count the number of hairs in the nose of the obstetrician who lifted him, there is nothing about how exactly his soul, the naked essence of being, ended up right here. Wherever “here” may be.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:45

Just a split second, and then—poof! Darkness all around, silence all around, and absolute nothingness all around! No body to feel the fear triggered by hormones flooding the brain, because there’s no brain either. And not just as his math teacher Albina Albertovna Zlak had told him, but there really is no brain. Physically, bitch, there isn’t! Only darkness, so absolute that it denies the very fact of the existence of anything other than itself, and yet there he is, stuck in this darkness. For centuries, millennia, eons. He vaguely realizes that time is passing, but at the same time, he doesn’t perceive this time; millions of years merge into seconds of personal perception, eons fit into a span of time sufficient only to mentally think “an eon, for fuck’s sake!”, and fucking eternity races forward like some Formula One car.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:47

No words, no thoughts, only understanding—a kind of direct suggestion and transmission of will that proclaims the Immutable Truth (tm). The universe is like a mechanism, finely tuned and existing long before Time itself was born, but, as with any mechanism, minor glitches do occur in it as well. And so he became such a glitch—having died from some unknown cause in his human life, he did not go where the dead are supposed to go, but simply fell out of the mechanism and hung suspended in nowhere. Right on the edge of that nowhere—not close enough to dissolve into it, yet too far away to be dragged back into the cycle of souls and everything else.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:54

And there he remained until a trigger mechanism of that same universal mechanism—or rather, the Universal Mechanism (tm)—kicked in, a mechanism that activates regularly every few hundred eons of Earth’s calendar years. Or every thousandth of a second—it makes no difference, for in the void, in complete darkness, the very concept of time does not exist. In short, his soul was dragged under a microscope, examined from every angle, looked at under the microscope, and then kicked back out, back into the cycle. And considering the fact that during its stay in nowhere, this soul had become somewhat imbued with all sorts of forces that Lie Beyond Human Comprehension (tm), they didn’t kick it out empty-handed. Figuratively speaking, since a naked soul has no hands, it has only self-awareness.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:55

The excess energy—the very nature of the universe—which, for lack of a better term, had clung to the soul during its time in the void, was scraped away from the soul and sent where it belonged; yet some pitiful remnants of that energy were allowed to be absorbed. Exactly as much as the soul could possibly absorb without bursting at the seams—no more, but no less. This gift formed on its own, randomly, while the soul was being dragged toward the cesspool that was best suited for the existence of a soul like this. Roughly speaking, Leonid was drawn into the world of a true RealRPG, or rather, a schematic world. A world too chaotic to resemble an ordinary cluster of planets in the cosmic void. A world that would itself dissolve like wet paper in this chaos if it weren’t for the very System that sustains that world, simultaneously blessing all its inhabitants. A world that constantly lives in struggle, battling the endless stream of monsters spawned by the ceaseless chaos of existence, leveling up, developing from nothing, and returning to nothing.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:57

It was there, to one of those worlds, that the soul lost in the darkness was sent—along with hundreds, thousands, and countless others just like him, lost souls whom the Mechanism, the Chronicles, and a host of other names in the worlds of the Omnipresent and All-Encompassing System, the Scheme, Mechanism, Chronicle, and a whole host of other names, were simply called the Lost, the Strangers, or the Wanderers. In an instant, he was touched by something else, no less great and almighty than the previous force that gathered lost souls, yet completely different. More understandable, more familiar, appreciative, and impartial. The Great Chronicle, in which is recorded all that has been and all that will be in the worlds under its dominion—worlds eternally at war, eternally perishing, and eternally reborn.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 10:57

Iulatar welcomes the Wanderer!

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:15

Potential assessment is underway.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:15

Absorption and synchronization of the Primordial Matter.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:15

The selection of Gifts is random, based on the value and quantity of the Primordial Matter.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:16

The assessment was made: the number of Gifts is two.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:16

Quality of gift: highest.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:16

Gift quality: minor.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:17

Shuddering, he sensed before him everything that he was from the perspective of that very essence. In other words, to put it in simpler terms, Leonid saw his systemic status. Or rather, a fragment of it—one that hadn’t yet fully formed and therefore couldn’t manifest a new body for him. After all, first he had to accept his gifts, one of which was obviously quite, quite awesome, and the other, well, just a throwaway from the first. Well, that’s roughly how Leonid understood it, and the fragment of the Scheme-Mechanism-System connected to him confirmed these thoughts, without words or labels, through pure awareness—something he was gradually getting used to. The outline of his body, a transparent copy of it, seemed woven from barely discernible threads—millions of threads, each thinner than a nanofiber—and along with the body, a status sheet was being created.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:24

Name: Leonid Ptakh

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:25

Declared title: undeserved

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:25

Affiliation: human

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:26

Class: Initiate

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:26

Potential: Exalted

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:26

Step: 0

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:27

Improvements: none

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:27

Adopted skills: 0/7

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:28

Free Properties:

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 11:07

Voidwalker: You have passed through the Void and been accepted into a new home, your body woven by the world itself and free of any previous flaws or curses.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 11:08

Humanity Adaptability: Skill unlocking has been made easier; the amount of Primordial Experience Condensation gained has been permanently increased by a significant amount.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 11:08

Beginning of the Path: You've only just embarked on the path to power, but it's so easy to vanish without a trace. There's a chance that more advanced Walkers will receive a mild but permanent debuff for intentionally and unprovokedly killing you or orchestrating your death (lasting one world year from initiation or until class change). Also, no Gift Boxes appear after the Initiate's death.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 11:09

Gifts of the Omnipresent (activated): By bringing back a portion of the Primordial Matter from the lost house, you have acquired two Gift Boxes; acquire your Gifts to complete your incarnation.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 11:09

A part of his mind was trying to figure out exactly what he was seeing, desperately hoping to get another systematic explanation—not just an intuitive and vague understanding—but he was genuinely, childishly surprised that he actually got it! To be fair, this information was—pardon the pun—very schematic and provided no answers beyond the most basic ones. In his situation... even those basic answers were more valuable than permanent VIP access to Wikipedia, honestly, if only because Wikipedia hadn’t been of much use to him before, and certainly not now!

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 12:55

For improving the physical, magical, or other attributes of his new body, Improvements: will be responsible—one per skill chosen, awarded to any local resident who has undergone initiation upon leveling up. These improvements are tied specifically to the chosen skill and the type of work performed while leveling up. Muscles will become stronger, ligaments more flexible, eyes more keen, and the stomach more resilient. If the chosen skill was something like Farming, then the improvements will focus on what is important for using that skill—stamina, muscle strength, and the ability to sleep less. At the same time, the Gymnastics skill will improve flexibility, coordination, ligament strength, and so on.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 13:05

You can also obtain such improvements without leveling up, although this is difficult and requires specific conditions, expensive consumables, or hard work—and almost always all of the above at once, in triple the amount. The higher the level, the greater the effect of such Improvements, so “increased reaction speed” at level one and level ten are two completely different improvements (or Improvements), literally like heaven and earth.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 13:06

The skills that talent points are spent on are drawn from skill trees, of which you can choose either seven at once if your potential is classified as Exalted, or all nine if you are deemed truly Great. In any case, each skill grants one skill point for every level gained, and these points can only be spent on the skill that granted them. Either seven or nine points per level, no more, unless there are special conditions or gifts. However, almost no one can obtain the full nine points at birth; they can only be earned in one way or another. Thus, an individual with seven slots can, in theory, unlock two additional slots if they reach the required (very high) level and pass a difficult Trial. A Trial is essentially a system quest, just called by a different, more pompous name.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 13:11

On average, a single nine-slot bearer accounts for many hundreds of millions or even billions of ordinary Exalted, but this is a variable figure that depends heavily on race, gifts, and individual characteristics. But more often than one in several tens of millions, such individuals are not found—physically, anywhere, in any way—even in the most blessed worlds of the All-Seeing (the one where Leonid was born is not considered such a world). Often, the potential of such individuals is several orders of magnitude higher than that of ordinary sevens, far higher than just two extra skill points per level and two additional skills. Their potential is simply higher, which greatly increases the rate of experience gain and accelerates their progression through the levels.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 13:13

The more magical the lands are, and the more nearby there are rifts (read: dungeons), creature spawn points, and special resources, the higher the average level of the exalted and the blessed (or is it still the Exalted and the Blessed?), the denser the magic in the area, the faster the flow of Primordial Experience, the more frequently system quests appear, and all that. Again, these stats are tied to the fact that the Chronicle’s bearer is specifically human; for other races, things might vary, but the guide didn’t mention that. It was more like a typical FAQ, the same for all newcomers, to minimize stupid questions upon arrival. But even so, even in the lands thickest with magic, with the best assistance and the highest-quality rituals and potions, a natural nine still develops faster than a seven.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 13:14

It’s important to remember that skills themselves can be leveled up. From zero to a maximum of one thousand—and even after hundreds and hundreds of years of active training, you might never reach that maximum. The higher a skill is leveled, the more abilities are unlocked, and the more flexibly you can use those abilities, creating things that shouldn’t really be possible—or even simply impossible a priori. And every hundred points of a skill earns you one talent point, which, again, can only be spent on that very skill. The list of available abilities—and how cool they are—depends heavily on which other skills you’ve chosen and how you combine them, and you can only unlock a full class after filling all available slots. The basic Initiate, however, didn’t strengthen the character in any way; it merely provided a small guarantee that you wouldn’t be killed just for fun—and even then, only as long as you didn’t provoke anyone. Or until the year of relative safety had passed.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 13:25

There are also free talent points, but obtaining them outside of leveling up is far more difficult than getting free upgrades for your body, spirit, or aura; quests, feats, and trials will prove far harder to obtain and complete, all sorts of consumables, rituals, and other outrageously expensive crap will cost even more, and the risk of dying while trying to get all of the above can be considered close to 100%. And, judging by the comments in the guide, leveling up is no easy feat at all, so even a single free talent is a prize worth killing for. No, the help doesn’t actually say that; Leonid is simply extrapolating his knowledge of human nature, virtues, and peacefulness to this new environment.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 13:26

The average level of a typical Walker rarely exceeds five, usually hovering around two or three when it comes to simple farmers and townspeople, although the average level in cities is noticeably higher. Even the most active leveling at levels above that same five will yield no more than one level per year, unless you spend some astronomical sums and resources. At the same time, active and thoughtful leveling is obviously often very risky, and it’s easy to die just as actively in the process and then lie extremely passively in a coffin or be digested in the stomach of some creature. Or to become a creature yourself—this note in the guide was particularly unsettling, as it didn’t explain the reason for such a transformation, but merely pointed to the possibility of it. All in all, it’s no surprise that the average level remains so dismal when judged by the standards familiar to Earth-based MMOs, yes.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 14:47

Having absorbed everything he could, Leonid turned his attention to his Gifts. He was glad that in this place, he didn’t feel the passage of time or the needs of a body not yet fully manifested in reality. The Gifts, which he was tempted to call loot boxes due to their random nature, truly looked like boxes made of some mysterious material, resembling precious stones or even ivory. They could contain anything, but only things that could be used right now—that is, not artifacts, rare potions, or anything like that, but something that directly influenced his character’s status.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 14:48

Only the unnatural and absolute calm of temporary disembodiment kept Leonid from simply breaking into a wild, raucous, hysterical laugh. Yeah, yeah, he’d managed to miss his own death, fall into absolute nothingness, and relocate permanently to a completely different world—but, damn it, the loot box system is still alive! If there are also in-app purchases along with microtransactions here, you might as well just wrap yourself in a white sheet and roll off somewhere toward the cemetery literally the moment you arrive in this new life. Well, assuming there are cemeteries in your Iulatare—who knows what cultural traditions they have there—maybe they just burn the corpses or even roast them for a solemn memorial brunch?

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 15:11

The first box opened at his mere will; nothing more was required, and from it emerged something golden and colorless, flowing into a phantom body composed of weightless threads, permeating it with a fine web of threads just as thin, yet different, possessing a different color. Threads that seemed utterly devoid of any color, all-encompassing and weightless, concentrating within his insides, blood, and bones—in those parts of Leonid that do not exist at all in his physical body. No sooner had the process concluded than another system message flashed before his eyes, instantly absorbed by his consciousness and transforming into yet another indisputable certainty.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 15:12

Received the property: Higher Influx of Talent and Mastery

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 15:12

Effect: At each level, your skills gain three skill points instead of one; skill progression is greatly accelerated; the threshold for acquiring a skill is significantly lowered; every fifty skill points grants an additional talent available for allocation to the same skill; every one hundred skill points grants two additional talents available for allocation to the same skill.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 15:34

And that’s it. Nothing else is needed, because thanks to this alone, he’ll earn more than three times what any other local or newcomer—the likes of whom he’s never even seen before—could ever hope to make. No, maybe every other person here has the same trick up their sleeve, and every first person’s status flashes with an even cooler VIP skin. Maybe, but doubts gnaw at him—though he has no doubts whatsoever about the quality and usefulness of the gift, or even the Gift itself. Whether it’s the skill points gained per level or the extra skill points from developing skills, these are things people would kill for. Or rather, Leonid can’t know that for sure, but he has no doubts; it’s clear purely logically, even intuitively. Just as clear as the fact that he’d be wise to keep his gifts a secret.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 15:51

No, no—he’d be only too happy to be wrong, waking up in a highly developed, humane, and extremely compassionate society, one built on the model of countless utopian scenarios. But for some reason, it’s hard to believe in such a joyful scenario, just as it’s hard to believe that he’ll wake up on a counterpart to Earth, lost forever. Yeah, with an alternate history, anime clichés, a magic academy for gifted morons, and noble princesses who, for some reason, act like hysterical prima donnas from the 10th-B class of a general education school in the village.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 15:53

Basically, he’d be more than happy to be wrong, but until the error is confirmed, it’s better to keep quiet. Keep quiet about both the level-up points and the accelerated skill progression—and it’s not even clear which one is worth keeping quiet about more. On the one hand, you can level up as much as you want, and it’s an endless ladder of progression; on the other hand, given the leveling speed stated in the guide for this system, there’s no way you’ll even reach the tenth level that easily. It would seem that, against this backdrop, points from talent development would yield far less than leveling up, since the mastery cap is known and the number of talents you can acquire is limited.

Camrad_RIP 04.05.26 в 15:54