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

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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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Iulatar welcomes the Wanderer!

Potential assessment is underway.

Absorption and synchronization of the Primordial Matter.

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

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

Quality of gift: highest.

Gift quality: minor.

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.

Name: Leonid Ptakh

Declared title: undeserved

Affiliation: human

Class: Initiate

Potential: Exalted

Step: 0

Improvements: none

Adopted skills: 0/7

Free Properties:

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Received the property: Higher Influx of Talent and Mastery

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.

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.

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.

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.

But this “extremely accelerated” aspect, it seems, is arguably the gift’s greatest value, while the rest is merely a pleasant bonus. Especially when even hundreds of years of training in a single skill cannot guarantee reaching the full thousand points of proficiency. And these points represent not just a nice-looking number, but the skill’s effectiveness, where each point of that skill becomes more effective the higher the skill level. A fireball at 100 skill points and one at 1,000 are completely different balls and completely different kinds of fire.

He opens the second gift with a slight shudder, bracing himself for just about anything that might happen. And he even awaited, with a certain trepidation, a good portion of what simply couldn’t happen. You never know. And he was somewhat disappointed in his inflated expectations, because he received exactly what one would expect from a gift labeled “minor.” Is it any wonder that this gift wasn’t particularly impressive compared to what he’d already received? On the other hand, nothing would be impressive at all compared to what he’d already received, but it still stings a little. It’s irrational, since, according to the report, he’d already received an incredible amount, but it still stings. And because Leonid understood the irrationality of his resentment, it only made things worse, because he had to be angry at himself.

Acquired property: Giftedness of the Woven

Effect: When creating a new body, the Initiate gains an additional unlocked skill; both skills will be selected at random based on the Initiate’s entity attributes; both skills are guaranteed to have [Decent] potential instead of [Average].

To be honest, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, two out of seven skills are unlocked right from the start, but on the other... two out of seven skills are unlocked right from the start! Plus, these skills are random and merely “decent”—not the ones Leonid could have chosen himself. Well, one thing in the guide is reassuring—you can’t get all seven legendary skills right away; you have to build a sort of pyramid with a 2:1 ratio. You can take as many ordinary and decent skills as you want—even all seven—but then it gets tricky. To take one “high” skill, also known as an “exalted” or “noble” skill, you need to have two “worthy” skills; moreover, all skills from “worthy” and above require either many months or even years of training, or the completion of a quest-trial, which is only granted by masters of that skill who have leveled it up to at least the third hundred.

They won’t just hand out such a quest to anyone, simply because the number of quests available is limited, they take a long time to respawn, and there are always plenty of relatives, friends, or simply wealthy clients. To acquire a “true” skill—also known as “royal,” “purple,” or “great”—one must possess at least two “high” skills, which allowed a character with seven skill slots to choose only one such skill in total. The only exception is those with nine slots, because they can fill the two extra slots with skills of any value, whether average or true. And yes, everything that was said about the difficulty of acquiring high-level skills is amplified to the fifth degree when it comes to true skills.

All that remained was to hope that his first gift would prove useful here as well, since it indicated a significant lowering of the threshold for acquiring skills on one’s own, and this opened up interesting possibilities. Well, so it seemed to Leonid, who finally began to stir again in his emptiness, while his body took on an increasingly distinct form, becoming ever more tangible. At the same time, two sparks appeared before his eyes, which a moment later merged into the forming body, as if fitting into slots, filling them with themselves, occupying two of the seven available slots.

Skill: Meditation

Potential: Worthy

Description: Meditation offers the opportunity to tune into the currents of the universe, to sense their swirls, and to absorb the power that flows abundantly throughout the world. Accelerate your recovery, replenish your strength, understand what you previously could not, calm your mind, and take control of your emotions—all of this is possible if you immerse yourself deeply enough in the magical currents and then manage to emerge.

Development: 0/1000

Effect: fosters a connection with the energies of the universe and enables one to control them, as well as oneself; enhances the flexibility and resilience of the mind, and boosts the body’s and aura’s ability to regenerate.

Effect: Significantly speeds up the regeneration of all types of energy when used; the effect increases as the skill level increases.

Effect: The effectiveness of all meditation-based skills increases as the skill level rises.

Effect: Grants initial protection against damage to the subtle body when attempting to draw energy from the universe; this protection increases as the skill develops.

Effect: You are granted a small initial chance to dispel the status effect during meditation; this chance decreases or increases depending on the effect’s potency, but rises with your skill level until it reaches 100%; the chance is recalculated for each meditation session, as is the duration of the required meditation.

No, it’s not that bad, especially considering the ability to heal various injuries yourself if you put in enough effort. That said, there are some pitfalls: the chances of removing an effect can vary greatly depending on how powerful that effect is. It’s unlikely that any super-mega-curses on the level of the local Atsky Sotona can be removed just by meditating a bit by the nearest stream. Recovery speed is also a big help, as is protection against turning yourself into a balloon connected to the intake turbine at the nearest hydroelectric plant.

Skill: Fortitude

Potential: Worthy

Description: This skill won’t completely deflect every threat, blow, or impact, but it will certainly weaken and reduce the threat of anything, making it more bearable and less dangerous. However, if the attack is not strong enough, an intelligent being with developed Fortitude has every chance of not feeling it at all, or of experiencing only minimal discomfort.

Development: 0/1000

Effect: Significantly increases the resistance of the body, aura, mind, and soul to any effects, with this resistance growing significantly as the skill level increases.

Effect: A small portion of the damage taken or any other negative effects is mitigated by this skill; the strength of the effect depends on the skill's level.

Effect: The effectiveness of all defensive skills increases as the skill level rises.

Effect: Grants innate protection for the physical body, grants innate minor protection for the soul, and grants innate minor protection for the mind and self-awareness; the effectiveness of this protection increases as the skill develops.

Effect: Grants a very small chance to completely ignore damage from any direct attack; this chance is recalculated for each hit and gradually increases as the skill levels up.

Now that’s more interesting, though it’s not as if Leonid is entirely satisfied—he’d have liked something more magical and enchanting, but where on earth would he find such magic? Then again, a certain pattern was evident in this pair of skills: a nod to a fantasy monk in the style of a meme-inspired Shaolin. He just didn’t feel like testing what exactly would happen if he tried to block a blade or a fireball with an empty palm. Especially if the blade was enchanted too and held by a professional fighter with the Swordsman skill, damn it. Something tells him that such grandstanding could cost him dearly—fatally dearly. Leonid is still pondering what prospects the skills he’s acquired open up for him and which class he should develop into, but the time for deliberation is coming to an end, just as the process of creating a new body is.

The vision flashes before his eyes once more, only now there is a sense of completion in this flash—a readiness to be born anew and to greet the world around me, to become a part of it, whether tiny or boundless—it all depends on the being that has taken form.

Name: Leonid Ptakh

Declared title: undeserved

Affiliation: human

Class: Initiate

Potential: Exalted

Step: 0

Improvements: none

Adopted skills: 2/7

Free Properties:

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.

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

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.

Received the property: Higher Influx of Talent and Mastery: 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.

Skills:

Meditation: 0/1000

Fortitude: 0/1000

The Gift of the Omnipresent: Upon embarking on the Path of the Ladder, every inhabitant of Her worlds receives three skill points, which may be spent on any existing or future skills.

Maybe things aren't so bad after all?

Or at least he's good enough.

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http://notabenoid.org/book/88665/596909

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP