The feeling was uncanny yet so satisfying.
The pleasure of once again seeing her face wreaked a crack of palpable joy within him.
Beside her, silently the erring goddess humbly bore a heavy head with apologetic tears cascading from her cheeks which he could hardly care about.
It was obvious she had gotten the scolding of a lifetime just before his arrival.
Eventually, the entire ordeal had to be broken down to him.
The reason he was here was ofcourse to get re-reincarnated but there was a problem.
He had to make a choice.
Whether to live an eternal bodyless life or another option.
The option sounded foolhardy, but true hope was never the straightest path.
Experimenting with his core, hoping it would generate enough energy for another reincarnation.
"What!", he exclaimed as the goddess explained the reason for such.
For some reason due to a decade-long celestial war of which he never knew, the goddess no longer had enough spirit to bring him back the usual way she always did.
That was why she wasn't present for the last reincarnation because she was battling it out on the battlefield and during that time responsibilities were delegated to other non-battle gods.
Soberly, she also revealed that the war was so disastrous that she was greatly mutilated – beyond survival.
She speculated another 10 centuries before an imminent descension – what was termed as the death of a god before her responsibilities would be stacked unto another god.
He felt kind of sad for her but there was truly nothing anyone could do. Such was simply life.
He soon stepped out of his brief mournful moment and queer concern and poised his mind for intense scrutiny.
After about an hour of deep thought, he finally made his choice.
He was going to take the jump.
Choosing this was severely dangerous as all he had left could be lost in the hope of gaining what he long lost but not taking this chance would leave him with a life full of regret and pain.
Besides, if the goddess was willing to call him back for a chance to be reincarnated despite her declining situation, it would be anything but right not to take that chance for her.
Seconds later, his soul was being consumed and absorbed by the goddess.
She simply motioned her arms and streams of mana began to depart from his sides and flow towards the goddess' arms.
Whilst this was going on, he prayed with everything within him cause if this backfired or doesn't work, it would be considered the end for him.
The process was as swift as ever and lucky for him, it worked...in a way and moments later he awoke.
***
[Acquiring reincarnation data]
[Memory deposition and miscellaneous build-ups]
[Body capture and soul implantation]
[Reincarnation Successful]
[Congratulations, welcome to Dimension X]
[Warning: No further reincarnation would be possible after present life]
***
Drip, drip drip.
Droplets of water from a mesophytic leaf fell silently onto the head of a brightly tinted boy.
He immediately jerked up, his breath spiking for a moment before returning to earth.
He wandered his gaze about the scenery taken in by the wonderful sight.
Lowering his view, he could see toes and legs and arms and they were his.
He ran his arms through one another certifying they were real.
He was astonished and elated, simply overwhelmed with joy.
"So it worked. It worked! I am back world."
His celebration halted for a moment when he noticed a young fair girl lying beside him.
Her hair was weaved with bright stripes of red and yellow racing competitively through her hair and her crimson-colored apparel was coated in chains of gold lining.
Moments later, she awoke from her slumber, rubbing her eyes as she rose from the ground.
'Doesn't she look familiar?', he questioned himself.
The beautiful face before him was familiar but he couldn't make any substantial guesses.
He decided to break the ice and the imminent awkwardness first:
"Hi, I am…", for a moment he forgot his name.
'Shouldn't there be a…'
[Congratulations Max Fentanyl. You have been reincarnated into Dimension X.]
'I knew it!'
"Hi, I am Max. And you are?"
"Me? You don't know who I am?"
The question struck hard. The face bore a similar resemblance to someone he must have seen before but he was sure that he didn't know anyone here so he had no option but to fess up and face the music.
"So you really don't know who I am? Okay, I am Melfina, the goddess of reality."
'A goddess! That's why her face looked so familiar. Probably the one that penultimately reincarnated me.'
"Sorry, about that. I think the reincarnation has got my head all fussy," he framed a hypocritical friendly gesture but the reality was that he mildly abhorred her.
Then as for what she was doing here, that seemed a bit obvious so he decided not to bother her with peeving questions.
Perhaps, she was rebuked for the messup and banished to live a mortal life probably for some years as punishment.
"Where are we anyway?"
"Probably in some kind of forest. The vegetation here is quite novel."
He took a sharp glance at the horizon as he waved his eyes over the enormous forest.
"Twighlight is drawing near. I suggest we take a walk around separately to cover more ground. The forest is quite large and we are gonna need to look for a nearby village to rest our heads for the night. Meet here in the next hour?"
"Okay. Fine by me."
The two diverged in opposing directions, following the forest path.
Max walked for a while before another thought crashed into his head.
'If I am not mistaken, I think there should also be a ...'
Name: Max Fentanyl
–Class: Phantom
–Bloodline: Fentanyl (hybrid)
–Type: none
–Soul: 10
–Constitution: 7
–Element: _
–Ability: Anti-magic
–Points: 0 | HPR: 1Fr/min
–System-based skill: Insight
–Skill set: Empty
System Store(Inventory) – Empty
'Yeah, I knew it.'
He glanced through the numerical representation of his ability and deemed it alright for someone inactive for about a decade.
But there was an anomaly, two in fact.
One was his soul. A soul saturation of 10 was considered exceedingly high, especially at this infantry stage.
It belonged to mages who over the years had absorbed countless orbs and cores but even a minute fraction ever achieved such a feat.
Perhaps, the number of years he had been disembodied left the ambient mana hypotonic to his membranless surface.
'That is probably the reason why my hair was coated in a ghost-white tint,' he quickly quipped.
As for the other– his skill.
Anti-magic! That ability didn't even exist let alone being rare. Could he even be compatible with real magic?
More thoughts and questions like this resonated within him.
He decided to try out some magic to assure himself that his fears were just elusive.
He tried but nothing happened. He continued some more but nothing still.
He didn't want to believe that his unique skill posed an obstacle in magic use.
He decided to ignore that fact after all he hadn't even awakened though in some of the other worlds he had been to, some people usually awaken from birth while some others need an inducer like an orb or a serum and the rest, duds.
But this reasoning was slightly opposed by the null value on his element and ability type but he didn't let that discourage him.