Chapter 3: 2. Worldless Arc – II

 

< My Self >

Enshrined God — Level None

Essence [100]

[Body 10] [Mind 10] [Spirit 10]

— Divine Skills —

Gift of Creation, Power of Destruction, Reality Overwrite, Source of Life, Akashic Memory, God’s Call

— Skills (-) —

Vivid Calendar

— Spells —

Pocket Clock

— Special Traits —

Ether Breathing, Extreme Climate Resistance, Radiation Immunity, Spirit Core

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The hot winds blew again and again, merging with ice-cold breezes, brewing a bizarre weather, a wintry hell. This sultry breeze came smelling of molten iron and sulfur, expels coming from volcans afar spilling magmatic rivers, painting red the cloudy skies; bringing ashen gales. Lightning fell from the skies, desperately, thundering the agonies of a birthing planet. An insidious sight, yet beautiful in its own manner.

A range of characteristics pertaining atmospheric pressure, air composition, circumstances I was not knowledgeable of, prevented that phenomena to escalate in typhoons and hurricanes. You could, however, still call it a storm, although certainly they were not the same as the ones from our time.

Running in that condition proved a challenge, one that even with my newfound superhuman qualities, I wasn’t sure I could triumph over.

Five days had passed since my rebirth — or creation, to be more accurate.

Since then I’ve been trying to become used to this ‘physiology’ of sorts. My capacities were far greater than my previous human form could ever dream of attaining, but putting them into action was also far harder than I thought. Not once or twice, but many times, had I leapt too far or tripped on my own feet, catapulting myself a couple tens of meters away.

As I was prompted to go out of the hideout and explore, Main always kept an eye on me, but still it was a thrilling and fairly out of control experience.

I was exploring a plateau, a few kilometers from my safe spot. Canyons and fractures were a common occurrence, thanks to the rapid solidification of minerals rendering the soil brittle, which in consequence led to these crevices every time an earthquake shook that landmass like a little girl’s favorite doll.

“219 meters, obstructed uphill terrain, around 4.5 seconds. You are improving.”

I sighed, hidden in a cleft that looked like a dried river, now fully revested by many ores. Someday, those may be valuable, but for now they were meaningless to me. Nothing more than shiny rocks, earthy metals.

“Are you hurt, by chance?” Main asked, their voice still sounded a little robotic, and I questioned myself why, without ever bringing that up.

“Nope. Just…thinking, and kinda tired of running all this way up here." My answer was delayed, my attention drawn onto those bloody clouds swirling in the turbulent skies. “That’s pretty fast, like an Olympic Athlete, isn’t this a bit too outperforming for a stat 10?”

Main spent a half-second quiet, analyzing something in my speech probably. They don’t need that time to think of a response, normally they came right away.

“For now, your attributes are simply placeholders, a leverage for future creatures to come. Since there is no other living being in this planet, then yours represent an average, a ballast to future denizens.”

“Mmm, makes sense.” I looked to my corner, where a light-blue holographical timer ticked hours in a calendar. It was the [Pocket Clock] skill. Time was around 1pm, even if it was darker than most nights. “There’s somethin’ that’ve been in my mind all morning, why a character sheet?”

The day started with an uncommon call, in an uncanny hour. Main — as in Main Character, how I dubbed them jokingly since they called me simply 'My Self' — decided to put me into test, again. Although previous training sessions are a lot more controlled, reserved in my DIY stay-house.

That character sheet was what they wanted introduce and test.

“We’re yet to discuss more about our world, and I have some cool ideas, but have you already decided something? This is quite LitRPG-ish. I mean…I indeed asked for a power to track time, and you gave me that skill, which is useful, but it was just so I could keep track of time. Didn’t thought you put would put an RPG spin on it.” A bolt hit very close, everything went white and I covered my now ringing ears. “I was planning on something more…Classic, y’know?”

“Correct. This was indeed my original plan, but there were many a problem regarding precision and troubleshooting.”

“So, you decided to set a power-system?” A drop of acid fell on my nose, and more restrained thunders foreshadowed a downpour. “Quite clever, and unironically part of a creative process to build a world. But why RPG in specific?”

I stood up, closing my eyes, trying to shut my senses.

“Attempts to bring about something purely with my mind and creativity were made, but there is a striking difference in complexity between imagination and reality. As you saw, I cannot escape rough parodies of my ideas, let alone engineering a life-form, just as you.” Their voice continued to echo in my mind, and they simply felt like my thoughts. The rest of the world, however, went silent and touchless. “The system would help me simplify, put my thoughts in boxes, and then bring them to reality easier.”

I was reaching out to my Essence, another name for the energy that composed my body, this planet’s vital force. Perceiving it was already hard enough, but taking control was something that was only possible thanks to my experience during transmigration.

It felt like water, comprised, welled in the depths of my — our existence. When tapped it rippled, and it was by honing precision on how those ripples and waves formed that magic was born.

“Phew… [Gift of Creation]!” Conjuring its name helped my mind focus, evoked what it was all about, but wasn’t truly necessary.

And when my eyes opened again, the rocks around me were floating. By spreading my palms, I commanded them to rise, still feeling the power attached to them, as if they were a living part of me. Combining sediment, impure metal and filling the gaps by creating a composite using my essence, I constructed a bandstand-like structure.

“Now the rain won’t be a bother.” I exhaled relaxed and proud.

“Impressive. It seems you are already familiar with your abilities.”

“It may be impressive for you, with your big-ass klutz hands, but I visualized something…Classier.” Dust fell from the vaulted roof. “These Divine Skills of yours really help out a lot, but can’t I just call it and make things happen?”

“The skills are far more related with your capabilities, than being shortcuts to execute powers, that is reserved to spells. I will be providing some in a near future, after finishing adjustments.”

“In the end this gamification is coming in handy, huh. An interesting piece of lore justifying the need for LitRPG mechanics, aside from reaching a wider audience and catering readers’ attentions.”

“What?”

You are reading story I am the World! at novel35.com

“Nothing, just breaking the fourth wall, y’know? Its my thing.” Came a momentary silence. “Don’t roll eyes on me, Main!”

“I will be finishing those last tweaks on the aforementioned spells. Do you want me to try and clear that rain?” They spoke moments after recovering from that my seasonal fluctuation of time. 

"Nah, I like this white noise." I took a deep breath, lifting the bandstand from that crevice and casting my sight outside. They left afterwards. I don’t quite understand how I know they leave, just that…they do. I liken it to an even quieter silence than before.

In this epoch of chaos mere droplets would rapidly grow into pouring storms, waterfalls coming from those heavy steely clouds. I leaned on a side of my bandstand, gazing the ancient plateau of that…no, this world.

The fiery rivers hissed, distant earthquakes rumbled and colorful bolts jolted, their light affected by the myriad of chemicals that poisoned the waters. It was a melodic disorder unheard by any other man, than myself. Slowly those same chemicals started corroding fragile portions of soil, painting a thin and noxious fog whose toxicity could offer no harm to a god; its odd scent was eve pleasant. Far off, beyond my view, another surprise of nature came; the storm lit itself in shades of violet and fuchsia, immense lightnings flashed as tendrils dancing and stretching from the ground as if they were alive, crowned by crimson flashes — Red sprites, occurrences so specific and rare that they may as well be confused with alien lights.

This world— my world, was marvelous. Cruel and volatile, unhospitable to life. A mother too young to properly care for her children.

Five days ago, all I could do was mumble my complains, cowering, hiding in my shadow, shutting myself with earbuds, so that music could take me far, far away from my boring reality. And now here I stand, in a foreign planet, elevated to a realm of impossible achievements.

But was I…any different?

“Main.” How could a faulted, only-in-his-dreams novelist, serve as anchor to a whole new history?

As my thoughts geared, I was overcome with restlessness, an impulse to move just like my mind.

“It is not like you to call so quickly.” [God’s Call] was used to sign my wish to speak with them, and so did I, while circling the bandstand.

“It may sound stupid, listening it from you…I want to understand what is going on my mind, what led me to choose the path we’re going right now.” I could not take more than a few steps before looping around. “When…Why did you decided to become a world? Why not remain as a planet?”

A meteoroid cut a cloud, scribbling an fulgurant line throughout its route.

“…From the very beginning.” It crashed a few yards from here, an explosion echoed. “I could not lay dormant again, closing my eyes to the states of things. What if, I thought, life does not thrive in this land?”

“Then you could wait, and wait. Your lifespan is basically unending, right? Why didn’t you sleep, or took a whole eternity to hone your abilities so that your perfect time of creation would come?”

Each nerve of my body demanded movement. I strolled away from the bandstand, submerging myself in that rain that everything devoured.

I was untouchable to it. It boiled in contact with my skin, my clothes. It poured, and poured, so fiercely and ruthlessly that my braid was untied. It paid no mind — it couldn’t — to my divinity, and yet it was incapable of making me feel more than refreshed.

I stood there. The single dweller in an entire star, unseen and unheard. What was my story more than a ghostly spark, witnessed by no other than myself.

Was it…any different?

“Would you?” Their voice finally came, carrying a human tone not before used. I felt accused. “Koyaanisqatsi.”

The word shivered my spine, froze my stomach. It was a powerful, strange word to my idiom, but not to my knowledge.

I was not being accused.

“A state of life that calls for another way of living…” I quoted ipsis literis what was etched in my memories.

I was not being accused. I was another being’s reflection, an image projected in a mirror. If I suffered, so did they. My happiness, excitement, and disappointments were the same as theirs.

So.

Why didn’t I let myself slumber, waiting for a miracle that never came in a posterior life? That was the key, that was my koyaanisqatsi.

“I had an idea.” They confessed. “Staring at the same stars as our ancestors, I weaved something akin to a story; a tale…”

“And I can’t bring myself to wait for our story to be seem.” My grin was out of control, as I glared to that same sky, where thunder teared kingly everything in its way just like the gods of old mythology. A bolt jolted at me, and all it could do was galvanize my thoughts in order; as the monster of Frankenstein, I was alive.

I lowered my eyes, aiming to that unknown eruption of electric currents I saw earlier, but the fog had grown thicker. What I saw, however, could be a product of my mind; maybe a faint sign of intoxication from the metallic fumes that composed this archean mist…It didn’t matter, because in the end I was staring it myself.

It was that scrawny man, too tired and hurt to take a step forward, to risk being laughed at.

His glasses shone with each lightning, so many that it wouldn’t be exaggerated to say that it rained thunders, and he also grinned.

That man was put in a corner, and there was anywhere left for him to cower and hide.

I understood him — they.

And they did.

“Can’t leave them waiting forever, huh.”  Everything ceased to be important, I was the only thing remaining. Me, and Myself.

“Correct.”

A fire rose from my stomach, filled my lungs and burst out in a joyous outbreak; The entire planet accompanied my godly realization, the earth trembled, the sky roared, the oceans waved their highest.

I — We laughed.

Creator and Creation.

For to us was given, by fate or destiny; with no true reasoning behind it all than that unexplained explosion that set this universe free, a phenomenon that simply was — What was given?

The greatest of canvas, the longest of books, containing all the unsung melodies of an entire history yet to come…

This entire world was…

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Worldless Arc — Chapter 2