CH 4 History behind Project GODS
"Oh, I just remembered!" Shiva exclaimed suddenly and called out to Rudra after they had finished dinner "You are an inhuman now right? Can you summon the status screen? Do you have classes? Do you have any skills? What is your Physique, Spirit, and Soul ranks?"
"Okay timeout, I can't answer them all at the same time. Moreover, before talking about 'Status', can you please explain about my origins first? Because I don't think everyone is born looking like a 10-year old directly. And why do I not have any memories of myself or my growth or literally anything else?" Rudra countered
Shiva looked at him for a few moments before sighing, "Alright, I guess you would know one day anyway. So, if you think you are ready for it then I will tell you now. You have obviously guessed you are not a regular human or even a regular Inhuman. Your origins are closely tied up to me in a way. So, after hearing this if you want to hate me, I will understand."
"Before continuing with the story, we have to talk of status and innate skills." Shiva continued "All Inhumans are able to view a status screen only visible to them. This records all the details about their growth and capabilities. Our entire existence can literally be defined by Physique, Spirit, and Soul ranks. Since the life of Inhumans has always been steeped in conflict, we have always followed the rule of the jungle here. Might is right in the 'world of Inhumans' and Physique, Spirit, and Soul ranks directly represent the power of each inhuman."
"Physique obviously tells about how good your physical body is. This corresponds to your strength, speed, dexterity, and vitality. People think one can unilaterally increase one of these aspects but that is stupid. If in reality, you had a strength that was tens of times greater than your vitality then your muscles would be shredded the moment you did a forceful move. Similarly, one obviously can't have supreme speed if they don't have strong muscles in the first place. All your physical aspects are interconnected and represented by Physique."
"Obviously there can be differences between those of the same rank based on which type of training they have undergone and whether lean more towards strength, speed, dexterity, and vitality aspect. But that is not something we need to discuss right now."
"Moving on, Spirit basically represents all the mental aspects: Memory, mental acuity, thought processing speed, wisdom/ knowledge utilization, and learning capabilities. Same as Physique, Spirit aspects are all interconnected. The higher the rank of Spirit stat, the more expansive your mind is."
"Finally, we come to Soul, which is the most mysterious one. The benefits of high soul rank varies from person to person. It doesn't depend on specialization but rather on your innate qualities. Some get immense willpower due to high soul rank, some get huge energy reserve, it all varies from person to person. But one thing is guaranteed for everyone. Those with low Soul Rank will have lower future prospects."
"Soul Stat is so mysterious precisely because it can't be trained by normal means. In fact growth of the soul is based on lucky opportunities and innate comprehension. Some people get soul growth in battle, some do it through special meditation, some simply get stronger while having sunbath or watering plants. No one can tell for sure why their soul grows like that."
"This has been researched for many years yet no definite fact has yet been discovered. Another peculiar thing about Soul Growth is that it is like a leaf in the wind. More you try to forcefully get a higher soul rank, the lesser the chance of you successfully achieving that. Some of the rare instances have shown that growth of soul may be tied to the growth of our innate skills."
"Speaking of innate skills, we come to the topic of the skill itself. Skills are basically certain actions and techniques that you engrave into your body, mind and soul. It's not any action that can be gained as skills. You need to have a certain amount of knowledge about certain actions and have to actively comprehend and act upon it to gain it as a skill."
"For e.g.: we walk or breathe as a reflexive action, but we don't get it as a skill. It's only when you actively comprehend about a certain aspect of these two that you can improve upon it and gain it as a skill. Moreover, no two skills can be completely the same. Even if you learn the skill with the same method as someone else, it's not necessary your skills will be identical."
"Take breathing, for example, if two people focus on refining their breathing technique to breathe in a certain way as martial artists do, they will both gain skill related to that. But they benefit from the skill that may be different. One person may gain a breathing skill that makes him recover faster than the other one, at the same time the other's breathing skill may allow him to get a clearer perception while using the breathing technique. It's all based on our comprehension while gaining the skills."
"Do you get it or do you need further explanation?" Shiva asked after her lecture.
"Yes, I mostly got it." Rudra replied, "But you said I am tied to you and that it's somehow related to your innate skill?"
"Yes," Shiva said "Basically there are two types of skills: Innate and Acquired. Innate is something that comes from the soul, there is no rhyme or reason to it. Acquired is something you can get through training and learning."
"My innate skill has always been something too powerful. It was like this from birth and put a huge strain on my body. But for some reason, no matter how much I trained my physical body never got stronger past a certain point. Some time ago, I was involved in something that nearly led to me dying. At that point I had unleashed my innate beyond the point I was able to physically bear."
"Due to this my innate, suddenly had a mutation and grew even stronger. Though it lets me survive that crisis, as a result, I lost my physical body. What you see before you is a semi-spiritual body, the result of my innate."
"Anyway, so because of this my dad was distraught and decided to build me a compatible human body that will be able to handle my immensely powerful innate and grow along with it. This project was dubbed Project GODS: Genetically Optimizable Development System. The idea was to develop a rapidly evolving human body that can literally adapt to everything and evolve at a genetic level."
"For the project, my dad gathered corpses of many recently dead mortal children. Their bodies were broken down to the base cellular level and regrown according to the experimental techniques. You were one of them and the only one who displayed a modicum of success at Project GODS. The reason you don't have memory or that you are directly ten-year-old is because you were grown like this."
"You were previously a human and after death had his corpse violated by my father because of me. If you want to hate me, I don't have a problem with it. I just want to sincerely be your elder sister and I will bear the weight of my father's sins." Shiva said resolutely.
Rudra didn't know what to say, he really wanted to assure this girl everything was fine since he was from a different world and that he had no relation to the kid this body was before. But again, her father did violate the corpses of an unknown number of children. Who knows if he really did just gather corpses or directly killed people to get the corpses and lied about it to his innocent daughter?
"I need time to figure this out, Shiva. This both answers a lot of things and yet raises many more questions. But anyway, that is not a problem for the current time." Rudra assured her "I don't hate you for something your father did to someone who wasn't even me. And yes, the one I was previously before death has no relation to me currently before you. So, you don't have to feel guilty about it since you did nothing wrong."
"Thank you, Rudra," Shiva said with a faint smile "Anyway, enough of all these dreary talks. Did you get everything I said about stats and skills? Can you tell me your stats now?"
Rudra opened his Status screen for the first time, and was genuinely shocked by what he saw.
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Status
Rudra Jokaen
Species: Human (Artificial Inhuman), (Unknown)
Gender: Male
Existence Grade: Grade 1 (Inhuman)
Class: ---
Sub-Class: ---
Auxiliary Hidden Class: Skill Master
Health: 100% (State-Normal)
Energy: 100% (Type-None), 0 (Type-Skill Point)
Physique: Rank F
Spirit: Rank G+
Soul: Rank D-
Innate Skill: Skill Customizer (Rank ---), Laplace Interface (Rank ---) (Special Seal), Key of Akasha (Rank ---) (Special Seal)
Acquired Skill: Virtual Mind Interface (Rank S+), Physical Optimization (Rank A+)
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What the hell was he supposed to tell Shiva?! Unknown Species? Three Different forms of Classes? One of the Classes is listed as a hidden class which means its definitely rare. Moreover, two types of energies? And what's with this overpowered soul? Three types of unranked innate? And even two powerful acquire skills!! He will definitely get into trouble if he tells everything to her. Okay then, it's Bullshit storytime.
"Umm, I have Soul and Spirit at G+ and Physique at F-Rank. I also have an innate called 'Physical Optimization' at Rank B." Rudra finally said after pondering hard.
"What?! Really!! Oh my god, an Innate directly at Rank B, you are a genius by birth!! Oh, and before you ask, both skill and stat ranking follow the same scheme. It ranges from G at the lowest to A at the highest."
"There are some ranks beyond that too, namely S, SS, SSS, X, and Divine/ Unranked. These five are the transcendent rankings and anything at these ranks can do things that most people can't even comprehend. Transcendent rankings are called as such because only those who have transcended normal limits can get them. By the way, my innate is also at a transcendent rank, Rank X, just a step before Divine/ Unranked." Shiva said proudly
'Should I tell her I am already seeing three divine innate skills in my status? Never mind let's just quietly listen to her.' Rudra thought while listening to Shiva.
"Oh, and each rank has three sub-ranks, namely Rank-, Rank, and Rank+, except the Divine rank of course. It's pretty hard to make a skill grow from a lower sub-rank to higher, never mind jumping entire ranks. People often train entire lives just to raise a rank or two in their skills." Shiva continued her explanation, "that is why I said you were a genius since your innate is already at a pretty high level, you will have a higher baseline."
"Shiva, I see some called classes here, do you know anything about that?"
"Huh, do you already have a class?" Shiva asked surprised
"Umm no its blank, but can you tell me about it?"
"Well, that is not a problem. In fact, it would have been too monstrous if you already had one. Classes are basic qualifications to learn certain skills easier. For e.g.: one with a class called Student will learn Knowledge type skills more easily than one who doesn't have one."
"How do we gain one?" Rudra asked in curiosity
"Don't worry, certain achievements automatically translate to classes and others have to be gained through certain trials or lucky opportunities. You don't have to worry about this as you will learn about it in school. Currently, though, you will have to get ready for my one-week intense training session as I will have to get you up to speed to appear normal amongst other kids of the school. So, are you ready then?" Shiva asked with a dangerous smile on her face.
'I am in trouble, Aren't I?' Rudra thought as he gave up with a sigh.