Normal days

The status screen.

One of the branches of power that allowed many beings to grow stronger and stronger.

It is said that long ago, an immaculate being blessed beings with this power.

Now, it is nothing more than hearsay; a mere rumor.

During the old days of Palamicia, the mana that seeps into the world, although not as adequate as in ages past, was abundant.

For humans, at the age of twelve, their status were unlocked by having a priest from the nearest church come over to a place to bless the souls of the children.

Once the children are blessed they will be able to see their status on their own. At that point, the people blessed with the status will start improving at a tremendous rate.

Although one can gain experience before one is 'blessed,' it is rather rare that it would show on the status screen, unless one were to live through exceedingly hard lives or trained themselves to the brink of exhaustion.

Of course, there were exceptions to all living beings, and that includes humans. There are those who are talented, and so able to increase their skills and status even before having a status screen. There are also those who are blessed with the status screen even before the age of twelve.

Needless to say the caterpillar, who is a being that cannot be compared with others, is another exception.

Consequently looking at his status, the caterpillar couldn't really say he was surprised.

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Name: ?

Titles: 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴 (Sealed), 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘩 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘺 (Sealed)

Race: Infant Caterpillar ✦ (Variant ???)

Strength: F-

Endurance: F-

Agility: F-

Magic: E

Luck: F+

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𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀:

Dream Magic: E

===============================

'Those titles are still there...although some other ones are gone...'

The caterpillar felt nostalgia set into his mind, seeing the familiar titles. It was akin to meeting an old friend, who was once terribly obnoxious.

It was not a good feeling.

Titles are achievements, given automatically to those worthy of it. When one gains a title, a person can gain different skills, an increase in skill level, or stat increases. It has to be said that the requirements to even earn the lowest of titles were extremely harsh.

Moving on, the stats of a person are separated into five groups: strength, endurance, agility, magic, and luck.

Strength is just basic strength, how strong a being hits or how much a being can carry.

Endurance is how many hits one can take, or how much stamina a being has.

Agility is how fast a person can move.

Magic is how powerful your magic is, and how much mana that can be stored inside a being.

Luck is a mystery, but those who were said to have high luck were able to dodge or land critical hits far more easily than those who have no luck. Luck can also influence the world around a person in mysterious ways.

For example, finding rare artifacts or an increase in stat or skill without much effort.

Next, the ranked letters show how weak or strong an attribute or skill of that person is. [F] is the lowest, then followed by [E], [D], [C], [B], and finally [A].

[A] is the highest a mortal can reach; the peak of mortals, and above [A]...it is an entirely different story.

Skills are earned by having innate talents or constant training. If a normal being wanted a skill, there are two ways common ways to get it.

The first is that it is required to have extensive training to gain one, let alone raise it up by a rank. The second is through a strange miracle; something that is not deemed normal.

Then there are, of course, those who are born with it, receive a boon from a title, or just annoyingly talented.

When a skill ranks up, it can either become stronger, or become something 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. By 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦, it means 𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦.

Evolving a skill is incredibly difficult, more so than gaining one, but it can only be ranked second hardest when compared to the difficulties of getting a title.

The caterpillar have somehow underestimated how weak a caterpillar is. Although he expected his stats, or attributes would decrease when he transferred his soul into a weak creature, he had truly never expected it to fall this low.

"..."

No, he did expect it. He just subconsciously ignored it.

All a caterpillar does is eat, eat, poop, eat, sleep, and eat. After at least two weeks of eating, it will start transitioning into the cocoon stage.

That's all.

"..."

The caterpillar began wriggling. Now that he finally has the time to think about it, maybe it wasn't such a bad life.

Certainly he can raise his magic attribute. What else was he suppose to do? Crawl rounds in his home, trying to raise his agility attribute? Eat, poop, eat, sleep, poop, and eat?

"..."

That actually doesn't sound so bad.

Moving on from his curse of digressing off the main point, there isn't anything else to do he can actually do other than training in magic.

Unfortunately, even if it was the only thing he could do, it was much harder than he thought. According to common sense, a caterpillar simply does not really have the innate capacity to use magic. It's just a caterpillar. The only way it could have even the slightest hint of talent in magic is unless the variant race of the caterpillar is magic based. Another way for it to be talented is to be laid in an environment filled with mana, thereby changing its growth and physique.

It seems he was lucky to inhabit the egg before it hatched. Its physique is strangely familiar to him.

It was as if it was made for him and him alone.

"..."

It couldn't be a coincidence.

'Is the Lord Almighty guiding me after all? Even after so long?' the caterpillar thought.

'It must be so.'

Even in the life of an old man, he was raising these caterpillars and butterflies. If not the Lord Almighty who was guiding him in his past life, and now this life, then who?

Even with a status of being one of the Seven Calamities, he could not even think of the Lord Almighty's plan.

So, he moved on.

'Now then...' he took a look at the leaves placed around him. The more the caterpillar looked at them, the more delectable and appealing they appeared to be.

...

Morning arrived, with the sun just barely rising above the horizon. A girl was still sleeping, half of her body laying on the table, fast asleep...

It was an enjoyable sleep to, as a the girl looked so serene, so peaceful. It was still quite early in the morning, and so it was fine to continue to sleep...

Then, the sun had risen enough to shine its light onto the cold house. The light filtered through the thin door, and it shined right onto her face.

In response, the girl hissed like a vampire, instinctively shying away from it, slithering into the shadows...is how the story would've and should've went.

The unfortunate girl's face simply contorted as she quietly yawned. Indignant and vexated, she raised her head, wearily looking around her. Following that, she tiredly wiped her eyes and stretched her arms, with the next step being scratching the back of her neck.

Subsequently after, the girl unsteadily got up, and walked towards the bathroom to wash up.

Soon after she walked back to the living room, already changed out of her pajamas. Before she headed to get to the kitchen, her brain malfunctioned. Her brain rewinded her memories as the girl realized the reason why she was sleeping on the table, and not on her bed.

The girl turned towards the reason why she slept on the table.

'Oh. The egg...the egg! Is the it safe?'

Nervousness filled the Anna as she slowly walked up to the cardboard box. Gulping, she leaned over it, and took a peaked inside. Her curiosity was met with another curious look. From within the shadows of the box, a figure wriggling amongst darkness raised its body to look up.

"..."

An intense staring contest ensued.

For a couple seconds, they both stared at each other with surprise...until the caterpillar looked down and resumed eating the milkweed leaves.

"Wow..." Anna breathlessly said, taking in the simple act of a caterpillar eating calmly.

The past few years, she had some experience in taking care of caterpillars and plants from a family friend's garden, but she is not really that knowledgeable. She does know the basics though.

The caterpillar seemed to have hatched a while ago, because blue and green colored patterns had already appeared on its skin, with a dash of purple on the side.

It was very familiar color. It resembled the caterpillars raised by her grandpa. Now, seeing a newly born larva peacefully eating, a well of emotions abruptly risen in her.

The last time she was raising this kind of caterpillar was with her grandfather. Now, inside her grandfather's home, Anna herself was raising the same caterpillar species.

It...it felt very heartbreaking.

Anna began tearing up, shaking as she put her hands on her face. Her sniffing must've been loud enough as the caterpillar unnoticeably raised its head.

...

Time passed, and after an emotional outbreak did Anna finally get herself together. Breathing deeply multiple times, she looked back into the box, where the caterpillar was eating.

The caterpillar didn't seem to mind as it constantly kept eating. Anna squinted her eyes, and she sat back down, rubbing her chin. Soon afterwards, she nodded her head.

"From now on, your name is Amor."

She nodded her head, this time with a small smile on her face. From another perspective, it seemed quite obvious the girl was praising herself for thinking of such a splendid name.

The caterpillar begged to differ.

'Isn't Amor a girl's name? Or was it Amore? And doesn't it mean love?' he ruminated with not much despair.

'Or was it a boy's name?'

From the corner of his vision, a screen appeared.

[𝗡𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱: 𝗔𝗺𝗼𝗿]

It was unfortunate that caterpillars didn't have a voice, otherwise he would've had a talk with this young lady besides him.

On the other hand, it was quite fortunate for him to not be able to speak. Amor, the newly named caterpillar, had always, and will always hate talking

...

Days had passed, with nothing truly eventful had occurred. Although for Anna, except for the previous dreams, it was an exciting couple of days.

She had a pet, a caterpillar now. Everyday she took out the dried leaves and other dirty things, replacing them with freshly picked milkweed leaves from the backyard.

Right now she was currently sketching the caterpillar eating with vigor. Shading a part, erasing it, then redrawing, she sketched it as perfect as she could.

The caterpillar looked exactly like the caterpillars her grandpa had raised in her memories.

Even now, a sense of nostalgia filled Anna as she looked at the caterpillar. It was munching on the leaves peacefully. Looking at it now, it brings back old memories, and she hopes that the new memories she experiences will be printed right in this very sketchbook.

Nothing really lasts forever. She knows all too well.

Hours went by, with silence as her only companion. Well, Amor is also her friend too. Not as if he had any choice for the matter. He was a caterpillar.

Finally, she finished her sketch. It looked very beautiful, with the proportions and shades in the right place from her point of view. Feeling a sense of achievement, she flipped the book to show Amor what she drew.

"Hey, Amor, look at this."

Amor looked up from his food, and looked up at the picture. Noticing that the caterpillar was actually responding to her voice, her presence seemed to have brightened even more.

"Isn't it great? This is you," Anna said, pointing at her sketch.

Although her face was marginally empty, a person would be able to barely glimpse the exuberance bursting out from her.

"..."

'She really needs real life friends,' the caterpillar thought as he returned to consuming the fresh delicacies once more. They won't stay fresh forever. As he moved towards the closest leaves, he paused.

"..."

Did he insulted himself on acciden?

Amor can't even remember when he had a real life friend. Did he have a friend? Well, there was one, but...

"..."

Anyways, they were both natural introverts that prefer to stay indoors most of the time, so he can't really say anything to that.

The pot calling the kettle black.

...

With the spring leaves flowing through the air, the chilly wind slightly rustling the tree leaves, days like these continued to pass by peacefully, with no thoughts of worries in their minds.

Until a problem arises as the week ended.

A horrible problem.