Ted slept for twelve hours. He was tired, as he did not have the smithing class or any skills that made smithing the tools he had made any easier. When he woke, he looked at the token; the status on it indicated that he still had 6 hours to go, so Ted set about cleaning up from the rest of the tools and materials he had used yesterday. By the time he was finished, he had about half an hour before the countdown would be complete. The sun was high in the sky, so he sat on the porch of his simple house and ate a meal of Wyrm Flesh, looking out over the simple valley he had claimed.
At the head of the valley, a deep stream flowed from higher up in the pass to enter and crossed the mouth of the valley before disappearing into a cave system on the north end of the valley. From there, the spur of the king's road leading to the valley terminated in a simple but elegant bridge of white stone. The road had originally gone to the dwarven-keep-become-dungeon, but after Ted had claimed the dungeon and killed off the adventurers who came to try and remove him, the road after the bridge, more accurately, the fence after the bridge. The fence ran along the stream on the southern side.
On the northern side of the fence was a chest, a sign, and a bench. The sign was simple, 'Keep out and keep your life. Any found inside the fence will die. If you need to give me something, place it in the chest. Otherwise, please wait. Feel free to sit on the bench.'
To the south of the fence were four fields. The largest was to the west of the path that ran from the gap in the fence to the house and dungeon stairs at the southernmost end of the pocket valley. In the largest field, strange bushes with berries were growing, haphazardly placed. To the east of the path, three fields were growing three varieties of herbs, all of which any apothecary would have paid good money for. Ted surveilled his holdings, and a thought bubbled up. "I could have ruled everything. It could have all been mine. If only..."
Ted shook his head to stop himself from going down that path. He had made his choice and would stand by it for all eternity. He pulled out the Token and saw that there were fifteen more minutes. He also remembered he needed to assign some assets to the rebirthed soul. He shrugged, and without thinking, he quickly assigned the maximum amount of everything to the rebirthed soul.
Interestingly, he got a notification that his status had changed. He opened his status to see the change.
Ted smiled; he had assumed that the loss would be permanent and one time, but the way this was indicated, he assumed that his rebirthed soul would scale in strength as he did. He also assumed that this meant if the soul died, he would get his attributes back. Ted looked at his level and shrugged, even after losing more than 250 levels, he was the strongest thing around and arguably could still put a fight up against the divinities if he had to.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Ted lost himself in thought for a moment. A soft chime told him the time had come. He pulled the token from his pocket, placed it on the ground, and watched as massive quantities of magical energy coalesced. Messages began to appear in his mind.
Attributes granted. Error: power granted exceeds base platform.
Soul platform stable. Physical platform... FAILURE.
Querying exos for solution. Please wait...
Please wait...
Please wait...
Please wait...
Please wait...
Solution found: aging physical platform.
Physical platform age: 1 year(s)
Physical platform... FAILURE.
Physical platform age: 2 year(s)
Physical platform... FAILURE.
Physical platform age: 3 year(s)
Physical platform... FAILURE.
Each of these aging phases was taking about 5 min, so Ted wondered how long this would go on for. Elves could live to be thousands of years old. He wondered if he had created something of a kerfuffle. So Ted quickly made himself a cup of tea and sat down on his porch watching as the messages scrolled by.
Physical platform age: 25 year(s)
Physical platform... FAILURE.
Soul Platform Self Integration Initiated by Soul Platform.
Physical platform age: 26 year(s)
Physical platform... FAI... Fai... SUCCESS.
Rebirth complete. Implement Entity creation/spawning.
Ted closed his eyes as a flash of light brighter than anything he had ever seen flared into existence. Ted blinked quickly, looking at where the token had been. In its place, a female elf of unparalleled beauty stood, completely naked and seeming to emanate light which was quickly fading.
The elf looked up, saw Ted, smiled, and promptly collapsed to the ground. Ted scooped the woman up unceremoniously and lay her in his bed. He went out to harvest some of his crops and prepare a dinner.
"What did you do, Ted? This could be a trick!" Ted thought to himself before shaking his head. "Well, whatever it is, I can kill it if I have to. Let's see what happens first. Not often that I get new experiences now."
Ted nodded to himself and set about cooking, not just for himself, for the first time in nearly a thousand years.
I have a huge set of changes happening in my life right now, and I am doing my best to adapt. I thought I would have much more time than I do so here is what is going on!
Firstly, This story is going on hiatus until after the Writathon.
Reasons: I need to prepare for the Writtathon, as well as finish moving into a new place by 24-OCT-2023. Doing that on top of the writing I already do is a bit much for my brain.
Secondly: I want to know your thoughts on the blue box aspect of this story, so click the poll! I will take the poll to heart following the Writathon.
Reasons: I want to tell Ted's story and have never written a litRPG/Progression Fantasy story before. So I worry that the blue boxes will detract from the story or just become a distraction to the writing.
Thirdly: Thanks for the reads! I always appreciate it and hope you have a fantastic day!
Thank you for your patience!
What should happen to the blue boxes?
