The three glowing paths hovered before my mind's eye, each pulsing with potential futures and alternate timelines that branched out like neural networks on supernatural steroids. Each choice a universe unto itself, collapsing and expanding with Schr?dinger-level uncertainty. In the background, I half-expected to hear the synthesized voice of Commander Shepard reminding me that my decisions would have consequences while dramatic orchestra swells punctuated the gravity of the moment.
I stared at the choices, knowing there was no strategy guide for this, no Reddit thread where some guy named DarkLord420 had already min-maxed the optimal build. Just me, the cosmos, and three glowing buttons of destiny.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
I know what you’re thinking. I should have gone with the obvious “boss” choice.
I mean, Nightforged Revenant just sounded cool -right? Who wouldn't want to be a cosmically empowered giggachad? The name alone screamed "leather jacket aesthetic" and "brooding antihero who probably has a troubled past and excellent hair."
But that last bit about an insatiable hunger for power turned me off faster than finding out your Tinder date collects human teeth. There was a fine line between confidence and douchery, and I'd seen enough Marvel movies to know how that particular character arc usually ends -either sacrificing yourself to save the universe or becoming the villain in someone else's origin story.
And I already had a hunger that I was struggling to contain, a void inside me that threatened to consume everything if I let it off the leash. Adding "power-hungry" to "blood-hungry" seemed like adding rocket fuel to a dumpster fire -spectacular, but nobody's winning any safety awards.
Now, Bloodweaver was interesting. Basically a beefed up blood mage, if I had my guess. Like a mad scientist, but with a supernatural twist and a scalpel-happy curiosity. Who didn't want to be a spell slinger? Magical problem-solving without the hassle of cardio or upper body strength had its appeal.
But I wasn't a real fan of using blood as my primary resource, like some kind of hemoglobin-based Bitcoin miner. Why not mana? Or aether? Or vitae, or something less... organic? Something that didn't remind me of donation centers and the metallic taste that haunted my dreams. Something that didn't make me think about all the lives I'd already taken and those I might take in the future.
Every class choice was a multiple-choice question about my morality with no "none of the above" option.
Which left the Pandorite Scion. It was basically an enhanced version of my earlier choices, like getting the director's cut with deleted scenes and commentary -all the original content plus bonus features.
The cosmic character creation screen wasn't exactly forthcoming with details, but the name itself carried weight. Pandora -the woman who opened the forbidden box and released suffering into the world, but also preserved hope. Was that what I was supposed to be? Someone who caused problems but ultimately made things better? Talk about mixed messaging.
My previous choices, Enhanced Human Sensibilities, Adaptive Physiology, and Elemental Influence all increased my survivability. My run-in with the spectacular tentacular monstrosity in that realm of storms we had found ourselves in being a perfect example. I'd survived that encounter by the skin of my teeth and someone else's luck. And I wasn't eager for a rematch. But the way my life was going, I'd probably end up facing its bigger, angrier cousin before the month was out.
And Pandorite Scion seemed to double down on the survival factor. It was less about raw power, more about adaptation. Like evolutionary chess rather than a supernatural arm-wrestling contest. Being able to change and survive seemed more valuable than being able to crush mountains or whatever the Nightforged Revenant sales pitch promised. After all, dinosaurs were badass, but cockroaches survived the asteroid.
Yet still, I hesitated, my mental cursor hovering between options like a moth between equally appealing flames. An urge that I didn't immediately recognize as not my own surged up and would not let the Nightforged Revenant option be dismissed so easily. It felt like someone had reached into my brain and adjusted the thermostat of my desires, making one option seem disproportionately appealing -like suddenly finding yourself inexplicably attracted to that friend you've never thought of "that way" after they casually mention they've inherited a vineyard.
I struggled -with myself- for quite some time. It was worse than the time I quit sugar -for a month. My body had staged a full rebellion then, complete with headaches that felt like tiny gremlins were remodeling my frontal lobe with jackhammers and mood swings that made Jekyll and Hyde look like a minor personality quirk. This was deeper though, something fundamental locked in combat with an external will. The mental equivalent of arm-wrestling Cthulhu.
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And then I felt something snap within me, like a rubber band stretched beyond its limit, the release sending vibrations through my consciousness. And the pressure lessened, receding like a tide being pulled back out to sea. A ghostly sigh of regret touched the edges of my senses -the supernatural equivalent of a LinkedIn rejection email- and I knew I was being played. Someone or something wanted me to choose a path of power at any cost. Which, in my admittedly limited experience with cosmic choices, usually meant I should run screaming in the opposite direction.
My gaze settled firmly on Pandorite Scion. If something was trying this hard to push me away from it, that was probably exactly where I needed to go. Sometimes the best navigation system is knowing what your enemies don't want you to do. I'd just have to hope that whoever was nudging my decision-making had terrible judgment.
I made my choice. The universe held its breath.
You know that moment in movies when the hero activates some ancient artifact and there's a blinding light, earth-shaking rumble, and possibly a choir of disembodied voices chanting in Latin? Yeah, this wasn't that. In fact, if my transformation had been a movie scene, the director would've been fired for lack of special effects budget.
The change was -anticlimactic. Like ordering a five-course meal at a Michelin-star restaurant and getting served a perfectly adequate sandwich. Not bad, just... underwhelming for the cosmic significance it supposedly represented. I felt a fluidity enter into my veins, cool and subtle as mint sliding through water. The sensation reminded me of that brief moment between being awake and asleep, when reality becomes elastic and thoughts turn to mercury.
But as I watched, I realized it wasn't just my body changing -it was my pattern, my aura- my soul? The architecture of my existence was rearranging itself, like someone had opened up the blueprints of my being and started making adjustments with a divine eraser and pencil. Turns out when I said one of my options was "rewrite your own damn DNA," I was being distressingly literal.
I witnessed the transformation through my Veil Sight, the metaphysical equivalent of watching yourself on a changing room monitor -awkward, oddly angled, and more revealing than you'd prefer. My essence unfurled like digital code being rewritten, strings of cosmic information shifting and reconnecting in patterns that shouldn't make sense but somehow did. If human souls were operating systems, mine had just received the update it had been ominously warning me about for weeks.
After a brief time of uncomfortableness -like wearing someone else's skin that almost fits but chafes in all the wrong places- my new sense of self began to settle. The sensation was what I imagine butterflies feel after emerging from their chrysalis, if butterflies were self-aware enough to think, "Well, this is weird as hell, but I guess I have wings now." My entire sense of identity flexed and stretched around this new template of existence.
And then came the power -not the lightning-bolt, Emperor-Palpatine-frying-Luke kind of power, but something more fundamental. Power through change. Power through adaptation. The universe throws a fireball? I become flame-retardant. It drowns me in water? I grow gills. Cosmic chess where I could change the rules mid-game, redefining the pieces as we played. The sensation flowed through me like whiskey through a college freshman -warm, disorienting, and promising decisions of questionable wisdom in the immediate future.
Then, as unceremoniously as clicking "I Agree" on a terms of service agreement no one ever reads, it was done.
I stood there, outwardly unchanged but inwardly reconfigured, feeling like I'd just participated in some metaphysical HGTV show: Extreme Makeover: Soul Edition. The Pandorite Scion was online. The system update was complete. The new operating system was booting up.
And somewhere, in the vast, unknowable expanse of whatever passed for reality in this absurd corner of existence, I could swear I heard the universe mutter, "Well, that's gonna be interesting."
I couldn't have agreed more.
Interestingly I didn’t get a choice in which abilities I gained. But the default options were nothing to sneeze at.
New Racial Abilities Gained:
- Veilborn Adaptation – Your body and essence have become partially untethered from the material world. Stealth abilities are more potent, and planar barriers are weaker in your presence.
- Primordial Vitae – Your blood now carries echoes of something far older than traditional vampirism. Increased regeneration, resistance to decay, and potential for further evolution.
- Echo of the First – A passive aura lingers around you, affecting other supernatural beings. Whether they bow in recognition or bristle in hostility is yet to be seen.
The easy stuff out of the way, I decided to tackle the rest of my past due notices.
The rest of the log was a mess.
My skills were getting a serious workout, especially Veil Sight. Charisma was also through the roof. I didn't even realize Charisma was a stat that could be leveled through usage, but it made sense. Like flexing a muscle, the more you worked it -whether it was your brain or your charm- the stronger it got. The irony wasn't lost on me that I was getting better at charming people while simultaneously burning bridges with everyone I cared about. If social skills were a video game, I was speedrunning the "alienate all friends" achievement.
I wasn't hitting a stat cap that I could see, but I was getting close to the base maximum for several key attributes. I had an advantage from my initial induction into this world of insane mechanics. When I was originally cursed with awesome, I had been given a boost due to my lineage. Maybe it wasn’t unique -despite what my mom used to say- it was definitely rare, like finding a four-leaf clover with a fifth mutant leaf that glows in the dark.
The system had doubled my potential stats as part of its "welcome package." Like those introductory credit card offers that seem great until you read the fine print about your soul and firstborn child. I started off with all my abilities at level two. Now, looking at my log, I saw that I'd been gaining, receiving, experiencing -I needed a better word for it. Mental note: find a thesaurus, or at least unlock a synonym skill.
Strangely, I hadn't leveled up at all. Not that I knew how to. My circle remained the same. I was still just a level two vampire -or, more accurately, my own special blend- a Pulseborne. Except now with 50% more supernatural flavor enhancements -by way of the Pandorite Scion tag being added to the description. But other than that, nothing had changed.
I noticed that my class tab was completely empty. Weird. I had assumed being a vampire counted as a class, but it made sense that it was classified as a race instead. Lily's history lesson had confirmed that.
I decided I needed a class.
- Followers go up? Boom, bonus chapter.
- Favorites go up? Ka-ching, bonus chapter.
- Reviews? Cue the confetti -bonus chapter and a shoutout, because I care.
- Ratings go up? You guessed it -bonus chapter. (And I might even crack a smile. Maybe.)