Rise of the Arcane Lord

”Beautiful. . . ” The sky was filled with an infinite number of red dots approaching the amazed young observer. ”This is how our civilization ends? In the blood and tears of the losers that we are? It seems that no matter how much knowledge a civilization has, the law of the strongest still applies. . . ” *sigh* ”In the end, why did I bother all my life to discover the mysteries of the universe? I have only brought pain to my loved ones whom I have abandoned. I would have been better off living a hedonistic life if it was to ultimately accomplish nothing. ”

It all happened far too suddenly. The prospects that the technological singularity offered us seemed infinite, while the door of the celestial vault opened to us and that our standard of living did nothing but increase, we had finally discovered the existence of a civilization composed of beings resembling us in all points if not for their innate capacity to use a kind of extraordinary power that we had only been able to translate by [magic]. After 30 years of exchange between our two civilizations separated by 30 light years, we understood that our interstellar neighbors never had the intention to make us discover their culinary specialties.

. . .

”And it is with great joy that we present this weeks Most Important Discovery in Modern Physics award to Thaless Artificial General Intelligence for its remarkable work on the. . . ”

( ”Damn, we get it! Scientists are no longer useful and my job has no more meaning! ”)

A young man in shorts and a tank top seemed to swear in his unshaven beard after the announcement of the presenter, whom he quickly silenced by turning off the TV screen.

*tock tock tock* the man swore again when someone knocked on the door

”Yes Im coming, wait a minute. ” the man finally opens the door revealing the presence of a middle-aged woman.

”Mom? What are you doing here? ”

The woman sighed. ”I need a reason to see my son? I know you better than you think and hiding yourself in this place will not change my affection for you. Tell me Murphy, you just turned 30 and you
e still obsessed with research? Move on my son, the era of humans is over, now you have to make the most of what progress can offer us, an infinite number of virtual worlds to explore are waiting for you! ”

”I know mom. . . its just. . . *sigh* ”

”I know dear. . . just know that you don have to follow your fathers path, you are the master of your destiny, we will all eventually have better days before entropy takes us all away. Move on, thats what he would have wanted. ”

”T-Thanks Mom, I love you. ”

After a few minutes of discussion I wished my mother a good day and then got dressed to go out take some groceries. On the way I heard the mass of a temple of the god of life and death professing some stupidity about the approaching end of time. This new religion composed of people as lunatic as their beliefs had appeared from nowhere and had succeeded in the space of 25 years to gather more than a hundred million faithful, which is a feat if we consider that our civilization is composed of only 10 billion inhabitants.

”Now that I think about it, this cult is very similar to some of our alien neighbors traditions. . . ”

Suddenly, I heard screams from all directions. More and more people turned their heads towards the sky which was illuminated by more and more small red dots.

”strange. . . its still daylight so it can be satellites and the number of visible points is only increasing. ”

A man followed by a procession of people approached the stunned crowd and spoke loudly in a language I recognized as that of our alien friends. After finishing his incomprehensible monologue, which was repeated fanatically by the procession, he spoke again in a language that the frightened crowd could understand.

”Heretic! Repent before it is too late and come and embrace with us this new era brought by the apostles of the god of light and darkness from the stars. All hail the lord and the fate that awaits us all! ”

” ”All hail the Lord! ” ” repeated the procession and some members of the crowd

It didn take much to understand the situation and to let the regrets come over me as I looked at the now entirely scarlet sky.

”Beautiful. . . ” letting my thoughts carry me away, I ended up forgetting my surroundings and losing all my senses after quickly watching my body decompose and an almost instantaneous shock wave engulf the horizon and most certainly everything I have ever known.

. . .

( ”Everything is so dark here, why am I still conscious? The planet must have been pulverized though. Anyway, I never felt so good, I think Ill fall asleep. . . ”)

. . .

After what seemed like an eternity, I was surprised to see some light.

( ”I don want to join this light, Im fine here. Huh!? Why do I feel like Im being pushed in this direction? Don tell me that. . . ”)

The light was getting brighter and brighter and I finally understood.

( ”Reincarnation? No, thats impossible! Let me die in peace! I. . . ”)

*OUIN* *OUIN* *OUIN*

Once out of my mothers womb, I found myself screaming at the top of my voice without paying any attention to anyone.

. . .

When I woke up, I was panic-stricken and could not accept my situation until I finally came to my senses when I saw other poorly made cradles around me all filled with newborns. Near some of them were men dressed in black, all wearing hoods and whispering in an incomprehensible dialect that seemed familiar to me. After a few seconds a black smoke appeared in the shadow of the men in black and then gathered around the newborn before entering his body through all available entrances. The newborn wiggled in all directions before suddenly stopping moving, causing the three men to growl in obvious displeasure.

( ”What did I just see!? In which place did I land? ”)

One of the three men turned his head and noticed my gaze and started to make a frightening smile putting forward his malformed and disgusting teeth before pointing out my presence to his two acolytes. As they came closer to me, I couldn help but let out a muffled scream. The three people started to repeat the same thing as for the previous baby and the same black smoke came towards me before entering my body despite my agitation.

*Ding* Suddenly a screen with text appeared in front of me in a language that I understood immediately, I hastened to read it after having glanced at the three men who did not seem to have noticed its existence.

[System configuration according to the current users preferences. . . ]

[User display configured to a specific rpg system. ]

[System activation successful]

[Detecting a mind control attempt on the host]

[Sufficient intelligence, failed attempt of the mind control spell]

[Absorption of MP and skills from the hostiles casters: success]

After reading the last line on the semi-transparent screen, the three men fell to the ground.

( ”What just happened?! Put everything back in order. System, RPG, spell caster, MP and skill. If I understand correctly, this system has just saved my life and it allows me to use the same functionality as the games I played when I was younger. So I must have some statistics or something. ”)

I immediately started to think about a possible way to see my statistics until they appeared in front of me when I thought about it.

[Unnamed, 0. 003 years old, class: none, status: healthy, species:Human

Title: Child Genius (accelerated learning)

Blessing: MP Meditation (Fast restoration of MP, god of order and pattern)

HP: 10/10, MP: 0/0 no class

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 2

Constitution: 2

Intelligence: 17

Wisdom: 14

Charisma: 9

World Scholarship: F-

Natural scholarship: C+

Level 0 (0/0) no class

Exp: 120

Skill point: 0

Skill: Meditation (lvl. 0), Common Language (lvl. 7), Fireball (lvl. 0), stealth (lvl. 2)]

( ”I see, I received three skills that belonged to these three men in addition to the meditation skill that was given to me via a blessing from a god I have never heard of, I wonder if he is responsible for my reincarnation. . . ”)

( ”I don have a class, so I can use MP or level up with the exp Ive gained ”)

. . .

While I was thinking about what had just happened, a panicked man in black opened the door of the room I was in and panicked even more when he noticed the lifeless bodies of his three comrades on the floor. Curious, I began to listen to what he was whispering.

”In the name of the god of shadows! What happened here? I understand better why the paladins came back here, without the magic of the novice priest, the aura of the evil spell that our guinea pigs carry must have dissipated outside and alerted the order of the divine light! All I can do now is erase the evidence of our experiences. . . ”

Understanding what he meant by erasing the evidence I made sure not to be noticed by using the stealth skill, which was unfortunately useless since the man started to whisper in a dialect similar to the common language and emitted a fireball in the direction of one of my fellow newborn who burned instantly without resisting.

( ”For goodness sake! Its already the end?! Wait! He said something about paladins coming? ”)

At the same time that the pyromaniac continued to burn my other little comrades around me, a man appeared from nowhere and sliced the carotid artery of the latter.

”It was much easier than I imagined, the cult of the shadow lord has no business in these lands. Hmm? What a vision of horror. Don worry children of the light we will get you out of here. ”

After alerting the other knights of the order, he began to evacuate the children one by one. As the fire had already engulfed part of the back of the room where I was, I was one of the first to be rescued and brought near what seemed to be a priestess of the order who checked on us all.

”Poor souls, many died in this room. . . It is decided, our temple will take care of raising the survivors to whom we will not be able to find the parents! Destroy me this demons temple and lets take them home! ”

With these words, I finally dozed off after so much stress in such a short time.