Author's note.
IMPORTANT NOTICE.
Hello everyone. I don't like writing long Author's notes. However, I think there are a few things I need to clarify at this juncture to make this a much more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. So please bear with me.
1). I have read the comments on the already posted chapters and first of all, I want to thank everyone who took the time to share their thoughts with me. It really does matter to me and helps me in my writing, so I hope that they'll keep doing it and even more of you will join in.
2). I mentioned it in the first chapter that this won't be a quick wank story. Sex will be present but not the main focus of the story. It now occurs to me that I failed to also clarify that this won't be a short story. If anyone is under the impression that there'll be a happy ever after by chapter ten or thereabout, sorry, that's not the case. My plan is for this story to go 100+ maybe even 200+ chapters.
3). I say this because it has been commented that the story seems to be moving slowly. Well, the reason is because we are barely even five percent into the story. We are just moving past the opening credits guys. I plan to weave this into an epic story spanning a whole world with a character that grows as the story goes along. If it feels slow at the moment it's because we are just starting out.
4). Another complaint had been about the information heavy chapters like chapter two. I'll do my best to keep such info dumps as brief as possible. However, I can't promise to do away with them altogether. Like any strong building, I believe any good story ought to have a strong foundation upon with it can be put together. The information I lay out will be integral in future to the story, and rather than have it scattered all throughout the book in a disorganized manner, I thought it would be better to have it all in one place.
5). Finally, about the schedule for posting chapters. I know that Lit takes 2 days to review a story before publishing. With this knowledge in mind, I put up the first five chapters of this story expecting that they'd all go up on the same day. For whatever reason, however, Lit chose to put it up one chapter a day. This may have created the impression that I'll be posting a chapter daily. This isn't the case. I'll be posting a chapter a week, on Wednesdays. They'll, be submitted to Lit on Mondays and barring any unforeseen circumstances, should be published by Wednesday.
If after reading all this you don't think that this'll be your cup of tea, I'd advise that you stop here rather than going ahead only to get frustrated. Thanks for reading thus far. To those who plan to continue reading on, I promise we'll have a blast!
6). If you read the chapter, please take the time to rate it. It's just a few clicks of the screen.
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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...
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Chapter Six: A honeyed Tongue...
"Hey! Are you okay?"
Greg's face must have betrayed the mix of shock, fear, and excitement he felt at that moment. The shock and fear came from the realization that all this time, despite everything seeming like it was okay, his life had still been hanging in the balance. Greg didn't need any explanations to know what the system meant by soul stabilization. He wasn't from this world. He didn't even belong in the body he was currently in. He could still vaguely remember the void that he'd been in after he died on earth. Whatever it was, some powerful external force must have taken his soul from there and placed it within this body. All this time since he woke up in this body close to ten days ago, his soul had been slowly acclimatizing to it.
Going by the alert from the system and what he himself was feeling, his soul seems to have established a stable connection with the body he was now in. Greg had no idea what any of the soul maladies listed were. He, however, couldn't shake the feeling that regardless of the state of his body, any single one of them would have meant another death for him. Now that his soul's connection to this body was stable, it wasn't just death that had stopped looming over him. Even his connection with this world had in a way grown much stronger. Greg couldn't exactly put it in words. The closest he could come to it was to say that he'd been interacting with the world with clear glass in between. No matter how clear the glass, there had always been a separation between him and the world. All of a sudden, however, that glass had been shattered and now the world felt a lot more vivid and real!
"Is something wrong?"
Although only one line had been used to address his physical condition, Greg couldn't help the suspicion that it was just as important as his soul. No matter how well the soul stabilization went, if the physical vessel that it was supposed to anchor to had died, then it would have been game over. Especially because this body had already been injured bad enough for the previous owner to lose his life. Looking at the wounds spread out all across his body, Greg could understand why. And yet, despite all that, the healer had quite literally pulled this body back from death and in so doing, granted Greg another lease on life.
"HEY!"
The healer's more forceful tone broke Greg out of his shocked stupor. From the look of concern on her face, the healer was uncertain what to make of his sudden look of shock. He had to pacify her somehow. "Th... The Beyond... it... it no longer calls... calls to me!" Greg stammered and stumbled through the statement. After ten days of silence, his voice was croaky and scratchy. His throat was hoarse and dry. Greg, however, barely noticed any of this. Instead, he was awash with relief and joy as one of his fears was quelled. All through the past ten days, Greg had been worried about something that most people didn't even think about. Language. He was an earthling born and raised in an English-speaking country. His soul had been thrown into the body of someone, not from a foreign country, but an entirely different world where he doubted there was even a trace of English. As he responded to the healer, however, the local language that the previous owner of this body spoke came to him as naturally as breathing.
The brows of the healer rose as she regarded him. From the look in her eyes, Greg couldn't tell what she made of his statement. She, however, began to move her hands once more to weave together the healing rune. It seems that the look of shock on Greg's face had caused her to pause the healing process. Greg could see a note of curious anticipation in her eyes as she moved her hands. From the moment she began healing him more than a week ago, it had been an uphill climb. Now that Greg had reported that he'd crossed some kind of threshold in his recovery, the healer seemed curious to see how this would be reflected in his healing.
The announcement from the system was still covering most of his vision. As such, Greg didn't have to waste any time looking at the edge of his vision to launch the system. He simply moved to the page where the distribution of magic received from the healer could be adjusted. Without hesitation, he moved the pointer such that the distribution was fifty-fifty between healing and magic points. After what he'd told the healer, it would be odd if she tried to heal him and there was no significant change. Besides, the system seemed to be indicating that the reason more features hadn't been unlocked before was because he was in too precarious a state. The healthier both his soul and body were, the more of the system he could handle it seems. No wonder the first deployment of the system had been a single page with just five lines on it. This was the much that his body and soul had been able to handle at the time.