Battle Harem of the Heavenly Sword

Chapter 101 A Monster Unleashed 3

?In a small wooden cottage in the forest, a teenage man opened his eyes. He had golden irises and silver-white hair. As the young man arose from his slumber he patted his body and felt up his muscles. Years of lying in bed atrophied them to almost the point of nonexistence. After finishing his brief examination the young man looked out the open window in wonder.

The rays of sunlight entered his vision yet no sound, nor wind was able to pass by. The teenager tried to get off the bed to get closer to the window sill. Having little to no strength in his legs made him almost stumble, luckily he managed to hold on to various pieces of furniture for support.

After much hardship, the young man finally made it to the window. He raised his scrawny arm out of the opening only for a message to enter his mind.

- Alert: Living occupant has initiated contact with the outside world. Eternity stasis now lifting -

The sound of something like clothes being ripped echoed in the air. Then suddenly, the melodic tunes, wind, and all manner of sensory information flooded the room. Instead of being overwhelmed, the young man closed his eyes and took it all in.

From the light shining on his closed eyelids, the sounds of the forest, the damp smell of the earth, the heat from the sun to the wind blowing against his skin. After what seems to be an eternity in darkness the young man experienced life once more.

"It hasn't been long but it feels good to be among the living. The day I spend in the darkness gave me the creeps. I think I should have met someone or something, but for the life of me I cannot remember anything."

After a full minute of contemplation and failing to remember, the man then said in exasperation.

"Well shit, If it was important I'm sure I will remember. Now first things first. Status."

_____________________

Name: Hiroto Musashi

Race: Reincarnator | Transmigrator | Ancient Human

Past Lives: (Hiroyuki Mitsurugi)

Level: 1

Age: 17

Title: Heavenly Sword

HP 1564/1564| MP 682/682| SP 488/488 |AP 761/761

STR 118 +0 | AGI 86 +0 | INT 83 +0

_____________________

Battle Harem: Heavenly Sword

Dominant Rank: SSS

Dominant: N/A

Submissive: N/A

_____________________

Main Skills: Bloodline of Steel [SSS]

_____________________

Secondary skills

- Heart's Dogma [SSS] (New)

- Reverie Beyond Hope [SSS] (New)

- Integrity of the Faithful [SSS] (New)

- Husband's Loyalty [SSS] (New)

_______________________

Equipment: [Eternity Armament] [SSS] (New)

Runes: N/A

Enchantments: N/A

_______________________

Regalia Rating: [Initiate]

Aura: A | Lotus Assimilation remaining: 40%

Spirit: C | Ledger Karma: +50%

Mana: E | Hourglass Era: Root | Branches Remaining : 0

_______________________

"…"

Dumbfounded Hiro tried to reread what he saw a couple more times. The first thing that he noticed was the name. He now had the name, Hiroto Musashi. Probably similar to anime and manga he took over the body of a vegetable or a person who no longer wanted to live.

Next came his race and past lives, the original Hiroto seemed to be an ancient human, while reincarnator and transmigrator should be his traits. If one thought of the name, this body should be related to the Saviors as had a Japanese-like name.

Hiro's stats then showed staggering numbers, he had exactly the same states before he died. And he had an overwhelmingly large Aura pool, something he never had in his first life. Another change was he could finally see his Dominant rank now which said SSS. This essentially verified Krayto's theory on why Rhyne couldn't bind him.

Yet, he wondered if the rank came from Hiroyuki or Hiroto. Then the reincarnator remembered that none of the things the rank was based on had to do with the body. All of them were either inclinations or personality traits.

"If one considers the soul and body separate then most of the distinctions of the system made sense. "

Take the difference in Secondary Limit skills, Secondary Actives, and Passives. Many theorized that the limit skills were based on the soul, so they would develop regardless of the user's body. In contrast, Passives only worked on the body. Before reincarnating Hiro could not understand why such categorization was necessary.

He now had his answer. If the soul-based skills followed the soul, then it made sense why he already had souls even though he just woke up. Of course, the possibility that the skills belonged to the original owner of the body Hiroto, but the blinking (New)s on the status page said otherwise.

Ecstatic that instead of E's and NA's he now had [SSS]s across the board what perplexed Hiro the most was the Regalia section, He never saw this in his past life.

"The verbiage is extremely familiar though, both Patches, the system, and the Devoted used the words as ranks. I believe the hierarchy from lowest to highest went [Initiate] [Adept] and [Awakened]. Branches were something Patches and Alter Hiro gave importance to, but I wouldn't know what this all means."

Unexpectedly the one to shed light on the topic was Rhyne.

(So I used a domination order to have her kill herself to figure out who the Heir of Dragonblood would reincarnate as in all 100 branches, next when would be the perfect time to break your will. After she wiped herself from existence I launched a plan to kill the heir before she managed to protect you.)

(I already succeeded 99 times. The ones in this world are the last. Due to your lazy ass way of living, none of your other versions could defend themselves. It was like open season! Let's see, I tried burning, drowning, beheading, hanging, and turning them into undead, Oh! I even had your girls raped to death by orcs in one reality. Although my favorite would be the one I conned them into killing you! It was hilarious!)

Trying to piece things together with limited information generally frustrated the hell out of people, but the alternative is even worse. From Rhyne's info, it seemed like the max "branches" one could have was 100. And her usage indicated that each branch was a "life" that acted like a life stock or something to a similar effect.

That could explain why he had a regalia rating of D, he only had 1 life left for all intents and purposes. But what did the others mean, Lotus assimilation? Ledger Karma? And both including the Hourglass Era rated. Aura, Mana and Spirit.

Remembering bits and pieces of what happened when he was the herald. Hiro felt like the Calibers hide more truth than they let on. Unfortunately, without a teacher, it would be impossible to speculate without hundreds of trials and errors. A task the man had no time nor interest in.

"I can study the stuff later, the biggest problem is not knowing where the hell am I, well At least the system shows me the time and day. It is the nineteenth day of the Month of the Virgins.

"I left for the Manticore hunt on the fifteenth. And arrived on the peak the afternoon of the same day. I remember the sun setting as I fell into the hole and when Patches fought the devoted. So I died on the eighteenth if my math checks out."

Hiro then slapped his checks to get his train of thought back on track. "Focus on what you can control. Worrying never solved anything." Remembering a mantra of truth from his father figure back on earth, Diaz Lowenherz was one hard-as-nails bastard of the highest caliber. But his wisdom and tough love guided Hiro in an untold amount of instances.

"Come to think of it, I remember dreaming about him bailing me out with Chiharu's attempted kidnapping, still, I wonder what it meant?"

While estranged from his parents and adoptive families who did nothing but squander his inheritance, Hiro was extremely attached to his would-be a parental figure. He became Hiro's role model on how one should conduct himself in society.

Being from another country, his difference in values from the traditional Japanese caused Hiro to have trouble fitting in with his own people. One of the reasons he was told he could never get promoted highlighted this trait. Influenced by Diaz, Hiro considered a work day only 8 hours long.

To a people notorious for their extremely long hours normally made people view him in contempt. "Karoshi" was the Japanese term for dying due to working too hard. Hiro who didn't mind being called all sorts of names watched his colleagues either kill themselves in their distress or fall due to their bodies breaking down.

He normally would ask, "How is this better than going home? Your purpose in life is working till you die?" so Hiro generally refrained from going to after-parties or any work-related events that didn't need him. On the ones he did go to, he kept his distance from everyone to avoid weird topics about him being too "lazy".

Hiro knew he wouldn't be able to get any answers just sitting around, so the man pillaged anything of value in the cottage as he prepared to leave it.