He slowly regained consciousness and opened his eyes. For some reason he knew that he was or used to be male?

He should be able to remember his name though, but that was not the case so he held onto his gender to be able to address himself properly in his mind. What a weird problem to have.

The whole situation was incredibly confusing and overwhelming for him so he did what he usually did and focused on something else, in this case his surroundings.

What he saw was quite a depressing discovery. Around him was true nothingness. No light, no matter, just nothing.

Well, there was nothing except for a rip in space. Cracks were reaching outward from it periodically and slowly closed again. The rough edges of the rip were constantly shifting, causing the space around it to ripple.

The thing looked like the result of an experiment gone wrong and had definitely not been approved by the local authorities. Whoever or whatever that was, they did a poor job.

On the other side of the rip in space, a gray desolate moon landscape extended beyond the horizon. There were craters and impact sites of meteoroids everywhere, but otherwise the place didn’t make for the best tourist attraction and was pretty boring.

Over the horizon of whatever was on the other side of the portal he could actually get a glimpse of the edge of a planet with all too many clouds. There were a few spots of green and blue in between the white of the clouds, but the visible part of the planet was too small to show anything else. 

Green however was always a good sign when you were looking out for a habitable planet. Not that he could remember doing that. As far as he could remember he had been in his bed planning his own suicide the last time he was conscious.

He had been slowly losing his will to live for a few years and had depression which was mostly the fault of his lack of any purpose in his opinion. The last year of his memories was pretty much him lying in bed and avoiding going to university. He had only enrolled himself there so his parents wouldn’t notice his various attempts on ending his life anyway. 

Not that he had it in himself to jump or keep his breath until it was over. His body's instincts had been stronger than his will every single time he had tried so his latest plan had been to freeze to death. He only needed to go outside during a freezing cold night with thin clothing and go to sleep on a lonely park bench somewhere. His body could try to lock up all it wanted then, but it would already be too late.

Now, the stretch between a university student trying to commit suicide and the same person looking at a planet through a rip in space that was likely located on the moon orbiting said planet was pretty large. How in the world had he ended up here?

Calling this situation strange wouldn’t do it justice. He could have understood if this was the afterlife and he just had a small case of memory loss due to his death, but the afterlife was surely not punching random holes through space. 

He looked at the rip in space again. Had he been reborn as something weird like in one of the many novels he had read to waste away his time?

He tried to close his eyes again, but was unable to do so. Strange indeed. He tried to move his body next and discovered that there was no body to move. Retrospectively that should have been the first thing he should have wondered about.

He could start panicking right now and a normal person might have done exactly that, but he was by no means normal. That there was no body he could move was a good indicator for him having been reincarnated as something weird and he would embrace the opportunity. Then he could try to not be the person he had been in his last life, at least if his mental baggage allowed him to.

He moved his point of view, simultaneously discovering that he could even do that and looked at the space rip once more. Calling the thing a portal wouldn’t be right, there had to be some kind of differentiation or people could walk around and say furnace to volcanos.

Now that he had established that he had pretty much no idea what was going on he continued on to the next point on his nonexistent ‘things to check in case you get reincarnated’ list.

What could he do at the moment?

The answer to that was nothing, because he had no idea what was going on. It was like a loop of doom, he couldn’t win.

A light blue screen similar to one of an rpg game with a more modern menu style fizzled into existence before him or rather in his mind's eye.

Integrating…

He looked at the thing for a moment. Another strong indicator for him having been reincarnated somehow. Or he was inside some sort of simulation, which depending on the type of simulation might not be too bad. People were always thinking of this as something bad, but what if the real world would be even worse than the simulation we were in, huh?

That would be bad my friend, believe it or not.

He decided to ignore the possibility of this being a simulation. It was stupid to waste his time on this topic. There was no answer to it and he could do more productive things like wasting his time on light novels, manga and hentai.

Cough, he meant porn of course, only weird people read hentai he had heard.

As there was neither of this around however he instead focused on the possibility of a world system existing. See, he had always been fascinated by the concept and even started to wish for him being governed by such a system.

Such systems always rewarded one somehow or, if you were a Chinese person, judged you. Anyways, a system that actually made hard work worth it and equalized the ultimate starting point of all people in some way sounded pretty nice to him.

It would also encourage you to do things and could give one purpose, not something he could say about earth. Really, the only purpose nature had given to humankind was to eat sleep and reproduce.

A second much larger screen appeared and interrupted his musings.

The slightly blue glowing screen showed a game like status. General information such as his race, level, what he guessed to be health, mana and stats were depicted, but his name was left empty. He likely had to name himself and decided to use this chance to try and begin anew. He just assumed that he had died now and hoped nobody would come and shatter his new world view.

The screen also showed his race as mana core and he had no idea what that was. Maybe something like a dungeon core? 

That might be nice and it also kind of matched his tendency to get lost in his own world when he was doing something. At least as long as he had the option to leave. He really liked having options.

The system had some kind of problem with his age and mana regeneration, but he had no idea what was wrong there. Maybe it would be so kind to-

Another screen appeared, only this time it had a red hue and pulsed weakly.

 …Error…

Please define time and distance, measurement can be taken from memory.

That at least answered why there was no information containing time in his status. 

It did not make sense to have every person choose their own measurement units however. That would create a huge mess nobody could work with. Really, couldn’t the system just apply things with a unit he understood from the very beginning?

Something about the thing was weird, or he was just special.

He was not a fan of viewing himself as special though, except for especially bad. That was something he could do pretty well.

He also would have liked a bit more time to analyze his status. He had mana, so did that mean there was magic? 

What is 1 unit of mana and what exactly were his stats doing? 

Screw the math and definitions for a moment, the first question was much more important!

There was nobody there that could answer his questions so he had no other option than to continue with the measurement and time units.

He thought about it for some time. He could choose a decimal system for time like there was one for distance, but then converting time to something he could understand better would be a pain in the ass.

In the end he took the time units of his old life. 60 seconds were a minute, 60 minutes an hour and 24 hours a day. A month would have 30 days and one year 12 months or 360 days. While it would be funny to screw with people, going with something he wasn’t used to would just hinder him in the end. 

 A new window popped up and blinked neon green once.

Time defined, updating age…

Age: 43 minutes, 16 seconds

Updating Mana regeneration…

Mana regeneration: 1.00/min

Please define distance.

Looked like he would need to finish this before getting some more time.

His age confirmed that he had likely died, not that he really cared. The only thing that he had still cared about had been his close family and friends. They were also the one reason he had been unable to kill himself. He just couldn’t burden them with the knowledge that they had failed to notice his suffering while he had been actively hiding it. That would have been really unfair of him.

To distract himself from depressing thoughts he chose the metric system for distance units. It was just nicer to work with than the imperial system.

Distance defined, updating status sheet…

Nothing directly changed this time so he had to find out what he had just impacted himself.

Done with choosing the measurement units for distance and time he decided to delve into the deeper meaning of his stats. He had no idea how to do that and tried to mentally click on his status window, but nothing happened. When he thought of the meaning of strength and what strength was however, a new window popped up.

STR

The more strength you have, the harder it becomes to destroy you and the more and the faster you can perceive things in your domain. Your core size grows as your strength increases.

Stats can vary largely between species.

He read through the description multiple times. That stats may vary between species made sense, but his strength had little to do with his understanding of strength. It was more a mix of endurance and perception in his opinion.

He also had a domain, which might just be the strength of his species? 

The stat alone still left him with questions so he looked at the other two. 

INT

As your INT increases your memory storage will be improved in every way and your mana pool increases in size. The more INT you have the larger your domain becomes (1 Int= 10km radius). INT combined with WIS raises the power of all skills that require Mana to be performed. Your core size grows as your INT grows.

Stats can vary largely between species.

His intelligence stat largely did what he had expected it to do, mana and memory stuff.

Willpower seemed to be a combination of intelligence and wisdom however and it not being a stat made sense for him. He thought of it more as a character trait and something that also depended on the situation. After seeing your loved one die your will is likely a lot weaker or stronger, if you were determined to take revenge, than usual for example. To translate something as unsteady as that into a number was pretty much impossible.

The stat description also hinted at the existence of skills. He would need to search for those after checking his wisdom stat.

WIS

You are a being of Mana. As such your WIS rules the speed of your thoughts. WIS increases your Mana generation, which as a mana core has a direct influence on your surroundings and the universe at large given the chance. WIS combined with INT raises the power of all skills that require mana. Wisdom increases the complexity and density of your structure, decreasing the size of your core.

Stats can vary largely between species.

He stared at the pop up window for a bit longer. The stat complimented INT in everything concerning the mind and mana. 

He had only one problem, namely having an influence on the whole universe, he just wanted to be left alone and do his thing.

He didn't know if the influence would be good or bad either, but thought it was likely the latter and he didn’t like that.

Reading through the text again, he discovered that he generated mana. There was a huge difference between generating and regenerating something. Generating a form of energy like mana shouldn’t be possible, it completely broke the balance of reality.

This also indicated that the influence he had was pretty much just him pumping out mana nonstop, which would mean that he was likely the first who had access to the system if it is built using mana. Him defining time and distance would make a lot more sense in that case.

But who created the system?

Certainly not himself and he didn’t believe in things just popping up, so there had to be someone. He mused a while about this entity, but couldn’t come to a conclusion.

Having nothing else to do he decided to give himself a new name. He wasn’t the most creative of minds so it took a bit of time. Well, a lot of time, but this was something important so it was okay.

In the end he settled on Argul Agren. The name didn’t have any special meaning, but he had never heard it before and it sounded cool. It left him independent from things that had burdened him in his past life too.

Having named himself, Argul took a look at his status once more.

His name and age had changed, but there were also options that hadn’t been there before and his notifications were blinking like a defective flash light. It was incredibly annoying and grating on his nerves.

That so much had changed meant that either the system was being built right now or it tried to translate itself into something that Argul could understand and that would annoy him to death.

That aside, he opened his notifications to make the annoying blinking stop as fast as possible.

Achievement made: Error 404 file not found

You should not exist, but here you are being one happy rock. One wonders why you got a freebie to change the laws of reality, so better be thankful for it! Str +1

Argul looked flabbergasted at the window. He had no idea what to think about it and wasn’t sure if he really should be thankful. At least he got stats for it.

Another screen opened.

Achievement/ Title made: Origin of Mana

You are Mana, but Mana is not you. All Mana in existence originates from you and reality in a radius of one meter around you has the same mana regeneration or in this case generation as you. The radius will increase with your level (1 level= 1m). Be considerate of this, for you endanger the laws of the universe. Int +1, Wis +1

This achievement confirmed his earlier theory about his influence being his mana generation. It would likely not be a good one or at least a very chaotic one in the beginning and then just become another natural wonder.

Yet another screen appeared, though this one had a girly pink color.

Achievement/ Title made: Mother of the archive operator

Yeah I’m your daughter. Also hurry up and give me a name you lazy rock ^^.
The Archives were born from your Mana and you managed to become a mother without losing your virginity. Congrats! Knowledge uncovered or communicated in your domain you will learn, as long as you have the memory capacity to spare. Int +1

 Eh? Argul’s thoughts came to a stand still. 

First of all the screen was damn right, he was as virgin as they come so how the hell did he get a child??

Secondly he was not a woman!

Or was he?

Argul didn’t know. Did mana cores even have genders? Maybe he was both.

He still had no idea what he thought of having a daughter, it was just way too much to process in such a short period of time. 

At least he would try to be nice to her until he managed to get used to it. Treating a child he hadn’t planned like dirt wouldn’t be a sign of good character. It’s not like she had done anything to him either.

On the contrary, it looked like he had full responsibility for all this shit, so he should also take it.

Argul’s daughter also seemed to be able to read his thoughts, so he would likely never be lonely again. 

 A gray screen popped up and moved to where Argul thought his eyes would look at if he had any. “You know I wasn’t done with the achievements yet.” 

The screen suddenly became huge as if it had come closer to Argul. “Also give me a damn name too!!” 

It turned slightly away from him. “Only you having a name isn’t fair.”

Argul cleared his non-existent throat. “Hey, first of all you can talk without achievements and such. That’s good, I would have felt bad if you couldn’t talk.” Ohh god that was awkward, why did he have to be awkward like that?

A very important question came to Argul’s mind. “Where does your personality come from?” He really should give her a name first and ask the questions later, but he couldn’t help himself.

The screen got a bit smaller, making it a lot easier to read what it was presenting. “From your mana and yeah as I’m not some weird kind of rock I can talk.”

That was a very straight to the point answer, which answered barely anything if at all. Argul mentally shook his head. “I love you too.” 

Unbeknownst to him his core brightened for a short moment. “Wait, you are a bit snarky, does that mean mana is snarky too?”

The chat box blinked out of existence before it slowly materialized again. “...Yeah, at least yours is.”

That was as good an excuse as any for his daughter to fool around, not that he knew that.

Realization struck Argul. “You don’t want to say that I am doomed to the occasional snarky comment or reaction until I get to visit the afterlife, do you?”

The chat box shook from left to right as if shaking its head. “There won’t be an afterlife for you as long as you don’t get destroyed.”

There was still a chance of death for him, but it reassured Argul nonetheless. “So I’m basically immortal age wise…”

His thought voice had a trace of pity in it. “You are going to be stuck with me. Poor daughter.” Argul thought that out of his heart. He had a habit of badmouthing and underestimating himself. He wasn’t the most social and communicative person either.

Argul did not think further about his immortality as he knew he would somehow manage to make it look like something bad.

The chat box angled itself a bit away from his point of view. “It’s not like there will be anyone else looking after you so be thankful for that! Hmph!”

Argul could have sworn he saw the box pout. So cute! 

The box turned slightly pink.

 Whoops… he would need to learn how to think silently. 

Now for a name hmm…

Argul thought for several hours about this. His daughter would have this name for the rest of her time, so he wanted to choose something good. “How about Alyra? That would make you Alyra Agren.”

The chat box moved in a frantic and excited way. “Sounds nice, where does the idea come from?”

Now there was no way he would tell her the truth, he was sure his parents hadn’t done it too. It was basically family tradition to give a stupid answer. “Well, when you are all grown up you are going to be one hell of an alluring woman.” In truth they were now the AAAA team.

Can interfaces facepalm? Yes, yes they can. “I knew I shouldn’t have asked and I have no idea how you could think that without being embarrassed!”

Argul laughed happily in his mind. “With a lot of mental preparation!” 

His voice got a bit more serious.”There is also nobody here to judge me besides you and I’m not going to hide my true self from you. Last time I did that to my family and friends I kind of broke the laws of reality you remember? Don’t want that again.”

He really wanted to try to do better in this life. Argul needed at least one person he would be honest with and if not his own daughter, then who else?

The box moved up and down. “Yeah better not. Let's get on with your notifications!”

Achievement made: Prodigy outcast

Detached from reality you became depressed and decided to break the laws of nature. The universe did not like this and promptly banished you and every sapient being on earth. But one time is never enough for you and thus you got locked away in your own plane of reality by the universe you arrived in. I mean your very existence is still at odds with it. Wis +2, ability to contact the universe (now you can be even more annoying!)

That was certainly one way to express Argul’s ability to be.

He immediately casted that thought aside, it just sounded weird.

Argul did not like being imprisoned and made freedom his first new goal. He might not be an outside person, but having the option to go outside and wherever you wanted was still important for him.

He took another look at his status, interested in the amount his stats influenced his mana pool and generation.