Warm sunlight filtered through the dappled leaves of a massive apple tree greeted Wren's eyes as he exited the darkness. The sudden return of gravity nearly brought him to his knees causing him to stumble around a bit before he recovered equilibrium.

  Clean air? Check. Lack of obvious threats? Check. Presence of nearly obnoxiously positive but secretly bad-ass teenage girl and the enemy of all single, average looking guys dead weight? Not che- correction...check.

  Dual, popping sounds of displaced air revealed the the peacefully sleeping faces of Wren's grudgingly accepted companions followed by the opening of his interface with an automated message.

  Well, since it's open I might as well check out what I'm working with. Who am I kidding? This is like Christmas after a death row pardon. Even if the boxes under the tree had lumps of coal and dog shit in them you'd still feel happy!

  Okay. Essentially I'm a pet class that's good at making stuff with all that essence mumbo-jumbo. Expenditure is greater than recovery? The Life Essence thing is kinda weird but having any kind of gain offsetting natural loss is good I guess. Seems a bit scary low but there's likely ways to fix that so I'll look into it later.

  Percentage per minute on essence recovery seems a little more intuitive than arbitrary numbers and as I get stronger, (at least I hope I will,) the SYSTEM will automatically readjust power expenditure on abilities but it'll make it hard to compare myself to others directly...guess that doesn't matter much now.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Stats are pretty simple, as long as you ignore the hidden race crap: Strength's little better than an average person, Endurance's nearly double, Dexterity's pretty good, Perception's a little lack luster so scouting's out, Mind's probably just a bit better than my original self's, Intuition's a bit like wisdom but with a psychic undertone and it's damn good for a human but crappy for whatever I'm really supposed to be, Charisma sounds like a shiesty stat to me but no matter how suspicious it is, at least it's good. Spirit seems to be the supernatural version of strength and the more I look into it, the more confusing it becomes...Is something wrong with my Spirit?

  Damn, that's a lot of crap for a beginner isn't it? Okay, So this Calling business was one of the surprise pop-ups. An entity slipped in a contract on me while I was in a rush. Wait, I have a little over an eight year death sentence!? I need to figure out this Life Essence business as soon as possible! Even materialize and imbue take a bit of LE. Damn skippy, it's not currently recommended!Looks like I can't really go ham with Fabrication/Construction either. Eldritch Essence recovery is slow as hell... Got something under Mendicant that's not readable. Wonder what the hell that is?

  Spatial Calculation Assistance helps me with making stuff and makes teleporting safer, when I get it. Progression Assistance, of both kinds, gives me some free models and acts like an auto-correct but I need to figure things out on my own too and I probably shouldn't take what I know at face value. Ooh, a title granted perk, niice. Looks like it makes it more dangerous to pretend to be one of the 'baad guys' though... Another unreadable here too? Oh, they have something to with the second pop-up that I didn't get to read. Apparently, my new Race comes with much bigger containers for spiritual force and Life Essence. The pitiful additional amount I received from the time I spent in transition and what transferred from my original form, while fine in my old human body are little more than gas fumes in this one. That sounds bad.

  And there it is, Maladjusted. Guess this new, high performance vehicle my body has become isn't satisfied with the little bit of unleaded that got siphoned to it. Looks like finding some fuel for this vessel is a high priority!

  ***

  Somewhere in a deep, dark place a corpse-like figure is chained to a wall, it's body pinned in place by various esoteric tools and surrounded by body shaped dust piles laying as if peacefully at rest. It's body stirs with a barely perceivable trembling as a window of multicolored shapes reflect in it's dull eyes.

  “To honor my promises, I will live. To repay our Lord's 'kindnesses', I will live. To denounce the lies of our enemies, I will live. My new little friend, do not extinguish the hope I have placed in you!”