Past Life: Born into a reputable but poor family of butchers in a small dictatorship that managed to arrogantly huddle in a corner of the middle east, Femus was the second son and third child of the Loncut family. Life was play, chores, school, and knife work until he turned 15. That birthday was one he wouldn’t forget.

The general assigned with managing the city, fearing reports of an invasion by a terrorist army that was approaching the border near the city, mustered the local militia and ordered them to defend the city. Then he robbed the local banks and fled with his closest political allies and bodyguards, relocating to the capital to ‘help organize reinforcements’. When the invading terrorists finally arrived, three weeks later, the city became a warzone.

The militia was only able to keep the invaders, called The Cult of the Eye, out of the city for a few days. Then, their line broke and the battle became a slogging urban hell of shifting battle lines and uncountable casualties among both sides and the people stuck between them. The neighborhood where the Loncut family had lived and worked for generations, through many changes in government, was caught in flux. One day they would be behind the lines of the Cult of the Eye, the next would dawn with their own militia holding the area. Initially, both sides seemed reluctant to harm those industrious families that had no will to fight. But, as the fighting wore on and the cost in supplies and blood continued to rise both the Militia and the Cult became increasingly intolerant of those who were surviving.

Femus’s older brother was forced to join the Militia to protect the rest of the family. Two days later he was killed as the Cult of the Eye took back that same stretch of land once again. This time, they were not forgiving. They had identified Femus’s brother among the dead and demanded compensation for this ‘impious and ungrateful conduct’. Femus’s parents were forced to apologize, claiming that their eldest son was corrupted by the Militia. The Cult officer, seeing the pretty features of Femus’s older sister, demanded that the family offer her to him as ‘penance’ for failing to properly raise their son.

They also stripped the shop of its goods but left the three remaining members of the family unharmed.

When the tides turned again, the Militia heard from neighbors about the Loncut family giving their daughter and goods to the Cult. The Militia soldiers were enraged. They gathered a squad and executed Femus’s parents in a display of retribution in front of their home.

Femus had been running an errand in the next street when they came. He returned as the soldiers were beginning to seek information about the missing boy. Slipping through an alley, he caught a glimpse of the corpses of his parents. Then he heard voices and slipped closer to hear. He overheard one soldier speaking to an older man who had never been on good terms with their family. The soldier said that the officer hadn’t said whether or not the boy would be executed when he was found but that it would probably be that or impressment into the militia. The old man then described the very errand that Femus had been sent on and urged the soldier to wait for him nearby. The soldier gave the neighbor a small package in return for the help and moved into a connected alley to wait in ambush while the old man slipped back toward his home with a smile. He didn’t make it that far.

Femus was a butcher’s son who had to run errands in a warzone. He carried several knives and was all too familiar with how to deconstruct a body. The old man never got to see what was in the package. He never had a chance to even scream. The soldier didn’t fare much better. Since Femus knew where he was and what direction he was looking. Training doesn’t do much to help once a blade severs a man’s spine. The soldier’s rifle was an unfamiliar tool but the safety was off and an AK doesn’t need a marksman in order to be lethal.

His brother and parents were dead, their business destroyed. His sister was gone, likely to never be seen again. He had only one piece of work left to do before he could let himself drown in the pain of his grief. He walked slowly to the mouth of the alley and saw the officer in charge. He was spotted, but not before he fired.

The officer fell.

The two soldiers closest to him fell.

Then Femus fell. As he lay dying from the militia’s bullets he caught sight of a man wearing the uniform of the Cult of the Eye hiding in an alley across the way with a radio in hand.

That was the last man that Femus killed on his last day on earth. He was 17. The last thing he saw was the face of a militia soldier. His face was filled with confusion. "What...? Did you think... you were the only dog meat... I wanted to butcher?" Femus whispered through the blood on his lips as he died.

New History:

Breeze. Light. Dark. Chill. Warmth. Color. Danger. Safety. Weakness. Strength. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since that terribly clear moment of contact with the Demon King. What he knew was that the area was familiar, the blue flower that he was resting on was familiar… and food. The vines that climbed the tree where he was resting were strong and felt more safe than the ground below.

The sudden return of thought and memory was a shock, as was the dawning realization that he was truly alive… in some way. His senses were a little different and it took a little while to fully sort things out. He had chosen a form… a wisp. A ball of magic and light… with a hairless tribble at the center. Yup. That was real. That was him. He could see… and hear… and feel… and he knew things… magic… simple but he knew it. He wasn’t particularly hungry or thirsty, but those were a part of his awareness. So, he watched and listened and thought for his first few conscious hours.

His next course of action was to survive. Food and safety, power and awareness, stealth and defense. Femus spent his first two days practicing his ambush hunting method and developing his skills. One of the first things he achieved was killing a small slime that had hidden itself in a hole in a tree. He saw it kill a pixie and took advantage of knowing its location to simply fire mana orbs into its hole, eating a blue flower that he had with him in the process. He spent much of his time hunting hunters. When one creature would kill another, he would take advantage to strike the weakened or exposed hunter. True, he didn’t kill many creatures this way but he also got a lot of practice dodging around trees and hiding behind leaves or in holes to elude pursuers for a couple days.

After he became a little more capable, and he wasn’t having too much trouble getting food and water, he proceeded to use his time between hunts for meditation. Part of his meditation was devoted to the concept of the system itself and figuring out a working theory of how it worked and how he could use it to his advantage. Interestingly, it was during one of these meditations that he gained a level for the first time. That was an eye opener. The menu interface showed him that there was a progressive point progression for specific skills that he had practiced. There was a lot of potential there but he calmed his rising excitement and placed his points carefully, several of them went to gaining his first level of meditation.

The next three days were busy, his meditation focused on trying to accelerate both his ability to regenerate mana and increase his capacity for it. He also began trying to replicate spells that other creatures used and even dabbled in trying to manipulate some kind of elemental attribute. A world like this one was almost certain to use elements as fundamental components and he had seen several times when creatures were attacked by goblins with burning sticks, usually slimes that wandered near the path at an unfortunate time. Femus also gained two more levels during this time.

He also tried to move soil up to one of the trees, trying to make a narrow flower garden in a hole in a tree to test whether or not the blue flowers needed sunlight or if they were not so mundane in their needs. Unfortunately, transporting the soil proved very difficult and slow and he stopped trying for the time being.

So it was that on the morning of his fifth day after regaining his consciousness, he hadn’t actually become that much stronger. But, he had survived and come to a greater theoretical understanding of himself, magic, the Demon King, the System, and the world around him. It was time to put his understanding and theory to the test and truly begin to build his strength.