"Did you hurt your head right now? No.. that can't happen as I watched you the whole time. So what can happen.... Are you cursed?"
The senior threw a barrage of questions at klaus with uncertainty filled in them.
"What are you talking about senior? I'm fine." Klaus said
"Then are you an idiot? How can you choose that skill after all the lecture i gave just now"
"I'll allow you to change your decision. Go pick something else." the senior gave him another chance thinking Klaus must have mistakenly chose that skill.
"I'll choose 'Content Control' senior. I know it's risky but not comparable to the limitations of the two other skills. I would like to give it a try." Klaus said confidently
"Sigh.... Seems like I can't change your decision. I'll warn you that you can't change the skill later. Are you still going to proceed?" The senior gave Klaus a fair warning and waited for his final decision.
"Yes senior. I would like to take this skill. How can I learn it?" Klaus asked enthusiastically
The senior shook his head and said
"Tear the parchment holding that particular skill and you'll assimilate it into you." The senior instructed and watched his next actions nonchantly.
Klaus grabbed the parchment as instructed and tore it from half. Suddenly, a wisp of light exited the parchment and entered Klaus's head. Following that Klaus felt his head exlode with a huge magnitude of pain.
The senior who was looking at all this frowned but decided to observe it as they were currently in the void and no one knew the the consequences of assimilating an skill in it. Therefore he just brushed it off as some side effects.
After a few minutes which semed like an eternity to Klaus, he felt the pain vanish slowly and slight itchiness rose in his eyes. He rubbed his eyes again and again but the itchiness still remained.
"Senior, what is happening to my eyes?" He finally decided to ask senior about it as he is the only knowledgeable entity among them. His eyes still remained closed.
"Must be the side effects. Don't worry, it will probably go away the moment you exit the void." The senior said oblivious to the fact that Klaus's eyes have changed their colour from black to light brown.
All these events happening were like a dream to Klaus as he come from a place where magic was only a fairy tale used to distract children. Never in his wildest dreams did he thought that dying would give him this golden opportunity to travel into a fantasy world.
Without wasting any more time, he asked the senior beside him
"Senior what kind of world are you going to send me in? What about the memories of the person i occupy?" Klaus asked most of his concerns as these questions were going to decide the initial phases of his new life.
The senior as if expected these questions gave him a brief answer to clear any misconceptions.
"Slow down will you? Yes, my ritual will send your soul into the body of a dying man around your age and yes you will get the memories as the brain stores memories and it wouldn't change in this case."
"Senior what if someone saw the dying man stand up? Wouldn't i be burned down like some evil demon?" Klaus asked, his voice showing a hint of trepidation.
"No. The world I'm sending you is called Durandall. Durandall is more than thousand times bigger than your previous world and a lower population in comparison to yours. It is so vast that no one has explored more than 20% of it. The man you are going to occupy will be alone in the middle of nowhere. Hence there will be not a single soul around to watch him stand."
Klaus felt his mind spin after hearing those huge numbers about his new world from the senior. His expectations about his transmigration reached new heights as he hurriedly followed up on this
"Senior, when will you start the ritual?"
"Oh.. you're quite in a hurry. i will start it now. Kneel on the ground and spread your arms wide." The senior gave further instructions about the ritual.
Klaus didn't waste a second as he quickly got on his knees and spread his arms wide like senior told him to. He opened his one eye a little amidst the itchiness and was flabbergasted when he saw a octagon formed in the ground around him with him being the center.
The octagon was seemingly made up of light and strange inscriptions which Klaus didn't understand were engraved on it. As time passed, the octagon slowly rose in air above his head while making a eight sided barrier around him.
Klaus was feeling the itchiness in his eyes slowly vanish when he was enclosed in the octagon barrier. Feeling the pain disappear, he slowly opened his eyes and noticed the barrier around him in it's full glory.
Klaus saw the inscriptions on it and tried to discern the contents on it. As if in his response, his pupils dilated and the contents of the inscriptions appeared in his mind directly, despite him not having even a sliver of understanding about the inscriptions.
Klaus was amazed and thought of it as senior's doing and analysed the data in his head.
(Soul shift, dying man, alone, before awakening, noble family, Durandall)
The data roughly translated to this. Klaus looked at all the words and assumed them to be his conditions for transmigration. But he frowned when he looked at the family information. Klaus had a very bad experience with his first family and he didn't want that same experience in his second life. Therefore he wished to change those words.
Just as he wished that, the 'noble family' word from the inscriptions vanished. This whole process left Klaus flabbergasted.
'Did i do that?' Klaus thought but shook his head in denial as there is no way a ant like him can change a mighty senior's ritual. But there was a part inside him who wished it to be true. Hence he decided to do something again.
After contemplating for some time he finally sorted out his thoughts and wished to change the blank space with 'orphan' word.
There were several reasons for his choice but the main being his bad experience with his family in the past.
After waiting for a few seconds, klaus watched the word appear in the inscriptions leaving him totally stunned with thought swirling in him mind like a storm.
'Just what skill did I get? Isn't that just a A-grade skill? Did senior helped me knowing my past experience? But I didn't tell him anything.'
The senior was overlooking the process this whole time while reciting the hyms in an unknown language all this time. He watched the initial steps going all according to his knowledge but as the ritual went on his expression changed into a hideous one.
He saw that the pre-engraved words vanished and something else entirely became engraved.
"What's happening? This isn't supposed to happen. This is an ancient ritual and can't be tampered with. Did someone placed a trap for me?" He mumbled the words but not loud enough for Klaus to hear them.
Just when the first word changed, the octagon barrier shaked a little before it started shrinking towards Klaus.
The senior watched the barrier shrink and immediately stopped the ritual but to his dismay, the shrinking didn't stopped. He even used some of his powers to stop it but alas there wasn't even a scratch on it.
Klaus looked at the barrier closing in on him and started panicking
"Senior what is happening to this thing?!" He asked the only person who should have an idea about it but he was bound to get disappointed.
"I don't know kid, this is the first time this is happening." The senior said with uncertainty
Klaus saw the barrier just in front of his nose coming to a stop. He breathed a sigh of relief but after a few seconds the barrier started shrinking again.
Klaus felt a soothing suction force enveloping him when the barrier touched him. The barrier continued shrinking untill it became a ray of light vertically straight before disappearing, taking Klaus with it.
The senior has a nasty expression on his face as he couldn't comprehend the events that just transpired.
"Is he dead?" His voice rang in the empty void but only silence came to his answer.
The senior shook his head and continued his journey while leaving some words.
"Maybe his fate didn't wanted him to reborn again. Truly a pity. Now I have to go find entertainment elsewhere."