The perks of having a system

As soon as Leon walked out of the gate, he once again felt the need to breathe.

Surprised by something so common, he proceeded to check out his body and was instantly overwhelmed.

He had a white shirt, brown pants and something that could barely pass for boots on his feet. He looked like a peasant from the Middle Ages. The most astonishing were in fact the muscles his new body had. The wrinkles on his skin were gone as well!

It felt like he was in his early twenties once again.

'Man if I had these muscles back then, I would have won that competition for sure! But if that happened, I probably wouldn't have met Irene that day'

Leon was still reminiscing about the past when his thoughts were interrupted by a nearby shout.

"A hundred karmic points!? Seriously? All they are giving us at the beginning are a measly hundred karmic points!? That is barely enough to buy a kitchen knife! And what am I supposed to do with it anyway? Chop onions in order to anger a dragon while it swallows me! This is insane!"

"As if you could afford onions! Look at the price of food items! This must be a bug! Call the system administrator!"

"Why the hell am I this fat!? How is this my soul's peak potential? But seriously, only a pan of bread and a bottle of water in the inventory? Why make us go to war when we can just starve to death!"

Leon soon recognized some of the faces around him. They were the people from the group of a few hundred souls that went through the gate before him. The major difference was that the bluish ethereal glow was gone, and their ethnicity, hair and skin color could once again be differentiated.

Only then did he notice his surroundings.

He was in a huge square with what seemed to be thousands of other people. Most of them were dressed in the same way as him, but in the distance, near the enormous skyscrapers and other types of buildings, Leon spotted a few people with modern outfits.

Soon after his gaze fell on to the buildings. The architectural diversity was so vast. From late Gothic and Renaissance styles of Europe, through Ottoman, Chinese and Japanese styles, all the way to modern and postmodern architecture and those were only the ones Leon could recognize! It was as if all of the Earth's culture from the last few centuries was brought together in one place and displayed for everyone to admire.

Leon's reverence of his surroundings was then abruptly interrupted by a loud ping in his head. Immediately after a transparent screen popped up in front of him and started filling up with words in the same way the message from Irene did.

-System upload completed-

pending...

-Connection with the soul established-

pending...

-Checking soul parameters-

15% completed

47% completed

72% completed

93% completed

-Checking soul parameters successfully completed-

pending...

-Establishing connection with the universal store-

pending...

-All necessary protocols successfully completed-

Welcome to the Soul War, Mr. Leon Swain

After the welcome message was displayed, the screen went blank for a moment, and then a menu popped up.

-Profile

-Inventory

-Store

Leon has already seen this type of menus in many of the video games he played with his grandson, so he wasn't that surprised. He tried "clicking" on the screen but his hand just went through it. Realizing that it might be more advanced than that, he just thought about 'Profile' in his mind and soon enough the screen changed once again.

-Name: Leon Swain

-Affiliation: Earth realm (Realm perk: 0/10)

-Title: None

-Job proficiency: None

-Attributes

Health: 100/100

Stamina: 100/100

Mana: N/A

Strength: 5

Vitality: 5

Agility: 6

Intelligence: 5

Willpower: 7

-Weapon proficiency

Guns (Basic proficiency: 16/100)

Knife (Advanced proficiency: 687/1000)

Sword (Advanced proficiency: 73/1000)

-Talents and skills

Cooking (Advanced proficiency: 589/1000)

Swordsmanship (Basic proficiency: 84/100)

-Bonus perks

Irene's gift (Unique)

-Karmic points: 84.358

As soon as he read his profile, Leon's jaw dropped. How did he have so many karmic points?

He clearly heard that everyone started with only a hundred points, yet his were over eighty thousand!?

Leon immediately started to analyse his situation.

'It must have something to do with the Assistant Overseer? He must have done something. But why would he help me?' Leon contemplated, and soon it occurred to him

'Did he forget to cleanse my soul? But that's ridiculous...' Leon recalled how everyone else had come from 'Hell', while he arrived via teleportation array before he joined the group that was waiting in front of the gate. The gatekeeper even stopped him because of some error. Was that it?

Immediately after he thought of a 'Store' and following that 'Ascension to a higher plane'.

What was shown on the screen almost made him cough out blood.

-Store

Ascension to a higher plane

Karmic point cost: 10 billion

No wonder everyone in that square was screaming and shouting. The prices in the store were exorbitant. As if someone was playing a huge joke on them.

'How much time will it take to gather that many points?' Leon's determination almost wavered, but he couldn't allow anything to stop him. So he tried to maintain his hope:

'The Assistant Overseer was right, my karmic points really are abysmal. I guess you will have to wait for me a little bit more Irene.'

Thinking about her, Leon realised that there was something else in his profile that required his immediate attention, and soon the details were displayed on the screen.

-Irene's gift (Unique)

(Every time you spend 10.000 Karmic points, your willpower permanently increases by 1)

-Description

A generous gift for her husband in order to help him endure the harsh journey back in to her arms.

'She could always do that' Leon thought while wiping his watery eyes , 'She could always find a way to give me hope, even in the most desperate of situations'.

He was not yet sure about the value of such perk, but nevertheless appreciated it even more because it reminded him of his goal. It was the same as having his old pocket watch with him once more.

While Leon was strengthening his resolve to fight for his cause, earth below him started to tremor.

A tall podium, only wide enough to fit one person rose from the ground grabbing everyone's attention. Then a certian woman with long blond hair, dressed in a red military patterned outfit, jumped on to it from the crowd, and let out a shout loud enough to wake up the dead, so basically everyone on the square heard it.

"All right maggots, I am about to give a sense of purpose to your measly existences!"