Alex Hale Book 1 by Spielar

Chapter 1

So, I'm a baby now. Rather odd opening to a conversation if I've ever heard one. To tell you about why I'm talking about this when it is rather obvious that most babies don't even understand what it means to be a baby, I'll need to go back a little bit to the total shit show that my life has now become.

I was on the last bus of the night riding home after my shift at work around 11 PM. I worked at a factory as a repairman and janitor. My boss decided to save some money by having me do both jobs instead of paying for another person which of course meant going home well past closing.

The bus only had me, the bus driver, and a little old lady who kept muttering to herself. It isn't that odd to see those types when it gets this late on the bus route. The crazies always seem to prefer coming out at night.

The old lady gets up as we get on the highway and pick up speed and makes her way up to the bus driver. I figured she wanted to ask him a question, but of course she felt the need to be as insane as she could. The crazy old hag pepper sprays him in the face and jerks the wheel sideways at 60 some miles an hour making the bus flip.

If you have ever been on a city bus you will probably notice the fact that they all have a ton of metal, from the seats to the hand grips. They also have no seat belts to speak of and huge windows. When the bus flipped, I'm not sure what actually killed me first. Breaking my neck and back and most other bones on the metal seats. Maybe when I got impaled on the metal hand rail that broke off. Getting my throat slit and having been stabbed by huge pieces of glass that literally cut me in half was probably just to make sure I was dead. Double tap and all that.

In any case I was almost immediately in a white space just kind of floating there. The reason I say almost is because you can surprisingly live for a good amount of time even with all that damage. I had lived for about a minute after all of that. Just lying there on the ground next to the wreckage of the bus in agonizing pain. At least I think it was a minute, sadly I didn't get the flashes of my life to watch as I died. Not that it would have been much, I kind of had a boring life where I just moved from one thing to the next.

Well after that I spent what felt like a couple hundred years just floating there in a giant white space with only myself for company. Which by the way, did you know that when you have no senses of anything except yourself and nothing to do but think you may exhibit signs of insanity? Funnily enough I ended up just thinking of the random things in my life that had entertained me, it was rather nice to spend all that time daydreaming.

After my stint in the white space, I was teleported or something to a pitch black place. I heard a voice that sounded like a machine generated voice, which at the time kind of made sense to me seeing as only a cold unfeeling machine could let me suffer like that, not that I really suffered anything beyond mild insanity and boredom.

"Welcome to the reincarnation room. You have shown to have retained your memories and are thus not allowed to reincarnate to your original world. You may return back to the room of the forgotten to attempt memory removal again, but it will require you to pay 5000 karma points."

"Well, this is interesting. Please giant robot voice in my head give me more details concerning these karma points." I say out loud to what I think is the sky. Not really sure seeing as there isn't really an up or down here, also I don't have a mouth so it's more like thinking loudly in the direction I think is up. I did mention the possibility of me becoming insane right?

"Karma points are given based on the positive effects a person has had on their world before and after death. You currently have a total of 250,347,495,402 points."

"Well I'll be, how did I manage to reach that many points? I really don't think I helped that many people in my life."

"Your brother found your notebooks while removing your items from your home. Within was a large number of mechanical designs that were then used to revolutionize many industries."

"I see, so my little bro must have actually succeeded in one of his money schemes for once."

"He did not. He sold your designs to a bidder on an auction site and the bidder used the designs to build his own company. That company then went on to change many people's lives and even went on to save a great many people's lives, both good and bad. The points would have been more had they not also included drug formulas that caused many to fall into depravity."

"I sense a certain amount of disapproval from your words, but the fact you have no tone makes it difficult to know how you really feel. I may have been dabbling in a few things due to wanting to change the world. It was meant in a good way, but obviously some people took it in other directions. So, what can I get with these points?"

"You are able to choose the next world you are reincarnated in as well as skills abilities and other things to take into the other world. Due to you retaining your memory you will be deducted 100,000,000 points."

"Okay, so to start off with I want all things I get here to be made permanent regardless of the number of times I reincarnate."

"Deducting 100,000,000,000 points for reincarnation permanence."

"I want the gamers game system, all affinities, and looks correction for the best looks I can have without drawing attention."

"Deducting 125,000,000,000 points. 25,247,495,402 points remaining."

"I want to always keep my memories and be able to choose the world I am sent to."

"Denied, not enough points. Deducting 25,000,000,000 points for memory permanence. 247,495,402 remain."

"Hmm, can I spend points even after I am reborn?"

"No, the points return to 0 after you are sent to be reborn as your new self does not have anything to do with the lives in your previous world."

"Okay then, I want a quest point system and a shop where I can spend those points in."

"Deducting 245,500,000 points. 1,995,402 remaining."

"Can I choose the world I get sent to."

"No, but you may use your remaining points to choose the difficulty of the world. The world levels you may choose from are ungodly to mild. The easier the world you go to the more costly it will become."

"What is the difference between the difficulties outside of the cost?"

"Mild means there is some danger, but it is minimal and so long as you don't do anything you will be able to live. The world you are from is one such world. However, if you do this you will not receive much if any karma points for the next time you are here. "

"Ungodly is at the level of everything and everyone wanting to kill you at every point of your life. These worlds usually have you born as an extremely weak creature or a being who is hunted from birth. It may also have world destroying individuals within. Chances of you surviving even a single day depends entirely on luck."

"Well that would be bad since I'm sure there is a huge number of things that I would find necessary in a hostile world. I think I'll choose the level above mild since it's my first time going through this with all my memories intact."

"Random weak level difficulty world being chosen. World chosen."