"Pftttttt.... Hahaha...."
"Hahahahahahahaha...."
Rhea burst into uncontrollable laughter,
doubling down and clutching her stomach, with tears in her eyes.
"See, that's why I didn't want to tell you." Graham grumbled to himself.
"But... Pftttttt..."
Rhea tried talking but failed miserably as another laugh burst from her lips.
Graham just gave her an even stare without changing his expression at her theatrics.
Seeing that she wasn't going to finish her laugh anytime soon, Graham thought about what to do to make her believe his outlandish story.
That's when a thought occurred to him.
' Don't I have my very own system? and it's AI who is supposedly the best in the entire universe (according to herself of course)... '
' So instead of trying too hard brainstorming, I could just ask her for a solution. Hmm, let's do that. '
' Lisa... '
[ *Sob...* Someone finally remembered me it seems... ]
[ *Sob... sob...* After getting yourself a new girl, how could you forget about your most loyal girl? ]
[ You're so cruel, Master...! *Sob..* Hidoi... ]
Graham rolled his eyes at the girl's antics.
In fact, She wasn't even a girl in the first place. He was the one who chose a girl's name for the system's AI, since he didn't want to call the system with a man's name all the time.
"Don't be so dramatic now Lisa... You can do that later."
[ Hmph, you're no fun. Stupid master... ]
"Yeah... yeah... Now tell me, is there a skill that can be used to share my memories with Rhea?"
"I need to show her that I'm not making shit up on the spot."
With an internal grumble of how he is only using her, Lisa replied,
[ Fine. Here's a skill you can create with your available resources. ]
[ Skill : Memory projection
Skill grade : Common
Skill cost : 100 mana - for sharing a year's worth of memories
Creation cost : 8 levels + 16 origin grade mana
Skill effect : User can share his/her selected memories to another person by connecting their foreheads.
Note : if the recipient resists the memory transfer, the skill will fail. ]
'Perfect' Graham thought.
He also noted that the skill's creation cost was slightly higher compared to when he created the fireball skill, which only had a cost of - 5 levels+10 Origin mana.
'Maybe because it's potency is more than the fireball skill even though they are both common grade skills.'
Now that his Origin Mana recovered to around 35 units after a day, he didn't think too much and created the skill using the skill station.
Then deliberately pretending to be a bit angry, Graham called out to Rhea who still hadn't recovered from her laughing fit.
"Laughed enough?"
Stifling her laugh for a bit, Rhea apologized.
"Sorry... sorry... I couldn't control myself."
"It's just that, I can understand how everything is changing with the integration of mana and those out of the world monsters. I can even somewhat beleive there might be other intelligent beings out there."
"But..,"
"Coming back to life?"
"Surely, that's not possible right?", Rhea asked, thinking how that goes directly against all that she had known.
"Fine, consider it your win. I definitely thought I could fool you with that story though." Graham admitted with feigned defeat.
"Since you won, I will tell you the real reason why I'm so strong. Now close your eyes and don't resist."
"Okay."
Even if she was doubtful about how closing her eyes will help him with the explanation, Rhea still complied and obediently closed her eyes.
With a mischievous smile that didn't promise anything good, Graham held her head connected his forehead with hers.
'Acivate skill : Memory projection.'
Immediately, Graham's mind entered a strange space where his memories from both lives, materialised in multiple fronts resembling TV screens.
With a thought, a screen materialised in front of his eyes, displaying Graham practicing with the great swordstaff in his past life.
' So I can access any part of my memory without needing to search through all of them. How convenient. '
Smiling in satisfaction, Graham started thinking about what to share.
' With my mana level at 230, I can only share at most two years' worth of memories. I have to choose wisely. '
So Graham chose only the fragments from the important moments of his past life.
Finishing the process, he started sharing them with Rhea through the skill, memory projection.
Feeling something trying to invade her metaphorical mind space, Rhea instinctively resisted the intrusion.
But remembering Graham's instructions, she slowly relaxed and lowered her resistance, letting the skill take effect.
After that, something akin to a movie started playing in her head - about a boy named Graham Ravenblade.
The movie was like a documentary, telling about his life as he grew up.
But the scenes didn't flow continuously. They jumped between one another showing only bits and pieces.
Along with having the same name, the boy also had the same black hair and golden eyes similar to her student - Graham's.
There, Rhea saw a boy no older than 3, getting fascinated with a weapon almost four times his height - A Great Swordstaff, and how he pestered his parents to created a similar one for him to practice with- until they complied creating a wooden miniature version.
She watched as the boy grew up to become a young man and his fascination
with the weapon turn into obsession over time, resulting in him even refusing to get married to focus solely on his craft.
Even as he aged, the man kept swinging the swordstaff. And at the end of his life, when his efforts paid off in an enlightenment enabling to use mana for the first time, Rhea felt happy for his sake. But his achievements had caused the mana to be available to everyone and the result was an unprecedented chaos lasting hundreds of thousands of years.
She also witnessed as the man used the newfound mana to grow even more powerful, participating in wars with humans, beasts, and other countless races...
like demons, dragons, angels, devils, vampires, werewolves, etc... - which gave her a shock as she had only ever heard of those races in fairy tales.
Rhea saw him reaching the absolute peak of power possible, and isolating himself from others - which gave him the nickname 'The Forgotten God'.
Rhea couldn't even comprehend his power at that point. So when the other gods surrounded him, she thought they were all similar to him in power and that with their numbers they could easily kill him by hanging up on him, which made her feel slightly sad.
But what happened next caused her another wave of shock, because the man, standing alone, was manhandling the thousands of gods like they were mere toddlers in front of him.
Then the scene skipped to him suddenly dying, his heart pierced by a dagger, thrust into his back from a cowardly god. Even in death, the Forgotten God had a crazy smile on his face before detonating his soul and letting them feel his wrath.
The video turned white for a moment.
The next thing she saw made her almost doubt her eyes.
In that scene, her previous student and now her man - Graham stood, gazing at himself in the mirror.
In the reflection, those same pair of piercing golden eyes, that once belonged to the forgotten god were staring straight back at him.
***
A/N : Hi dear readers...
I made some changes to Graham's mana level and also added skill cost and grade for fireball.
Mana : 2000 >> 200
Total mana for any individual = Intelligence × 10
Since Graham had 20 intelligence at the start, his mana was set to be at 200.
Fireball skill grade - common
Skill cost - 50 mana.
For more details, check out the auxiliary chapter - Skill Grades
***
Graham's current status after creating the skill - memory projection.
[ Status;
Name : Graham Ravenblade
Age : 25 years
Sex : Male
Race : Human
Level : 2 (10-8)
Class : None
Titles : None
Trait : Enlightened One
Trait effect : Able to use Origin Mana
Bloodline : Forgotten God's Godking Bloodline
Bloodline effects :
1. Body strengthening
2. 2x stat gain
3. 5x level up speed
Stats:
Strength : 4
Vitality : 4
Agility : 4
Dexterity : 4
Intelligence : 23 ( 23 / 104) - partially locked due to weak body.
Charm : 4
Mana : 230
Origin mana : 100 ( 19/100 )
Skills;
1. Fireball (common)
2. Memory projection (common)
Abilities (Innate) ;
1. Eye of the Forgotten God ( Level 1 )
*Passive effect : emotional analysis.
*Active effect : Weakness identification.
Soul Treasures;
1. Universal Gate - Key Fragment ( 1/5 )
Treasure skills :
* Master Key - able to open any and all doors - whether physical or magical. ]