The Starlight Ascendency - Chapter 1

Lies in a military cemetery, lies a single gravestone thats different from the others.

[Here lies a father, a Teacher, a Hero, and a Demon of Evernight.

Acelius Conelli

June 6 1966- March 3 2033

May your soul be blessed by the Angels and condemned by the devil’s]

Acelius Conelli was born in a very stormy night inside a small town in United States of America to a pair of a young catholic couple. Even though the circumstances surrounding the baby birth sent countless people to their frenzy and despair, his parents continue to believe in their son and see the bright future in him. And they were right.

When he was one years old, he already can speak and mastered English when he was two.

During his time in playground at the age of four, he picked up Spanish and Mandarin from local kids.

When he first enter grade school, his teacher are so impressed in his intellect and his brilliant minds that he skipped several grade and enter high school at the age of 10.

During highschool, he gained multiple support from both faculties and students due to his eloquent speech and brilliant mind. In highschool he perform brilliantly in both sport and education and finally graduate from highschool at the age of 13.

He then enter Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and during this time, he quickly rose in popularity due to his brilliant mind, and was given the opportunity to represent his country to the World Conference of Education to complete his doctorate.

World Conference of Education is an initiative by the leaders of the free world to show the world their brilliant students, a show of dominance masked as a conference. And as fate will it, he dominated the conference with his thesis, a satellite system to circumnavigate the Earth to provide prediction on possible threat toward any country on Earth. And during this time he picked up several other languages such as Germany, Italian and French.

He completed his mastery of these languages and finally completed his first PhD at the age of 16.

PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

For the next 5 years, he completed another two PhD which are Aeronautical Engineering and Bioengineering

At the age of 21, he married with his childhood sweetheart and shortly after they were gifted with a daughter. Right after he was married he joined the Marine and was recommended by his superior to join the Green Baret. During his two tour, he showed an exemplary result for holding the line against enemies alone deep inside the enemy territories. Not only that, he turned his then enemies to alliance and successfully crippled the enemy entire supply lines. He was later awarded with Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart and granted the rank of Major.

He was discharged with Honor from the military at the age of 30. Drove by his desire which is caused by the adequacy of the supervisor in the battlefield, he created an R&D company which helmed by him only. Using his vast connection from military, he acquired a million dollars contract deals to strengthen the military to which he delivers. For the next 20 years, he makes his company into billions dollar corporation and earned the nickname Demon of the Evernight for his establishment of a PMC exclusive to his cooperation. His PMC albeit far smaller in numbers than any country military has might far superior then them at the time due to his invention.

But good think didn’t last long, at the age of 58, he was diagnosed with a lung cancer and testicular cancer. In bid to control or cure his cancer, he focused all his time and funds to find the cure and leave the company to his board. During his suffering, his most trusted company betrayed him and started to turned their back against him, they siphoned his money and power and subsequently take all his assets living him only the bare necessities.

For almost ten years he suffers and finally he let go of his last breath at the age of 67. Before he died, he delivered the cure to all over the world using his last _connection and it was revealed that it took him only two years to find the cure but he makes no effort to cure himself nor that he shows any reason to why he deliberately delivered the cure to the world at his dying breath or what he used his last of time with.

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In an empty dark room, multiple streaks of white lines converge and finally coagulated into a small blob.

During this time a very mechanical and disembodied womanly voice speak, “Welcome to the Afterlife, where heaven or hell are your making. Please stated your name.”

The blob shook seeming to indicate that it was startled before it regained it composure.

“My name is Acerius Conelli.”, the blob answer monotonously. “Where am I?” Asked Acerius, albeit he wasn’t really religious, he was raised in a Catholic family. Based from what he knew, this isn’t how neither heaven nor hells should look like, but more like he’s inside a purgatory.

“This is the Afterlife, the user will be sent to a new world to be reincarnated. Before you are reincarnated, due to the massive karma you have accumulated, you can influence your fate to a certain extent. There are three part that you can manipulate: your future look and name, your base stat and your skills.” Explained the voice.

Without waiting for Acerius to answer, the voice continue to talk, ” Stage One, character creation. For the whole session, you will be awarded with 600 points to spend, please spend wisely”.

A vaguely human figure emerges in front of the blob and a number 600 were clearly stated next to it. Acerius ponder for a while before he created a character with a splitting image to a superhero in Hollywood movies. He even makes sure that the voice will be as low and charismatic as the character depicted. As for race, he chooses Human. During the character customization, he had spent 200 points and it left him with 400 points.

“Stage One Completed, Initiating Stage Two.

Stage two will composed of allocating the point into the following stats: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligent, Agility and finally Magical Talent which is locked for human species in the world that you will go to. You are recommended to spend a minimum one stat point for each stat.

Each stats start from 1 with maximum value will be 10. Every 1 stats point will cost 10 point. The stats points will be as following.

1. stat point = newborn level

3 stat points = average adult

5 stat points = genius

8 stat points = prodigy

10 stat points = godlike being”, Says the hollow voice.

At this point, Acerius feels like life is just a game and for now he feels grateful that he can alter his fate even though he didn’t know how much can he alter. Being true to himself, his interest got piqued by the existence of magical talent stats.

Drive by his interest, he excitedly asked,”Umm,does that means the world that I will go to have magic?”

“It does. But human aren’t meant to weld such power.” The woman answer without being disturb by the emotion.

Acerius waver for a while but before long, he regained his composure. He knew that even if he can’t use magic, as long as he capable enough, he can see it one day. He then proceeded to spend 5 stat points for each available stat and spend 250 points.

“Stage two completed, initialize Stage three.

Please select the following available skills.”

There are a couple of hundreds skill available for his choosing each with it own cost. For example, there a fishing luck wich cost only one point to Conquerer of Fate which cost almost 10000 points.

Among all the skills listed, two of them particularly interested him; Starlight Workshop and Memory of Life.

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STARLIGHT WORKSHOP ( 0/5 ) – 100 points

Starlight Workshop is a workshop that exists inside the user plane of conciousness. Each level has its own perks. Automated creation system only available after the user has created the item. Starlight Workshop will evaluate the item and rank it accordingly from SSS to F, the criteria of evaluation consist of performance, design, versatility, complexity, and rate of completion.

Any automated construct will always be one level lower.

Anything can be created as long as user is capable*

MEMORY OF LIFE- 50 points

User will retained previous incarnation memories.

Also gain the ability to peer into an object history, the limit of the ability is only the user imagination and processing power.

Please use with caution.

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“I’m done.”

” Stage Three Completed. Congratulations Acelius, you will be sent to a new world, where Heaven or Hell is your own making. Enjoy”

The formally dark room suddenly brightens, and Acerius found himself in a unfamiliar room. The bed he was lying in are so uncomfortable and itchy. The first thing he noticed was the blurry vision and large shadowy figures standing close to him. One of the shadowy figures were talking in a very distinct and motherly voice and a charismatic and aged voice answered, taking in an unfamiliar language. Although he didn’t knew who this people are, he felt and immense familiarity towards them. They are his parent.

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Arthur Conellius was an aging man, his Family has served the Royal Household for several generation as both the Knight and possible candidates for the kingships. As he was getting older, he was plagued with possibilities of dying without any successor and the thought of that his family name might dies with him pushed him to the brinks and thus started his search for a wife. His quest has brought him high and low for possible candidate but none appeased him as most of them are briming with hostile ambition.

As fate would have bring to him, the Royal Family proposed toward him and asked the aging knight to married one of the current King princess

who was born between him and the castle inner chamber maid.

He first met the Princess in a private ball to introduce the Princess to the Conellius Household. The young lady didn’t received any attention she deserved when she enter ballroom, with only a casual introduction by the court marshall. At first glance he knew that this princess is less than half his age.

That is the moment that he knew that he has to do something for this princess. If he didn’t do something, a fate worse than dead will befall the Princess and thus he accept the proposal.

The two marriage was simple ,even for a distinguish knight family and a princess from the Royal Family. Only a close relatives and friends to Arthur attended the ceremony and it was done inside a small temple in his territory.

Flash forward two years later, the two were expecting a baby. The Connelius were very happy for this event but it doesn’t mean everyone share that sentiment.

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Aura Conellius as a young princess who was married to a really aging knight against her will.

At first she was dejected at the thought of marrying someone who was at the same generation as his Father, but then after the persuasion from her mother or rather from several parties,she’s finally decided not to go against it. She knew that without strong allies, she could never be able to fight against her fate. Thus when she was giving birth to a healhty baby boy, she was very elated. The baby shiny black hair and dark brown eyes which are a taletelling sign of a Royal Bloodline. And thus she name the baby Acerius, which brought the meaning of “the star that shined in the dark” in ancient language of the Drewing Tribe.