Fabricator v2 - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

A soul floated through the Between, the place where all souls visit once their fleshy vessels expire. With no flesh the souls had no feeling. No sight. No sound. No smell. No touch. All they can do is float while thinking about their lives and waiting for what comes next. Souls constantly appeared and disappeared from the Between.

A soul that had been floating within the Between for an unknown amount of time had its musing interrupted by the sudden appearance of a screen filled with writing. The soul was dreadfully confused for a while. It hadn't seen anything since its death and couldn't help wondering how it was seeing something without eyes. After a moment it realized the 'why' didn't matter at all and read the message.

[Greetings!

The time for your reincarnation has come. Your karma has been weighed and your reward has been decided. Your karmic value is evaluated as above average. Your reward is reincarnation into a random reality you are familiar with. You are granted two of your choice of item(s), skill(s), or ability(s) to help you in your next life. Your choices must fit within your new reality.

Your new reality has been chosen. You know the reality as 'High Shool DxD.'

You will be inserted at a point before 'canon' begins, though no further back than twenty years pre-canon. Please begin making your choices for your item(s), skill(s), or ability(s). You will be informed of invalid choices and you may make inquiries to refine your choices.]

It took some time for the soul to process what it read. Questions flooded through its mind before it settled on one, 'Why am I being reincarnated? Isn't this something that's supposed to happen in fanfictions and to either random or really good people?'

[Incorrect.

Every soul is reincarnated into its own universe after the death of their fleshly body. The concept of an infinite universe is something that fleshly minds truly fail to comprehend.

Anything and everything is possible.]

'But... isn't a world like High School DxD just a piece of fiction someone imagined?'

[Incorrect.

There are many ways that 'fictional' worlds are introduced to alternate realities. In your reality they existed simply because the soul reincarnated into that reality expected them to exist. Many fictions are introduced into realities by people who lived them and write stories based on what they know or experienced in their last life. Over time additional souls are introduced to these stories and they spread into various realities.]

'Wait... so my entire reality was created just for one person to reincarnate within?!'

[Correct.

New realities are created, curated, and prepared for the insertion of a reincarnated soul. This process produces new souls which will live, die, and reincarnate to produce more new souls.

What you do within the reality you enter is of no concern. How long you live your next life can depend on what choices you make.]

'But... why? Why do all of this? Why reincarnate people instead of just making more realities without them?'

[While it is entirely possible, even easy, to curate all realities without the use of a soul, it is less efficient. The souls reincarnated in the newly created realities provide a template. Though you are unaware of it, vast amounts of information have been recorded by your soul. All information contained within your entire reality is stored within your soul.

That information is used as a basis of a new reality allowing for it to be easily populated with information. Not all information is necessary or used, and new information will be created or copied from other sources. However, copying or lightly modifying already existing information is infinitely easier than making all brand new information with no basis to build up from.]

It took a while for a the soul to process the reality shattering information it had just been given. After a while it recovered and decided to get over it. Shattered reality or not, it was heading into a reality where gods legitimately walk down the street and truly incomprehensibly powerful beings existed.

'So, I pick one or two items, skills, or abilities then reincarnate?'

[Correct.]

'What do sacred gears count as?'

[Items.]

'Excellent.'

It had taken a lot of questioning for the soul to come up with its first choice. Unlike it had first expected, it couldn't ask for unlimited power or anything truly broken. It had wanted Omnipotence, who wouldn't want infinite power? It was instantly denied though. Even 'limited' Omnipotence was denied. Same for full blown Omniscience and Omnipresence. Even the biblical God of the High School DxD reality didn't have all three of those at full power. If that version of God did have Omnipotence how could he have possibly been killed? Omnipotence literally meant infinite power. Cannot run out. EVER.

The soul figured most people wanting a sacred gear would ask for something like the Boosted Gear, Divine Dividing, or True Longinus. All three of those were indeed powerful Sacred Gears with limitless potential so picking them would make sense. Instead, it felt like Annihilation Maker had the most potential for being broken and making life easier. The guy, Lenard or whoever, in the show just made human sized and bigger monsters and crap. LAME! No imagination! Human sized and bigger monsters aren't scary! No, what's scary is a microscopic monster capable of invading the desired target from the inside out! Supernatural biological warfare! Forget making Godzilla, make super powered smallpox and laugh!

Worldwide supernatural pandemic monsters aside, the sheer versatility and possibilities of Annihilation Maker was simply ridiculous. Why ask for the Boosted Gear when it could make a monster version of it?! Or, failing that, why not make a monster that can just straight up steal other sacred gears from people? Annihilation Maker should really be the number one Longinus.

'I pick the sacred gear Annihilation Maker.'

[Denied.

Sacred gears currently in use are unavailable.]

If it could, the soul would have pouted. Annihilation Maker was an extremely flexible and powerful Longinus that would give it not just power but also utility. The soul silently growled in its mind and tried something else, 'Can I design a sacred gear?'

[Denied.

Karmic weight too low.]

The soul groaned within its mind before asking, 'Can you tell me what Sacred Gears I can request?'

[Denied.]

The soul started making requests for more common Sacred Gears that were supposed to have more than one copy floating around. Sword Birth? Denied! Not enough karma. Twilight Healing? Denied! The soul tried every last Sacred Gear it could recall, which wasn't too many unfortunately. Every last one was denied.

Since it couldn't get one for itself, the soul decided to look for other avenues of power. However it was quickly shut down when it started requesting items from other media. It had to be something that fit 'in universe' so asking for something like Yamato from the Devil May Cry series was denied. Though there were pretty strong swords within HSDxD, even some that could cut dimensions, nothing quite measured up to the awesome might of Yamato... Also its karma wasn't high enough to own such an awesome sword.

But... if it couldn't just be given something like Yamato... what if it could make its own version of the sword? But how? The soul only had a passing knowledge of making items using blacksmithing techniques from watching YouTube videos. It had zero practical experience. Not to mention magic was a fictional thing it its last life. However, the soul had been a bit of a geek and it knew a ton about playing a crafter in things like D&D... specifically one of its all time favorite character classes, the Artificer.

'Is it possible for me to be made capable of magically crafting items, weapons, and armor?'

[Yes.]

Okay, that was good, but it wasn't enough. Just because it could didn't mean it would know how. But...

'Is it possible for me to get an item such as the Essence of the Artificer?'

[With modifications, yes.]

The soul felt excited at the prospect. All Essences were broken in some way. Some started out absolutely ridiculously overpowered, but others took work. Judging by the things he'd been denied and the one he'd been partially approved for, the soul had a guess. It seemed, though it needed further confirmation, that it was denied items with inherent levels of immediate power. Sacred Gears had an absolute minimum amount of power to them, though they could grow above that minimum with work. The Essence of the Artificer, even one not weakened, had a pretty low starting power minimum. Practically zero really.

'What would the Essence of the Artificer give me?'

[Essence of the Artificer

-Craft items out of various materials, though your innate skills are at apprentice level. (Lowered from Journeyman)

-Imbue the items you create with mystical properties, the effects growing in power through the item's material and your own skill.

-The ability to swiftly craft your creations.

-You can work without actual tools, creating shimmering versions of tools out of arcane energy when necessary. (Limited to a single tool at a time)

-You can harvest the power or materials of magical items for your own creations. (Doing so destroys whatever material wasn't harvested permanently)

-Ability to learn new crafting methodologies.

-Artifacts, of a certain quality, you create grow stronger over time, leading to even the weakest of them growing to legendary proportions with enough time. (No longer applies to all creations)

-Artifacts made in a set gain synergies, creating unique abilities when used together.]

The soul looked over the information and thought about it for a bit. It seemed like a pretty decent starting point. Once it got some experience, maybe found a sponsor, it could learn how to make more powerful items and, eventually, progress up to a Grand Master in the art of Artificing. It just required time and effort, something it was willing to give to make awesome items.

'I'd like Essence of the Artificer as my first ability choice.'

[Accepted.

Please choose one more item, skill, or ability.]

The soul contemplated what else it could ask for to help it out. Thinking of Essences had sent it down that path of thought. It was certain asking for things like Essence of the Archmage would instantly be rejected. But... Wasn't there was Essence that sounded pretty weak but was actually one of the most broken? The Essence itself didn't grant any actual power, not even a drop. However, it would allow someone to, eventually, reach Saitama levels of sheer power. Essentially the Essence was just limitless potential...

It took the soul an unknown amount of time before it believed it had the Essence name, 'What about the Essence of the Blank?'

[Essence of the Blank

Your potential becomes limitless. You can learn any discipline or skillset, even if you shouldn't be capable of it, without forgetting it, and practice them into mastery, no matter how many you learn. Any abilities you have from other Essences will increase where possible, and develop in ways beyond their initial purpose.]

'I'd like that as an item please.'

[Choices made and accepted.

Reincarnation commencing.]

----- Line Break -----

With a jolt, Junichiro Arai awoke. He groaned as he stretched and went over the information fresh in his skull, “So... I'm a reincarnation? Sweet!”

The memories were... odd. He knew they were of his past life but there was a weird disconnect. Like... he no longer felt he was his past self. He was very much Junichiro! After all, he'd spent the last thirteen years as Junichiro. So, yeah, past life gave him some pretty nifty info but didn't really mesh with who he was now. After all, what use was knowing about his past life's leisurely life compared to this one? Years sitting at a desk in an office reading reports, collating data, and writing reports? USELESS! Less than useless even!

Though the new knowledge about his world and what it contained was so very helpful. And also a lot terrifying. Fucking gods, angels, devils, and other scary ass shit just walking around? Mutated monsters that would love to eat a cute little homeless boy as a midnight snack? He really didn't need the new nightmare material, thank you very much.

On the bright side, he now knew a fair bit about magically crafting items and how to get started on it! Bonus! He could actually feel his teeny tiny little mana core at his heart. It seemed that as an apprentice Artificer, he knew the basics of many crafting professions such as Blacksmithing and Leatherworking. Just enough to get started in a bunch that he needed to know. The coolest thing though? He knew, like, fifty different magical runic languages for enchanting! Granted, he could only use the weakest of them because the more powerful languages required... You guessed it! More power! Something he clearly did not have.

He also knew a ton of ways to infuse magic into items. Though he, once again, lacked the necessary power so it was all academic really. Still, with a minimal amount of materials he could make a weak magical item of some sort. Given what he'd just learned about his world, he knew exactly what some of his first items would be. Goddamn ward stones! Magic would attract everything to his cute little ass and he wanted none of that. The wards could help hide any emissions... well any weak emissions. They would be weak ass wards, to begin with. Ugh.

Okay, enough of that crap.

Junichiro reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a small vial. It was elegant while being minimalist in its design. Contained within the vial was a clear liquid, the Essence of the Blank. His memories told him why he'd wanted it as an item and not as an ability. If he chose to become a Devil, specifically under Rias, he couldn't have this Essence active. Due to the Evil Pieces basing the cost of conversion on potential, having limitless potential would mean having a limitless price. If it was based only on current strength then Issei would have cost less than a pawn to resurrect.

He stuck the vial back into his pocket and looked around the interior of the junk car he'd spent the night inside of. It wasn't the worst place he'd ever slept but it also illustrated just how few resource he had on hand. Still, no one ever came to this old ass abandoned junk yard so he had free reign of the place. He'd been the sole soul to come here in at least the last year.

“Right, first things first.”

He reached around to his back and pulled out his hand made shiv. It was exceedingly hard for a minor to buy a real blade, so he improvised. His shiv was nothing more than a sharpened piece of metal with duct tape wrapped around the lower half to make a handle. It was rusty as fuck and not actually all that sharp. The hell would anyone expect when he'd used a rock to try and sharpen it? Now though?

He closed his eyes and went over the information he had on conjuring tools to work with. It was an extensive list of items and many of them he just knew he couldn't conjure with his current available mana. However, the first one he wanted wasn't a problem. He held his hand out, palm up, and focused on what he wanted to make. A soft blue glow enveloped his hand for a brief moment before it all flowed into his palm and coalesced into a basic sharpening stone.

Junichiro opened his eyes to look at the softly glowing blue sharpening stone. It was fifteen centimeters long, seven centimeters wide, and one centimeter thick. Not very big, but it would have to work. After examining it, he couldn't help remarking, “First bit of magic I do and it's not something badass like throwing waves of fire or freezing some bastards balls off. Nope. My magical journey begins by summoning a fuckin' rock! A rock that cost half of my goddamn mana!”

After grumbling to himself, he got to work. He had no oil or water, but the magical sharpening stone didn't need it to work. It'd work better with it, but it wasn't necessary or worth the effort for a piece of rusty scrap metal pretending to be a weapon. He scraped the 'edge' of the 'blade' on the stone. The metal of the 'knife' was crappy so it gave way pretty quickly and soon he had a rather impressively sharp edge on the weapon. Granted the metal was so shit that a single slice would probably dull it, but there was a solution to that!

He dismissed the sharpening stone and thanked his lucky stars that it only took energy to conjure, not to maintain. It was basically permanent until he needed another item. In this case, he summoned an engraving tool. Doing so left him with barely any magical energy to speak of, annoying. He held the engraving tool in his hand as he decided to use the weakest, lowest tier, runic language that he knew. There were a ton of factors that determined the tier a language held. But, most low level languages had one thing in common, it took a ton of runes to do anything. Higher tier languages could do a fuck ton with a single rune.

He held his engraver, which the new information floating inside of his head informed him was just of low quality. The quality of his tools was linked to how much mana he could spend on conjuring them, so pretty crap at the moment. Still, the tip was sharp enough and hard enough for him to start scraping thin lines into the flat of the shiv. He carefully took his time to etch each rune one line at a time. Was it perfect? Hell no. But none of his little mistakes were bad enough to prevent the runes from working. That was one good thing about low tier runes, they were more forgiving. If he'd been carving a high tier rune, he'd have blown himself up by now.

It took nearly half an hour for him to scribe just three runes into the flat of the shiv, none of them perfect. Still, he would happily admired the results of his effort... if he could actually power the runes. That was another drawback for the low tier rune languages, they had to be powered by the user and currently he had hardly any mana available. Having the Essence of the Artificer unlock his mana and give him the basics on how to use it automatically was excellent. Having the minuscule reserves of a freshly awoken mage of only thirteen years? Not so excellent.

Still, he was thirteen, homeless, and had no idea how long it would be until shit hit the fan in the supernatural world. Yet, he wasn't all that worried, as long as he had some time. With enough time, practice, and effort, he could make items that could rock the foundations of the world. Weapons, armor, potions, maybe even Sacred Gears. He'd be able to make anything he needed to survive with enough time and effort.

And materials... Those were going to be the hardest to get his hands on.

As he thought about his next step, wards, his stomach growled loudly. First order of the day? Breakfast! Cause making a supernatural shiv didn't count for some reason.

-----Line Break-----

AN

So, this is kind of the direction I was thinking of going with a Fabricator rewrite. No instant OP items just being pulled out of his ass. He's going to have to actually earn them.

Also, I de-aged him because I wanted him to have some time before canon begins to gain at least some strength. It's currently 4 years pre-canon, Rias is only 14, making the MC one year younger than her. If it was just a few months before canon the MC wouldn't have nearly enough time to get strong enough to survive.

I also expanded the section for his time as a soul, I hope you all caught that. If you did, let me know what you think of the bit of reasoning for reincarnation that I included.

I think there was more I wanted to say, but I honestly can't remember what it was. Let me know what you all thought about this chapter and the potential story it begins.

THANKS!