I'm cross-dressing, using my creation magic to craft a very gothic Lolita-style outfit, taking advantage of my Lolita-like appearance. Yes, despite being six feet tall, I still look like a Lolita. Though the odd contrast between my height and appearance might be a bit off-putting, Hope says it only makes it better. "Even men and women will definitely be unable to resist your looks."

  Well, I'm off to use my amazing looks to scam some people into agreeing to become members of my race. I'll be upfront about what it entails, but I'm still somewhat scamming them since I'm using my appearance to convince them. After all, there are plenty of idiots—not that I am one—but they wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. Let's find these people.

  I flew up and began focusing my senses by closing my eyes. I can sense other types of energy—pretty much every type of energy. My brain simply concludes someone's strength based on their energy levels. I suppose physical abilities matter too, but those are much more difficult to gauge. I usually get a sense of those in combat, but their energy level should give me a good idea of how strong they are. And as he said, suppressing your energy isn't going to help. I can sense how strong someone is regardless of how well they hide it—a little trick I picked up. Anyway, if I focus hard enough, I should look for strong spiritual energy—that should allow me to tell who can see me.

  I noticed someone with relatively strong spiritual energy—for a human, at least. The weird thing is, when I focused on that person specifically, their life force was way too high for a normal human. This makes no sense—why do they have so much life force? I naturally began flying in their direction. As I landed on the ground, they noticed me.

  "What are you? I don't sense any life energy."

  "Well, aura—you know, from Hunter x Hunter."

  "Hmm? Sorry, I'm not familiar. I guess my reality of origin doesn't have that anime, or whatever it is."

  "Well, it's an anime. Basically, life force or aura is used as an energy source. There are basic techniques, advanced techniques that require specialization, and then you have abilities that tend to be unique—though similar abilities can exist."

  "I see. Well, I'm a spiritual life form. The race is called Diamond."

  "Similar to Bleach? So, your reality has Bleach but not Hunter x Hunter?"

  "Yep. To be fair, about 90% of anime didn't survive World War III. The internet was mostly destroyed due to various cyberattacks. Only the anime that fans downloaded onto their personal hard drives survived. Most other forms of entertainment were completely lost, so I suppose it might've existed at one point. Anyway, I'm here to recruit some people. Our race's fertility is pretty bad, but we do have classic immortality."

  "I can tell your life energy will naturally extend your lifespan, but every time you use your aura, you're basically shortening it. That said, you seem to have an abundance of excess life energy, which should extend it. If you draw on it too much, though, you’ll permanently shorten your lifespan. I'd say 300 years is your limit, assuming you don't use any abilities that shave it off."

  "Besides, our race specializes in magic. As spiritual life forms, we can't be seen by normal people."

  "That's... cool. Oh, for the record, we're not really invisible. People can't hear us either. If I had to guess, it's more of a perception block—like they lose the ability to even register our presence. Meaning, even if we show up on cameras, they'd still be unable to see us in the footage."

  "By the way, can you really ignore how adorable I am? I'm irresistible."

  "All jokes aside, I think the most convincing benefit is that our race doesn't have a defined lifespan."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "No lifespan?" She raises an eyebrow. "Well, you're right about your cuteness. I admit I can't resist. But I'd still like to know more about your race's lifespan."

  "To put it simply, we don't age. We can't die of old age. Gods can kill us, I suppose, but our immortality is otherwise absolute. And yes, I do need your consent to turn you—I can't just force it on you."

  I then proceed to give her puppy-dog eyes.

  "Damn, that's adorable. It's a formidable weapon. Besides, increasing my lifespan sounds pretty tempting." She pauses. "I suppose losing my aura abilities is a fair trade for gaining magic."

  I offer her a drop of my blood, and as she drinks it, she begins to transform. "The last step is to destroy your own body," I explain.

  "It doesn't matter how—just hit yourself with the intent to destroy, and your body will disintegrate into nothingness. It's a symbolic act of leaving your old self behind and embracing your new form. If you fail, by the way, you will die. I, uh, might've neglected to mention that part."

  She punches herself lightly, and her body disintegrates. "I didn't even use that much force."

  "It's the intent that matters," I say. "Now, welcome to the Diamond race."

  "By the way," I add, "we don't need to breathe and our bodies are our souls which are made of spirit energy so dense it turns into what I call 'spirit matter.' It's like physical matter but still retains spiritual properties. Oh, and for the record, I am a dude. "

  Right, our race’s body seems to be composed of half-slime and half-element, similar to the ARK series—oh wait, I believe in most realities, that’s a video game storyline. Anyway, our bodies are made of pure energy so dense that it becomes spirit matter. This matter consists of a slime-like substance combined with a refined elemental component.

  When you reach Captain-level spirit energy, you’ll be able to attempt to gain your shard, which is our version of a Bankai.

  Our race only needs to eat about a kilogram of food and drink a liter of water once every two weeks. We can survive for up to a month without dying of starvation or dehydration.

  Oh, and the best part? We don’t have any body hair—our skin stays silky smooth. We can give birth to children, but as I said, our fertility is terrible, and it takes 100 years for our offspring to mature.

  It’s also possible to become a progenitor. The first step toward that is obtaining a shard. As for the abilities of a progenitor, we possess rapid regeneration, the power to transform others into members of our race, and our greatest ability—unlimited growth.

  While others eventually reach an upper limit to their strength, we can continue to grow stronger indefinitely.

  "Wait, you're actually happy about not having body hair?"

  My reality of origin is an Earth that's a post-apocalyptic one—basically, acid rain, toxic pollution, and the need for special filters just to breathe safely. Everything costs money, and the world is basically dying—we’re just prolonging our inevitable deaths," I said. "Because of the pollution, I developed an annoying disease called 'Bigfoot,' where you have to shave every day if you don’t want to turn into a hairy beast. So yeah, I’m pretty happy not having to deal with all that body hair anymore.

  After high school, I got into gaming and stopped caring much about body maintenance anyway."

  "Since you tricked me," she huffs, "I hope you know you owe me a butt-fucking. I still don't believe you're actually a dude."

  "Well, I’ve got this huge thing," I tease, gesturing toward my skirt, which is clearly lifted by its massive size. "Besides, our digestive systems are 100% efficient, so we don’t have buttholes. We only need one meal’s worth of food and water every two weeks, and we can go a month without starving or dehydrating."

  "And sleep?"

  "Four hours is enough—though we can sleep longer if we want. Also, we can eat as much as we like without gaining weight."

  "And what about other recruits?"

  "She said she’s got a group of students—does that work?"

  "Recruiting them should be easy, especially if I don’t reveal that I’m actually a guy."

  "You’re impossible."

  "Hey, can’t argue with the results."

  At least I kept some of my aura techniques—actually, it looks like I retained all of them, even the advanced ones. It seems I only lost my abilitie, but magic more than makes up for it.

  By acting like a sweet girl, I managed to recruit all her students. Naturally, since they’re training in aura, they can see me—after all, they’re not exactly normal people. Increasing their lifeForce does seem to enhance the quality of their souls slightly and boost the quantity of their spirit energy, though the increases are minor. Still, it’s enough to grant them the ability to perceive spiritual beings like me.