I was born on the first day of the third season of the 2800th orbit to loving and moderately wealthy worker class parents. Named Jack after my grandfather, I lacked the social rank or title to be bestowed a family name. As such the start of my life was ordinary, lacking any political or financial conflict.

I was neither the smartest nor strongest child in the city, but if I had one defining trait it would be luck. It was not uncommon for me to trip over just to find a wallet that someone had dropped under a table or bench. Though due to my parent's principles, I would always return them. Sometimes this would lead to a reward whereas other times I would be accused of theft. Such incidents happened so frequently that the police could hardly believe it. They eventually ended up knowing me from forced interaction and would play chess with me while they 'investigated the incident'.

I quickly learnt that not everyone was nice and that despite others telling me otherwise, the world was a fairly black and white place. Often it would be the richest assholes that would be the cruellest, while the poor with nothing but the shirt on their back would try to repay any kindness done to them. stereotypes normally existed for a reason.

I lived a comfortable middle-class life where I attended a good private school on a scholarship. During this time, I developed a habit of making friends with nobles, people who by all rights I should have been subservient to. As for my elective subject, I ended up studying the up and coming field of virtual reality programming. Graduating on my 16th orbit, with results around the middle of my class, I ended up employed by one of my noble friends. He was attempting to create a system that allowed the elite to waste their time playing games in a virtual world. We were fairly effective and just a little bit lucky as our game launched at the start of the wave of new entertainment.

The world was as peaceful as it could be considering the constant underground conflict between the rulers and the ruled. I, however, managed to remain far away from that ever-present powderkeg and my mundane life continued with a modicum of success. All my accomplishments eventually allowed me to live like the upper class, though I never chose to take a last name since I didn't want any political problems. Despite my wealth, I never let it get to my head because I was always grounded in reality by my parents. Life was what could be considered perfect if you ignored said parents asking about grandchildren. I'd had dates and gotten laid but nothing lasted for long, even my best relationship only lasted for an orbit. Unfortunately, all the peace and prosperity ended during the recognition of my 22nd orbit. News of the apocalypse arrived.

This was not some joke or exaggeration. Our people had just achieved basic space flight during my 20th orbit when during my 22nd orbit our telescopes discovered an asteroid almost the same size as our largest moon on a direct collision path with our planet. All hell broke loose as people realised there was literally no way to avoid our fate. The royals and nobles started throwing everything they had at space research and development. While the poor knowing they had no chance of survival let society collapse.

Why farm a crop when the world would end before it was time to harvest and there were supplies enough to last. The workers who now had nothing to do first became bored, then resentful and finally realising there was nothing to lose rallied against the aristocracy. It was a bloody conflict in which many died. Only for those who won to realise they gained nothing from their victory.

Luckily, I was in a city where the ruler was at least half-intelligent. He decided before the bloodshed began to open all resources to the people. This satisfied the mobs allowing everyone in our city to live out the last days of our world in a blissful stupor. The commoners began enjoying everything they never had the chance to experience. Finally, with the galactic escape plan failing due to the civil conflict, our people met our final day. I spent my final moments with my family, recalling funny stories and enjoying life till the end. In spite of all the panic, for most of the world, it was over in an instant. The asteroid hit the surface and shattered the primary continent, launching millions of tonnes of material into the air and sealing the world in an ice age.

Despite the fact that this should have been our end, it was merely the start. Due to the comedy known as fate, a series of things began going wrong for almost everyone involved.

At the same time as our planetary extinction, on another world in the 7th layer. A group of dracon, self-worshipping lizard people who like to rule like gods and think their crap smells like roses, were performing a summoning ritual. These arrogant tossers believed themselves to be above fighting. So whenever a dispute occurred, they would summon a slave army to fight in their stead. When their 'war' was over the remaining slaves would be disposed of, ending up either being worked to death as mine slaves or just killed outright.

To know exactly why things went sideways needs a basic understanding of the ritual in question. You see the ritual works by selecting a planet in a lower layer populated by a significant amount of humans. It would then act as a sort of soul catcher, harvesting all the souls that were released due to death over the cause of an hour. These collected souls would then be dragged to the ritual site with some being changed along the way. Some would disappear in the void between layers, others might come in contact with one of the remaining eldritch, going insane in the process. Lastly, a few would have lucky encounters with strange energies for enhancing them for good or ill.

Once the souls arrive, a body would be crafted around them. This process used a stock standard human form as a template with two arms, two legs and two heads. This prefab human was always male and had a randomised appearance based on the average genetic memory of the selected souls. Meaning that every person in the army looked almost the same once reconstituted. The other trait of this template was that it already contained a slave crest making them subservient from the second they are created. The ones that went insane, those with detrimental mutations and any that can resist the slave crest due to strange energies are immediately culled. Leaving an army for the Dracon to do with as they please.

Well this time things did no go to plan as the planet chosen was ours and the time frame was the same hour when the asteroid hit. The first major problem was that this kind of ritual was never meant to transport hundreds of thousands of souls. The second was that the dracon merely used the ritual and did not truly understand it, thus they had no way to stop it. As the ritual expanded to include the unimagined magnitude of souls, it required more power, so the sorcerers powering the spell were first drained of their mana before being drained of their very life.

Such a massive transit of souls drew the attention of the eldrich old ones and as a result about half of our numbers went insane with a few becoming hosts to the horrors. As for me, my luck shined. I came in contact with, what to this day is probably my most beneficial encounter, the remnant of a Pheonixian. This being was still thousands of years away from gaining a new consciousness. Its instincts, however, had awakened enough to understand that if it could inhabit a body it could rapidly hasten its return. Using the currently accumulated instinct it attached itself to the nearest host and made a deal, falling into slumber in the process. It granted me knowledge including the real reason for the system and in return hid within my soul.

The truth is that the system was designed to create a way for the Pheonixians to revive and return to their original power level, or even exceed it. There are loopholes, cheats, exploits and bugs that were created by design. purposefully implemented to allow their ascension and now I knew about a fraction of them.

Things were just as crazy when we arrived on the planet and the second runic formation activated. Due to our numbers, the body forming formation went haywire. it began randomly forming people anywhere within a thousand miles of the original runic circle. This was great for some but horrible for others as the unlucky ones were formed where a tree or rock existed, ending their new life before it even started.

Luckily I was one of those formed in an open space surrounded by a purple forest. The strangeness of what should've been green appearing purple confused me but I had more important things to worry about. I quickly realised that I could move my body under my own authority. I realised that due to the energy requirements exceeded the supply a slave crest was never formed, I was free. At the time I knew three things. Firstly, this would be my chance at a great future. Secondly, I had to run and lastly I had to get stronger fast.

Information flooded my mind and I came to understand that after a clusterfuck this bad. Where hundreds of thousands of non-slave humans, half of which were insane, where released onto this world. The dracons would be forced to get off their high horse and start a genocide before the eldritch horrors could establish a foothold. Fortunately, I was already at the extreme limits of where I could have been summoned but I still ran until I found a cave.

I immediately pulled up my status screen. A blue screen appeared in my vision containing simple information such as name and age that funnily enough was listed as 0. I started to use what limited knowledge I had from both my understanding as a game programmer and that which had been gifted by the Pheonixian the plan my escape.

Name

Jack

Age

0

Level

0

Statistics

Strength

10

Dexterity

10

Constitution

10

Status

Health

100

100

Stamina

100

100

-

-

-

-

-

-

Alignments

None

Class

None

0

Skills

None

0

Titles

Reborn Human

Reborn through a magical ritual

Bonus skill experience

The end result was as expected, a whole lot of nothing. There was no instant win or god mode cheat. Changing my perspective so as to not fall into depression, I realised that when viewed from another angle, it was a blank slate upon which to build the future. Knowing there was precious little time before the purge began. I realised that despite my gained knowledge, there was no way in hell I could save anyone. I knew that even my own chances at survival were minimal and my family... I accepted the sadness that everyone was lost to me. This was made slightly easier considering I had just spent the last ten days saying my farewells and accepting that I would die.

I used a fraction of the wisdom I had gained to scribble a simple rune formation. It was a rough thing consisting of a circle inside of a circle and some squiggly lines that I now know as law runes. I positioned myself inside the centre circle in a "lotus" position and bit my thumb to draw blood before dripping it on the writing.

My world went dark and all feeling in my body was lost. The formation was called 'one with the earth' and it was originally designed to allow a person to enter into forced meditation, aligning one's self with the earth affinity. I, however, was using it for another reason. It stopped all visible life signs and submerged my body into the earth as if it were a liquid, making me almost impossible to find. The downside of the formation is that it also forcefully suspended oneself inside one's own mind for a full planetary rotation. This actually proved beneficial to me since it gave me time to really study what I had gained and plan for the future.