“Silly girl, stop playing with spider webs.”

Those were the first words Kimarya registered in her mind as she shook her head from left to right to clear up the jumbled mess that were her thoughts. Eventually, she gained more clarity and, with that, her vision cleared up. Focusing her attention outwards, trying to get a bearing on her surroundings.

Kimarya felt her back pressing against something solid, that she could only imagine being a tree based on the ominous existence of a dark and humid forest all around her.

These details immediately alarmed her, considering the last thing she remembered was being in a city.

“Where am I?”

She moved her arm to brush something that was all over her face and noticed it was long and wavy hair. When it finally registered in her head, she stopped moving for a second in shock before firmly tugging on it again and feeling a stinging pain.

Kimarya, in her exasperation, said, “What’s with this long curly hair, I have a little fro’, my hair is not supposed to be this long!”

In that moment, pulling on her hair seemed to have triggered something as a massive rush of information suddenly and violently exploded in her head. Causing her to just almost pass out from the overwhelming pain. It felt like her head was going to explode!

*Subconscious* Initiating flood gates safeguard!

**–Kimarya, a massive amount of new information has been discovered, a lot of it being a foreign language, culture, details, memories, thoughts and beliefs. Something forcefully assimilated some of it before protocols fully kicked into effect! How do you want to proceed?–**

Kimarya stayed completely still as the splitting headache died down.

**We appear to be in an unknown and likely hostile environment. How would you like to proceed?**

Kimarya replied, “Sunny, please scan through all the assimilated information, prioritize information of potential threats and safety, then organize the rest of it in a new folder. Categorize it so we can look through it later on.”

*Sunny* Understood.

*Sunny* I have detected an undetermined amount of new biological factors in the host body.

300… 2,000…..16,000 unknown factors.

Starting emergency full-body cellular scan to determine functions and interactions of these factors…..

Kimarya sat in silence as she held onto her hair before realizing what Sunny said and urgently investing more attention to her body. She immediately started noticing some differences, which caused her to immediately stand up and inspect herself with much more urgency.

She initially thought that this body was smaller in relation to her old one before realizing that the woods and everything around her were vastly larger than she’s ever experienced. Likely would put the evergreens to shame!

Kimarya alarmed asked, “What’s going on?!?!”

She first looked at her hands. The light was low from a cloud-covered moon, but she could still tell there was a dark red hue to her skin. Her tattoos and body mods, all gone. This was practically a completely different body. She walked on shaky feet, reaching out to the tree to notice the lack of hard bark that gave her a soft yet sturdy feel.

“What’s with this tree bark?”

She slid her finger over the surface of the tree, noticing it was elastic, smooth with pore-like holes all over, and just a strange texture. The tree was extremely large and oddly shaped. She looked up towards its leaves.

All she could see was a massive circular-shaped top.

Kimarya moved away from the odd tree and continued to examine her body. She noticed she was wearing somewhat crude clothing made of animal skins and odd fabrics but with incredible stitch work.

Kimarya told Sunny, “This definitely is not my body. What happened before all of this? Sunny, do you have any idea what is going on?”

**Sunny** Kimarya, so far after scanning through your memories and the new information. My general conclusion is that you died in your sleep of a heart attack and other odd complications and have been reborn in the body of this person.

This body differs vastly from the standard range of a human being. The differences starting at slightly different organs, but with similar functions. There are even new ones that don’t exist in the usual body of humans. The vitality of this body is tremendous! Muscle density and structure are unlike anything I have in my database. Would you like me to display the status of this body?

Kimarya affirmed, “Go ahead, please!”

**Sunny** Gravity and multiple environmental conditions differ completely from earth, as well as the reason I couldn’t add numerical figures to the stats of this body, so it’s safe to assume we are in a different world.

**Sunny**

Name: Draeneoy

Age: 13 years old

Sex: Female

Cultivation: None

Health: Unknown status, but healthy.

Strength: ??

Vitality: ??

Dexterity: ??

Intelligence: ??

Resistance: ??

Heart Spirit: Honey Badger

[Honey Badger Heart Spirit: an Indomitable will to the point of constantly exceeding limits and in rare cases of extreme damage there is a high probability of going into a prehistoric berserk mode with temporary atavism or flight/escape. Passive includes near exaggerated resistance to physical and especially mental afflictions.]

Kimarya responded, “All of that sounds insane. How is this at all possible? That sounds like some status effects in a video game! What happened to Draeneoy, the host of this body??”

**Sunny** Regarding the host, seems she also died from an unknown toxin, from this environment. Likely source being that odd tree-like organism you were leaning against based on the information scanned. I recommend creating more space between it and yourself.

Kimarya stood up even straighter and added more distance between her and the odd tree and brushed off the back of her clothes frantically.

**Sunny** Looking at the memories she seemed to be on the Autism Spectrum. Unfortunately, her tribe and culture made her incompatible, so she didn’t have a great time. In fact, the reason she was out here was because of a tradition of all 13-year-olds going out into the woods to find ancestral spirit guardianship or never come back. Based on the dangers and creatures out here, the more likely scenario is death.

It’s a sort of coming-of-age ritual to better describe it.

Kimarya wondered out loud, “Death from what? There are more of those toxic Mushroom.. trees?”

**Sunny** It’s actually a gigantic variation of mushroom–But Kimarya, there seems to be a massive ecosystem of dangerous and extremely powerful creatures all around. Apparently, with the coming of age ritual, there is a special method to accept an ancestral spirit guardian. The inhabitants of this world possess an astounding growing potential to increase power.

It’s known as martial cultivation where they strive for power and something extremely similar to Daoism.

To simplify the core components of this concept, cultivation is the stride forward, and the Dao is the guide. Your personal mountain path to Apotheosis, the peak! The recommendation for right now is to get back to the village and try your luck or try to form the Ancestral Spirit Guardianship. The latter would undoubtedly be more dangerous and most likely lead to death if its lineage doesn’t accept you, but banishment from the village for not doing so would be assured if we return now without it. Assuming that we make it back..

Her body started shaking, goosebumps formed on her skin as she grew serious as well as rightfully scared.

Should she risk the uncertain future of banishment from people she has no emotional attachment to, or follow their insane rite, but most likely die in the process?

Kimarya paused for a second before responding “…….., I don’t know what to make of this world, but I’ve already died and I will not risk that again on such low chances of survivability, Sunny, take me back to the village.”