CHAPTER 1 – Day 1 – Sanren 21, 15,368 ABG

James covered his eyes against the sunlight that seemed determined to drive ice picks… naw, I’m better than that… fire picks? Yeah, much better, he thought sleepily. Yes! Fire picks through his eyes just because he had slept in! It was Saturday, wasn’t it? He was having trouble remembering the night before. Reaching down, he tried to pull the covers over his head, except he couldn’t find them. In fact, as his hand fell back to his what he thought was his mattress, everything felt remarkably, well… grassy. Also his pillow wasn’t soft. In fact, it felt surprisingly like a large rock jabbing into his back!

Showing bravery on par with assaulting a horde of giants, or talking to a really hot chick sitting at the bar, he opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He was in a small glen studded with wildflowers and colorful plants. At his back was a large shelf of stone and beyond it were the foothills of mountains rising in the distance. There were also trees in front of him forming the other boundary of the glen, rising tall and majestic. The scent of pines mingled with the fragrance of the flowers. Birds of various types could be heard performing call and refrain. The moss growing on the trees was a brilliant green, and there was a crystal clear pool several feet in diameter between him and the stone outcropping. It was one of the most serene and beautiful settings he had ever seen. It evoked feelings of connection and tranquility and he expressed himself accordingly.

“What the hell!”

He sat upright as quickly as he could, not at all helping the headache that blazed in intensity at his swift movement. Looking down, he imagined it might have something to do with the curved rock that had been under his head, and the tender lump he felt as his fingers searched his scalp. As James took in his surroundings, he was interrupted by a slightly off-key and resigned-sounding voice that spoke from behind him.

“About time you woke up.”

Turning his head, slower this time, he saw the small form of an imp lazily flapping its wings as it hovered three feet off the ground! It had gray dusky skin, and pitch black, bat-like wings perched on its back. Its body was humanoid, if only one foot tall. James stared at it in fascination. The VR module had never produced a creature so lifelike and unique before. Standing up, he slowly walked closer, examining it in wide-eyed wonder until he was only an inch away. He was enthralled! That feeling faded rather quickly after it kicked him in the eye.

“Ahhhh, you dirty little,” James immediately began swatting at it with his right hand while holding his eye with his left. It lazily floated out of the way of his swing and rolled its eyes while sighing heavily.

“Look,” it said. “I’m here to help you and even if I wasn’t, it would take a lot more than a friggin noob to take me out. Now if you don’t want me here, I can always leave.” It turned its back as it spoke, and started to gain altitude with a faster flap of its wings.

“No wait!” James said quickly. “I just don’t know what’s going on. Last thing I remember, I was in this castle, and then there was just a light, and now I’m here. And who are you calling a noob?” he asked with a bit of indignation.

Ignoring his question, the imp faced him again and regarded him silently for a moment. It was almost like it was daring him to say something else to offend it. With a small nod to itself (himself?), it began to speak again.

“Okay noob, you are in The Land. You are NOT playing a game anymore. I’m going to say it slowly this time. You… Are… NOT… In… A… Game! Your mind and soul have been transported here and placed in this body. Let this sink in. If you look around you, you can see that you are in a small glade. This is a safe haven, but as soon as you leave you can die. If you die, then you will come back to this point, unless you find another safe location or town to bind your spawn point to. The good news is that no one else should be able to find their way here. Even if they did, the enchantments on this glade should keep them out unless you lead them in.”

James opened his mouth, but stopped when the imp raised its hand.

“This will go a lot faster if you just listen. A being a lot stronger, and I’m guessing smarter than you has paid me a LOT more than you’re worth to talk to you. Believe me, millions of those other noob Seeds will not be getting this treatment, so just listen. As I was saying, you were guided to this particular spot by a higher being. Before you ask, no, I don’t know who. I’m here to give you some basic info about this world so you don’t become troll dung in the first few minutes.”

“The Land is bigger than the world you came from. You are one of the first of your people to be brought to The Land, and you were lucky enough to be brought to this little safe haven. Apparently where most of you will land is random. Some of you might be in towns or cities, some in forests or mountains, and some will probably be dead on arrival because they fell into oceans and drowned. Who cares right? You have landed in the Forest of Nadria, on the River Peninsula. Do you remember anything about this location?”

“Yeah, it’s near the Kingdom of Yves. Supposed to be a section of land with a crazy amount of rivers crisscrossing through it. As far as I know, the patch to travel here hasn’t been released yet though.”

“Good, you’re not completely useless,” the imp said. “The Land is not exactly like the game that you remember. Your character won’t be either. Case in point,” the imp snapped his fingers and a hand-sized wasp flashed into existence. The imp casually looked at James and simply said, “Attack.”

The wasp immediately flew at James with its stinger extended as it curled its body. He quickly rolled to the side, hearing and feeling a buzzing pass just by his ear. He tried to activate the Hide action of his character Silk. The wasp, upon missing with its first pass, immediately turned around and flew at him again. It clearly still saw him. This time he didn’t have time to dodge and the stinger punctured his left bicep. Red hot agony seared through his body as he swatted the wasp away. Its stinger withdrew and it flew back into the air.

That pain was worse than anything he had ever felt! What the hell was going on? The pain dampeners were not supposed to allow ANYTHING to hurt that much, let alone just the sting of a wasp on steroids! He picked up a rock with his right hand, activated his attack buff True Aim, and threw. The stone flew from his hand towards the wasp. It easily dodged to the side though, the rock missing and accomplishing nothing. That was not supposed to happen! At his high skill level, there should have been less than a 1% chance of a projectile missing when he activated True Aim.

With no apparent thought at all to the injustice of the situation, the wasp flew in and stung him again in the other arm. Agony lanced through him a second time, and he noticed a small green skull and crossbones in the bottom right corner of his vision. No longer able to fight off the wasp, as neither arm was working, he fell back and noticed the red horizontal bar in the top left corner of his vision was half gone. When he fell to the ground, the wasp pulled its stinger out of his arm and flew towards his head. He screwed his eyes shut as he awaited a poisonous needle to the face!

But nothing happened. He peeked a glance, opening one eye. He saw the wasp flying lazily around the imp who looked at him dispassionately.

“Well what have we learned?” the imp asked putting emphasis on the last word.

“WTF?” James shouted.

“Well I hope you’ve learned more than that,” the imp replied sarcastically.

“Why didn’t any of my skills or actions work? And why did that hurt so much? Why is it still hurting?! And why did that hurt so much?!?” James’ voice grew louder and shriller with each question.

“I already told you, noob, you’re not your character. I told you twice! You are not a level one hundred and sixty-seven thief. Those classes don’t exist the way they did in the game. It requires a lot for you to qualify for a Profession, and you are nowhere near that powerful yet. Don’t worry about it. Right now you are just some guy with two wasp stings in his arms, drooling on the moss. You have been sent to The Land from your world. You are really here! Not… your… character. Check out your status page.”

“How?” James asked. He would deny it till his dying day, but there was a bit of a whine in his voice now.

“Will it,” the imp replied simply.

Shutting the throbbing in his arms out his mind for a moment, he focused on wanting to see his status page. Suddenly his vision was blocked by a translucent rectangle.

Name: ???

Age: 24

Level: 1, 0%

Health: 100 Mana: 100 Stamina: 100

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 10

Constitution: 10

Endurance: 10

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Charisma: 10

Luck: 10

Abilities:

Limitless

Gift of Tongues

Skills:

None

Marks:

None

Resistances:

None

Race: Human (Chaos Seed)

Reputation: Level 1 “Who are you again?”

Alignment: Neutral

Language: All

Willing the window to go away, he focused back on the imp, who started talking again.

“So I guess you now know you’re the definition of a basic bitch?”

“Excuse me?” James was convinced that he had misheard. The wasp stings had been embarrassing, but this was just too much!

“I was chosen to speak to you because I have paid attention to your world. It means there is a slightly higher chance of an ape like you understanding when an enlightened being like myself deigns to speak with you. Now seeing as how my wasp has just made you its bitch and your stats are all basic, ipso facto, my earlier assertion of your status. Any more questions?”

James just stared at the imp with his mouth hanging slightly open, swollen arms hanging at his sides, blinking in disbelief.

“Annnyway, you’ll be able to examine your stats in greater detail later. Do you know the difference between abilities and skills?”

Shaking his head at the imp’s ridiculous attitude, James replied, “Abilities are things you are born with or are given to you, skills are what you can learn. But I don’t know what Marks are.”

“That makes sense, they weren’t included in the game you played. Marks will appear as small tattoos on your body. They can indicate allegiance or increases in abilities you have picked up. I’m told technically they can represent religious affiliation as well, but since there aren’t any gods in The Land, no one knows for sure. Right now I’m guessing you have nothing in any of these areas. Do you?”

James examined his two abilities more closely.

Limitless – you can proceed to any level in any skill with 100% affinity.

Gift of Tongues – you can speak and understand any language. You cannot speak to lower lifeforms or higher beings.

He related these to the imp whose face took on a look of surprise. The small being cast a spell, waving its hand in the air and rattling off an incantation. A blue glow surrounded its hand for a moment before winking back out of existence.

“So that’s why he’s invested in you,” the imp said under its breath. It looked at Richter and continued, “Gift of Tongues is pretty self-explanatory. You can understand humanoids and other sentient beings, but not animals or beings of higher power like myself. For example, shi rine ka’ frine parul cha. Did you understand any of that?”

“No,” he replied. “What did it mean?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the imp said with a smirk. “Your language ability will definitely be useful. It even seems to extend to understanding written languages which similar abilities and spells normally don’t. What is truly interesting is your other ability. I’ll try to speak slowly and use small words so you can understand. Every creature born has a predisposition to being good at some things and bad at others. You might be a natural dancer so you have an 80% chance to increase your level with practice. You might be naturally clumsy and so only have a 10% chance of increasing as a pick pocket. In that case, you will almost assuredly have a low skill level no matter how much you practice. Apparently whatever you try to learn, you have the ability to increase with no cap. You could one day be very powerful,” it said thoughtfully. “I would keep the knowledge about this ability to myself if I were you. There are those who would neutralize you now, for fear of what you will become.”

“But not you?” James asked.

“I was well paid to advise you. Trust me when I say that you’re lucky to have me. The Universe is a big place and I don’t think I have too much to fear from one human. Besides, for an eternal being like myself, if I can’t be trusted to do a job, I won’t get many more.”

“Fair enough,” James wheezed. He was still trying to breathe through the pain, but it was starting to make focusing on the conversation a bit difficult.

“Now, I’m sure by that pained expression on your face, you’ve realized that your health is not restoring. Lower health means more pain, and total loss of health will cause death, of course. Low mana makes it harder to think and low stamina makes you sluggish and weak. While magic and stamina will replenish over time, your health will not without prolonged rest or healing magic. As a chaos seed, you will heal faster than others, wounds improving over hours rather than days, but still it will take time without help. As so,” the imp waved its hand and shadowy tendrils extended to touch James’ arms, finally providing relief to the burning aches.

James immediately started breathing easier, seeing the red bar of his health growing. “Thank you so much!” He almost cried in relief, “I’m obviously completely lost here and despite that first cheap shot, I appreciate your help. Would you please tell me your name so I can address you properly?”

The imp smiled genuinely for the first time, “You may call me Xuetrix. That is of course not my real name. You must never give your real name as with the right knowledge or abilities, it might allow great power over you. Now with that said, what should people call you?”

A translucent screen appeared in front of his gaze again. It simply said, “Name:” and had a blinking cursor after it.

James thought for a moment, happy with the advice. His character Silk had served him well, but if what Xuetrix said was true then his power could increase exponentially. If he really was in a new world, he planned on getting as strong as possible and making an impact. He would shake the ground and his accomplishments would only be measured by…

James smiled and looked at Xuetrix.

“My name is Richter.”

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