I suck at naming things. I always have. Even naming myself was an indecision.

It was pretty late so I decided I would camp for the night, and now I was thinking of names. Clay Lusac was a brilliant idea, too bad it was for an identity that I would only use later on. I wanted another twist to my actual name, but there were none left.

I liked Sakul, but it was weird. Not for this world, but it seemed kind of strange to me. Then there was the part about a last name.

Actually… that wasn’t necessary.

So I went to the new Status screen I got, and put Sakul in.

It worked! I mean it wasn’t that strange, really, there surely were some people living in remote areas, where the concept of a last name wasn’t a thing, like in ancient times on Earth.

Anyway, my identity looked like this now.

[Status]

[Name]:Sakul

[Race]: Human

[Bloodline]: None

[Trait]: ???

[Title(s)]: ???

[Skills]: None

Let’s talk about it. Sakul was weird, but my peanut brain couldn’t think of a better one. The question marks though, were more for fun. Like I said, you could only display a part of your information if you so chose. I would only show my name at city entrances or registrations, but there were cases where the whole thing was needed.

You could also choose to show that you had a Title or a Trait, but not what it was, just like I did. Imagine how cool and quirky I would seem. Honestly, it was more about the fame and the speculations I would see about me online. It would be obvious at some point that I had some Trait, so it didn’t really matter.

Oh, I’m damn sure I’ll become famous. Just you wait.

Hopefully.

Or not, that’s an option.

Next day, I quickly went back to the city to start my plan of doing nothing for a few months. I dodged quite a few Beasts on the way, as it was earlier in the day and the weather was better. All that crap about monsters coming out at night was bullshit. Yes, the nasty stuff does, but most animals still need to sleep.

Normally someone at my level would have fought those, either for training or money. Now, for one, I was pretty rich, and from a few Beast you get next to nothing. Secondly, I was pretty good at fighting. I did say I was at the level of a street thug, but that was for the big leagues, at this level I was certainly one of the best.

I’m pretty old and experienced, after all.

As I waited in the queue, I heard a ruckus behind, and I turned around to see what looked like a teenager atop a giant lizard sprinting past the line, hitting every person on the side and knocking over carriages. The group parted for him as much as they could, and he speedily went past with delight written all over his face.

It’s good to have hope. And confidence.

Not here though.

He got to the gate pretty past, where five guards and two Mages in robes waited with their weapons out. He managed to ram two guards, sprint past a robed guy, and just when he thought he was through, the earth before him rose up, slamming and throwing the man to the ground, taking the air out of his lungs. Furthermore, just for good measure, another one slammed the butt of his spear in his face.

I poked my head out of the line and smirked.

“Heh, idiot.”

Probably some rich kid. They carried him away and continued business as usual..

I waited a few hours at the gate before my turn, when I got a few weird looks from the guards.

“Like the beard? I worked hard,” I said while caressing it.

They made a disgusted face and let me go with a grunt. The name was probably also weird, but the beard was the highlight.

Anyway, I made my way to a bulk shop and bought all their ready-made coffee of all types before heading further into the city. You see, since everyone had an inventory, they obviously hoarded a lot of things. This is where bulk shops come in. They weren’t actually called that, but a specific shop could specify that they sold in bulk, and they would literally give you an entire day’s stock (or more).

A lot of people bought stuff this way, hence it was pretty normal.

The cheapest rings didn’t have any anti-spoiling or temperature control in their space, thus non-perishables were really popular.

Mine did, of course. Three of Alinna’s rings had a time-stop function, where everything came out the same as it went in, no matter the period it stood there. It was also obvious that they were expensive as shit, since even the Red Bitch had only three.

The System sorted the slots for each ring if you wanted, so I knew if it had that function or not. I love the System.

Anyway, I went and did the same with clothes, food of all types, lots of sweets and other miscellaneous things I would need. For clothes, I got a lot of really thin, sand-colored cloaks and hats. Not that I was going to the middle of nowhere yet, but you’ll see why in a moment.

All that done, I took a carriage to the absolute center of the city, right at the Teleport Station. In large cities such as this one, there were multiple ones spread all over, with a large one in the center where most people went.

It wasn’t as crowded as one might think, actually, as this thing cost someone’s whole life-savings. Okay, I’m kidding but it was a lot.

Imagine paying the price of a house each time. Not pretty.

It was obviously paid in Crystals, which I had enough of, but others might not have that luxury. They could go to their destination themselves, of course, nobody was stopping them.

Anyway, the platform was stationed in a large hall, almost shaped like a cathedral from the outside. This place was in top 3 for protection, since you know, teleporting troops, running away, all that.

I paid the bored guard at the entrance the 100 Crystals needed for the trip along with the name of my destination, and while my heart hurt I headed towards the massive circle, guided by another guard. We were in a corridor just enough to let five people through, going for about a hundred meters, when it got to the actual hall with the teleportation.

Smack right in the middle stood an elevated platform, made of some kind of white stone, filled with white runes carved in. These runes were now stationary, but would glow when activated and would turn into a blinding radiance right when the actual teleportation happened. Like it happened when I came from the mountain, but on a larger scale.

There were about twenty people in line, all waiting for their turn. Right as I got there, three of them left the line and got on the platform, while a bunch of Mages in robes on the side just watched. In a few seconds the runes flared up, and in another five, they were gone in a blinding light.

Fun fact? Turns out my Trait gives flash resistance. I stared right at it as it happened, and right at the end I could actually see a bit. ‘Oh! I should really try night vision’. Every night until now I was either asleep instantly or there were lights around.

Anyway, after another two rounds it was my turn, and one other person’s. We solemnly got on, and I stood rigidly as I waited.

Ten seconds later, we were in an entirely different place. I tried to say hi to my teleportation buddy, but he just turned around and left. Whatever.

My other friend, though, was still floating around me.

‘Do you really teleport wherever I am?’ I asked.

‘Sadly, I do. I am cursed to remain next to you. A fate worse than death, I would say,’ he said as he stared right up, with his hands behind his back. I knew he had something on his mind, but I guess getting sealed for a few million years wasn’t that enjoyable. Not to mention he somehow lost his body and ended up here.

Since he said he was an Emperor, my gut told me it was some kind of civil war. It’s always a civil war.

Anyway, back to my present situation, I was actually doing something of an experiment.

So I was in a desert, and deserts usually mean hot, sweaty and dry. Now, I had a cool Trait, don’t know if you’ve heard. Since it said “adaptability” on the label, I thought maybe, just maybe, it works with temperature, either by regulating mine, or just making me not feel it.

Since the moment I got here I started counting the time, waiting to see how much time it took for anything to happen. If it happened at all.

Since this city was a pretty small one, the teleportation platform was tiny and exposed, unlike the previous one. This particular settlement was only made here to have a teleportation circle for getting on the other side of the mountain and maybe serve as a means of conquest, if there was a need. Probably not.

Maybe I was imagining it, but after a minute the temperature was getting colder, until it got to a comfortable level. I stopped the timer at 1:14, which was probably extremely inaccurate, but whatever.

And I was completely fine. The sweat was obviously still there, but more wasn’t coming out. I moved off the platform, went forward a few meters, and still the same. It was comfy. I could actually feel a chilly breeze.

‘Darry, am I crazy?’

‘You are. And do not call me that’

What did I even expect?

Anyway, my Trait worked for temperatures. You would think it was just a super immune system, but it turns out it's much more. Nice

Looking around, all I could see was black. The houses, the ground, even the horizon was all black. The Black Desert, one of the wonders of this world. Every grain of sand was pitch black, and it was hot as shit. For some reason my brain couldn’t associate the color black with this temperature, and now it learned its lesson.

One direction was occupied by the massive mountain that separated the desert from the rest of the world, a few kilometers away from the city, while every other way it was only pitch black sand.

This settlement wasn’t as advanced as the ones before, as it was kind of useless. There were normal street lights and appliances of course, but anything more advanced was out of the question, and the buildings were also five stories max.

So was the hotel I stayed at, but it compensated with horizontal expansion. The whole thing was made of black sandstone, same as everything else here. The inside had a desert theme, something like the Egypt I know, with all kinds of depictions of animals in weird shapes, artifacts, jewelry, and vases.

I got the most expensive room again, though this one was much smaller than my previous one. Oh well.

I changed into desert clothes, mostly thin cloth to cover me from the sun but not make it even hotter. I needed to blend in, after all. It would’ve been quite strange to see a guy walking in a thick cotton robe in the fucking desert.

I planned on staying quite a while here, half a year at least, before I got maybe halfway through the Apprentice Stage. Maybe renting a house or something for that period would’ve been a good idea, but honestly I was too lazy. And the hotel was cheap by my standards.

The plan was to stay here for a while, enjoy the scenery, try the cuisine, while also searching for the Dungeon, scouting the terrain, meditating, and hunting whatever was around.

And so I started. First was going out, hunting some Beasts and scouting the terrain. Maybe searching for that Dungeon too, as I had absolutely no idea where it was.

This city had no walls, since the Beasts kept to themselves, so I leisurely strolled out into the black “plains”. The sand wasn’t as fine as most deserts, stepping on it revealed a crunchy sensation - like I was stepping on gravel, but a bit different.

I walked for about ten minutes, looking around, when I spotted a mound, higher than ten meters, containing a rock formation, this time of a normal, stone color. In this rock formation, though, was a hole, going right down into a dark cavern.

Oh, did I say I was going into the desert? I lied, the desert’s empty.

Getting an idea, I stepped in without any light and descended a few meters, when the brightness from outside wasn’t really doing anything anymore. I kept staring into the darkness, waiting.

About thirty seconds later, it all started getting brighter and brighter, until I could see like normal. Best Trait ever.

That over, the descent continued, as I went through the winding tunnel, past pieces of what used to be stairs, or sometimes pillars. They said this was an ancient civilization at some point, but any way to identify it was gone, as it literally combined with the rock and every piece changed place. You could find pieces everywhere, of all types, with no pattern.

Thus, it remained a mystery.

The tunnel eventually enlarged into a small room, no more than five meters across each way. At first it looked normal, but my night-vision (or dark-vision?) allowed me to spot a few too many legs on the ceiling.

Fucking giant spiders.

Night vision or not, shadows were still there, and these fuckers stayed right in the dark parts of the room. I knew I would have to do this someday. I always had arachnophobia, even from childhood. Literally. It may have eased a bit when I first came to this world, but I still hated spiders.

Ew.

Either way, I had to do this. Taking a deep breath, I crouched and took out a grenade. I could’ve formed a fireball, as it was the only spell I knew, but by the time I managed to throw it it would have alerted the damn monsters.

So, four grenades, one for each. It was actually shaped like a mini cannonball, just a black sphere, smooth all over, that would blow on impact.

Readying myself, I chucked each one, starting from the closest to the farthest. I could only trust my right hand with this, so I could only do one at a time. The first two died instantly with a shriek, and fell to the ground, but the rest weren’t so easy.

Number three managed to just dodge the blast, but still took a bit of damage. Number four, instead, I missed it entirely.

A shortsword formed in my hand and I stepped further into the room to get more space for maneuvering. Getting closer to the beast, I readied my weapon and dropped to the ground, letting it jump right past me. I thrust the blade right up, puncturing its stomach. It shrieked and jumped back along with my sword, still not dead.

I quickly got up and rolled away from number four. My back was now to the wall, and I was glaring at two ugly things, one shrieking from afar, bleeding from below and the other just fine, watching me.

Actually, now that they were closer and I had time to think, I realized these weren’t fucking spiders. They were scorpions! Still ugly, eight-legged fuckers, but without the ugly hair and the even uglier eyes. Better, but still gave me the chills.

They stood at about half my height normally, meaning about 1 meter(3’2”), and 1 meter in length as well. They were covered in chitin or whatever it was called, and clinked their mandibles over and over again. Of course they had stingers, which I was hundred percent sure had poison. Not a problem for me of course, but it still hurt, and I would bleed. So no thank you.

Number four lunged first, striking with its stinger right at my chest. I immediately dropped down, trying to pierce its stomach again with another sword, but it was too fast, and I didnt even get to scratch it.

The other one jumped me again, using the same stinger attack, which I only sidestepped this time.

Getting tired of this shit, I took out another grenade and chucked it at number three, who was still trying to reposition itself. It struck true, right on its back, throwing it against the wall, effectively killing the bastard.

The last one shrieked and this time, surprisingly backed up and started climbing the wall.

“You dumb?” I jokingly asked.

Of course it didn’t respond, so I chucked another grenade at it. It dodged this one by jumping. Now, I don’t know much about physics, but one thing that is obvious is you can’t change direction mid-air. This thing apparently didn’t know that, so I just sidestepped and impaled it with a spear from afar before chucking another grenade at it, ending its pitiful life.

Combat with low-level Beasts was actually pretty systematic, if you learn their moves you can easily defeat anything. Like it was in this case, the idiots just kept doing the same thing, lunging and letting me get under, or to the side. It might’ve worked on weaker foes, but not in this case. Then there was the last idiot, but we’re not gonna talk about it.

Heaving a sigh, I sat down for a few minutes before storing the bodies and resuming my descent. The tunnel continued for another ten minutes, when it split. Honestly? I had no fucking idea where I was suppoed to go for that damn Dungeon. So, just for fun, I took a dice out and rolled it. Odd left, even right.

It was even. Right it was! It went for not even ten meters when it opened into another chamber, this one empty.

My journey continued, going through boring, dark tunnels and fighting ugly monsters with too many legs. The fights were pretty boring, I just chucked bombs around and they died pretty quickly.

After a few hours I deemed it enough for the day so I started going back. The Notes function helped in keeping track of the roads I took, thus climbing back out was easy. Good thing the exit was still there, since finding another one would’ve been a pain.

There were hundreds of such entrances into these tunnels, scattered about the desert. Most people just go forward and go into the first one, praying that it was still there when exiting. One interesting thing about this cave system was the connectivity of it all. Every entrance was connected, one way or another.

Anyway, I didn’t meet anyone, mostly because this place was shitty. The Beasts were pretty valuable for their level, but they were scattered everywhere in the caves, so it was a pain to find a lot. Besides that, the whole place was depressing.

I had dinner at a bbq stand in the city, then went sleep-sleep.

—--------------

The next day wasn’t as interesting, as I spent most of it in my room. When I did go into the caves, I barely found any Beasts, so I said fuck it and didn’t go in there again for a while. The rest of the day was occupied by meditating in my room, or on the balcony.

—---------------

And so, the days blurred together as I spent my time climbing in Levels, absorbing some more toxins, enjoying the scenery and learning more spells. I managed to hit Level 1 after a week, Level 2 after another two, Level 3 after a month, and you get the idea. It was pretty easy, just that it took a while.

I got sick of my room after a while, so I went out into the desert, found a rock formation and climbed on, resuming my meditation there. I liked that rock, so I went back there often.

I patted the rock. “Nice rock.”

I looked at the orange horizon, in contrast to the strange, black sand. It was actually pretty nice. The heat wasn’t a problem for me, no storms came this far out, the Beasts rarely came out, and when they did they didn’t stay for long, while the sand was actually pretty fun to play with.

And good to practice Earth magic. While admiring the scenery, I was moving a black clump to elongate, then change shape, while doing circles around my palm. It was actually pretty easy, as I just needed to think of it as a blob of sand, not as multiple particles together.

Like I said, picturing was a big part of magic, and knowing how to do it helped a lot in control.

All this sand manipulation did jack shit in combat, but it was nice and refreshing. I always dreamed of just standing around and moving elements, like this.

If I had to really say the truth, I didn’t really mind just being a normal person knowing a bit of magic. I could retire right now, get a house somewhere, and live my life in peace. I had enough money, and I knew the places that would be safe for the future.

Maybe I could get a garden, make some money off of it. Plants were always fascinating to me. I had a plant on Earth, and I really liked to see it grow. I would’ve gotten more if my room size allowed, but I did take care of my mom’s. I actually dreamed of getting a big garden as an adult, and just tending to it when I was home. Then I was teleported to the world of fucking magic and dragons.

But I digress.

Point is, I love magic, and living a mundane life wouldn’t help me in making more powerful, fascinating spells and discovering new domains.

I was a nerd as a kid and I liked to search quotes online. This one I remember clearly:

“I would rather live a short life of glory than a long life of obscurity”

Alexander the Great was an awesome guy.

Cringy, I know, but it sums up my ideals. I’ll do this shit until I die, even if it happens tomorrow. Die with no regrets, eh?

“Heh”

I got up and stretched.

“Let’s go Darry, let me cook something nice for you.”

“I do not need to eat.”

“I know, I was making fun of you.”

“No, even when I had a body, I did not need to eat.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never eaten anything?”

“No.”

“I got it, I’m making a body for you so you can taste the wonders of life.”

“No, thank you.”

“Oh, you don’t get to choose, I’m the boss.”

He stayed silent as we walked back to the city, with the setting sun behind us.

A pretty picture, if I do say so myself.

—-------------

About six months in, I found it. The Dungeon, I mean. It wasn’t that hard to miss, as the entrance was literally a massive door. But most didn’t see that part, since the whole tunnel before was covered in ants. Everywhere.

The door was situated in a room, much bigger than the others. Multiple tunnels led to it from all angles, and I was standing in one of them right now, about five meters off the floor. I killed everything on the way here, which wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought. I found out a method some time ago, by taking a round boulder and just letting it go down the tunnel, smashing everything.

Kind of ruined the materials, but whatever.

I looked toward the room, and what was there made my blood freeze. I wasn’t alone. There was someone else, and he was killing everything.

“Fuck.”