All of a sudden, I was in a fantasy world of swords and magic.

My name is Fujiwara Masato. 23 and single, I was just another worker ant in the suburbs of Japan.

I worked for a company that specialised in creating apps and games commissioned by larger firms. I played MMO games and read web novels in my spare time, so I was pretty familiar with the "in another world" situation.

How did I get here, you ask? Great question, that's because I died. You see, I was on my way to work when a truck crashed into me. Yes, it was brutal and painful, but to be honest, I'm kind of glad that I died since I get to start a new life in a magical world.

After the accident, I woke up naked in an underground basement room. Thank god there was no one else in the room.

There was already a pile of clothes, ready for me, which was a bit strange, but I didn't complain. When I walked in front of the mirror to check my new outfit, I realised that I had somehow become younger. The black bags that hung under my eyes and my rough skin was revitalised. I looked like an average 17-year-old.

I found another surprise waiting for me. This time it came in a small black box. Inside was a jet black ring with a red gem embedded in the middle, and when I put the ring on, it emitted a bright light that blinded me.

When it finally stopped, and I reopened my eyes. Three icons had appeared in my field vision, kind of like an MMO game.

There was an HP, MP bar, Logs and a Player Menu. Through trial and error, I managed to figure out that I could open them by thinking about it and what each of them did.

The bars showed my total health points and mana points. Again, assuming this was like a game, I would die if my health dropped to zero and can't use any abilities if my mana dropped to zero.

The Logs recorded details of every event, such as me equipping this ring. So it was kind of like a diary or a tracker.

Finally, the player menu was split off into two other dropdowns—Player Stats and Skills.

Opening Players Stats showed my current level.

[Name] Masato

[Age] 17

[Level] 1

[Current XP] 0/10

[Health Points] 100/100

[Mana Points] 100/100

[Attack] 30 (+50 Magical)

[Defence] 45

The Skills page showed all the abilities that I currently had.

[Blink] (10MP) Moves the user to a location within 2 metres.

[Energy Ball] (10-30-75MP) A ball of condensed mana that explodes upon contact with a target, the power is adjustable.

[Defence Up] (15 MP) Increases the user's defence by 10% and provides a temporary shield of 20% of total HP.

[Natural Defence] (0MP) Any attacks that are lower than the user's level will be automatically nullified. It has a 10% chance to deflect physical attacks.

[Creation] (0MP) (Requires level 10) Create items using Skill points. The items range from Low, Medium, to High tier. Recipes are acquired by levelling up or using blueprints.

I was pretty happy with these skills. I was able to attack, defend and have a method of escape.

The creation skill sounded very useful, but I could only use it once I reached level 10.

I remembered that this interface appeared after I put the ring on. So I was wondering about the mysterious ring when it answered for itself.

>>

When the voice appeared in my head, it nearly gave me a heart attack, but it was the ring only way to communicate.

"Hold on. You can read my mind?"

>>

It felt a bit creepy at first, but soon I would realise how useful this was.

I continued to ask the ring some more questions, including its identity and any information in this world.

Here is a summary of our interrogation:

The ring was called Guardian, a magical item with similar properties as an AI system from Earth. However, it was a tool made mainly to help its user. First, there was a whole requirement checking, and after that, it automatically binds to the user, using a method called soul bound. If anyone failed the test or didn't have permission from the primary user, they would be electrically shocked, burned, and if they still kept it on, Instant death.

I felt death was a bit extreme, but it was understandable that if someone with malicious intent or a thief got ahold of it, they deserved to get punished. I felt like whoever made this ring was very paranoid.

The ring also had dimensional storage, which can be used to store any items. It had an infinite capacity and was able to stop time for the things within. All I had to do was to touch the object with the ring and say 'Store'. The only limitation was that it couldn't store any living things, and liquids had to be in containers. But that was okay with me.

I tried asking if it knew anything about my old world, but it simply returned with "no." It also didn't have much information on this world since the ring was last used 2000 years ago. I know I was Surprised too.

However, it did know that there were human and demi-human civilisations and monsters at that time. The rest was up to me to explore.

Without a second wasted, I opened the exit door and stepped out into a long dark tunnel. I felt the swirling wind brush up against my face and the smell of fresh air. At the other end of the tunnel, I saw a glistening light —the exit.

But out of nowhere, the tunnel started to rumble, and chunks of rocks came crashing down around me. I looked behind me, only to be greeted by a stone wall. The door was gone. The tunnel was collapsing, and there was only one way out. To run.

♦ ♦ ♦

And so we've come to the present, with me stumbling out into an open area of grass. I had barely made it out alive, and my clothes were covered in dust and dirt.

I looked behind me one more time and saw that the tunnel was now buried under a rubble of rocks. After catching up with my breath, I looked around the outside world.

The sun was shining bright, and the forest was full of life. . It was a magnificent sight to behold.

I had lived in the city for so long that a place like this seemed unreal. The air was clean, with no sound of heavy engines or people—just the music of nature. I could hear the waving trees, the bugs buzzing, and the sound of a ... bouncy ball? I looked to see where the noise had come from.

*boing...boing...boing*

In front of me, three clear balls were jumping up and down. They looked oddly familiar.

"Wait, these are..."

Before I could finish, Guardian interrupted.

>>

"So overwhelm it with magic or destroy the co- wait, did you say they spit acid-"

I was interrupted once again—this time by three balls of acid aimed at my face. Thankfully, [Natural Defence] kicked in, and I gracefully dodged them all.

*Szzzz*

I looked around behind me. Unfortunately, the skill didn't extend to clothing as the corner of my jacket was sizzling from the acid. I decided that these guys were going to be my guinea pigs for my experiment as punishment for ruining my jacket-that I paid nothing for!

To start was a low [Energy Ball]. I cast the spell and a white swirling ball formed in the palm of my hands.

It reminded me of a move from a popular ninja anime I watched before I died.

I launched the ball at the first slime, and upon making contact, it exploded. Despite being a weak [Energy Ball], the explosion was equivalent to a grenade explosion that I have seen in movies. The damage was unexpected. A crater had formed where the slimes once stood, and bits of their body was splattered everywhere.

M-magic is terrifying. If that was the power of a low attack spell, what would a higher level attack look like? The world should be in ruins right now, and yet so far, it seems pretty peaceful. I decided that it could just be because I was from another world. But I wondered if there were others like me, from another world.

I next tried out [Blink], a skill that allows me to teleport to a location within a 2-metre boundary. My first attempt was a fail, it took my mana, but nothing happened as I stood exactly where I was. After around my fourth try, I realised that I needed to focus on where I wanted to go.

Finally, it was [Defence Up], a skill that boosted my defence and gave me a temporary shield. I opened my stats page to see the effects.

[Name] Masato

[Age] 17

[Level] 1

[Current XP] 9/10

[Health Points] 100/100 (+20 shield for 5 minutes)

[Mana Points] 35/100

[Attack] 30 (+50 Magical)

[Defence] 45 (+4.5 for 5 minutes)

The bonus was relatively small and lasted for five minutes. But when I level up, it would become a more valuable skill. I also noticed that I needed one more experience point to get to level 2. That was kind of frustrating.

*Rumble*

I began to feel a bit hungry and thirsty. I hadn't eaten or drank anything since coming here, especially after using so much mana. There wasn't much around me, so I ventured out into the deep forest. There were all sorts of weird-looking plants and fruit growing, but since I had no idea if they were poisonous or not, I ignored them.

Once as a child, I went camping with my parents. It was in some forest, and I found some cool looking berries. I picked them up and ate them, and for the whole weekend, I had a constant stomach ache. In the end, I had to go to the doctor, and thankfully it wasn't anything terrible. But at that time, I thought that I was going to die.

I continued walking until I heard the sound of water nearby. Immediately I took off in that direction and found a gently flowing river. I clamped my hands together and scooped up the water. The water looked clean, and without hesitation, I gulped it down.

"Ahhh, now that is good water!"

The water was cold and crisp, and my body felt refreshed in an instant. My water problem was sorted, as long as I stayed close to the river. But I had still had nothing to eat. Even if I found people, I didn't have any money, and I would be back at square one. Hungry.

I stood up and looked around. I remembered hearing that people tend to live near water sources, so as long as I walked along the river, I'm bound to find someone. ...Right?

The bushes behind me started rustling. I turned around to see a pair of red beading eyes staring at me. It was walking an all fours, with a body covered in thick black fur—a bear.

"ROOAARRR!!!"

The beast towered over me and tried to slash me with its razor-sharp claws, but luckily I managed to use [Blink] and moved out the way.

A message from Guardian warned me that the bear was level 7, much higher than I was. So I tried to use a medium [Energy Ball], hoping that it would distract the bear whilst I get away.

As it made contact with the bear, it exploded. The winds from the explosion blew me off my feet. Thankfully I didn't suffer much damage, but I couldn't say the same to the bear and the area around it.

An even more enormous crater had formed, and at the bottom laid the black bear. Its skin and fur were burnt, and it was missing half its face. But I could still hear it quietly growl. The explosion, unfortunately, wasn't enough to kill it. Instead, it was now suffering and slowly bleeding to death.

I decided that [Energy Ball] was too destructive, and I can't even imagine what a High [Energy Ball] could do. So I restricted Medium and High unless it was an emergency, and I have no other choice. This meant that I needed another attack skill that is not as destructive as [Energy Ball].

The light in the bear's eyes eventually diminished. I silently prayed to apologise to the bear for its suffering.

I got several messages stating that I am now level 6 and gained some new skills. So I opened the skills page to check out what they were.

[Spear Creation] (15MP) creates a spear made of any chosen element.

[Intimidation] (0MP) Attracts the attention of nearby enemies, only works on monsters with low intelligence.

[Spear Creation] was the perfect skill to take the place of [Energy ball]. I wanted to try it out when I got back up on land. But I felt terrible just leaving the bears body, so I stored it in the ring.

When the corpse disappeared into the ring, I realised that I had no idea of getting the items out.

Guardian picked up on my thought, and a screen appeared in front of me. It should've displayed only the bear's body, but several items were already in there.

[Divine Elixer] 1x

[Elixir (High)] 5x

[Healing Potion (High)] 20x

[Healing Potion (Medium)] 30x

[Healing Potion (Low)] 40x

[Antidote cureall] 20x

[Letter] 1x

It was like a treasure chest but filled with healing potions and Elixir. At least I know that I don't need to look for medical treatment. Hell, I could open a drug store. The letter was the only thing out of place in the whole collection.

After finding a place to sit down, I took the letter out and opened it. The letter read:

To the new master of the Guardian ring

Welcome to this world. You must be thinking who I am? Well, that's a secret. Your appearance means that a trial has been set in the distant future for you to complete. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what it will be, but you have one year to make any preparations.

To assist you, I have provided several healing potions and antidotes in Dimensional storage, as well as a Divine Elixir. Please ask Guardian about this potion.

Also, when you took out this letter, Guardian Ring automatically removes all the data about the previous users.

I wish you the best of luck.

Well, that was a bit strange. My mind was puzzled by what I just read. Whoever wrote this note predicted my appearance in this world. I tried asking Guardian about it, but of course, it had wiped all its memories already. So I was left in the dark, waiting for a trial to come in a year. I followed their instructions and asked about the Elixir.

<<>>

"Woah-okay there."

A small golden vial appeared in my hands. Inside was a glowing purple liquid. I was initially hesitant, but a sweet aroma flooded my nose when I opened the small vial. From Guardians description, it was simply an XP boost potion,

"Down the hatch." I gulped down the entire content of the vial.

After drinking it, I didn't feel anything change internally, but after checking my Player Stats page...

[Name] Masato

[Age] 17

[Level] 99

[Current XP] 0/4500

[Health Points] 2900/2900

[Mana Points] 2500/2500

[Attack] 1300 (+1200 Magical)

[Defence] 2250

I had jumped from being level 6 and straight to 99! All my stats had gone up because of a potion that a ring told me to drink. Oh, and I learnt a new skill.

[Skill absorbption] Has a 5% chance of acquiring skills from defeated enemies.

Not only that, but I also gained 250 skill points after unlocking the [Creation] skill. The [Creation] skill was quite limited with only sandwiches and water as the only options. But I was happy now that I can create food with my skills. I was starving, okay!

A box of ham cheese sandwiches appeared and was instantly engulfed by me. I created a couple more with different varieties since they only cost 2 Skill points, and I had plenty. Even better the rubbish would disappear as soon as I finished. This was my favourite skill by far.

After finishing the grand meal, I laid down on my back and enjoyed nature. And after a nap, I looked up at the fluffy clouds, but out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed some dark clouds...

"Wait, no, those are smoke clouds..."