Chapter 1: Prologue and Chapter 1 – World of Fantasy

[A certain mortal’s perspective]

I just met god, likely just a god though if the safety I call haven is anything to go off. Book, fantastical stories to daily lives of people, all embedded in paper was the greatest shelter from my own life. Sounds stupid, but well life wasn’t going great everything felt dull and tiring to do, it was all ‘Go out, do work, get tired, escape problems’. Sure, not the healthiest of ways to go but it seems it ended a few years after a gave up on many things when a truck hit me when crossing the road.

The god I met went on about having something gone wrong that life, I wasn’t sure what went wrong though, I was a surviving man who could program well enough to make do. So, the strangely business-y god said I would go to a world like my fantasies world, and I would get to keep my memory. I feel like I’m physically walking down memory lane now, thankfully I’m allowed to rush past some parts and linger at others, so I manage to recall a lot of interesting ideas before I reached the end and feel my consciousness slipping.

[A certain god in charge of reincarnation]

Well, that one is done, a strange soul that managed to warp their own reality for many years and lingered after death. It took some favors to help it move on but now it was free of the mistakes of a certain cultist creation god who would shrug problems off saying he had a plan for everyone already. Hopefully, the other troublemaker won’t interfere.

 

Chapter 1 – World of Fantasies

[Luka’s perspective]

Getting my previous life memories was an interesting experience, having expected it to be one of the common styles seen in books where I remember as soon as I was born, slowly gain memories as I grow up or they instantly appear in a dream when I’m still young, it was none of those. From when I was born my memories played in front of my eyes at a fast speed. It came with pause and rewind too, letting me watch the experiences of my old life in high speed over several years. It would freeze when I wasn’t paying attention to the screen of memories before my eyes, so I slowly became myself as emotions and feelings rose up as I watched the memories. The most inconvenient thing was tripping because memories of how I used to walk would override my own way causing me to get dirty a lot and the lack of mortal conveniences in this world is horrible, no soaps, only rough rags which sucked.

This world by the way is an ancient world like ancient China. Having been told it would be a world of my fantasies I was expecting a magical element to be obvious early on, but it turns out I was born in a poor town in a cultivation world. So, it being similar to ancient China makes sense since xianxia novels were also set in this kind of setting. I was scared of possibly being snuffed out by some power made cultivator, fortunately, the mortal mortality rate isn’t unrealistic, the normal risks of powerful creatures, evil cultivators, and being caught as collateral damage in fights exist, they gravitate to richer areas where I assume Qi or whatever this world uses in its laws.

Having become avoided by the others for what I assume is my strange actions growing up, likely due to my mind and experiences not matching my age. I almost missed the decennial visit from the nearby cultivator sect. Poor villages like this possibly nameless one as far as I’m aware are seen as fresh blood sources for the sects looking to bolster its numbers so they send one of their disciples to each city, town, and village known on their map. Every decade all the children between three and fourteen are tested for spirit roots, the supposed indicator of talent and related affinity in the five elements, fire, earth, metal, water, wood. Spirit Roots were something I was expecting having read my fair greed of cultivator novels in my last life. The robed man with a mysterious aura to him notices my arrival and I feel something pull me over to the set-up table where I place my hands on the crystal orb feelings its smooth surface with care.

“Might be blind but a pure metal spirit root is better than the rest here, maybe some high-ranking sect will trade for a girl like you when you become an adult. Join that group, we are leaving now”

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Blind? I can see perfectly fine as far as I can tell, two eyes and similar perspective to my last life, maybe my nose is a little narrower, but I can’t tell. Also trade a girl like me sounds like this is has classic cultivation societies that see women as resources for young masters, I hadn’t considered this possibility before being a guy an all, but something bothers me now and I don’t know what. Sitting down on the flying cart with the other chosen kids, my brow frowning as I try work out what is bothering me.

[Elise’s perspective]

As the daughter of the Town chief, I was more educated than the other kids my age, so I quickly learnt my future fate of having to marry one of the kingdom’s nobles to raise father’s status. Having accepted my fate after mother died, I focused on my lessons and getting to know the town’s people, befriending the other children even if they treat me like a princess.

One day I met the rumored possessed girl, a doll-like girl with short brown, straight hair and her cheeks peppered with freckles. The boys call her ugly saying she would never be as beautiful as the fairy maidens in the cultivation stories our parents tell us as bedtime stories, calling her rotten wood. But her soft face and strangely soft hair is cute like my dolls I sleep with, slept with! I don’t play with dolls anymore. The girl, her eyes are not life-less like my dolls, her eyes were dull and cloudy most of the time I watched her, sometimes they would become vibrant and focused only to stare a few inches in front of her at nothing.

She sometimes acted like she was blind because she would occasionally trip when walking and the worry on her face seizes my heart making me want to protect her even though she is two years older than me. I asked the town doctor about it, but he shoo’ed me away saying the girl was born to be blind and it was happening slowly.

 I tried to involve her when playing with the other kids, but the other kids would avoid her whispering theories of her being a demon who killed her parents, a ghost possessing a dead body, and other too imaginative guesses. I had once asked father about her parents and he said they died to a savage beast before I was even born and since then the girl had cloudy eyes so the elders say she suffers from a mental trauma, father said to not worry about her, she will end up bearing children for one of the stronger farmers. I begun feeling odd thinking about her being given to someone like that.

A year had passed since then and I’m now six years old, and the decennial visit of the cultivator sect has changed my fate, my talent was remarked upon by the tester and he said my yin energy will be valuable. After being the first chosen a few of boys were chosen and told to sit in the cart artifact, they begun discussing the possible adventures they will have, some snickering about finding a beautiful fairy to sleep with, citing my own name as the benchmark to overcome. I distance myself from the annoying boys as I hope there would be better people at the sect, hopefully some girls or women.

It was then, the blind girl came to the test just in time and after being dragged to the testing table by something, she shows no surprise as she softly caresses the orb as if it were the most precious thing in the world. The thing was her eyes, her eyes had an unnatural shine and depth to them like she was calculating things I couldn’t see. She was chosen, I tried to suppress the smile creeping onto my face as I thought how she isn’t destined to be a tool for others here anymore, like myself we the two girls chosen should stick together so once she climbs in I will try talking with her.

“Hello! I have water and fire spirit roots with high talent, I am Elise, what about you?” I help her into the cart as she was frowning whilst approaching, her furrowed brow is very cute, but she is much cuter when she is relaxed like after she notices me, my lips slipping up into a smile.

“… Pure metal, I am… Luka? Hmmm” Her voice was soft and like a whisper, she took a seat right beside me as she begins looking at nothing again. Luka, a strange name for a strange girl, I look forward to what our future holds.