01 – Prologue and Isekai

Ishrin stood at the pinnacle of the world. His existence was all-encompassing, eternal, and omnipotent. Getting there had not been easy, thousands of years of hard work and sacrifice, betrayal, and suffering. Ishrin had devoted his life to the study of Rituals, in hopes that one day they would allow him to overcome his limits and to become the most powerful being in the world. At the beginning everybody mocked him, the mages, the arcanists, the cultivators, they all thought him crazy and belittled him for choosing the least powerful form of magic. They went as far as kidnapping him, hurting the people he loved, and more. They were lessons, they said. So that he could see the error of his ways. He had long since took revenge on them, but the damage was done. Ishrin didn’t accept it, however, finding in the pain the strength that he needed to keep going.

As the centuries passed, the fire was smothered into an ember. It was still there, but it didn’t burn like it once did. Ishrin allowed himself to relax, and he tried to enjoy the pleasures of life while he still pursued power. Power enough to bring her back. He even tried to make amends with his old enemies, for they had been punished enough, and all the pain that was left the Ishrin’s and his alone. Not all accepted defeat, of course.

The Cultivators were the worst, Ishrin thought as he added the last ingredient to the complex assortment of circles and mandalas, it took them centuries to stop trying to kill him. In any case, this ritual was going to be his coronation, the final ritual. He moved with lazy but controlled movements.

The last millennium had been spent knowing that he was the most powerful being in all of Eternia. Everyone, except the Cultivators, knew that they could never win against him and left him alone. He, in turn, left them alone as he slowly prepared himself for the final step. He looked around. With his enhanced senses that spanned continents, he made sure that nobody was trying to spy on him, or worse. This moment would be the last moment of weakness, after all, and then he would truly become indestructible. After a few moments he was satisfied. There was nobody within 500 kilometers of where he was. He was safe.

Once the Five-folded Radiant Blossom of SpaceTime finally settled atop the mountain of ingredients needed for his ritual, he began to chant. Something happened while he did, however. Ishrin immediately thought that some rogue Cultivators had gotten to him, or that someone was trying to sabotage him Ritual. That wasn’t the case. The world suddenly stopped being what it was, and for a moment Ishrin could see what laid beyond the veil. He could take a small glimpse at the infinite, and he tried to grasp it, to clutch one of these grains of infinity in his hands before it slipped away.

He failed and found himself in an empty room.

As the understanding that there was something more than what he knew sunk in, deep into his mind, his eyes focused on the figure of a man. Ishrin was powerless here, wherever this place was, and his eyes took a huge amount of time to get used to the light. When they eventually did, he finally saw him, an unassuming person with fair skin and black hair, and deep eyes that looked right into his soul.

“Yelp!” the stranger exclaimed. He took a moment to compose himself. “Hi, who are you?”

Ishrin felt strangely calm for someone who found himself powerless for the first time after millennia of nigh-omnipotence.

“I am Ishrin, nice to meet you.” He said.

The man frowned. “Ishrin?” he tapped his chin. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Let me check.”

He fidgeted with something that Ishrin couldn’t see, then his eyes widened. “No, no, no, biiiiig mistake.”

A small rectangular object appeared in his hand, and he brought it to his ear. “Hey so… did we have an Ishrin?” He spoke into it. “Uh, Asian looking, long hair, a few millennia old, magic. Probably from a cultivation universe? All that? What? No? Then what’s he doing here?”

The object disappeared, and the man turned to Ishrin after having stared off in the distance. He tapped his temple and brought his hands together.

“We might have a slight problem here.” He said.

“What kind of problem?” Ishrin asked.

“I killed you by mistake. Or rather, my assistant did but… yeah. Same result.”

Ishrin narrowed his eyes. “I’m dead?”

The man sucked his lower lip. “Quite dead, yeah. But listen, it’s a mistake, so how about I offer you a reparatory deal?”

Ishrin thought about his previous life. “What kind of deal?”

“Obviously, I can’t bring you back to where you were before. However, if you want I can reincarnate you in a new world, and I can give you something extra as a little compensation. Do you accept?”

Truth be told, there was nothing in his old world that really kept Ishrin going anymore, beyond that faint hope that one day he could be strong enough to bring her back. But this man here was clearly more powerful than Ishrin ever was.

“Can you bring her back to me?” Ishrin asked.

The man sighed. “I can answer your other question if you want.”

Iskrin nodded.

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“You would have never been powerful enough to bring her back. No matter how much you tried. Not on your own at least.”

A flood of memories came to Ishrin’s mind like a dam had broken.

“Wait, don’t cry. I said not on your own. Tell you what, let’s make a deal. I can’t bring her back either, but there is a way to do it. You go where I send you, you take a small break, vacation, do whatever you want. Okay?”

“And that will bring her back?”

“If you do what I need you to do there, then yes.”

“Then—”

“Wait, aren’t you the trusting type? You don’t have any questions? Like, you know, ask me if I even can deliver on my promise?”

“I know you can. There is only one being capable of doing what you did to me. I saw you, from time to time. During the rituals, when my mind was open, I thought I could see someone beyond reality itself. You are the Keeper of the Beyond, aren’t you?”

The man nodded. “You will reincarnate as a basic Caucasian male in a fantasy world. Once you complete your tasks, and I’m talking centuries, I’ll give her back to you.”

“What will my tasks be?”

“Just… do your stuff and follow your heart, okay? You will know what to do, because it will be the right thing to do.”

Ishrin nodded.

“Alright then!” The Keeper exclaimed. “Finishing touches: I’m going to give you an inventory where you will have all your old stash of ritual stuff, and I will give you an affinity to learn any and all magic and whatnot. We talking Cultivation, Elemental magic, Summoning, Enchanting, blah blah blah. You only need to find a tutor or mentor who can teach you. Sounds good?”

Ishrin nodded, but it was not necessary because as soon as he finished saying that, the man snapped his fingers, and everything went white. Ishrin blinked away the tears from the sudden light, and when his eyes grew used to seeing once again, he found that he was in the middle of a forest. He walked around, stumbling for the first few steps as he got used to his new body.

“A vacation, huh?” He muttered. “I guess I can take a vacation.”

The trees were tall and verdant all around. A thin layer of moss made the ground soft and wet under his naked feet, and a light breeze found its way under Ishrin’s white robe and caressed his skin. It felt nice, and cool, and small bumps appeared on his skin for the first time in a long time as a shiver passed through his body. The call of some unknown bird echoed through the trees, and the rustle of leaves accompanied it like a melody. Taking a deep breath of fresh air in, Ishrin finally came to terms with the deal he had accepted. He didn’t know how to feel about it, but his body did, and it was like countless knots and burdens had suddenly been lifted. He was free for the first time in his life, freer then he ever was, freer even then when he was the most powerful being in the world.

And he was weak. Just walking around for a few minutes had made him work up a sweat.

A small ball of white fur suddenly crossed the path in front of him.

Ishrin gasped.  “A bunny!” he cooed, stretching his hand towards the creature. “Aren’t you a cute little—argh!” suddenly he cried out in pain as the bunny bit his hand with extremely sharp teeth.

The sudden sound and Ishrin’s unconscious jerk of his hand scared the creature away, and it hopped back into the underbrush with its ears tucked to the sides of its head.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Ishrin nursed his bleeding hand. His heart was beating fast from seeing his own blood after so much time spent immortal. The pain was an almost entirely new sensation as well.

“I don’t like this. I don’t like being in danger. Wait, what did the keeper say? I have an inventory?”

Suddenly a small tear in space appeared right before his eyes. Ishrin knew that it was not dangerous, because he could feel the familiarity he had with his own magic. Still, he moved gingerly when he inserted a hand into the spatial rift, and to his relief he found that his hand could touch and reach all kinds of things in there. He only needed to think about them, and he could know how many there were inside, and of which kind.

“Well, with this I can definitely rig up a small ritual to make myself a bit stronger. Body of Turquoise here I come!”

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