«BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!»
The beeping sound, once an intrusive disturbance, now served as a grounding rhythm. Adelaide, or rather, Rion, took a deep breath and steadied himself. At this point, the pain had abated, but he was still stunned. The events that just transpired were as confounding as they were unnatural.
A groan escaped his lips as he shifted slightly, his body screaming in protest. The pain wasn't localized—it was everywhere, radiating from muscles and bones he hadn't even been aware of before.
'What the hell…?' he muttered, his voice hoarse and dry.
The words sounded foreign to his own ears, deeper and softer than he expected. Confused, he raised his hands to his face. The were thin, almost skeletal, with veins almost visible beneath the coarse dark skin.
This isn't my body.
He twitched his fingers experimentally, and a jolt ran up his arm—a sensation as unfamiliar as it was unnerving. The skin felt coarser than he was used to, and the way the joints clicked and bent reminded him of poorly oiled machinery.
If this is a dream, it's one hell of a vivid one...
Rion refused to believe that this was a dream he was experiencing at the moment of his death from the accident he had encountered. The sense of realism subtly infused in everything he observed was too vivid to dismiss. His thoughts raced, piecing together fragments of this new reality.
If this isn't a dream, then… transmigration?
The word felt ridiculous even as it formed in his mind. But what other explanation was there? If his memories were correct, an explosion of that level would have obliterated everything in its path. He should have been dead. Instead, he was somehow… here.
Fuck... Now I'll never know how Forger manages to escape the organization... Wait.....This isnt the time to be thinking about that...
Mentally slapping himself, he bore through all the pain currently running deep in his body and slowly raised his hand, leaning back on the bed for support.
Whatever had happened, he wasn't dead. But he wasn't exactly alive in the way he used to be either.
His eyes drifted across the room, taking in the somewhat familiar chaos. A worn armchair, its faded blue cushions sagging with the weight of countless hours spent lost in thought or video games, sat slumped beside a cluttered desk. A mountain of textbooks, half-finished sketches, and empty soda cans threatened to topple over the edge.
Above the bed, a worn band poster clung to the wall, its once-vivid colors dulled by time. In the corner, a forgotten guitar rested against the wall, its strings slack and coated in dust. The room carried the distinct aroma of stale pizza and unwashed clothes, a scent that spoke of teenage laziness and an unbothered embrace of chaos.
As he mulled over the absurdity of it all, he couldn't help but attribute his current circumstances to that darned crystal. In the short time he had laid his eyes on it, it had brought nothing but chaos and confusion into his life.
Am I stupid? The first rule of scalping is to assume that everything is dangerous but I let my guard down...
Rion's thoughts turned to the moments leading up to the point he was last conscious. The crystal had suddenly spiked in energy before knocking him unconscious.
However, in that fleeting moment before everything went dark, he could swear he felt… something. A pull. A connection. Like his body tearing apart, not just physically but metaphysically, as if the crystal was peeling away layers of his existence and reshaping them into something else.
And then there was the pull latching onto his awareness and dragging him through a vortex of what he could only describe as absolute nothingness.
Now, sitting in this unfamiliar body in an unfamiliar world, Rion couldn't shake the feeling that the crystal hadn't just destroyed him. It had done something far worse. It had changed him.
What was that thing? he wondered, frustration bubbling to the surface. Was it some kind of advanced weapon?
His mind raced, searching for answers in the fragments of memories that didn't belong to him. The more he thought about it, the more questions arose. Why had the wierd crystal suddenly surged like that? Had he triggered it somehow? Or was it all just a cruel twist of fate?
Despite the lack of answers, one thing was certain: he couldn't dwell on the past. He needed to focus on the present and find a way to navigate this strange new reality.
Another thing he noticed was that this reality was markedly different from his native one. It wasn't just one glaring revelation but a series of small, mundane inconsistencies that gradually solidified his suspicion. At the very least, he wasn't anywhere near the Brinut galaxy, the home galaxy of the chuzkah.
The more he explored his new memories, the more evidence he found that this world operated under a vastly different set of rules. Even the physical constants felt off. Gravity was slightly weaker here, enough to make movements feel subtly lighter and faster, though not to the point of being noticeable to someone born in this environment.
Air composition was different, too, with higher oxygen levels than he was used to. Breathing felt oddly refreshing, almost intoxicating, compared to the stale, recycled air of starships or the polluted atmospheres of the industrial planet he had once called home.
And then there were the societal structures.
Back in his world, power on most planets was centralized and absolute, held by the towering conglomerates and syndicates that dictated the ebb and flow of resources, technology, and life itself. Territorial borders were meaningless when megacorporations could span entire star systems.
Here, however, the native species, humanity seemed splintered. This planet, Kalun, consisted of twelve distinct nations, each with its own culture, traditions, and goals. These countries didn't just cooperate—they competed. Wars, alliances, betrayals—all seemed commonplace, almost as if the people here thrived on division.
According to the memories he'd inherited, Kalun used to have over a hundred countries, but that all changed during the world changing event collectively known as the Uprising.
Speaking of which, isn't the tech level in this world a bit low?
Rion's world—this world—was laughably primitive by his chuzkah standards. The memories he now possessed painted a picture of a society barely scratching the surface of advanced mechanics.
They had no concept of galactic travel, no knowledge of genetic engineering capable of collectively increasing the potential of the species, and somehow, very little understanding of the vast cosmos that stretched out beyond their own small corner of whatever galaxy this was.
The tools and devices here were crude, clunky, and inefficient, relying more on brute force than precision. They were, in essence, prisoners of their own limited perception, blind to the wonders and dangers that lay beyond their reach.
To Rion, it felt like stepping back in time, to an era before the chuzkah had unlocked the secrets of space travel and initiated galactic conquest. The people here seemed content with their limitations, their ambitions constrained by their lack of knowledge.
Although Rion found all these both fascinating and baffling none of it explained how the crystal had transformed him into this amalgamation of memories and identities.
The memories in his mind didn't just belong to him anymore. They also belonged to this body's original owner, Rion Hale, a 16-year-old young man who had been tested to possess the talent required to become an Adept. The two sets of memories coexisted uneasily, overlapping in strange ways. He could recall intimate details about Rion's life—his struggles, his family, his hopes—but they felt hollow, like reading a biography rather than living it.
Hmmmm.... What's an Adept?
Spotting an unfamiliar term, Rion searched his memories for an explanation of what being an Adept entailed.
According to his memories, the world was suffused with an ambient, natural energy known as Origin energy. This energy, though invisible, was an intrinsic part of the environment—present in the air, the earth, and even the living beings themselves.
For the vast majority of people, Origin energy was an unremarkable background force, akin to gravity or magnetism, something they rarely thought about and never interacted with. However, a select few, those fortunate enough to possess a unique genetic predisposition, could sense, harness, and wield this energy.
These individuals, known as Cultivators, stood apart from the mundane population, possessing abilities that seemed almost miraculous to the average person.
Cultivators were a diverse group, but they were broadly divided into two distinct categories based on the nature of their abilities: Strykers and Adepts.
Strykers were individuals who had awakened the power of vital energy, or as it was commonly referred to in this world, Qi. This internal energy was the foundation of their abilities, deeply rooted in their physiology and core of their being.
Unlike other cultivators, Strykers relied almost exclusively on their Qi. Their mastery of Qi made them formidable in combat, even when deprived of external armaments or faced with other cultivators who wielded more fantastical powers.
The hallmark of a Stryker was their physical prowess. By channeling their Qi through their bodies, they could achieve feats that defied ordinary human limitations. Enhanced strength allowed them to shatter stone with a single punch, while augmented speed let them move faster than the eye could follow.
Their heightened agility and reflexes made them unparalleled fighters, capable of dodging attacks with uncanny precision. Strykers could also harden their bodies to resist damage, their resilience endowing them with high resistance to conventional weapons.
Beyond these physical enhancements, advanced Strykers developed techniques that allowed them to influence the flow of energy around them to gain strategic advantages in battle.
Adepts, on the other hand, were a more varied and unpredictable group. Like Strykers, they needed to win the genetic lottery to be born with the potential to wield Origin energy. However, unlike Strykers, whose abilities were rooted in Qi and physical mastery, Adepts manifested powers that often seemed supernatural or fantastical in nature.
The abilities of Adepts ranged from the elemental to the extraordinary. Some were attuned to the forces of nature, capable of summoning and controlling fire, water, wind, and earth with ease. These elemental Adepts could conjure roaring flames, summon torrential floods, command howling winds, or shape the very ground beneath their feet into weapons or barriers.
Others displayed powers that, while less flashy, were no less impactful. Super strength, super speed, and enhanced senses were among the more common abilities, though these traits often exceeded those displayed by Strykers in the same level.
Then there were the rarer, almost mythical Adepts whose abilities bordered on the impossible. Tales circulated of individuals who could regenerate from any injury within seconds, their bodies immune to even the most fatal wounds.
Others were said to possess precognitive abilities, able to glimpse fragments of the future and alter their actions accordingly.
However, such claims were often met with skepticism. The rarity of these powers, combined with the lack of verifiable evidence, led many to dismiss them as exaggerated stories or outright fabrications.
Despite their incredible abilities, cultivators made up only about 5% of the human population. This scarcity made them highly sought after in certain circles but also ensured that they remained a relatively common sight in everyday life.
Many cultivators, particularly those with modest abilities, integrated seamlessly into society, using their powers in practical and unremarkable ways. A stryker might work as a construction foreman, their enhanced strength invaluable for heavy labor, while an adept with minor elemental control might become a firefighter, using their power to douse flames or clear debris.
However, the more powerful and skilled cultivators often found themselves drawn to roles that required their unique talents. They became soldiers, guardians, and pioneers, shaping the world through their actions.
Whether as protectors of peace or agents of chaos, the presence of cultivators was deeply woven into the fabric of society, their influence undeniable even if their numbers were small.
Rion wasn't concerned with the impact these individuals with extraordinary abilities had on society. Only one thought as on his mind at the moment.
This world has..... SUPERPOWERS???