Chapter 1: A Hundred Kilometers
Normally when I wake up, to the shrill shrieks of my mother, I am met with dozens of books lying right across my bed, waiting for me to open them up so that they can fuck my brain upside down. You see, I am accustomed to this. You can say, I have a pretty monotonous life, where I wake up, eat, study and then sleep. Yes, that's me. Actually, many Indian children in their high school might have the same lifestyle, most might even agree with me when I say that many a time, I have dreamt of burning my books, saying a big 'fuck you' to life and then just running away. Alas, I don't have a Gryffindor's courage nor do I have a Ravenclaw's thirst for knowledge. What I do have is....., well, I shall not tell you because I don't like to blow my own trumpet. Humph!
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Earth – 616 (Marvel Earth)
Sunday 7:00 am
Approximately a hundred kilometers above Earth, a portal suddenly opened and a bed was thrown out of it. The most noticeable thing was a young boy aged nearly 18 sleeping on the bed. There were also several books on the other end of this bed. The situation was looking pretty grim for this boy, who was currently snoring without a care in the world and dreaming of nude women serving him wine, grapes and themselves. These dreams though would soon shatter, but the boy didn't need to know that, or... did he???
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<Good morning, Mr Aggarwal.>
"Zzzzzzzzz"
<Good morning, Mr Aggarwal>
"Zzzzzzzzz"
<GOOD MORNING, MR. AGGARWAL>
The boy startled, woke up yawning and stretching his arms outwards in the sleep-wake rhythm, pandiculating. He tried to move from his bed and land on the ground, but he was faced with a big problem, there was no bed, nor was there any ground.
"WHAT THE FUCK, AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.", for those of you who don't know, I am scared of heights. A lot. So, when I woke up trying to go out of bed, I nearly pissed myself. Falling from a place above the clouds, a place from where I couldn't even see the ground was not how I wanted my Sunday morning to go. But, what can one do other than say 'fuck you' life and move on. I did have skydiving on my bucket list but this was not the 'skydiving' experience I wanted. Having nothing better to do, and being not able to understand whatever in the seven hells was going on, I continued with my shouting and shrieking, nearly forgetting about the voice that greeted me in my head, before it made its presence known.
<Good morning, Mr Aggarwal, glad to see you are so enthusiastic about your morning.>
"Who the hell," I shouted. Why? Well, I had a very sweet, and lovely voice in my head greeting me, and in normal circumstances, I would be happy, very happy. But right now, I was falling from I don't know where, also the surroundings were kind of looking a little dark bluish to me, and I had suspicions that I was a hundred km above the ground minimum. Again, why? Well, I could see some greenish light around me, and I was a hundred per cent sure it was airglow. I didn't know why I wasn't dead yet, because at this height I should've just died, but whatever.
<I am an AI that is inhabiting your body and am meant to serve you so that you can survive the world where you have been teleported in, provided you survive this fall first.>
After the voice said this, a light blue screen appeared in front of me.
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<Mission 1>
Survive.
Rewards: System ver0.0 --> System ver0.1.
<Vision of an A.I[lvl 1]> unlocked.
Punishments: System terminated.
Death.
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<Congratulations! You have acquired Synthesis.>
<Synthesis[lvl 1]: The ability to take abilities from other life forms by synthesizing their DNA into yours.>
"…", Now that was a lot to take in, firstly that was a cooooool ability, no doubt, secondly right now I would have loved <fly> as my power.
I mean, I was given a mission "survive" in the sky a hundred km above the ground. And I'll be frank, I was freaking out. Meteors fry at that height for fuck's sake.
<You don't need to worry about that, you have been shielded from dangers that you won't be able to handle with your current capabilities>
"Oh, so surviving this is something I can handle, thank you, really. Oh, could you also tell me how I can survive this? I would be really grateful."
<That is something the user must handle himself. Sorry for the inconvenience caused. Also, 42 seconds have passed. 100 seconds to landing.>
"Ugh... WHAAAAAT??? 100 seconds, FUCK YOU.....", now the thing was that I could scream and wait for going splat, and I would have if this was the original Earth but this was an unknown world and I had seen many animes, read many fictions and fan-fictions, to know that this world might have magic, might be the Narutoverse, or anything for that matter. Also, I had an amazing power. I knew that if I survived here, my life would be chaotic, fun, and adventurous, not the monotonous life I previously had. So, no, I couldn't die, coz an opportunity like this, which though doesn't look good right now is something that doesn't come around often. Hence, I started thinking and I had more or less 50 seconds to plan, why, because planes and birds will start flying soon.
"Wait, birds ….., hey system can I take DNA from birds. If yes, how?"
<Yes, birds are included in life forms. The answer to your second question is blood, flesh, and any cell from any part of the body of a live creature will provide you with the DNA. If the blood touches your skin, it will get absorbed, if you drink it, it will get absorbed. If you eat the flesh, you will get the abilities, there are many ways, you just need to be in contact with the cells of the other life forms but it won't work if you just touched a life form.>
"Hmmm, very well.", for the next 60 seconds, I tried to steer myself, the best I could. I tried to learn how to move with the air. I didn't manage to but I did get some minute understanding. Next, I prepared myself to kill. That was a very tough thing to do, I had never hurt a bird before much less kill it. Now, I am not like those that can't even hurt a mosquito. No, I kill bugs, insects, etc the very minute I find them, but I love animals. However, I needed to survive and for that, I needed to kill. You may think that I didn't need to kill them, I could just take blood or something, but you see I didn't have that much time right now. I needed to act fast because most of the birds roam around at the height of 3-4 km max. and at that point, I will have maybe 15-20 seconds, who knows. Maybe if my luck is any good, I will find some vultures or storks, which can fly even 8 km above the ground.
So, I was falling and falling, while being constantly harassed by the system, which was busy telling me the remaining time. I also saw two planes on my way down. You should have seen the look on that pilot's face when he saw me, showing him two middle fingers. Now, I know that was childish but whatever. At around Idk 60 km or something above the ground, my fear too went away, and I started enjoying the fall, the wind on my face, my hair flying in the air, it became fun.
<25 seconds to landing.>
And I saw my first bird, I guess my luck was good. It was a crane. I steered in its direction, and it was able to see me, but the speed with which I was falling was not something it could measure up to, so it was a fairly easy kill. At first, I tried to catch it, but my hand went through its neck, I guess I must have been very fast. As soon as I killed the crane, its blood fell on me, and the familiar blue screen appeared in front of me.
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<DNA identified: Common Crane>
Skills detected.
1. The crane's dance: Your charm increases. The crane is a bird which decides its mate through its dance. Overall, a very charming and noble creature. [Passive]
2. Lightweight: Your body becomes light like a bird, a skill which is common to all Aves. [Active]
3. Fly: You are able to fly and wings will grow on your back.
[Active. The wings can be summoned anytime.]
4. The crane's talons: You can change your nails to talons at will.
<You can choose only one skill from the ones mentioned above.>
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"WHAAAAT ???, if I am getting the DNA shouldn't all abilities be mine."
<To increase the number of skills extracted you must level up Synthesis.>
"Ugh, you should've told that beforehand."
<The user never asked>
"Ugh, whatever. I'll take lightweight.", So I clicked on lightweight, and suddenly my whole body felt light, the feeling was indescribable.
Now, you may ask me, why I didn't take fly. Well, at the speed I was going down, opening my wings would've just blasted them off. Moreover, I didn't know whether the wings would be powerful enough to hold my weight. Hence, I took lightweight, coz it will significantly reduce my weight and I could also lessen my speed.
After becoming lighter, the air was able to resist my fall better, and my speed was decreasing. But, I needed wings and for that, I needed another unfortunate bird to cross my paths.
Soon, I spotted 2 eagles crossing my path. An eagle is a powerful bird, and due to that, it is also dangerous. Also, my speed had decreased so I didn't know whether I will be able to kill it with a hand or not.
But it was a do-or-die situation, so I floated towards the eagles. They were very cautious when they spotted me, and one of them tried to escape while the other one tried to attack me. It used its beak and talons, while I was defending myself with my poor arms which had to take the whole brunt of those talons, but I did manage to hold one of its legs which I tore off. Seeing its wound, the eagle escaped and I let it. After all, I had gotten what I wanted. I bit into the leg and a screen appeared in front of me.
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<DNA identified: Harpy eagle>
Skills detected.
1. Eagle eye: Your eyesight becomes sharper and you will be able to see up to 8 times more than a human. You can even focus on things located more than a mile away.
2. Lightweight
3. Eagle's talons
4. Fly: The harpy eagle has one of the strongest wings in the world. You will be able to fly for longer periods of time and over higher distances.
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Without pondering much I clicked on fly.
As soon I clicked on fly, shit happened.
"Aaaaaaaaaaah", my back started hurting, and two brown wings started growing in my back. The process hurt, like seriously, the pain was unbearable. My back muscles were torn open and readjusted to fit my wings, repeatedly. My skeletal system was changed, and I literally had a whole new addition of bones and feathers and muscles in my body. The thing that hurt more was the fact that I couldn't even calm my pain down because I had to use my wings soon so that I could fly and not drop dead. The best thing was that controlling those wings was not really tough, I don't know why, but when they appeared, it was as if I already knew how to operate them. With only 7 seconds left, I opened my wings and tried to prevent myself from falling. I knew that I wouldn't be able to reduce my speed to zero, hence, I would have to reduce it to the bare minimum so that when I hit the ground, I land without injuring myself much.
I had also stationed myself such that I would fall into a water body. And luckily for me I was able to locate a lake in the forest, I was going to fall into. Actually, I didn't want to fall in a jungle, but circumstances didn't allow me much, I could only see trees and trees for miles ahead. So, I had to take the 2nd best option, a river in a jungle. Now, maybe there were going to be some crocs in there, but surviving this fall was my main priority right now.
<Zero seconds to landing>
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone