I awoke in instant pain. It felt as if I were burning in molten lava. From the tips of my toes to my brain, the excruciating pain coursed through me. It lasted only a few minutes, but it might as well have been hours.
Once the pain started to wash away, I was finally able to take my first breath of air. The air was cold and sent a chill through me, but that hardly registered with my mind as I lay there panting. Slowly, my breathing and heartbeat returned to normal, the adrenaline from the pain dropping off. Slowly, I opened my eyes. 'That's not right?' I thought to myself. At that moment, I was staring at the branches of green trees swaying above me.
Turning my head to look around, I realized that I was lying in a forest.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember last night.
'I stayed home because there was a big snowstorm, so I was watching some random movies to pass the time. That's it. Then just blank.'
I slowly sat up, only to find that I was completely nude. It took me a moment, but my brain finally registered a very important fact. My member looked different... bigger.
Looking at the rest of myself, I realized that all of me was different.
Originally, I was about six feet tall with what some would call a dad bod from years of being single, takeout, and having no cares left to give in life.
But now, I was probably six foot three and had a body that would put most men to shame. Not a swimmer's build, but also not one of those protein bros. I was a good mix of both. A lean buff, I guess, but I didn't care; I was too confused and excited to care.
That's when I saw that I also had long white hair that reached my waist, though at the moment it was smeared with dirt and mud. I also had pale white skin that was as smooth as anything I had ever touched. I couldn't stop myself from looking at the rest of my new body. From the tips of my toes to my fingernails, all of it drew my attention.
"Damn," I said absentmindedly as I looked myself over.
After a few minutes too many of checking myself out, I looked around again. I needed to find out what was going on. All around me was nothing but thick forest, and I was anything but a wilderness survival expert.
Looking around, I saw that on the ground by my feet was a woven sack. Leaning down to look inside, I found a pair of sandals and a gray tunic that went to my thighs, with a black piece of rope that I could use as a belt.
At the bottom of the bag was a piece of paper with writing on it.
Picking up the paper, I looked it over. From the look of it, it was a typed message that was printed off and placed in the bag. On the piece of paper, there were only a few words: "Once done getting dressed, say the word 'system' out loud. Gib."
My brain came to a halt. I've read books like this where some random guy gets transmigrated or summoned to some world to fight some great foe. 'For the love of all that is good, please don't let me be some summoned person. I could never get into anime, so I wouldn't know the first thing about it,' I thought with a pang of panic.
"God, I hope I didn't just get summoned by this world for that crap," I prayed one last time before conjuring the courage needed.
Getting dressed quickly, I looked around once more to make sure I was truly alone. Not seeing anyone, I breathed in a lungful of air and slowly let it out. Then, using my voice for the first time, I said out loud, "System."
To my amazement, a neon blue screen appeared in front of me.
Year - 4000 BC
Time in the world - 15 minutes 37 seconds
Name - Adam Anthony Grey
Current Age - 18 [Immortal]
Height - 6'3"
-Note-
Dear Mr. Grey, it is our deepest apologies for this inconvenience. Unfortunately, you died when a quantum void we were testing lost control and accidentally swallowed you into it.
The good news is that we were able to retrieve you from the void. The bad news is, well, you were swallowed into a void of nothingness... Well, it's more than that, but your monkey brain couldn't comprehend anything about it, so I won't waste my precious time trying too.
As an apology, we have decided to give you a new life because of our mistake.
The only thing that this system can do is track your current age, provide a world map that tells you where you are, and show the time. It will also show you areas with human inhabitants, which will be marked in blue. The darker the color, the bigger the population. It's not like those systems that are in your world's books. It won't give you abilities or rewards; it's practically worthless, but hey, you're alive, so be happy with that. As a bonus, we added Spotify to your system, which is connected to your old world for some entertainment.
Now, to the good stuff, I'm sure you are currently wondering where and when you are. Well, at the moment of your death, you were watching a movie named "Twilight." So we decided to send you to that world through one of our multiverse portals. The only problem is when we were able to send you there. The latest we managed to send you is the year 4000 BC.
That is also the reason we gave you immortality so you could be a part of the story.
We had to grow you a new body entirely, because let's just say, your last one was pretty much, how do you humans say it... "fucked up."
So we moved your consciousness into this new body, which we created just for you.
In my opinion, it was wasted on you, but what the higher-ups want, they get.
Your new body has an increased healing ability along with a regenerative ability. If you lose an arm, it will grow back. Get your head chopped off, well get ready, monkey boy, because your head is about to sprout legs and start growing.
As long as there's still a speck of dust left of you, you will start to regrow back to a perfectly fine human.
To help you survive in this new world full of sparkling danger, we gave you some upgrades that should help you out. We gave you increased speed and strength, making you as strong and fast, if not more so, than most vampires in your new world.
We also added some emotional dampeners, which will help you with living forever.
Because the last thing we need is for you to go nuts and kill everyone on the planet, as well as to keep you from wanting to jump in a volcano and waste the effort we put into making you.
All the dampeners do is make it easier to process grief or anger. It won't take it away. You will still feel the emotions, just less of it.
Along with increased intelligence.
You're welcome for that one, because let's be honest, you seemed to have been lacking in that department.
, Director of Science - Gib
The Multiversal Republic.
(P.S) Good luck. You're gonna need it.
I was slack-jawed.
"Wait, wait, wait, this can't be right," I said in a panic.
My heart was starting to race in my chest.
"No more TV or fast food, what the fuck. And did I just get called a monkey?"
I had to pause at that.
Was my life really that shitty?
Where I thought of fast food and TV before my own mother, father, and sister?
'Maybe this isn't a bad thing,' I thought once I got myself under control.
My life was a complete waste. I dropped out of college to work a nine-to-five, all because I was too lazy to show up for classes, not a girlfriend anywhere in the near or future sight.
And plus, I've watched Twilight almost a million times.
It was my sister's favorite movie when we were younger.
So I knew the story better than most movies.
After a few minutes of re-reading the message, I got my thoughts under control.
I needed to find out where I currently am.
"System map," I said out loud.
Just like before, the blue screen appeared in front of me. But unlike before, on the screen, it showed the entire planet. Using my hands, I was able to move the globe and zoom in and out, like Google Earth.
It only took a second for me to see where the larger populations were, like Egypt or many small places across Europe.
But my current location was around the middle of what will become Germany.
So without thinking twice, I started moving south, in the direction of the biggest population, which was in Egypt, or what will be Egypt, in about a few thousand years.
It took me a whole four months to travel to Egypt or more correctly their predecessors.
Currently, it wasn't a kingdom, it's a bunch of villages along the Nile River that would one day group up into one big city.
And all I have to say about the trip was:
"Fuck this shit."
The first week of the trip, it rained nonstop, not just a drizzle. Nope, it was a full-on storm.
Thankfully, when the rain finally stopped, it wasn't so bad. My new body had incredible endurance, which allowed me to walk from sunup to sundown without a sweat.
I also learned how to hunt and track animals. With my new abilities, it was incredibly easy.
With my speed, I could run circles around any animal. And with my strength, break their necks like twigs, making it as painless as possible.
The cooking part was the hardest.
First, I had to use a stick and a piece of wood to start a fire.
Then I had nothing to cut my kills with.
So I would use my strength to rip open the animal and put the meat on a stick, like a kebab.
But with all the bad came a lot of good.
Every night I would lie down by my fire and watch the stars above me.
There were thousands of them in the sky, unlike before I came here. You would be lucky to see a handful.
It allowed me to think about my new life, as well as think about my life before I came here.
I wondered if my family was okay.
I felt bad.
To them, I probably just simply disappeared, never to be seen again.
It was strange how I felt about it.
I felt sad, but I also didn't. Like I was unattached to the feeling and was looking at it from the outside looking in.
About four months in, I learned how to tan animal skins.
My starting clothes were good, but they didn't last long.
Constantly getting caught on trees or bushes and tearing the fabric.
So, instead of murdering my clothes, I decided to give tanning a try.
It started when I caught a good-sized buck with massive antlers. I remember watching a documentary about primitive living and how bone was a very versatile tool, used for medicine to a large variety of objects.
So, I found a flat rock and started sharpening one end of an antler.
With my strength, I needed to be careful not to break it.
So for three days, I sharpened an antler. Once done sharpening the antler, I put it to the test.
It only took thirty minutes to find a lone deer. As soon as I caught sight of it, I moved on autopilot.
In under a second, I ran to the side of the deer, grabbing it by the head and twisting sharply, nearly tearing its head off.
The deer dropped, not even knowing it died.
Kneeling, I used the antler knife to stab into the deer's side.
It wasn't as sharp as a steel knife, but it did the job.
Once the insides of the deer were outside, I carried the carcass back to my camp.
Once there, I started the long process of learning to skin the deer.
I must thank my unhealthy habit of watching random things on the internet, or I would have never figured it out, because it is what also allowed me to learn to make pelts and hides.
The first thing you do when you have the hide is remove any flesh or excess meat from the hide.
Next, you soak the hide in water for a day to remove any blood, dirt, or anything on the hide.
Now that the hide had been soaking, I was able to scrape away any excess tissue that remained.
Now it was time to dry and stretch it.
To do that, I stretched it out and stabbed the corners into a tree with sharp pieces of wood I had managed to make with my dull antler knife.
After waiting a few days, the hide was finally done.
In the end, I managed to make a pair of shorts. Yup, shorts.
I used my already ripped tunic for thread to tie it together into what I would describe as the "hobo look."
Because they were anything but pretty, but hey, I hadn't seen another living soul in nearly five months.
So now, I only had shorts with sandals.
Thankfully, it seems that I can't get sunburnt anymore, so that's good... I guess.
Chapter 2 (edited)
The first thousand years-
I never made it to my original destination.
I didn't even make it halfway through Ukraine before a large nomadic tribe found me, or rather, they found me and tried to kill me.
Something about "demon spirit" or something, I wasn't really listening to them at the moment because I was too busy dodging their spears.
After they ran out of things to throw at me I was finally able to speak to them.
I knew that if I wanted to I could have killed them all in a matter of seconds. With my speed and strength, it would have been like stepping on ants.
But I haven't lost my morality just yet, and they were more than likely just afraid of me.
A strange-looking man with white hair and pale skin shows up out of nowhere, I would have done the same if I was in their sandals.
I tried to speak with them, but English isn't a language yet.
Thankfully an older man came from the back of the group and approached me.
He was probably in his early to mid thirties, but compared to the rest of the group he was the oldest; the others were in their teens to early twenties.
He stopped about fifteen feet in front of me and I was able to get a better look at him.
The man was only around 5'6 with long dark brown hair, tanned skin, and a bone necklace around his neck.
It turned out he was the leader of the group.
His name was Yonada.
It took me around a week to become semi-fluent in their language, Thanks to my better intelligence.
I wasn't a genius or anything with a perfect memory, but it was like my Brain could keep information better, instead of it going in one ear and right out the other.
The tribe was around one hundred and twenty in total.
Exept only around forty of them were men able to fight. The rest were the old, women, and children.
They were a nomadic tribe always moving from northern Ukraine in the summer then they moved south during winter.
The reason they tried to kill me, was that they had never seen someone like me before, as in someone so pale and with white hair.
Everyone in the tribe had darker hair from browns to blacks. They also had tan skin not pale skin like mine.
It made me a curiosity of the tribe's people.
But after a few days of me hunting and bringing back two or three deers or boars a day, I had guys wanting me to marry their daughters.
But I passed on that.
Other than that, everything was great.
I became a hunter and tanner of the Shoma tribe.
My skills in both gave me a good amount of respect and standing among the tribe.
Every now and then we would come into contact with smaller tribes, some friendly and wanting to trade, and others looking to fight and kill all the men and take the women. But with the size of our tribe, they just tried to avoid us.
So for the next ten years, I stayed with the tribe.
But eventually, life started to get boring in the tribe. It was a routine that never changed north during the summer and south during winter.
Always the same trees and mountains to look at, never anything new.
So I finally decided to leave before people started to wonder why I don't age and start thinking of me as a god or something.
As I left, I traded the leader of the village fifteen pelts for a donkey that I named Berry.
And off we went, me and my donkey, from tribe to tribe and village to village. I traveled learning new languages and experiencing new cultures.
Most tribes were friendly and curious about my looks but some were hostile and wanted nothing to do with me.
I didn't mind, any time a tribe was hostile I would simply walk away.
As I traveled I would constantly collect animal hides from my kills and tan them while I traveled.
With these pelts, I would trade for other items sometimes for different pelts or in bulk for an ox, horse, or another donkey.
And before I knew it I had around 4 donkeys, 6 horses, and an ox I named Eddie.
Eddie normally pulled a small cart I made for my heavier items like some sparkling fool's gold rocks I found in a river and my tools.
The horses carried my pelts in sacks on their sides. Berry and his new donkey friends would carry my smaller items like any carvings I made or herbs I found.
Eventually, I made my way to Africa.
But unfortunately, that was a very bad idea. And I mean bad.
Because I was the first white person that an African tribe had ever seen and they thought of me as an evil spirit coming to consume their souls.
So they would try to kill me or word me off with chants.
And anytime I was seen by a tribe they would try to kill me.
So me and my animals decided to head back north.
And just like this, time passed with more tribes and villages I would trade with.
Time just seemed to slip by.
It really amazed me when I would check my system and see that years passed when it only felt like a few months.
and at some point, I just stopped looking at my system and just started enjoying life and the incredible places I could find myself at. One of my favorites is Mount Everest. Seeing it in the distance so high and mighty sent shivers down my spine at the sight. I haven't climbed it yet, but I will, It's only a matter of time. And I have unlimited time.
Every now and then people would join me on my travels but would slowly wither away and die while I stayed forever young.
For a long time, it was hard to watch as it happened.
But after Berry and Eddie passed I just became numb to the loss and just started seeing it as a natural cycle of life. we live, then we die. Except me and the soon-to-be vampires.
And for six hundred years I traveled and traded. From what will become France all the way to China or to India. Letting the days and years slip by like water through open fingers.
I learned every language I could, storing it away deep into the archive of my mind.
Every now and then I would have to fight off some wolves or small parties of men wanting to kill me and take my goods. Any time the wolves came I gained new pelts, and anytime men came for my goods, then the wildlife would eat good off of their bones.
Killing men wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Of course I felt bad most of the time I did it, but, if you chose to do bad things, expect the worst to happen to you.
Most of the time when I killed them, they never even knew what killed them or that they even died at all.
Snapping their necks was the easiest and quickest way to end them.
I never held it against them. most of the time they didn't have much of a choice, either they killed me, and survive off of my goods for years or they starved to death.
Most of the time I wouldn't even kill them and instead, I would let them join me. of course after giving them all a good beating.
I would show some how to herd and for others, I would teach a trade. showing them how to carve wood.
Or I would show them the use of certain herbs and the best way to use them. Most of the time they would leave at a village putting their new skills to good use and starting new lives.
While I like always move on to the next destination.
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