"Manager, I wish to resign!" Eisen handed his resignation letter to the middle-aged man standing before him, who had thinning hair and wore gold-rimmed glasses. As he spoke, he had a somewhat embarrassed demeanor, but his tone was quite firm.
"Eisen Turner, are you serious?" John ran his hand through his sparse brown hair, then looked back and forth between the resignation letter and Eisen.
"Yes, Manager. I've suddenly had new plans for my future life," Eisen shrugged his shoulders, his tone very calm, seeming to show no abnormality.
"If I'm not mistaken, you just started working here this morning?" John's face showed a puzzled expression, as if to say "you must be joking."
"Yes, I'm very sorry, but I must make this choice!" Eisen said on the surface, but inwardly he couldn't stop thinking, "I don't want to either, but who asked me to time travel eighteen years into the past and suddenly get cheats?"
"Well, I wish you a better future!" John hesitated, wanting to say something but not knowing how, so he could only nod in agreement to Eisen's resignation request, finally giving Eisen a 'good-intentioned' blessing.
"Thank you!" After thanking him, Eisen turned and went back to the office to gather his things. This whole conversation seemed rather bizarre, but everything still needed to be explained from the beginning.
Eisen Turner was an ordinary Muggle in his previous life, living a plain life without the slightest ripple. Letting bygones be bygones, his last memory was passing out while pulling an all-nighter checking bugs in a pay-to-win game his company was making. Unexpectedly, in the blink of an eye, he found himself reborn as a baby in 1972 in Manchester County, England.
In this life, his family background was equally ordinary - his father Jeff Turner worked as an auto technician, while his mother Avie Merlin was the chief editor at a publishing house. Born into such a family, Eisen may not have enjoyed a privileged upbringing, but he never lacked for food or clothing. Moreover, ever since learning he had been reborn decades in the past in England, Eisen had already planned out his new life.
So from primary school onwards, Eisen used cheat codes all the way through to his university graduation, excelling to become the poster child for "other people's kids." During this time, by copying novels, songs and more based on his past-life memories, Eisen also accumulated over two million pounds in savings.
Since he had earned quite a bit of money, his parents did not object at all to Eisen's plans for his future life. Thus, Eisen joined a film company in London, intending to work there for a few years to learn the ropes before starting his own studio. This way, he could not only adapt the "good movies" from his memories, but also collaborate with his mother's publishing company to develop IPs.
On the morning of July 4th, 1990 - that is, today - Eisen had just started working as a production staff member at Faerie Forest Films. Originally, everything was proceeding according to plan, but at 10 AM an unexpected event occurred that completely derailed Eisen's carefully-made life plans.
After packing some documents into his briefcase and gathering his belongings, Eisen left Faerie Forest Films. Downstairs, he turned and entered a cafe on the corner.
After ordering a coffee, Eisen calmly sat by the window. To passersby, he seemed to be simply enjoying his coffee, but only he knew that a virtual screen had appeared before his eyes.
That's right, this was the reason Eisen changed his life plans - on his very first day at work, he had suddenly unlocked the legendary cheats. The virtual screen displayed a character panel:
Character: Eisen Turner
Supernatural Talent: Magic (Activated)
Magic Points: 10 (Gain 10 points per day)
Supernatural Traits: None
Miracle Traits: 1 (Automatically gain 1 per year)
Looking at the character panel before him, Eisen suddenly felt that everything in the world was so wonderful. From the panel, his activated supernatural talent was Magic, and his magic points were only 10. Coincidentally, the cheats allowed him to gain 10 magic points per day, meaning his magic talent had just activated today. But what use were magic points? Could he cast spells with them?
Thinking of this, a smile appeared on Eisen's face. However, when he saw the supernatural traits and miracle traits listed, Eisen felt rather puzzled, as he couldn't deduce anything from just those few words.
Eisen tried focusing his mind on the miracle traits and supernatural traits, but felt no change at all, as if those traits didn't exist. From the current situation, Eisen's cheats seemed quite singular in function.
At the very least, the stat attributes Eisen had imagined like strength, endurance, defense and so on didn't seem to exist. Besides lacking direct stat displays, there didn't even appear to be any skills. For now, the only thing Eisen understood were the magic points that increased by 10 each day, but their use was still a question mark.
Time passed slowly, when suddenly Eisen's eyes lit up as if he had thought of something, and a hint of a smile appeared on his lips. He then got up and left the cafe, entering the bookstore next door. A few minutes later, Eisen returned to the cafe and sat back down by the window. However, he now had five notebooks, a steel pen and a bottle of ink in his hands.
Since what Eisen planned to do next was rather secretive, he decided to use a cipher of his own devising instead of plain English. After filling his pen with ink, Eisen wrote a title on the cover of one notebook, then opened it and began writing the contents inside.
This manual detailed a powerful magic system called the "Quintessence Mastery Art" that Eisen had read about in fantasy novels from his previous life. Mastering it was said to allow one to manipulate the fundamental forces of the universe, warp reality, and achieve immortality. Of course, Eisen didn't actually know such an arcane art - he simply made up the contents based on his imagination.
After about an hour, Eisen finally finished writing the self-proclaimed supernatural manual "Quintessence Mastery Art." However, no matter how hard he inwardly willed "Learn!" the ability never appeared on his character panel. Even when he disregarded the odd looks from others in the cafe and forcefully slapped the notebook, there was still no effect.
Could it be the wrong metaphysical basis? Eisen glanced at the Magic supernatural talent on his character panel, then had a thoughtful look. He then took another notebook and wrote a title: "Magic Body Cultivation Method." He proceeded to write the contents inside.
This time, the core concept Eisen wrote about was circulating his internal magic through his body via special methods, in order to temper his physical form. Not only could this improve his physical attributes, but it would also increase his body's affinity and control over magic.
After a while, Eisen closed the "Magic Body Cultivation Method" manual, having committed the contents to memory. He then stared at it intently, an extremely strong desire welling up from the depths of his heart - to learn the Magic Body Cultivation Method.
However, the character panel remained completely unchanged. Eisen had originally hoped to unlock a hidden skills panel by self-studying abilities, but it seemed that path had failed as well.
Next, rather than creating original abilities, Eisen experimented with skills he was already proficient at from his previous life, like driving, programming and writing. But evidently, those didn't manifest on the character panel either.
By this point, Eisen had more or less expected this result. His cheats simply didn't seem to have that kind of function. Realizing this, Eisen couldn't help feeling rather disappointed, as it meant his plan to "learn abilities by studying manuals" was likely impossible.
"These cheats don't seem wide-ranging enough!" After a while, Eisen put away the pen, ink and notebooks, then sighed.
Awakening a supernatural talent was a good thing, and no matter what level those 10 daily magic points were at, automatically gaining that many was still nice.
However, it was at this moment that Eisen suddenly remembered an extremely important issue - personal safety. That's right, in the eighteen years he had lived in this world previously, he had never worried about his personal safety.
But now that cheats had appeared and his supernatural Magic talent had activated, Eisen couldn't help but wonder about the nature of this world. Had he truly just been reborn decades in the past in England? Or was this perhaps a parallel world concealing supernatural powers? If he hadn't awakened his Magic talent, he surely wouldn't have considered this possibility.
But since he now possessed a magic talent that granted him increasing magic points each day, this was no longer something he could overlook. Pondering this possibility, Eisen couldn't help but mutter to himself, "It seems I should lay low and keep hidden until I understand the situation better!"
Glancing at his briefcase, Eisen suddenly felt a tinge of regret. In order to keep a low profile, it would have been better to continue working without arousing suspicion, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary.
But the sudden appearance of the cheats had thrown him off balance, causing him to impulsively quit his job in a heated moment. Realizing this, Eisen felt his experience was still lacking, having acted a bit rashly.
But it was too late for regrets now, and Eisen had no way to take back his resignation and shamelessly ask for his job back. Feeling mentally drained, Eisen abandoned that impractical idea.
With a thought, the character panel vanished from his sight. Eisen then pondered his next move.
Time trickled by, and before long it was already noon. Coming back to himself, Eisen still hadn't decided what to do next.
Afterwards, Eisen ordered a plate of pasta at the cafe to simply get something in his stomach.
(End of Chapter)