Chapter 1 — The Way Ahead

Confusion

An eternal void

An enormous tree, orbs glistening in its branches

A sea of crystal

Falling

Edwin started awake, his senses telling him that he was

His eyes shot open as he couldn’t feel his pillow, or bed, or anything save air rushing past him, panicking as it sank in that no, he wasn’t experiencing a nightmare, but rather genuinely hurtling through the air at heart-dropping speeds. Far below him, what looked like rolling landscapes swept by, though getting larger as he continued to fall from the sky. His half-asleep, half-adrenaline-filled and hyper-awake brain struggled for a few futile seconds to comprehend what was happening before giving up and releasing him back into blissful unconsciousness.

Edwin started awake, his senses telling him that he was

He sat up suddenly, experiencing Déjà vu for a… nightmare? The question mark could stay. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew for a

After a moment of pain, and a few more of disorientation, the jumbled mess of memories slowly started sorting themselves out. It didn’t do anything to clear out his confusion, but it provided a bit more information, at least. He had been falling. Actually falling, that much was certain, and he had definitely passed out in midair, but he seemed… fine? It didn’t

“What?”

Edwin recoiled, the strange sensation swiftly forgotten, as his vision was suddenly blocked- no, not blocked, he could still ignore the messages and see past them-

“Let’s take this one step at a time, bottom to top. Firstly, whatever this is doesn’t seem to have been familiar with English. Point for me being in another world. Second, I am apparently

“Lots of errors, and lots of Paths, whatever those are. They seem important. Hey, moderator guy! Can you hear me? Can you understand me? What is this? Can I get a tutorial? I’ll accept a really annoying fairy that won’t shut up if you’re out of everything else.” He didn’t get a response, to no real surprise, and dismissed most of his messages by waving his hand through them. The one exception was the single block of text that was asking for feedback of some kind.

“So… mana. As in magic. Well, when in fantasy-land, do as the fantasians do? Accept.” the prompt vanished as soon as he turned his thought towards accepting it, “Hm. Thought-based? Interesting.” he mused, before re-focusing on the new notification.

Edwin immediately felt, well, not exactly

The last one seemed to do the trick, though he didn’t quite get what he was expecting.

“Why would I not?” he mused, and the prompt seemed to treat that as an acceptance, as it resolved into a new message.

Edwin

Very Young

Human?

None

None

Basic Mana Sense

Status

CharLimitCanttalkmuchNocluewhathappenedDidmybesttohelpyouli

Daredevil

Explorer

Linguist

Lumberjack

Path Less Traveled

Realm Traveler

Way of the Empty Hand

World Traveler

“Okay, that’s a lot. Very young? Why am I very..? Ooh. Time of system installation. Weird. All this computer-like stuff left me expecting numbers. Maybe that’s the ‘increased detail’? How do I even level this up, anyway?” he dismissed it and called it up again-

– looking over everything, it didn’t seem to have any changes, the exception being he got a distinct feeling of his Status skill being ‘stronger’ than it was before, in some indefinable way, and that his Basic Mana Sense was about twice as strong. No indication what the Paths were, either. They all felt really low-intensity, though, weaker than either of his Skills. Whatever. He could deal with that later. For now, he needed to find some food, water, and shelter, and picked a random direction to start exploring. Sure, you were generally supposed to stay in one spot when lost in the wilderness, but there was almost certainly not a search party looking for him. He did keep flickering his status up and down as he was walking, though. So far as he could tell, there wasn’t any reason

It quickly hit diminishing returns, though, and after he went half an hour of calling up and dismissing his status without a level, he decided it wasn’t worth the distraction. Instead, he directed his focus to the task that was

Edwin was snapped out of his musing by something appearing in his peripheral vision. He danced back, but whatever it was, it moved alongside him. Then, he realized he was being ridiculous as his eyes properly focused on what was in front of him.

“Visualization? Is everything a skill? I mean, sure, but what?”

“Oookay. Interesting skill. How does that even

Edwin glared at the notification, dismissing it when it didn’t wither under his stare. With a sigh, he continued his quest onwards. The entire forest was… oddly empty. Other than a few smaller animals, one of which looked

…Then again… he couldn’t keep relying on his old instincts for what should or should not be the case. There was demonstrably magic in this world- as a quick call to his status demonstrated, regardless of his supposed mana sense might say- and that meant the creatures here probably also had magic to work with. It was far too valuable a trait to

With a grin, he accepted the skill, and turned around to look at the forest behind him, a wake of trampled plants from his passing already springing back into place. Alone, on an alien world, with unknown dangers, no sign of civilization, shelter, or food, he couldn’t help but chuckle. Back on Earth, he had been all but nobody. Smart enough to get by, not smart enough to really stand out. Certainly not smart enough to pioneer any kind of research, or to push the bounds of humanity’s knowledge. Here, though? Here he had the chance of a lifetime. He was on a new world, a