Imagine that you have the viewpoint of a drone hovering above this random street in mainland China. The traffic light has turned red, and people are going across the zebra crossing. You zoom in a bit, assuming your drone can zoom in, and see six people crossing the road.
There's this middle-aged woman who is reading on the efficacy of Korean plastic surgery, a student who's either a trap or a female (don't assume genders), and two teens talking about some new phone game you've never heard of. Well, you've heard of it now.
There's also an old grandmother with wrinkles and white hair, and oh look, our MC, Jiang Nan! He's the average-looking guy, with an average height, average clothes, well, everything about him is rather average, except that he enjoys reading web novels. Well, that could be average too.
Anyways, he's using his phone as he's crossing the road. That's a bad example to follow, don't do this at home. You might end up like him, without the transmigration. There's a truck incoming, it's big and green, and has this bored-looking inattentive driver.
Oh, the driver noticed he's going to hit somebody and is finally reacting.
*HONK* *HONK*
The two teens have good reactions, probably cultivated by video games, and rush out of the way, pushing the trap/female away as well. The grandmother is way too slow to even get hit. However, our poor Jiang Nan is still using the phone!
*CRASH*
I assume your drone has an audio function.
Ah, now we can go into the spiritual levels, which all religions have! We have the so-called Duat from Ancient Egyptians, enlightenment from Buddhism, atman in Hinduism... where was I?
Yes, now we see a small translucent spirit that looks a tiny bit like drool coming out of Jiang Nan's mouth. No, wait, it's drool.
Nevermind.
You see that big translucent spirit coming out of his mouth? It looks a bit like a ray of bright light, except that it's wavy and not straight. It even kind of looks average as well.
That's his soul, ka, whatever you want to call it.
Now, you see that tentacle of white goo coming over, that's what people in Saga call a Hero Contract. It's when you find the location of a soul and contract him or her to become your subservient companion. Of course, if your soul is powerful enough, you can refuse, but most don't do so unless they have personality problems or the guy contracting you is so weak that he can't even drag your soul over.
You remember that legend in Egyptian mythology where they measure your soul with the weight of a feather? Yep, your soul's lighter than that, unless you've committed senseless murder. When I say that it means that the murder victim didn't:
a) Kill your mother/father/brother/sister/uncle/aunt/grandma/grandma/nephew/niece/cousin.
That's called revenge.
b) Attack you first
That's called self-defence.
or c) the murder victim was a murderer.
That's called serving justice on the behalf of the community.
Right, so the only people Jiang Nan ever murdered was Cockroach #1, #2, #3... #1246, Fly #1, #2, #3... #216 and that lizard he stepped on unintentionally.
Yep, also, Jiang Nan's soul isn't powerful, so he gets summoned to the other world, known as Saga! That's where our story starts and I come in.
So now, as we follow his soul across a field, a bridge, a bog, some woods, and several parallel universes, we see his contractor! It's this seven-year-old boy who's entire household is being destroyed.
I see this called plot armour. It's when the protagonist is about to die, and somehow some miracle happens. Either some overpowered guy who has fate with the protagonist, the long-forgotten friend in Chapter 229468, his mysterious parents, his lover, his disciple or someone else shows up and beats the hell out of that person, or the protagonist makes an emergency breakthrough, or in this case, awakens his summoning talent.
Except... I don't think Jiang Nan can beat that guy.
Eeks.
The villain is finally successful, as Jiang Nan is almost OHKO'd by the villain's own Hero, and the protagonist companion is stabbed.
Now, I check and I have only 693 words, so I have to continue writing.
Now, of course, plot amour kicks in, because the MC wasn't that kid, but Jiang Nan instead. Jiang Nan's soul, now an undying soul, takes over the MC's body due to his unwillingness and regrets, and... is still bleeding to death.
Also, I forgot to check on Truck-kun. Wait a while as you send your drone back across several parallel universes.
As we see here, Truck-kun is slanted across the road, the policemen are arresting the driver, and everybody is crying, weeping, grieving. There are a couple large splotches of blood, and I assume Jiang Nan's body has been taken to the hospital or put in a body bag. How pitiful, and I'm not using these scene to add to the word count at all. Not at all.
OK, back to Saga.
Jiang Nan seems quite OK. For a person who just died and was transmigrated, since this isn't (is) a novel, he seems happy and fine, except the fact that he's bleeding out.
Now, as a summoned Hero summoning Heroes, he naturally summons a hero to help him out with his possibly fatal wound!
Actually, most people in Saga have this instinct to do so, just like how that seven-year-old boy did so (his instincts were bad and summoned the wrong person to help), and like how we can't hold out breath until we asphyxiate.
[ Summoning in Progress......]
[...]
Who will he summon? Will he have the same instincts as the body he took over, or will he summon somebody actually useful? Find out in the next episode of... chapter of Saga... Web Novel!
I almost couldn't make it sound nice.