Late at night, Sylas was left with nothing to do after taking care of his mother throughout the day and completing all the house chores.
Feeling bored and stuffed inside the house, Sylas briefly checked his mother's condition before sneaking his way out of the home, intending to seek some refreshment.
He quietly locked the door and directly went to his destination while chewing a loaf of brown bread to fill up his stomach.
Along the way, he noticed the street was quiet with only a few people occasionally passing by, as well as patrol guards. Undoubtedly, the church's recent agenda really installed fear in people's daily life, to the extent that it managed to transform what was once a bustling street into a desolate pathway.
At the town's gate, Sylas was halted by the city guards but soon released after nothing suspicious was discovered on his belongings.
Twenty minutes later, Sylas finally reached the journey's end. Lie on the opposite side of him was a beautiful small lake with crystal-clear water, surrounded by wild plants and green grasses, making the scenery look like it came out of painting.
As he stared at the panorama before him, his eyes misted with the remnant of the past.
From other people's perspectives, this lake might be regarded merely as an ordinary lake. But for him, this place held a special meaning in his heart. Even if the sky collapses, he wouldn't essentially forget what happened three months ago at this exact place.
It was a night with a full silver moon hanging above the sky.
On his way back from a graduation party, Han Chen hears an ear-piercing screech noise, followed by an illumination that succeeds in blinding his vision.
In reverie, he sensed what it felt like to get rammed by a vehicle. It feels intensely hurt and slowly, his consciousness consumed by darkness.
He thought he'd be dead. Hence, he was surprised to find himself straightly lying beside a lake instead of a pool of blood the moment he regained his consciousness.
Afterward, he attempted to move his limbs and struck dumb upon feeling neither soreness nor ache caused by accident. His movements were smooth and seemed to have a sign of improving in agility as though he had performed numerous exercises.
Instead of feeling gladful, Han Chen was inclined to feel terrified. I mean, who wouldn't be? Shouldn't he at least be paralyzed for getting himself an accident?
When Han Chen feels incredibly confused, waves of a stranger's memories begin to course through his brain, causing him to experience an excruciating headache.
The process carried on for a few minutes, but Han Chen feels like he just had a dream that has a duration for years.
After a few minutes of adjusting, Han Chen figured out that he had survived the accident. However, instead of giving him a second opportunity to continue living on earth, somehow God placed his soul on a different body and world. This fascinates him, as well as frightens him.
From the new memory, Han Chen learned the person's body he possessed belonged to a teenager called Sylas Maximus.
Han Chen also learned that Sylas had only a single family member left, that's his mother. His father was an ordinary merchant worker that has been out of contact for years. His status remains unknown, but Sylas and his mother always prayed that he'd come back sometime.
They lived in the city of Costan, a small city located in the domain of Elysium Kingdom.
Other than that, Han Chen didn't discover other important pieces of information.
…
For the first month, it was sort of hard for Han Chen to cope with a sudden change of environment. There was no electricity, he got himself a new family, and most importantly, there was no internet connection available. It feels like he just returned to a stone age where the majority of modern technologies had yet been invented.
Fortunately, he possessed great tenacity and independence. Due to these qualities of him, he slowly but surely adapted himself to the way people medieval era lived.
Of course, there were times that even he found it difficult to adjust. For example, a keyboard warrior like him, living in a place with no internet connection appears to be like living in hell. No video games to relieve his boredom, no argument between people in the comment section to amuse him, etcetera. If only he owned half of the cleverness of a particular famous scholar such as Aldert Minstein, maybe he'd invent electricity or the internet by no time.
As for living in a new family, Han Chen initially finds it difficult to talk to Lans' mother. Not only does he feel guilty as if robbing Lans' lives, but he also couldn't help but act awkwardly since he was an orphan on Earth and doesn't understand how to behave in front of a mother figure properly.
At last, to distract himself from these kinds of problems, Han Chen busied himself by working as an errand-runner. He'd wake up at dawn and start visiting the market to help elderly people that wanted to open their stalls. At noon, he'd become a scavenger, searching for stuff and selling it at a hoarder.
He did that routine for a whole month. At first, it was kind of unbearable since he was not a morning person to begin with. However, such negative feelings instantly vanished upon witnessing the money he earned out of his sweats.
By the end of the month, Han Chen has solved almost all his inner problems. He starts accepting his new identity and family, leading to improvement in the son-mother relationship.
Fortunately, Sylas' mother also doesn't suspect a thing and merely guesses that maybe her son has just passed through puberty period. That's how she convinced herself of the reason behind Sylas' temporary weird behaviour.
With one after another problem getting solved, Sylas now had time to reflect thoroughly about the future. And the first conclusion he got from the period of reflection was he needed to become at least literate. If there's a thing he considered as an absolute disaster, that is being illiterate in an alien world. That's why Sylas used nearly all his savings to take a reading lesson.
For the following month, Lans dedicated himself to studying and reviewing the lesson he partook in. Although he often ended up exhausted like a dead fish, the result was satisfying with him being able to read the Elyon Language in just a month.
Aware of his status slightly lifted up in the society, Sylas' ambition grew bigger as he planned to enroll in knight training. He knows that by becoming a knight, his future will be secured. If he were lucky enough, he'd even be sent to a big city, along with his family. And from that, he still could be promoted through the merit he earned from war. And if by any chance Goddess Fortuna decides to grant him an extreme super duper luckiness, he could directly be promoted to the nobility.
"Just imagining it I felt intensely motivated. Unfortunately, I need to wait for another month to begin my plan." Sylas sighed. His savings were now all gone after hiring the physician. But he didn't have a tinge of regret doing it. As long as his family is safe, then there's nothing to worry about.
In boredom, Sylas picked up the nearby pebbles and threw them over the lake. However, it sounds like the pebbles hit something else as the noises echoing were different.
*Clank*
Startled for a few seconds, Sylas hurriedly looked at the sound's source and saw a scarlet stone tablet was swimming in his direction. In the middle of the night, witnessing such spectatle, everyone would be frightened. This logic also applied to Sylas. He was frightened to the extent his feet refused to move.
When he snapped out of his daze, his eyes registered the stone tablet had landed just beside his feet.
Sylas instinctively drew his feet backward, feeling horrified. I mean, who wouldn't be if a suspicious object decided to suddenly appear in front of you, in the middle of the night on top of that!
He wanted to immediately flee, but strangely, there seemed to be an inexplicable force that kept attracting his eyes, preventing him from looking away.
Ultimately, Sylas couldn't resist the temptation and ended up staring intensively at the scarlet stone tablet, wondering what kind of object it might be.
As his probing deepened, Lans perceived the whole tablet's surface wasn't solely painted by scarlet colour. There are two other colours that overlap, developing an illusion of unity between two distinct elements.
His hands subconsciously marched forward, intending to stroke the tablet. Luckily, before his heart sank deeper into the allurement, Sylas managed to stop himself by biting the tip of his tongue.
"Phew, thankfully I didn't succumb to my desire. Who knows what would happen if I touched it?" Sylas released a breath of relief while wiping his imaginary sweats. After this realization, he understands that the stone tablet must be some kind of magical device or something like that.
If it were ordinary stuff, he wouldn't be getting overly influenced to the point of wanting to touch it despite knowing it might be lethal.
"What should I do now? Should I just leave it here?" Sylas messed his hair in annoyance. Although the tablet looked fishy from every angle, Sylas knew that a big reward comes with a huge risk.
Ever since he arrived in this world, Sylas has gained an understanding of a lot of things. Between all of them, he grasped one essential thing, that he wasn't the protagonist. Even after striving for a few months, nothing extraordinary happens in his life.
Sometimes he wonders what the purpose of God in choosing him to live in this world? To reach the apex of the world? Or perhaps to lead an ordinary life?
In spite of the fact that he hadn't witnessed a single display of divinity and magic, he longed for such power.
That's why faced with such a once-in-life opportunity, Sylas' mental state was exceptionally fazed.
"Return empty-handed but safely, or pick it up along with the risk it brought?"
Sylas contemplated for a long time until his eyes flashed with determination. 'If I am doomed, then so be it! I've died once! What's wrong with adding one more on my record? Rather than living in regret for the rest of my life, I'd choose to dictate my own fate now.'
Taking a full deep breath, Sylas in nervousness grabs the nearest broken branch and pokes the stone tablet lightly. Upon noticing that no reactions were ignited, Sylas slowly stepped forward while removing his upper clothes.
With his hand coated in his clothes, Sylas picked the stone tablet off the ground carefully as though holding a bomb, hoping nothing wrong would befall him.