Carl slowly opened his eyes, his body weak and sore. A strange sensation ran through his mind as he tried to orient himself in his new surroundings. Looking around, he realized he was lying on a simple bed in a modest room. The walls were made of stone, and there was a small window letting in a bit of sunlight.
As he tried to get up, Carl noticed that something was different. He looked at his hands and saw that they were younger, smoother, and smaller than before. A wave of confusion and astonishment washed over him. He then realized that he was no longer in the body of an adult man, but rather in the body of a young person in their mid-teens.
"What happened to me?" Carl murmured to himself as he tried to remember what had happened. He saw a clay pot with water that allowed him to see his reflection. His dark hair was slightly shorter, and his eyes expressed a mix of surprise and doubt. He knew that something extraordinary had occurred.
While Carl tried to assimilate the new reality, a sharp pain began to penetrate his mind. Fragments of memory from the body of the young person he now occupied invaded his consciousness. This young person was also named Carl, was 16 years old, and lived alone as he had no family.
Seeing these fragments of memory, Carl discovered that he was in a world called Eldora, where warriors used something called "mana" to strengthen their bodies. He also learned that this was a medieval world, devoid of the modern technology he was accustomed to.
The house he was in belonged to this young person, who inherited it from his father. The deceased young Carl dreamed of becoming a great warrior, but only the wealthy and nobles could afford expensive energy accumulation manuals for their children. The young Carl's father passed away when he was still a child, working as a farmer, and the young Carl had lived alone since then, taking on jobs that nobody else wanted to earn enough to survive.
Carl reviewed the fragments of the young person's memory once again to understand what had happened to him. The previous night, the young person decided to confess his love to a girl in the village but was rejected and died of sadness, crying in his room.
"I didn't know it was possible to die of sadness," Carl whispered. He didn't know how to feel about this young person. With so much information to assimilate, Carl couldn't dwell on it too much and continued examining the fragments of memory to learn more about the location he was in and its surroundings.
This world had five known kingdoms: the Kingdom of Valeria, the Kingdom of Eldora, the Kingdom of Caelum, the Kingdom of Arkania, and the Kingdom of Seraphia. Carl resided in the Kingdom of Eldora, the smallest kingdom on the continent, in a village whose nearest town was Mucrea, located 20 kilometers away. Mucrea had about 30,000 inhabitants and was considered a small city compared to other cities in the kingdom. The kingdom's capital, Pradis, for example, had several million people.
In the village where Carl was, around 500 people lived. The deceased young person performed tasks such as cleaning pig feces, cutting firewood, and sometimes helping the guards carry dead goblins. Carl was surprised to see the goblins in the fragments of memory, as he didn't expect to encounter creatures that only existed in fantasy tales in real life.
The last memory Carl saw showed the location where the young person hid all his life savings, his own and those of his deceased father. He was saving everything he could to buy a house in the city in the future and open a business to live comfortably for the rest of his life.
"Not a bad life plan, but
having to save money for two lifetimes to buy a simple house in the city? Why didn't you just learn something that makes more money?" Carl was somewhat surprised at how limited the young boy's knowledge was.
When Carl finished contemplating the fragments of memory, he began to formulate a plan in his mind. He thought, "Since I've been given a second chance, I won't waste it. I will reach the top of this world." Before he could think of anything else, his stomach growled.
"Well, I better eat something. This body is too skinny," Carl said as he got up from the simple bed and headed to the kitchen in search of something to eat. Upon reaching there, he saw that there were only a few clay bowls, almost all empty. It was expected since everything in the house was very simple. In one of those bowls, he found a piece of black bread with some visible signs of mold.
"This is the best I can get at the moment. Hunger is the best seasoning," Carl commented as he took a bite of the bread and almost broke his teeth. "This is made of stone," Carl said surprised, but he ate the whole piece of bread in his hand.
After finishing his meal, Carl noticed that the sun was no longer in the sky, and darkness was quickly setting in. He decided to stay indoors on the first day to devise an action plan and familiarize himself with this new world. He took a quick look around the house, which had only two rooms: the kitchen and the bedroom. All his savings were hidden within one of the walls of the bedroom: a gold coin, a silver coin, and 30 copper coins.
In this world, a silver coin was equivalent to 100 copper coins, and a gold coin was equivalent to 100 silver coins. The annual income of a farmer ranged from 10 to 30 silver coins. The young Carl managed to make one silver coin per year with his low-level jobs, so most of these savings came from a lifetime of work by the young Carl's father.