"Interesting, I wonder if I'm in Eastern Europe or something," I remarked as I remotely piloted my mosquito host around the scattered houses nearby the cornfield that I was presently inhabiting.
The buildings were simple stone and wood structures, looking as if they were built long before the 20th century and seemed to lack electricity completely. The architecture and temperate-looking climate made me wonder if it was some Eastern European country that I was reborn in, but I knew not how wrong I was. There were a few people too, simple-dressed folk occasionally walking down the narrow road where the men wore dusty overalls and dirt-encrusted shirts, while any woman wore an old fashioned dress of some kind.
Before I could investigate more, I suddenly felt my instincts scream "danger", like a sixth sense that I never knew I had. Whipping the mosquito around, I flew it back over the field to where I could see the furious glow of my kernel energy. Looking for whatever threat that I was sensing, a dark blur suddenly sped past me and landed in the field. If that bug had eyelids, I would have been blinking in disbelief as I laid the mosquito's compound eyes on a gigantic black crow that must have been the size of a small car. The crow cawed loudly, while a shadowy figure dismounted its back and began to walk towards my cornstalk.
"Nice disguise, cultivator, but you failed to mask your qi energy," a man with long, shaggy black hair stated with a smirk, his body adorned with dark-grey armor with a matching cape flowing over his left shoulder. "Why don't you 'pick' yourself off of there and come out. I promise I'll make it quick if you surrender to me now."
"What the hell!? Who is that?" I yelled to myself, in no place to answer the stranger due to my lack of mouth. I eyed the long, giant black scythe in the man's hand, which he carried effortlessly as he continued towards my new body.
"Hmm you've absorbed a small, but impressive amount of qi so far, I wonder if you've just been meditating here in the field this whole time," he continued, holding a hand out. A yellow circle of brilliant light appeared over his palm, where he then hovered it around my cornstalk. "Yikes, Captain would probably have my head if I let you get any stronger while in my district. Nothing personal, but I have to cut you down."
Rearing his scythe back, the black-clad individual was preparing to attack.
"NOOOOOOO!! STOP!!" I yelled as loud as I could in my mind. "DON'T KILL ME, I'M INNOCENT! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE I AM!"
He stopped suddenly, raising an eyebrow as he looked around. I could feel some of the kernels that I'd absorbed discharge with me as I belted this out in my head.
"Telepathy eh?" I asked with a chuckle. "Like I said, it's nothing personal, but cultivators like yourself need to be cut down, the sooner the better."
"Y-you can hear me?" I thought, a sense of relief flooding through me. "Look, sir, I'm very confused right now. I was hit by a truck, died, and now I seem to be in the body of this friggin corncob. You have to believe me!"
"Mhmm, and you're from another world, right?" the stranger nodded. "I know, I've heard the whole spiel multiple times. You got killed in your realm, got reborn here, and now you find that you have a penchant for absorbing qi energy from other things. Also that corn story isn't going to help your case. Just come out of your disguise if you want to try and fight your way out of this, but I'm warning you. I'm part of the Royal Magic Corps."
"W-what? I don't know what any of that means," I cried, the voice in my consciousness going shrill. "My name is Tino Lawson, I'm from Ohio, and I woke up what must have been months ago as this damn vegetable. Other worlds? Magic Corps? Qi? This is all so confusing. Help me out man, please tell me what's going on."
"Poor innocent reborn cultivator," the man sighed, shaking his long black locks. "I am Lysander the Reaper, Lieutenant in the Royal Magic Corps. You had the misfortune of being reborn in the great kingdom of Franturro, within the small farming town of Red Sprout, specifically. Freaks like yourself have been popping up every few years, and magic-wielding members of the Magic Corps like myself are tasked with hunting and killing you guys before you can use your cultivation skills to become exponentially more powerful."
"But why? I didn't do anything, I've been blind and unable to move since I got here," I cried out. "Please, mister, I'm innocent. Qi energy? What is that even? You mean that glowing energy stuff that I can feel all around us? I've b-been calling it 'kernels', you see. How's that for innocent?"
"You've been calling it—haha because you're corn!" the man called Lysander chuckled as he again reared back his scythe, the blade of which began to glow a fiery red. "A pity, I feel like you'd be amusing if you stuck around. Alas, I have a job to do. Farewell, Tino the cultivator."
Desperate as my sense of danger continued to pulse through my consciousness like an electric shock, I took the only defensive action that I could think of. Still in control of the mosquito, I proceeded to commit its tiny insect body to a kamikaze attack on Lysander's eye. Diving towards it as fast as the pest's wings could buzz, I landed right on target as the black-clad man was too focused on swinging his smoldering weapon.
"Ugh, damn fly," Lysander scoffed as he rubbed his mildly-irritated eye, before resuming his attack.
Blinded again, my connection to the now-dead bug severed, I scrambled to figure out where I was going to go from there. My instincts continued to scream at me, so I tried to mellow out and listen to them. Remain calm, focused. I sensed the subtle kernel energy of the other cornstalks around me, as well as the flaming energy emitting from the powerful individual who was preparing to kill me. I focused on his energy, taking only a "sip" of his roaring glow of kernels. It felt as if I'd just drunk 100 high-caffeine energy drinks at once.
"Get…back…" I thought, my mind pulsing as I prepared to defend myself.