Bright light engulfed his vision, causing his eyes to remain closed while he passed the portal.
Soon after, a whistling noise filled his ear, causing his eyes to open and look around.
Soon the source of the whistling sound became apparent while his eyes blinked continuously for a while, trying to make sense of the situation he pulled himself in.
"Fuck, I'm falling."
Fear started taking root in his heart as the reality seeped into his mind. And the fear became even more amplified as there was no sign of ground to be seen underneath.
"Shit, I shouldn't have entered."
Instant regret was a thing that hit him harder than a truck.
But before he could panic even further, a transparent blue panel suddenly showed itself right onto his face, taking him by surprise.
It kept falling alongside him like it was glued to his vision.
==========
[Status]
Name: David Taylor
Race: Human
Rank: Tireless
Level: 1
Attributes:
Class:
Strength: 0.7 / Agility: 0.9 / Constitution: 0.6(0.5) / Dexterity: 0.8 / Intelligence: 1.3 / Mana: 0.1
==========
"Wow, what! A status panel. A real fucking status panel. Thank goodness, I entered the portal."
His regret-filled face, instantly changed at a speed of lightning as he stared at the panel with excited eyes. Excited stemmed from all the novel and fantasy work he dwelled to waste his time in.
But he wasn't given much time to ponder over it.
[For entering Cosmic Confluence the first time, you will be given one ability to start with. Please brace yourself for your ability imprinting.]
Those were the last words David heard before soon after an intense scorching pain filled his chest.
In just a few microseconds, it became so overwhelming that David fell unconscious following it.
******
A few minutes later.
At an unknown location, lying on the ground was the black-haired youngster, snoring soundly.
His peaceful sleep was interrupted by a panel appearing along with its sharp sound, making him get up lazily.
[Ability: Ruler's Mind{★}
Description: As the guiding light to his people, a ruler's mind never falters.]
His groggy eyes laid on the text ahead, trying to discern the meaning behind all these panels.
"Ability? Ruler's Mind? And what does this star next to it determine?"
'Its description doesn't help either.'
But as his hand touches the smooth grass on the ground, he recalls his earlier mid-air falling and starts checking his body all around.
'No bone broken, nor any kind of wound. Had I fallen from such great height and still received no wound or just teleported again?'
Making sure his body was all right, he finally laid his eyes on the scenery ahead, causing his breath to be taken away.
A huge- no humongous patch of grassland stretched to no end in front of David. Filled with various types and lengths of grasses along with occasional flowers adding a charm to it, it was a sight to behold.
Well, certainly for a person who lives in a concrete jungle, a metropolitan.
Far at the end of the horizon stood a mountain range whose peak wasn't even visible to the place David was standing. The top was shrouded in thick floating clouds, making it impossible to see what stood at the top.
One of the mountains has a blue line cutting its pathway on the huge structure, running straight down toward the grass-filled plains.
"A river"
It runs on the left of the plains from where David stood. Turning his body to see the end of the river, what greeted his view was another scenery that blew his mind away.
A forest with trees as tall as an apartment building with 10-15 floors and diameter as big as a full-sized SUV.
The river didn't just end right at the entrance of the forest. It also cuts it like the grassland and disappears as the trees block the view.
After checking three of the four cardinal directions, David also excitedly checked the last one as well, hoping to find another breathtaking view, only to be disappointed by encountering the same grass-filled sight.
While he was busy checking the surroundings, a subtle humming sound filled the vicinity causing him to stop wandering around and look at the only non-natural structure standing amidst this clearing.
A circular stone ring of about 3m diameter stood perpendicular to the ground. Various writings of unknown language were inscribed on its rim while the hollow central portion was experiencing disturbances like space distorting and twisting at the same time.
And just as David reached close enough to be 1m apart, those subtle disturbances started violently twisting while a blue color spread across, giving it a similar look to the portal David had seen earlier.
In the next second, a blue panel suddenly appeared near it.
[For the first-time summoning, an exclusive luck-based summoning can be performed without any token requirement. Please give the command to proceed further]
"Summoning? What can it summon? A spirit or a demon? Maybe equipment. Well, it sounds like some gacha game, so it can summon people as well. But…"
There is a problem.
David wasn't a lucky or unlucky kind of guy. Well, a bit unlucky if we consider his day-to-day small accidents.
So, summoning doesn't sound useful to him if it's based on the gacha mechanism. At most, he would gain a rare type like in games.
"Well, better than nothing."
"..."
"..."
"So, how do I summon? Hey, panel or system."
He didn't get any response.
"Should I just say summon? Yeah, let's try that first."
"SUMMON"
He just outright shouted thinking that whoever was controlling that oversized ring, would listen if he said it out loud.
And that's what they did.
The spiraling portal started spinning at an even increased rate while a humming sound filled the vicinity.
The next moment, a halo of stars started appearing on the ring.
1-star
2-star
"That star thing again. And a 1-star seems the lowest, so doesn't that mean I got the lowest-leveled ability? A fuck, I knew it. My luck is really on the shitty side."
3-star
"Well, not all things are bad. Hehe, go on baby, at least get me a 5-star summon."
And just as he said those words, the star appeared to stop at 4. It didn't bulge no matter how many times he blinked.
A blank face. That his face was right now.