When Vernal woke up, he found himself floating in a strange void, feeling as if he were in a place where the very concept of direction had vanished. He realized that nothing surrounded him—no walls, no ground, and not even a hint of a sky above.
He tried to move his hands and legs, hoping to feel something or anything, but nothing responded. It was as if his body had somehow forgotten how to exist, and the sensation left him in a sort of unsettling numbness, which seemed impossible to comprehend.
"Man, this is so trippy," he murmured, though he wasn't sure if anyone or anything could even hear him.
Then, as he tried to make sense of the surreal emptiness, a soft blue glow sparked in front of him, catching his attention. Slowly, it formed into a floating blue box, and his eyes focused on the words that appeared in white text across it.
[Congratulations! You have Died.]
"Is this… is this what I think it is?" he asked, half in awe and half in disbelief, his voice echoing strangely inside his mind. Then, as if on cue, the blue box flickered again, and the words he had been waiting for appeared in glowing bold letters.
[Welcome to The Gamer System.]
He found himself grinning wider than he ever thought possible, though an odd thought crossed his mind. He didn't even have a face here—or a body, or anything physical at all—yet he could feel the thrill rushing through him just the same.
He could hardly believe it. "The Gamer System in the flesh… no, in the… umm? Anyway," he muttered to himself.
He had been a typical D-list actor, barely scraping by with whatever odd gigs he could find. He showed up on low-budget reality TV shows and ridiculous panel games—jobs so embarrassing he wished he could erase them from existence entirely. He didn't even want to hear their names mentioned, let alone talk about them.
When he first arrived in Hollywood, he had been bursting with passion, ready to pour his heart and soul into chasing his dream. He believed that hard work could lead him somewhere. He knew he wasn't leading-man material, but he wasn't so unattractive that he needed to hide his face either. With that mindset, he took out a student loan, enrolled in acting school, and gave it everything he had.
But after graduating, reality came crashing down like a ton of bricks. Not a single worthwhile gig came his way. The only job he managed to land was on an awful reality TV show that turned out to be a complete disaster. Instead of launching his career, it obliterated what little reputation he had from non-existent to negative.
And then, just when he thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, he died in a truck accident. It was over in an instant—his dreams, his struggles, even his petty frustrations—wiped away as if the universe and Truck-kun had decided they were done with him.
But now, waking up here had reignited his passion for acting. With the help of the gamer system, he could once again strive to become the No. 1 actor without too much effort. In fact, he could even become a filmmaker who produces his own movies.
As he was reminiscing, more blue boxes began to pop up. He shook his head and started reading them, each of the blue boxes containing messages that made his heart race.
[Skill added]
[Gamer's Mind (UNIQUE)]
Allows the user to calmly and logically think things through, granting a peaceful state of mind.
He blinked mentally, feeling as if a strange calmness had washed over him. Before he could even process it all, another box appeared.
[Skill added]
[Gamer's Body (UNIQUE)]
Grants a body that allows the user to live in the real world like it's a game. After sleeping in a bed, it restores HP, MP, and cures all Status ailments.
"Uh… system? Can you respond?" he asked, half-hoping for an answer but not entirely sure if he wanted one. When he heard nothing but silence in reply, he let out a deep sigh of relief, realizing he was actually glad there wasn't some voice nagging back at him.
"Well, that's a relief," he thought with a grin. "I didn't like systems that talk anyway."
The next screen shimmered to life before him, flashing bright letters that read Choose Your World. Beneath that, a list appeared with options that practically made his heart skip a beat.
[Choose Your World]
Marvel
DC
Harry Potter
Star Wars
LOTR
DBZ
One Piece
There were names he recognized instantly: Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Star Wars, DBZ, One Piece, and many others. The list seemed to go on and on, with so many choices that he could hardly believe his luck.
"So… which world should I pick?" he muttered to himself. "There are just so many of them."
Shaking his nonexistent head, he studied the list again, his eyes scanning each world as he considered what kind of place he wanted to live in. After a while of decision paralysis, he scrolled down, found Modern Family, and chose it.
It was the last thing he had watched, and most importantly, he didn't want to constantly look over his shoulder or waste time and skill points by investing them in something that wouldn't contribute to his acting career.
...
Another screen appeared.
[Choose your race.
Human, ???]
He saw the options: Human and then… there were question marks. He became puzzled. Modern family has different races? No, this must be a feature of the system then?
After a moment of thought, he grinned and said, "Of course, I pick the question marks."
[Randomizing Race.]
A description appeared a second after he made his choice:
[Human (Unique):
Humans of this race are born from the remnants of a cosmic being's essence. This connection grants them the potential to ascend to levels of power beyond imagination. By consuming a potion brewed from the characteristics of such a being, they can gradually fuse with this cosmic power, unlocking abilities capable of altering the very fabric of the universe.]
A body began forming around him out of thin air, looking just as he remembered from before, as if the darkness itself had started to gather and construct him out of nothingness.
Skin started covering lean muscles, pale and plain, while his black hair fell loosely around his face.
He reread the description of the race and frowned.
"Oh man… This was a useless endeavor! At least make me an angel or something! Or maybe something that has innate charm, not… whatever this is."
After some thought, he tilted his head and muttered, "At the very least, I'm still human. Whatever, I don't care."
"Status screen," he said, watching as the familiar blue box appeared, showing a detailed list that seemed both impressive and a little underwhelming.
Name: Vernal
Race: Human (Unique)
Occupation: N/A
Level: 1 (0/100)
Title: N/A
HP: 150
Mana: 180
Mana Regen: 2%
STR: 10
VIT: 10
DEX: 10
INT: 11
WIS: 16
LUC: 2
Skill Points: 0
Currency: $0
He squinted at the numbers, feeling a strange mixture of excitement and disappointment, but his first reaction came out in a low grumble. "Wait… where the hell is Charisma? How am I supposed to improve my looks without Charisma?" He frowned as he let out a groan of pure disappointment. "This system sucked already, Why couldn't it be a Hollywood system."
Then his eyes went to the Luck stat, and he could not believe what he saw, because he had only 2 Luck. Just! Freaking! 2! It made sense now, because this explained everything he had to endure before his death.
He shook his head hard to snap himself out of it and forced himself to ignore those thoughts because he did not want to dwell on the past.
Then he started to scan the stats again, mumbling to himself. "I can probably see what each stat does in detail if I want, but I've seen enough gamer fics to know the basics, and I've probably memorized most of it, though… just to be safe, I should double-check."
A couple of seconds later, he skimmed over the descriptions and nodded as he went. "Yep, just as I thought… pretty standard stuff."
Then he noticed his Intelligence score. "INT is 11? it is slightly above average then," he muttered as he shook his head.
He glanced at his Wisdom. "Well, at least my Wisdom's high… that's something."
He glanced over his physical stats, which all seemed to be set at ten, and he shrugged as he figured it made sense since this body had just been created. "Guess I'm starting with a blank slate."
He started flipping through the options and features as he scrolled through the menu, and he prayed to every god he could think of because, with his luck stat, if the gamer system had a gacha feature, he would be completely fucked seven ways to Sunday.
He kept searching for a while, and after a few moments, he found nothing that even remotely looked like a gacha system, so he let out a long sigh of relief and finally relaxed a little.
'As far as I can see, there is no perk section, and there is not even an ID Create skill. Well, I do not need to farm XP anyway, because as long as I can level up my acting skill, my life would be set,' Finally, he decided he'd seen enough, so he cleared his throat and said, "Alright, system, I'm ready, let's go."
Almost immediately, the system responded with a new message on the screen.
[Commencing Travel… Estimated Time for Arrival: 2,147,483,647 Years.]
And with that, everything went black as he felt himself slip into unconsciousness.
…
Instead of the cool and calm travel Vernal was expecting, he got a violent, suffocating return to life.
Water choked him, and he coughed hard, his chest heaving as thick, gunky water spewed from his mouth.
His hands scrabbled against the muddy ground, shaking and weak as he tried to push himself up, with his whole body trembling.
When he finally managed to drag in a ragged breath, he realized he was on a riverbank.
The air was damp and heavy, and the stench of sewage and rot hit him like a punch to the nose, making him gag.
His torn clothes were soaked through, clinging to his skin and chilling him to the bone, and he shivered as he tried to make sense of what the hell had happened.
"What the fuck is happening?" Vernal wheezed out.
"Shit! I didn't fucking sign up for this."
He stood up on shaky legs and looked around himself.
In the distance, just barely visible through the fog, he could see the sprawling silhouette of Backlund, its factories coughing black smoke into the gray skies. Seeing this dragged something else out of the depths of 'his' mind.
...
Victor Lynch had always known that gang life did not come with a happy ending, and this—this was lower than anything he had ever imagined.
The memories came rushing back now. He had been caught in the middle of a gang fight, and it had all gone to hell because of that rat bastard Tris vanishing and definitely selling them out to some other gang.
The betrayal stung, and truth be told, he was ready to rip that smug prick apart if he ever got the chance.
Maybe that was why his head felt like it was splitting in two now—or maybe it was the fury clawing at his brain—or maybe it was the steel rod that had smashed into his skull and left him crumpled.
"Ahhh, fuck, my head's breaking apart!" Benny had screamed, and his voice had been high and desperate like a dying animal, but Victor had not even been able to groan back.
His head throbbed with a dull ache, and his vision blurred into a mess of shadows and bloodstains.
When he managed to open his eyes just a little, he saw the others scattered around him like discarded trash.
Their so-called leader, Garrett, lay face down in the dirt like a sack of bricks, and Mag and Eli were sprawled out nearby, looking nearly lifeless.
The blood that seeped from their wounds had soaked into the cobblestones, turning them dark and sticky, and the whole alley smelled of piss and blood and despair.
It was not like their names meant anything anyway. They weren't even real names, just street names, made-up things they slapped on themselves to feel important, like they weren't just nameless tramps clawing their way through the filth of Backlund.
Lynch was his real name, and he had added Victor later because it sounded like the name of a man who could make something of himself and not just another bastard kid scraping by in the gutters.
But none of that mattered anymore because the bastards who came after them stood tall and smug in the alley.
"From today onwards, the streets belong to the Zmanger gang. Remember that," the leader announced.
Victor's blurry gaze settled on the leader of the crew—a thin and hardy asshole, his skin darkened from prolonged exposure to the sun. His recessed eyes didn't even bother to look at Victor directly when one of his men slammed a boot into Victor's stomach.
Pain exploded through him, and he wheezed as he tried to suck in air, but his lungs refused to work, so all he managed was a pathetic rasping sound.
"Shut the fuck up," some lackey barked.
'Fuck!' Victor groaned inwardly, his anger simmering beneath the haze of pain.
Victor wanted to scream, Something didn't add up, 'How the fuck is he this strong? We couldn't even touch him,' but his body was too broken to respond.
His eyes became blurry and that had been it.
"Uhh... Boss Meursault, I think this one died," one of the men said, pointing at Victor's broken form.
"Throw the body at the river," Meursault replied, his voice devoid of emotion.
And just like that, he walked away, leaving his men to clean up the mess.
Victor Lynch died right there in that shitty alley, his body broken and left to be thrown into Tussock River like garbage. But then—then Vernal woke up.
...
Vernal—no, Victor—staggered as he clutched his head, overwhelmed by the flood of details that hit him all at once. Their memories had merged, and it felt like his brain was splitting apart.
He could feel Victor's old life seeping through, all the lessons learned on the streets, scavenging for scraps, figuring out how to survive in back alleys where no one gave a damn about you.
Then there was Vernal's knowledge, filled with modern ideas, ambition, and a sense of purpose that felt alien against Victor's rougher instincts.
When the chaos in his head finally settled, bits of information began to connect. Names and places clicked together, and something floated to the surface—a story Vernal had read. Lord of Mysteries. It was all there: Klein Moretti's rise to godhood, the Pathways, the acting method, fuckin genderbent Tris, and the intricate world of Backlund and the Loen Kingdom—It was all there.
Victor—no, Vernal—let out a shaky breath. "How the fuck am I even alive? With all this knowledge and the loss of blood, the filthy river water I swallowed, I should've been dead hours ago. My body's probably more swamp than blood right now."
He looked around, shaking his head. "The system… is that what's keeping me breathing? Alright, let's try this. Status? Skills? Quest?"
A flickering screen appeared in front of him, glitching so badly it was almost unreadable.
[User Activation Detected]
[Warning! Severe Damage to the System Detected.]
[Quest Module Online]
[New Quest]
You're not where you're supposed to be. Something has happened. Find out where you are.
Rewards: [Failed to Activate Reward Module]
Vernal frowned as the panel blinked out before he could do anything else. "Great. No status. No skills. Rewards aren't working either. Just my fucking luck."
He rubbed his face, trying to think. "Alright. I need to figure out where I am, but first, I need shelter and food. I don't know what's keeping this body running, but if it's the system, and it's this busted, I don't think I've got much time before it craps out completely."
There was still daylight left, so he got moving. His clothes were soaked and clinging to him like dead weight, so he stripped them off without hesitation. He didn't care about being naked. Modesty wasn't going to keep him alive. He started walking toward the forest nearby, his bare feet squelching in the wet grass and mud as he pushed forward.
The trees stood tall and dense, their dark branches spreading out above him. It wasn't exactly inviting, but it would do for cover. He shoved through the underbrush, ignoring the way thorns and twigs scraped against his skin, until he found a small clearing.
Dropping to a crouch, he started gathering sticks and dry grass. He focused on the little things he'd learned from survival videos and years of scraping by, and it wasn't long before he managed to get a small fire going. The flames danced in the clearing, giving off just enough warmth to make him feel a little less like a walking corpse.
Victor went back to the river and rinsed his clothes out, even though the water was filthy. He figured it was better than nothing. Once he wrung them out, he laid them near the fire to dry. He spent the next hour gathering more sticks and branches to put together a crude shelter. It wasn't great, but it would keep some of the cold night air off him.
He made a crude spear from a sturdy stick by using a sharp rock to shape the tip and some string from his clothes to secure it, and then he headed to the Tussock River again.
Despite the water being murky and foul, it miraculously had fish in it. They were not good fish, but fish nonetheless, so he waded in anyway and cursed under his breath as his first few strikes missed completely while the fish darted away. Gritting his teeth, he steadied himself and focused until he finally managed to stab a decent-sized fish.
He carried it back to the camp and gutted it with the sharp rock, despite the stench, and then skewered it over the fire as he watched it cook.
Finally, he sat down in front of the fire and ate the fish while feeling its warmth seep into his skin, and he stared at the flames with his mind racing with thoughts about the system and what the hell he was supposed to do next.
"This is my life now, huh?" he muttered as he shook his head. "Trapped in this mad world. Fuck, I wanted to be an actor damn it, and I don't want to be stuck here with a busted system that probably won't last long enough to save my ass, so this is just perfect, just fucking perfect."
But there wasn't any use in complaining, so he sat there, staring into the flames, trying to come up with a plan to survive the night.
Before Victor could think any further, another sudden blue screen flashed into view.
[Connecting to The Administration… Failed.]
[Emergency Mode Activated.]
[Granting Partial Admin Access to The User… Successful.]
[You now have access to the Terminal.]
Vernal blinked as a new interface opened up in front of him, and to his surprise, it looked just like a Windows Terminal.
"The fucking Gamer System was made by Microsoft? No wonder it broke," he Lampooned, shaking his head.
He stared at it for a second before letting out a dry laugh. "Alright, I can figure this out. I've been using Arch Linux for years. This can't be worse than that mess."
He spent some time tinkering with the interface, clicking through different sections and exploring its features. To his relief, it wasn't as complicated as he thought it would be.
"Alright," he muttered after a while as he leaned back against the tree and crossed his arms. 'I think I've got the gist of it now, and it's pretty user-friendly, actually.'
The system was in complete shambles, and everything was wrecked. The system had been following its protocol, but it ultimately failed. If it had an AI integrated into it, it would have done a better job than whatever the hell happened here.
'Is this what happens when you don't have a voice in your Gamer System? If that's the case, then I take back whatever I said about not liking systems with voices.'
The system, as he managed to figure out, was divided into two main parts, which were the Main Matrices and the Sub-Modules. These two components worked together to form the Gamer System.
'Let's summarize what I could find out, first up,'' Vernal muttered, squinting at the display, 'there's this thing called the Perpetual Energy Generator. At least, that's what it looks like to me. It's supposed to generate infinite energy to power everything, but here's the catch—it's limited in how much it can output at a time.'
He scrolled further through the Terminal and frowned. 'Next is the Firewall Matrix. This thing's probably the only reason I'm not dead right now. Its job is to protect the system from being detected, and right now, it's running at 200% capacity. But it's also eating up around 70% of the energy. No wonder everything else is barely functional. Looks like the Gamer's Mind module is attached to this thing too.'
Vernal rubbed his chin, his mind racing as he processed the data. 'Then there's the Scanning Matrix. This one scans my surroundings and my body. I guess it works with the Status and Quest modules and probably handles stuff like the Observe skill too. It's taking up 15% of the energy.'
'This leads us to the next, and by far the most important part—the Reality Overwrite Matrix or ROM for short. From the name alone, I can probably guess what it does. Unfortunately, it's currently offline because there aren't enough resources to power it.' He scoffed, half-laughing in disbelief. 'So unless I reach Godhood, I can't fully turn on the core function that makes this a Gamer System—the one that shapes reality like a game.'
He opened the skill section in the terminal.
There was the Skills: Gamer's Mind {Active} | Gamer's Body {Active} | Observe {Active} | U̸̡̺͙̭̥̠͂͛̒̈̄̌̾͗̃͝n̸̛͇̣͉͎̝͔͌͊͗̀̓̄̓̚͘k̷̲̻̯̖̙̓͂̐̈́̕ͅn̴̘̲̦̏̐͝ơ̵̡̙̳͔̟͎̄̑̒̂͛͂̀͠w̵̢̰̬̟̹͈͖͍̓͛̉̀̉́̓͠n̸̰̲̙̪̠̳͚̫͚̖̎̌̍̆̿́̉ (Unactive)]
His eyes instinctively moved to the Unknown skill, a mess of tangled data filling the screen. When he tried using the help function, all it did was spit out error messages like a broken record. It looked like some crucial part of the system was fried, maybe completely busted.
"Yeah, this is useless," he muttered under his breath and decided to leave it alone for now. There was no point wasting energy on something that wasn't going to give him anything, and he had bigger problems to deal with anyway.
He scratched his head and kept tinkering, trying to reallocate resources from the Perpetual Energy Generator. After a while, he made a decision.
'Okay, I've set all of the remaining 15% of the energy to the Reality Overwrite Matrix. It's not much, but it's enough to get to fully active Inventory and partially active Gamer's Body modules running. Inventory's going to be the most useful for now, but I can pull that energy back and move it around if I find something better later.'
Victor exhaled slowly, the firelight flickering against his skin as he glanced at the Terminal again. "Now I've got to figure out why the damn Status screen didn't show up earlier. That thing should've worked, but it's either busted or buried under all this crap."
He kept fiddling with the settings, streamlining features and tweaking the interface until the Status screen finally popped up. He deleted a bunch of unnecessary fluff and combined the Status and Skills screens for easier access.
[Name: Vernal+Victor Lynch
Race: Human (Unique)
Gender: Male
Occupation: Tramp
Pathway: None
Sequence: None
Honorific Name: None
Spirituality: 142
Spirituality Regen: 1.9%
Skills: Gamer's Mind {Active} | Gamer's Body {Active} | Observe {Active} | U̸̡̺͙̭̥̠͂͛̒̈̄̌̾͗̃͝n̸̛͇̣͉͎̝͔͌͊͗̀̓̄̓̚͘k̷̲̻̯̖̙̓͂̐̈́̕ͅn̴̘̲̦̏̐͝ơ̵̡̙̳͔̟͎̄̑̒̂͛͂̀͠w̵̢̰̬̟̹͈͖͍̓͛̉̀̉́̓͠n̸̰̲̙̪̠̳͚̫͚̖̎̌̍̆̿́̉ (active)]
"Better," he muttered, leaning back at the tree and running a hand through his dirty hair. "If I'm going to survive in this hellhole, I need every damn advantage I can squeeze out of this thing. Even if it's held together with duct tape and prayers... wait, no, prayers might actually fix this in this world."
His eyes drifted to the Race section, and a scowl spread across his face. "And I think I finally figured out what screwed me over. Shit, I trusted this damn gamer system too much. Screw you, system. If you'd told me it's tied to a race from Lord of the Mysteries and subject to Beyonder Law, I could've done something. I could've prepared, or at least changed something. Useless piece of crap."
Frustration bubbling, he opened the Race section and rewrote the description to make it clearer.
[Human (Beyonder):
Humans of this race are born from the Original Creator. This connection grants them the potential to ascend to unimaginable levels of power. By consuming a potion brewed from Beyonder characteristics of Original Creator or a corresponding formula, they can gradually merge with 'Their' Characteristics, unlocking abilities capable of altering the very fabric of reality.]
"Okay, that's more like it," he grumbled, feeling a little better after fixing that mess.
With that done, he shifted his attention to the most critical skill: Gamer's Mind. He activated Observe on it, wanting to confirm exactly how it worked.
[Gamer's Mind (UNIQUE)
Allows the user to calmly and logically think things through, granting a peaceful state of mind.]
He stared at the description and frowned. It felt a bit lacking, so he rewrote it as well.
[Gamer's Mind: Allows the user to calmly and logically think through situations while creating a barrier against mental attacks and corruption.]
His eyes locked onto the glitching skill, and he couldn't resist—he opened the Terminal to dig deeper and see what the hell was going on.
"Now what are you..." he thought. He stared at it for a moment, but the lack of answers only pissed him off even more. He gave 1% of the energy to the skill, and he didn't know what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn't this.
The tangled mess of corrupted data turned into a jumble full of symbols and fragments that didn't make sense. He used the Help function on these, but it was even more useless and kept spitting out errors.
When nothing happened at first, he almost sighed in relief, but then faint murmurs began crawling into his head. They started soft and almost distant, but they grew louder, and before long, they were hammering against his skull. Gamer's Mind should have kept him calm, but it was failing him, and he could feel the panic creeping in. He couldn't stop it as the pressure kept building until his thoughts felt like they were going to split apart.
His body jerked, and the sharp taste of iron filled his mouth as blood poured from his nose and ears.
His vision blurred, and he could feel something warm running down his face, but he couldn't even figure out where it was coming from anymore. His mind buckled under the weight pressing down on it, and he knew that if he wasn't already dead, he was about to be.
Then he saw it. A giant hand, impossibly large and made of writhing worms, reached toward him. It wasn't just a hand—it was a thing that shouldn't exist.
'Their' Mythical Creature Form loomed over him, made entirely of twisting, grotesque worms. Worms of Destination, his mind muttered, Fog clung to the gaps between them, and glowing symbols leaked from every crack in its shifting surface. It wasn't just terrifying—it was wrong in a way that made his mind break from seeing it.
The murmurs in his head cut off suddenly. For a second, he thought it was over, but it wasn't. Fragments of memories came into his mind. He couldn't stop them no matter how hard he tried to push back. He saw flashes of something—a Pathway—and he knew it was called the Director Pathway.
Sequence 9: Actor (Thespian)
Sequence 8: Strategist (Story Planner)
Sequence 7: Showman (Emotion Enslaver)
Sequence 6: Coordinator (Martyr of Flesh)
Sequence 5: Orchestrator (Stage Overseer)
Sequence 4: Performance Artist (Aesthetic Sorcerer)
Sequence 3: Film Recorder (Sixth Sense of History)
Sequence 2: Perfect Vessel (Untethered Divinity)
Sequence 1: Hand of Stages (Concealed God)
Sequence 0: Director
The information kept hammering into his mind. His chest tightened as his vision flickered, and his body felt like it was tearing itself apart, As if the 2 luck he has wanted to fuck him over even more.
"Fuck," he whispered. His voice barely escaped his lips before everything went black.
AN: Well, here it is. It took me two weeks to write this thing. When I asked about which pathway to choose for Lorien, I found that the madlad Iwastedallmymoney (on Reddit) had made an original pathway called the Director. Other people were also suggesting creating a story using original pathways, so I rewrote the previous one and worked on this instead.
If you're asking why I didn't give the pathway to Lorien instead, it's because he doesn't really fit this pathway. He is more of a Justiciar guy, and maybe I'll make one based on the Justiciar pathway in the future.
Anyway, what do you think about this one? Please tell me your thoughts, and I hope you enjoyed it.
(End of Chapter)