In the year 2147, portals emerged all across the world. These strange phenomena seemed harmless at first, but the colors of the portals began to change over the course of a week. Before the people of Earth had the chance to fully adapt to these changes, the portals that turned from orange to red began to spit out horrifying creatures, and humanity's bleak war with supernatural monsters began.
At first, resistance was hopeless. The monsters were durable beyond belief and had strange powers on top of their terrifying strength and speed. Fortunately, with the existence of monsters flowing out of the portals, a translucent blue screen began to appear in front of many people. Apparently, the Earth had a will, and it directly made a system to help the dominant species of the planet harvest the amazing power of Mana and resist the inter dimensional invasion of monsters.
Eventually, time marched on, and the plot of the novel starts after about eight generations of human resistance. A young orphan boy aged fifteen attends his middle school's awakening ceremony and unlocks an EX ranked hidden profession and talent. As he builds strength and power, he encounters trouble after trouble and slowly learns the secrets of the world as he saves women and adds them to his harem. That same boy directly skyrockets to the pinnacle of the world and saves it from being consumed, directly turning Earth into a powerful and dominant planet across dimensions.
Of course, not every person that the protagonist meets will recognize his genius. There are naturally people who get in the protagonist's way for one reason or another. Kai Darkbloom is one such person. A worthless guy who mocks the protagonist's Copycat profession believing it to be worthless. That kid is defeated by the protagonist a week after the awakening ceremony at the Awakener's High School entrance exams. After Kai loses spectacularly to the protagonist, he is discarded by his ruthless family and becomes a rogue professional. He dies easily the next time the protagonist meets him, and his only real role in the story was to allow the main character of the novel to show off and introduce readers to Kai's family, which becomes a major antagonist faction later.
***
Kai Darkbloom, or Hunter Bellows, as he was called in his previous life, sat alone in an apartment. He stared blankly at the paper in front of him. He remembered that he was on his deathbed reading his favorite novel, I Can Stop The Apocalypse, when he finally read all of the chapters online. He typed a fan email to the author thanking them for writing the story, and stating that he wished he could live in a world like that one, instead of living in a world where he couldn't do anything about dying of illness and living unhealthy. After all, he was an orphan, and he was never even adopted due to being born sickly and being given a life expectancy of arou d twenty two. Then, he surprisingly received a reply email from the author which cryptically asked if he would really love to live in such a dangerous world, and he replied yes. Then, Hunter found himself transmigrated into the body of Kai Darkbloom.
Hunter took notice of his surroundings. He was in a rather decent looking apartment complex. Hunter could tell that the room was well used by Kai in the past. Everything seemed as if Hunter had just always been Kai Darkbloom. If there was anything strange about the situation... Hunter looked up at the ghostly figure in front of him. Across from him was a mirror image of his current physical body. That same lanky build with the excessive eye bags, the white hair and blue pupils, everything.
This was... Kai Darkbloom. The original Kai Darkbloom was floating in front of him.
Looking up from the letter, Hunter stared sheepishly at the ghost and decided to speak to him.
"So, do you have any idea what's happened to us, or what we do from here?"
Kai haughtily looked down at Hunter.
"Why ask what you already know? Do you think that I wasn't informed about what would happen to us?"
Hunter looked at Kai with some trace of pity, and then sighed.
"Well, maybe. It's pretty brutal to be told that your soul's going to be basically consumed by some random stranger from another world."
Kai's ghostly appearance seemed to flicker a bit as his face became a few points more stern. Then, he sighed as well, looking even more resigned than Hunter did even though his features were becoming increasingly blurry.
"It doesn't really matter. My soul was going to shatter anyhow. I would've preferred to just go back in time, but I guess it isn't really that simple."
Kai's ghostly form continued to hover in place as he glared down at Hunter.
"So, I guess the better question is what you're going to do once you've inherited my memories and abilities."
Hunter met Kai's gaze.
"If I heard correctly, I should have to go through the awakening ceremony again to inherit my own profession and talent on top of the ones I acquire from you. Honestly, I could try to make up with your family and wait a year to retry entering the academy, but it all kind of feels pointless. I don't know if you know, but I was bedridden for most of my adult life, so I think I'll probably sign up for either the Explorers guild or the Dungeoneers guild and go see the world for myself."
Kai looked at Hunter for a long while, and then a small smile appeared on his face.
"Good. My crappy family deserves what's coming anyway. I probably wouldn't have ended up so arrogant or cruel if they gave a care about raising me."
Kai's face turned wistful and sad. Based on the descriptions of the book he read, Hunter never would've thought that Kai Darkbloom could have made a face like that, but there's no medicine for regret in world. After a few moments of awkward silence, Kai's ghost like body began to softly glow around the edges.
"It's time."
Kai's voice was quiet and reserved, but it came across very firm and resolute to Hunter.
Hunter showed a depressed mood as Kai began to fade, but Kai's next words woke him up a bit and gave him a moral boost.
"Don't show such a gloomy expression with my face, kid. As long as you don't die too early, we'll both be able to reincarnate successfully into the next life. Besides, I realize now that I've got a heck of an ugly face when I'm not happy."
Hunter stared at Kai blankly for a moment.
"Pfft."
Seeing that Kai had reprimanded him so sternly about something so trivial at the end of his life inexplicably made Hunter's mood a little lighter.
Kai showed a small smile as his body turned into a white light and shot into Hunter's body. Hunter closed his eyes and felt a warm sensation all over, and then he felt tired. Before he knew it, he fell backwards onto the bed and then drifted to sleep.