Gift?

The morning glow of the rising sun illuminated the dark sky and the cold valleys, bringing warmth to even the ones engulfed in despair.

Wuming opened his eyes and felt pain all over his body, but was strangely energetic.

The ends of his fingers were no longer black, and his chest no linger ached.

"I survived? Was that a dream?" he remembered seeing his body from a third-person perspective and trembled.

"Should I count myself hyper lucky?" he muttered while breathing hot air into his palms, the climate was still cold despite the rising sun, it would take a while for it to heat up.

As he tried to get up, he felt something strange under his butt.

In fright, he jumped and looked over, it was just a book.

[Magnificent Guide, made by the greatest peerless expert under the pencil.]

"What a damn long title..." Wuming muttered in wonder, "Wait... this is my language!"

In a hurry, Wuming opened the book.

[Younging, I am the mighty peerless expert, number one under the pencil...]

"What a load of bullshit," Wuming jumped the parts that were nonsense and got to the main part.

[I know that you jumped my greetings, but I forgive you. Anyway, this book was given to you by the great me because I felt you are pitiful and in need of help.

[It has countless pages contained in a small space, incredible? This is just the beginning.

[The main function of "Magnificent Guide, made by the greatest peerless expert under the pencil" is to guide it's owner on his journey for a magnificient story.

[In a way you can currently understand, this guide can help you in all stages of your story. You can get the most valuable and needed information from it for you current state, so please be careful to not lose it, as it doesn't have the function to find you by itself.

[Since you are, right now, just a mortal without the strenght to kill a chicken... no, you can't even kill a small bird in your current state, you need... to lift!

[Don't misunderstand... I am more powerful than this, but you are too weak to get to more powerful methods, so start by lifting weights, yes, training your body in general.

[In the following pages, you can get the necessary guidance for it, specially tailored for you, cherish it!]

For a while, Wuming didn't know what to think... was it some sort of strange prank?

He knew his own situation very well, he had the body to lift weights, but not the nutrients.

And about buying nutrients? Sorry, no money. Gaining money? Sorry, no job. Ganing a job? Sorry, no way.

But thinking about the mysterious origin of the book, he continued to read.

[Because you have no way to harness the spiritual energy between heaven and earth, you need to first train your body the old way.

I know you are poor, so I will teach you how to make some pills out of common herbs everyone consider useless.

Those pills are very easy to make, even a pig can learn how to do it, your heard... no, you read me?

It will be tiring, you will wish to give up, and others will ridicule you, but don't give up! Cheer up!

Anyway, go catch some stems of pilum first, I put an illustration here so you can recognize it easily.]

Subconsciously, Wuming looked just beside his feet, pilum was growing there. He then looked to a few meters away, and lots of pilum were growing in poor soil.

[If you already got the pilum, go get some of calcedin, it's this herb: (*illustration*)]

Looking at the wall of the building beside him, lots of calcedin were growing on it like moss.

[You already noticed by now, but those herbs were really easy to find, right? The next one is a little more difficult, so persevere! Go get some fire needles: (*illustration*). They usually grow under the shades of trees, but they were weak against insects.]

That herb was not in the alley, but Wuming remember seeing them under a strange tree, it emited an horrible smell and probably kept insects away, so the fire needles survived.

After a short walk, he got the fire needles and discovered why they were named like this.

[Did you get them? I forgot to mention they are very agrresive to human skin, so you must be feeling horrible, right?]

"Damn! Fuck you!" Wuming cursed with bloodshot eyes, his hands felt horrible and he already washed them repeatedly with water from a pond.

[With the three kinds of herbs ready, separate one of each kind, you need to removes the following parts of them: ...

[You can trown those parts away, they are extremely harmful to the body. The remaining parts should first be washed with water and then smashed together to form a crude pill.

[But don't swalow it just yet, you might die. You need to piss on it, only then a reaction will occur and the pill will become benefical to you.]

"...Piss?" Wuming was shocked and angry.

[Come on, I know what you might be thinking, don't be such sissy. After pissing on it, you can also wash it with water, anyway the pill will already be transformed.

[Three of those pills can be used as a substitute of a meal. As you need a healthy diet during training, you need to eat at least twenty-four of those pills.

[Don't worry about your piss, the pills have some aseptic effect so you won't get an infection, but it will taste... unique, I guess.

[A tip: Don't waste your piss.]

Wuming felt very bad, he even wondered if he should just trow the book away. But deep down, he knew the book was his only way out.

He already tried it, and the book really seemed to possess countless pages, he never managed to reach the last page. But most of thoae pages were blank and would only show content when he needed it.

From that day onwards, a guy who trained like a crazy dude and ate pills washed in piss secretely groomed himself.

How he survived the cold nights without a shelter? He learned how to make a fire.

Although the guide mentioned lifting weights, he had no such too Dols, so he had to lift his body and other things.

With some luck, he managed to get some native clothings from a pile of trash, so he didn't stood out anymore.

[If you can read this page, you should have trained for two weeks, so it's about time I set a clear small goal for you to reach:

[Do a hundred situps!

[Do a hundred push-ups!

[Do a hundred squats!

[And then run ten kilometers!

[Do it for every day non-stop!

[When you manage to do it for an entire year non-stop, you will be strong! (for a mortal)]

"..."

Wuming looked at the sky and closed the book, he felt... bad.

"Why am I here?" he muttered weakly, tears almost left his eyes.

Not to mention a hundred push-ups, he couldn't even do ten despite having trained hard for two weeks.

But he had to admit, the pills were effective, he never felt weak or malnourished despite only eating those things.

Although he lost his dignity, he was gaining strenght.

But after that day, he also began to train the exercises before-mentioned.

In the alleys, a crazy guy was doing push-ups with his upper body naked.

Under a bridge, a strange guy was doing situps everyday.

Beside a pond, a maniac guy was doing squats everyday.

Around the town, a sick guy ran everyday.

Rumours circulated fast, but because he never did evil, no one really bothered him, both out of indifference and also fear.

No one wanted to attract the atention of someone sick in the head.

The seasons passed by like pages of a calendar. And a myriad of leaves turned into dust.

"That guy is already doing his strange moves... he never get tired," a stall owner muttered while looking at the figure beside the pond.

"But he looks much stronger now, so those moves should not be completely useless, I guess," someone listed the stall owner and also commented.

Meanwhile, Wuming was already doing the 300th squat. Sweat was flowing down his lean and defined body, he was no longer the weakling of before.

Although he only needed to do a hundred repetions, it has been some time since he felt it was too easy, so he was always trying his best.

It has been almost two years since he arrived in that world.

He only managed to do the hundred repetitions of the exercise in a single day after almost a year of continuous training, and now he finally did it for a whole year.

After finishing his exercises that day, he went to a narrow alley and took out the guide from a hidden place.

[If you can read this page, it means you reached the small goal. Congratulations, you are finally fit for a mortal.

[With your current strenght, you can finally venture into the woods outside the town and search for better herbs, you need them for your future training!

[After all, you can't remain a mortal, right?]

After reading all the newly bisible content, Wuming frowned.

The woods outside were dangerous not only because of the wild animals, but because bandits might suddenly appear.

Although he was no longer a complete weakling, he had no fighting experience.

But he only hesitated for a while.

He knew he had no choice but to move forward.

Not because of the strange guide and it's goals, but for himself, he wanted to solve the mysteries involving his sudden appearance in another world.

First day of exploration: Wuming ventured a little in the woods, but was too cautious to move more deeply in the first day, so he retuened.

Fourth day of exploration: Wuming was already familiar with the outskirts of the woods close to the town, and was confident in not getting lost easily, so he ventured deeper into the woods. He found the herbs with some effort and returned to the town safely.

Fifth day of exploration: With more experience, he returned to the place he found the herbs and harvestes more of them. But almost got bitten by a snake, he wasn't sure if it was venomous.

With the better herbs, he made better pills according to the guidance of the guide, and finally... he didn't need to piss on the pills anymore.

Instead, he needed to do a lot of strange things with the herbs before they were edible, it was no wonder no one treated them as valuable.

The pills gave him more energy and so he increased the intensity of his training.

Rumours began to spread quickly, the crazy guy of strange movements began to venture in the woods and began to bring lots of useless herbs into the town.

Some people were surprised he didn't die in the first few days to some wild animal.

Wuming was happy that his reputation as someone crazy kept people away and spared him from undesirable interruptions.

And although he seldom interacted with people, he learned a lot of the native language in the past two years, so he wasn't as lost as in the beginning.

But his spelling was still strange, he lacked practice after all.

His body began to experience a period of rapid strengtening, Wuming felt addicted to the feeling of getting stronger and stronger.

The once skinny guy who could be blown away by the wind was now a strong young man with a tall figure and steel muscles.

A year after he began to venture in the woods and began to eat the better pills, he was not only much stronger, he was much more confortable with the native language.

And because he spent the years without doing evil to anyone, people began to lower their guard, so he could finally do miscellaneous jobs.

Carrying heavy goods from a place to another, being a stall vendor, helping in the farms...

Slowly, the people of the town began to understand he wasn't as crazy as they thought and began to accept his presence.

As for why he did those jobs, he needed money, he didn't want to live in the streets forever after all.

His hard work paid off and he managed to rent a small place for him to live in. It was very rudimentary, but he finally had a proper place and bed.

He no longer wore trash clothing, but bought nice common clothes for himself, he now looked like a proper and ordinary native.

His hair had grown in the past years since everyone seemed to despise short hair a little, so he followed the cultural trend.

[If you can read this page, it means you finally adapted to this world and is no longer seen as a complete stranger. Moreover, your training and special pills should have polished your body to a good enough state.

[The next step is your first step into the realm of the supernatural!]