Chapter 1: From the Corpses

South of the Great Thourian Empire

Riverglen City

In a dark section of the large forest, two strong muscular men were dragging a large bag along the forest floor.

One of the figures was visibly starting to get nervous and couldn't help asking,

"Are you sure we should be doing this? He's a Noble, you know?"

The other figure lacked his companion's cautiousness and quickly replied,

"Noble or not, he's as good as dead now. All that matters is the boss wants his body gone and so we'll get rid of it!"

After a few minutes, these two figures stopped and looked around.

In front of them stood a gloomy mass grave with a mountain of bodies piled up.

The shadows created by their torch seemed to dance erratically between the corpses, and some distance away, you could even make out the faint flickers of a ghostly, green fire.

"No matter how many times I come here, this place still gives me the creeps," said one figure as he shuddered in front of this weird sight.

"I agree with you man, let's be done and get out of here quick!" replied the other

With those words, the two men swiftly acted.

They didn't even bother to bury the bag and just tossed it to the side of the mountain of corpses."

"Thud!"

The bag made a heavy impact with the mountain of bodies, causing a partial collapse and the bag to be covered underneath the countless decaying corpses.

After Seeing that, the two figures didn't waste anymore time and quickly disappeared from the area, not even bothering to check if they did a decent job.

Minutes later, the scene was just as quiet as before.

Suddenly, there was some rustling in the mountain of bodies.

At first it was just a slight disturbance, but with time the disturbance turned into violent shaking

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

Three loud punches could be heard coming from deep within the mountain and suddenly a hand pierced out from the top of the mountain.

"Arrhh!"

A cry of freedom erupted as a bloody figure managed to crawl his way out of the pile of bodies.

"What the hell happened? Why am I here?"

Oswald was stunned to find himself magically appearing inside a random forest.

Before all this, it had just been a normal day for him, where he just went to the library to borrow some books to study.

While he was at the library, he saw a strange book that really caught his interest.

It was a blood red book that Oswald just happens to chance upon and take to his table to read.

What he didn't expect was for a red beam to rush out the book and hit in the head causing him to pass out and when he next awoke, he found himself in this strange place!

Oswald was still trying to adjust to his new surroundings when a piercing headache hit him.

It felt as if someone was trying to force hundreds of objects through his skull.

Suddenly fragments of memories and unfamiliar scenes seemed to flash past in his mind, messing up his already unstable mental state.

"Arrh!"

Oswald clutched his head as he wailed in pain.

Crazed whispers started to sound in his ear becoming louder and louder until it felt like he was being screamed at by a crowd of demons.

Just as he thought his mind would collapse, a crimson glow radiated from his forehead, calming down these crazy calls until they completely disappeared.

Exhausted, collapsed onto the floor whilst sweating profusely.

Just then, a large amount of memories flooded his mind all at once.

The rush was so great that he almost went mad from the images alone and he was sure if it was not for the mysterious red light, his journey in this world would have ended right there!

After Taking a moment to finally gather himself, Oswald slowly went over the memories he had just received.

"Oswald, my name is Oswald Blakewell!"

From the newfound memories he managed to obtain the name of this body. But from his memories, he also managed to discover some surprising facts.

The world he was in was not the normal he was used to.

It was a world set with a background similar to later times of medieval Europe

The path of development diverged from that of his previous life and all mainly due to one group of people,

Transcendents

In this world, there were a large number of supernatural phenomena and countless horrifyingly powerful and artefacts, but most importantly, there was were a specific group of individuals called Transcendents.

As the name implies, Transcendent individuals were people completely beyond a level that could ever be achieved by normal humans.

In this world, there could be magicians lurking in labs, creating horrifying constructions of magic and steel. Witches would not be hunted and burned at the stake, but instead they would be begged by nobles to attend their parties; the knights were not just regular horse riding warriors but could now masters that could shoot sword beams powered by knight's battle aura.

The ridiculous power of the Transcendent individuals, and the lack of combat ability in all other fields, had led to Transcendents becoming the dominant force in this world.

But while this may all seem glamorous, the path to becoming extraordinary was not an easy one.

To become a Transcendent means to literally surpass and transcend your humanity in every basic sense of the word.

It required step-by-step guidance and instructions combined with an assortment of potions and elixirs to even stand a chance at doing it.

As such, all the paths and techniques required to break through to become a transcendent are especially guarded by all the organisations who have them.

For most people to break through, you had to join a powerful organisation like the Transcendent Academies that prepared students to take this step.

The previous owner of this body was a person who was in such an academy.

His father was just a low-ranking Baron and yet due to his terrifying business acumen and investment in other magic technologies and weapons, his wealth greatly exceeded his noble rank, making him a prime target for higher-ranking nobles to try and take advantage of.

As a result of this he sent his son, Oswald, to the Transcendent academy in hopes of allowing him to become a Mage, one of the most terrifying and powerful of Transcendents in existence and for a while, it worked!

In the Academy, Oswald showed a terrifying mage talent. His rate at learning spells and picking up knowledge was exceptional! It was widely believed that Oswald was destined to be a powerful and great mage, so with this halo, Oswald and his family managed to somewhat fend off the attacking nobles.

But due to the rushing of his family and over use of supplementary resources, Oswald had caused a disaster. The overuse of supplementary resources had left him with an unstable foundation, causing Oswald's mental runes to completely collapse, effectively destroying his path as a mage!

But not just a mage, due to the damage done to his mental space when the runes collapsed, any spell casting profession was now completely unavailable to him! As a result of this, the one protection his family had, now disappeared, and the nobles wouldn't just sit back and watch.

They were like a pack of sharks that smelt blood, causing his family and all their business to be constantly under the covert and open attack of the greedy nobles.

"Sigh!"

Oswald could only sigh at the terrible predicament his family was in.

His initial excitement of having come to such a mystical world was quickly extinguished after finding out his current predicament.

Raising his hand, Oswald reached towards his waist and felt a wet substance.

Looking at his hand, Oswald noticed that it was covered in blood. Yet surprisingly, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't even find a single injury on his body .

It seemed like the previous owner of this body had suffered an injury before coming here, and now it had somehow healed. The only strange thing was that no matter how hard he searched his mind, he couldn't come up with a reason for his injury. He couldn't even come up with a reason for being here.

His mind was completely blank!

Oswald could remember almost everything about the previous owner, but when it came to this, he was stumped. It was as if a part of his memories had been ripped out of his body, leaving a gaping hole.

No matter how hard Oswald tried, no new memories surfaced.

Seeing as he could make no more progress, Oswald decided to not think about this problem any longer.

What was the saying again?

Ignorance is bliss.

What you don't know can't hurt you.

Oswald decided to not stress anymore and looked in the direction of his new home.

"Riverglen city… I wonder if it's as great as my memory describes it?"

According to his memory, Riverglen city was a small coastal city on the outskirts of the Empire.

A hub of trade and foreign exchange, a place of both fortune and danger, but most importantly, his new home.

Straightening his clothes, Oswald stood up on top of the mound of corpses and slowly started to make his way back towards the city.

….