1 Chapter 1: Rebirth

On the morning of the 23rd of December, Year 20413 of the Ephemeris, the star Kea illuminated Planet Rocky—half of which was composed of gray land and half of which was the blue sea. The various colors of the atmosphere that enveloped the planet were glistening.

Even if one were looking at the land from space, the apparent devastation on the land could be seen, as well as the several traces that had been left behind by the numerous years of battle. The land was barely covered in green, and most of the area was gray. 

The presence of a blue ocean was the only indicator that this was a planet with water—the most basic resource of life.

Although the changing colors of Planet Rocky seemed dreamy and fantastical from afar, it was in fact, only an administrative planet with low quality of life in the Star Federation. 

Administrative planets with low quality of life had the lowest standard of living conditions among the planets that could support human habitation. It was capable of providing the necessary conditions for human survival, such as oxygen, fresh water, and food. However, low quality meant that the environment was harsh, and it would be difficult for humans to survive in the wild.

One of the skies of Planet Rocky, which was calm, and originally devoid of wind or sun, was shattered by a sharp sonic boom.

Subsequently, bright and dazzling orbs appeared in the sky. As they drew closer, it could be seen that they were several aircraft in pursuit of something.

There was a silvery-white personal aircraft shuttling through in front, followed by four defensive drones from the planet's Skynet defense system, which were tailing closely. 

Abbott was seated inside the personal aircraft while controlling it with a sullen expression. As he was maneuvering the shuttle, he moved the controller from left to right with his hand. A drastic change of direction was already the limit of that personal aircraft. 

He had a feeling that if he continued to make such a drastic change of direction, the personal aircraft that was used for flying in space would probably collapse without even getting attacked by the drone. Nevertheless, he did not dare to hesitate at all. He did not stop accelerating and shifting his direction. 

He wanted to get away from the defensive drones behind him by accelerating and shifting direction, but there was no way he could do so since the four drones were following him closely—as though they were stuck to the back of his personal aircraft. 

"Damn it, I shouldn't have come here in this lousy thing!" Abbott cursed. 

Abbott was a mercenary hired by the Star Federation. He belonged to the notorious Sky Wolf Mercenary Corps. At the same time, he was also a fugitive who was wanted by the Star Federation for committing several serious crimes. His offenses included murder, resisting arrest, assault, and robbery. 

There were dozens of citizens whom he had killed. During a previous mission, the Sky Wolf Mercenary Corps successfully robbed a cruise ship belonging to the Star Federation. The mercenaries were rewarded handsomely, and they each went to have fun. 

Likewise, Abbott had received plenty of credit points, and he began to relax on Planet Rocky using his fake identity. 

Originally, he thought that there shouldn't be any problems on this remote planet. Hence, he did not bring any weapons with him and merely sneaked in through his personal aircraft. 

That kind of infiltration was something that was commonly done by fugitives who were wanted by the Star Federation. No matter how realistic the identity bracelets were, they couldn't stand up against the inspection conducted at official customs. The counterfeit ones could only support simple purchases made with credit points.

However, he did not expect to be discovered by the defensive drones as soon as he entered the planet. 

"What are these trash doing, chasing after me instead of the bugs!?!" Abbott cursed while staring at the defensive drones captured and displayed on the central control screen of his aircraft. 

The drones were part of the Skynet defense system of the planet. They were mainly used for spotting and attacking bugs that attempted to invade the planet. They were not meant for targeting infiltrators. 

If a powerful bug was discovered, the drones would report to the Skynet and conduct some monitoring. If it were a weak bug, they would just attack.

Abbott was also unlucky enough to be targeted after he stumbled upon the drones that were on duty. 

If he had some weapons with him, he wouldn't be fazed by the four drones at all. However, it was hard for him to even escape in the personal aircraft. 

"Warning, stop flying immediately, and undergo the inspection!" 

"Warning, stop flying immediately, and undergo the inspection!" 

That was the warning given by the crew who were monitoring the drones via the Skynet system. 

Although the drones were supposedly unmanned, there will always be relevant personnel remotely monitoring them from Skynet.

At this point, Abbott's situation had already been reported to Skynet, and he would suffer attacks at any moment.

Fortunately, the drones were set to target the bugs. Otherwise, they would have attacked without warning.

Abbott ignored the warning from the drones, which he had seen plenty of and had a detailed understanding of them. 

Although he still could not shake the drones off or break free from their pursuit at this moment, the drones would usually just force the illegal aircraft to land instead of attacking directly. 

It was a strict rule of thumb that orders to attack humans could only be issued by a human with the pertinent authority. It was the ultimate solution that they had settled upon after encountering countless problems with the Artificial Intelligence systems (AI).

Abbott saw the map next to the control wheel of the personal aircraft and discovered that he was rather near Pelan City. He was elated because as long as he was close to the city, the drones would not be able to pursue him, and the drones must take the protection of citizens' lives as its first priority.

The personal aircraft accelerated towards Pelan City and the four drones behind it issued warnings incessantly while turning on their highly-efficient scanners to scan the personal aircraft. 

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"David, have you not had your breakfast yet? Speed up!" urged Jessica who had short brown hair. She was rushing David who had fallen behind her.

Although Jessica was not especially gorgeous, she gave off a youthful vibe at the age of seventeen, which was unique to young people. 

David could tell by the way she treated him that she was not too willing to ask him to tag along on the trip with her. 

Jessica also knew that if it weren't due to her failure to find a peer on the bright and early morning of the winter break, she wouldn't have asked an introverted and withdrawn person like David.

"Okay!" David answered in a clipped tone. 

When he said the word 'Okay', he had an inexplicably bizarre feeling in his heart, because he instinctively knew how to use that language. Yet, he was extremely unfamiliar with it.

That situation arose because he had only arrived in this world yesterday, and hadn't received the memories of the body that he was in. Fortunately, he had somehow received the language that that body had mastered.

In his previous life, his name was David Lee, and he was a "successful" IT engineer. The reason for the quotation marks was that he was only an elite IT engineer in a fourth-tier city. In a first-tier or second-tier city, he would be considered worthless. 

He was hit on a downslope, on a bridge known as the Fangong Bridge, where he was traveling on foot. He did not drive his car which had a small displacement engine or ride his high-battery-consumption scooter. 

He was on the sidewalk with several passersby when a heavy truck lost control and collided with him. 

The heavy truck didn't crash into the concrete mixer truck that was much heavier, on the road, but instead, dashed towards the more vulnerable crowd.

David didn't want to speculate the intentions of the heavy truck driver with malice, but after thinking about it, he was extremely skeptical.

When faced with the heavy truck that was out of control, David was standing in the middle of a crowd of pedestrians, among whom were several students who had just been dismissed from school. 

At that time, he didn't have time to think, and with pedestrians all around him, he couldn't avoid it at all. At that moment, he did something that was unimaginable. He pushed away all the pedestrians around him. 

A heavy crash followed. He had no idea how many people died, but he remembered clearly that he managed to push away several of the students around him.

When David regained his consciousness once more, he woke up in his current body that was in the bizarrely arranged basement of the body's home. He also became the occupant of the body. 

There were broken altars, charred pieces of unknown flesh, and opened books of ancient and unfamiliar texts. The entire scene was similar to that of an evil ritual, especially since he was stark naked. 

If he hadn't seen the lighting on the ceiling of the basement, the high-technological-looking gym equipment, and the metal walls around, he would have thought that he was in a world full of ignorance and barbarism.

It took David nearly an hour to slowly come to terms with the fact that he had transformed from an Asian man to a tall, white teenager whom he was today. 

He spent another hour trying to find a way to get out of the basement. Although it only took a simple palm verification, he had to try everything since he hadn't received any memories collected by the body he was in. 

However, after he walked out of the basement, he didn't need to worry about the unfamiliarity of the environment at all.

It was because there was a humanoid robot butler in charge of performing household chores, waiting for David in the basement of the residence, where the latter was in. 

David was shocked to see a huge underground vegetable plantation outside the basement. Under the guidance of the robotic butler, he returned to his bedroom on the ground floor.