Chapter 1: Awakening (edited)

('I don't know what I should do with you. One of these days, you're going to get yourself killed because of your own recklessness." A voice sounded in his head as the boy seemed to be held in darkness. He knew that voice well, it was so familiar, but he didn't know who it was.

('I love you so much that it hurts me to see when you harm yourself') the voice continued.

Suddenly, mirror-like images started to display before him. In the kaleidoscope, he saw a young woman with a child laying on her back sleeping while the woman tried to bandage the child's injuries to the back of its head. Lee remembered a little now. He was 3 years old at the time. He was curious about everything or anything that seemed to peek at his interest. This was the time he climbed up his father's truck while his mother was tending his twin brother to make him fall asleep. Because his mother didn't see him when he climbed up, he held the door grip of the car, then it came loose. He fell onto his head first and started crying.

In the display, his mother was banding his head after applied a paste-like ointment to the wound. Suddenly, another flash which his uncle accidentally cut his head when he ran under his woodcraft studio. He was able to see his mother freaked out from the side, crying, screaming at his uncle. The scene changed yet again to when his cousin scratched his right eye with a knife when they were playing. Luckily, the blade was dull and didn't cause too much damage to any eye tissue. He was able to see again with a little blur to his sight after years of treatments made by his parents.

More and more scenes played in front of him. He was hit by a stick on his left eye playing with his friend. Hit his head with a rock. Bumped into a pole. Fell off a cliff. Step on spikes. Broke his leg. Twisted his joints. So many scenes that he forgot about even popped up.

Throughout the whole process, his mother was always there with a worrying face. She had a painful expression like she was the one hurting. He remembered now. His mother was like his guardian angel, no matter what he did, his mother always there to care for him.

All suddenly, he felt pain in his head and could think more clearly.

'Did I die?' Lee thought.

His rhetorical question was answered by him waking up.

Lee painfully opened his eyes to the glaring sun. His hands feel the tiny eroded rocks that clung to him; he was on a white, sandy beach. His confusion was masked by the unpleasant heat that baked his skin.

He found himself before a large forest clearly different from his home's. The trees were different; they stretched and tangled amongst themselves, but the most noticeable of it all was their height that flew to the limitless sky with boundless mass. Meanwhile, his interest was piqued; he could smell the lingering briny ocean scent. He shifted his body around to capture the magnificent scenery. It was the tropical ocean that appeared to rest across the horizon. There were islands that scattered around the sea, but they seem too far out of reach being the nearest one was of a similar appearance with copses to the land he was on. His attention was grabbed back at his current state when his insured feeling of him being kidnapped was succeeded.

Lee checked his body for any new anomalies, but they looked to be all to the norm. There was no fracture or bleeding out; just baby clods hugging onto his elbows and knee-pit. He has a nagging feeling that something might have gotten into him if that thing actually did happen... He was on a beach was evident. He was alarmed when his eyes tickled like a worm crawling and spinning around; he went to reflect his cyan eyes that circled like it was buffering.

He shut his eyes pent but the feeling still remained; he eventually calmed himself.

When he opened his eyes again, there was a ship that came out behind the island into view from the side; it looked like it wanted to dock onto the beach.

"HEY! OVER HERE!" Lee's tiny yells tried making notice.

As the ship approached closer, he noticed the black flag at the top of the ship which signified it was the pirates' ship.

'No way' Lee thought.

As a person who lived his whole life in North America never thought that he would see a pirate ship when he is lost. The flag had a skull with bones in a cross shape through it and a red clown nose at the center. The ship was about larger than his house and wider than a mile.

Instead of waiting for the individuals on the ship to respond to him, Lee took out toward the forest behind him.

The moment he reached the forest, he heard a loud explosion of cannonball right where he was standing. From the ship, he heard a crazy laughing, seemed to order other pirates at the same time. From behind the trees, Lee saw the person with a red nose, clown makeup, and captain hat with two large blue tensile down on both sides, moving around with his body seems to separate from time to time.

To his knowledge, he wasn't surprised at all. He didn't wait much longer, as soon as he took a straight route in the opposite direction, more cannonballs exploded behind him.

"Shit! That was buggy the clown right?" Lee asked without expecting any reply.

He continued moving for a half-hour until he reached the other side. He started to realize that he doesn't seem to be tired at all. Usually, he wouldn't last five minutes due to his shut-in tendency, so he didn't have much stamina.

Instead of moving out to the beach again, he searched for a source of fresh water, even though he could use coconut juice but he still wanted water. He also knows that humans can't survive without it.

'Am I still a human?' Thought about what he went through.

'Am I?' Lee questioned himself again.

"Well just to be safe." He said as he made his way along the coast.

While he was searching for water, he also looked for things that were edible. Luckily, he found some horn melons. Even though it was spiky, it was still edible.

'Taste fresh and sour a little.'

Lee took out his redshirt on his body, tied knots around the arms areas, and same for the head area too. He picked a lot of them and put them inside his shirt. Now he was half-naked with only his pants on. To his surprise, his arm was muscular, not large but more like perfect. Same for his stomach which seemed to have 6 pads made only out of muscles. On his arms reaching all the way to his back, there were black tattoos that looked like feathers seemed to be alive and moving around. He didn't feel anything just like it was not on his body.

'Well, let leave that for later'

He also checked his little brother in his pants which seemed to be larger than before.

"Who said Asian D was small?", Lee said. He seemed to be proud of his thing while laughing.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA", Until he almost choked himself. He definitely needs water now.

After a while of making his way across the coast, he finally found fresh water from the stream in front of him. The stream originated from the top of the mountain run toward the seashore. The water was clear and the bottom visible with fauna growing on the sides. He could also see some small fishes swim around.

Lee crouched down to his knees, reached out to touch the water, and rubbed on his left arm.

'Just to be safe it could be poisonous.'

He knew there was some change that happened to his body, but he was not sure or never knew if he could still die from water poison. After a while, he didn't feel anything and started drinking water from the stream by holding his hand into a cup shape. He then also washed his face and head too.

"This feels so great." He said and sat on the rock beside the stream.

He took his phone out of his pants and it was still out. He turned it on and could see that there was no bar signal. The first thing he did was try an emergency called 9-1-1, even though he knows that it is impossible since he 'might' be in another world. After dialing the numbers, there was no response, and put his phone back into his pants.

While Lee was resting, he checked the cyan dot at the top corner of his left eye. He tried to grab it, but it seemed to be inside of his eye.

'Maybe I hooked up in some kind of VR? I mean the VR graphics are not there yet in reality, but this place seems remarkably realistic. I can taste the fruit and also the water too.' Lee tried to come up with different theories, but nothing explained what he saw.

'Maybe I was transported to another world? Back there was Buggy the Clown. The world of One Piece!'

"AAaaah Shit" Lee cursed out loud.

While Lee was focused on the dot, the cycling finally stopped loading. It expanded into a large cycle and shrank into its original size and disappeared. Then it was like screen refresh, his vision blinked and reloaded again.

"What is going on?" Lee questioned.

(--Hello--)

A robotic female voice sounded in his head.

"What" Lee was really surprised and stood up from the rock he was sitting on.

(--Don't be surprised Lee--I am your assistant in helping you with everything you need--)

"What do you mean? How can you speak directly into my head?" Lee asked as he searched for his surroundings.

Before the voice answered, Lee, asked again "Am I in some kind of VR or something?"

(--To answer all your questions--First, I am one with you--I can channel my voice directly through your mind--Second, you are not in VR--This is real--)

"What? But One piece world is an anime world right? I mean there are things such as people transport to the anime worlds, but it's only inside novels, or anime. Wait, how can you explain you are inside of me?" Lee asked. He was confused because he knew that he was supposed to die when his body was broken down by the liquid that got inside of him. The only explanation was that his mind was alive and put inside some kind of machine. Especially with the female AI voice inside his head.

(--Sigh--)

"Wait, did you just sign at me?") Lee asked.

(--^I Did not--)

"You are lying. So AI can lie?"

(--Lee, sometimes you are too smart that it makes you look stupid--)

"Who are you to call stupid", Lee was really irritated with the AI.

(--Lee--Calm down--Let me explain the sequence of the events leading to here--)

----------------------------- - -- -

(--The story your mother told you was based on an event that occurred to one of her ancestors during their early settlement in Southeast Asia--It was not the first time, numerous ancestors of you had encountered a similar situation, but many of their stories lost in event of time--

--Genghis Khan, also one of your ancestors who went through the process of awakening--)

"Genghis Khan, you mean the emperor of Mongolia empire?"

(--Yes--Due to his awakening, he became known as one of the strongest warriors in history, a person who came from a humble background--)

"But nobody heard anything about people traveling to the anime worlds like I am right now? Wait, they didn't know what it was?"

(--Don't jump ahead Lee-- Let me explain--

--In order to preserve and make his empire grow stronger, Genghis Khan had them went through the same process but not any of his heirs able to awaken the bloodline they had--Just like what you went through--Due to the extreme pain, their mind not able to hold on to their sanity and all of them transform into the dark creature--)

(Like the person with three horns?) Lee asked.

(--Yes--Throughout the generations, the blood didn't die out, but still alive and live on--You are one of the successors who able to awaken the bloodline--)

'How can it be?'

(--For an individual to awaken, they need the deer meat, in your case you used its heart--

--You might have heard that your parent always prevented you from eating deer with other meat or to not contaminated it--)

(--The reason was simple--It applied only to your bloodline--When your ancestors mistakenly eat deer meat together with other meat, they all turned crazy or mentally unstable, comparable to one of your uncles who hanged himself a few years ago--)

"..."

(--The second requirement for awakening is the dark meat, which you used 'Three Legs Crow', also known as The Dark Emperor--)

(--When you were awakened, you accidentally used one of the innate skills of The Dark Emperor which caused you to transport into another world--)

"You mean to say that I can go back to my world?" Lee asked.

(--Yes and No--)

"What do you mean?" He shouted a little. This AI brought his hope up and shot him down again.

'What a bitch'

(--I know what you thinking, Lee--)

(--Yes, you can go back to your world--

--No, due to low energy within your body, it will take a long time--)

"How long?" Lee pressed.

(--500 days--)

"That is too long!" Lee said.

(--During the awakening, you adsorbed natural energy from your surroundings to rebuild your body but at the same time you activated innate skill--

--In using all the energy, you currently don't possess enough energy to get you back to your own world--)

"That makes sense. Who are you and why you in my head" Lee asked the question which had been on his mind.

(--Again, allow me to introduce myself, I am your assistant--There were similar sisters just like me who awaken along with the owners--)

"How do you know all that?"

(--When you were awakened, similar to you, I was also awakened as to be your assistant--I able to understand the situation due to the memories within the bloodline that passed on--

--Before you ask how I know about you, it's because I can read your memories, as I said before, I am one with you--)

There was too much information for Lee to digest. He sat there for a while without asking another question. The AI in his head also noticed his situation, so she also stopped talking.

After a while, Lee asked, "Can you tell me why you sound robotic and why my screen...I mean my viewpoint was refreshing?"

(--For you to recognize the things efficiently, I changed the whole set into a method which you can comprehend better--It took a while to change the property that why I was not able to explain the situation to you when you woke up--Normally, you ancestors had an assistant to compare their level with other warriors for them to grow--As for you, I converted to the game system. Do you want me to change it back?--)

[Yes/No]

"It's okay, just leave it at that", Lee replied.