1 Meeting the devil

William was an orphan at the age of 14. Even worse, he worked for the people that killed his parents. He was a slave, being used to mine iron all day. He could forget any thought of revenge; after all, he couldn't even manage to earn an extra piece of bread. He was broken and had no complaints. He knew that he was still among the slaves with better lives. If he wasn't careful he would just end up as a trainings object for new torturer trainees. This was how this world was, nobody cared for the weak.

William was weak, all of that daily mining left him deeply exhausted. He just wanted to sleep and eat, but he knew that sleeping at work would grant him a fate worse than death. This is what he told himself, but it was useless. One day, he was simply too exhausted. His eyes shut down, and he lost consciousness.

Suddenly he found himself in a giant palace, and in front of him was a devilish creature that he couldn't fully see. He was too afraid and confused about the situation too say anything, he just stared at this devilish creature, whom looked at him with amusement.

"Nice to meet you," said the devil looking at him. But he was still unable to talk, this whole situation was simply too ridiculous, he was in a cave just a minute ago. He thought to himself, "Wait, I remember falling asleep, that's it, I must be dreaming. Otherwise, there is no way something so ridiculous could happen. I have to find a way to wake up or I'm as good as dead."

"No, you aren't dreaming," interrupted the devil. "Now listen, I have an offer for you. Simply, after living billions of years I'm just bored. Nothing can excite me any more. But then, I found this world full of stories, and things called TVs. But anyway, in this world there were a lot of stories about characters suddenly gaining heaven-defying powers. The characters in those stories mostly gain those powers after reincarnating, but I plan to keep you alive for now. So, yeah, that's my offer. I will give you a way to reach infinite heights and become a god. Meanwhile, I can watch you and laugh at your suffering. I think we both get an equal deal out of this, so what do you say? Do you accept?"

William was extremely while confused listening to what the devil said. Of course, he didn't believe any of it, after all, he thought it was a dream. But he decided to nod along, after all, how much bad can it do to nod inside a dream? He didn't have any hope that this was actually real. Like, what kind of weird devil was this supposed to be? And besides, nothing can be alive for billions of years.

"I'm glad you decided to work together with me," said the devil. "Here's how this works, I've created a dozen worlds and universes for the purpose of training you. In those worlds time doesn't flow and you won't age. But of course, there will also be countless amounts of monsters. Every monster race has their own martial art, your goal is to go and steal their martial arts and learn them. I will modify your body in a way that makes it easier for you to learn martial arts. Of course, the first world is basically only a tutorial so even if you die thousands of times you won't really die, you'll just move back in time to the start. But the later worlds do have the potential to kill you, and your real world does too. So make sure to give your best and entertain me, or I might have to replace you."

William was too confused about what he had just heard, what kind of dream was this? And if it wasn't a dream, shouldn't he at least get something to survive in those worlds filled with monsters? But before he could say anything, he found himself in a giant desert with no one in sight. He looked around and spotted a giant scorpion behind him. He had only one thought at that moment, "fuck," and then the scorpion tail pierced his chest, and he died.