1 An Unorthodox Beginning
Thomas was not happy. Despite spending his later teen and early adult years helping his family's landscaping business, the only thing he had to show for it was a reasonably fit body undermined by lower back and knee pain. His hard-earned savings had gone towards paying for his first two years of college, but due to the economic crisis and three tax increases, he still ended up being saddled with more than $35,000 of Student Loan Debt.
When he first graduated, Thomas still had hope. His GPA was a solid 3.8, and, despite growing up in the rural countryside of Illinois, his passion for tech was second to none. At the very least, that's what Thomas believed until he got his first entry-level job at a company infamous for walk-offs and high staff turnover.
With a strict father and a strong work ethic, Thomas was one of the few people that never complained no matter how bad things got. He believed his hard work would eventually be recognized, and, after a few years, he would begin his inevitable climb up the economic ladder.
Contrasting Thomas's expectations, the company employed him for three years without a single pay increase. When he eventually brought it up to his Manager, they made up a story about his poor work ethic, threatened to fire him if he didn't fall in line, and eventually did so when he refused to accept it.
To add insult to injury, the company Thomas had been working for filed an official reprimand against him. From that moment on, he became a pariah in the industry, wholly unable to find work.
Following his dismissal, Thomas attempted to sue his former company for wrongful termination and slander, but his mounting debts prevented him from proceeding with the case. In the end, he had no choice but to settle down and return to landscaping, a job that was quickly wrecking his body.
Unless the weather prevented it, Thomas would wake up around 5:30 AM Mon-Sat. After that, he would go to work mowing people's yards, topping off their trees, trimming their shrubs, mulching gardens, and laying down grass pallets. By the time he was finished, the Sun was creeping towards the horizon around 6-7PM.
After twelve hours of exhaustive labor, Thomas was left with very little energy to expend on other things. Alcohol had claimed his mother in a car accident when he was eight, so he couldn't even drink his sorrows away like his father. Instead, he would just hole himself up in his room after a long bath, silently lying in bed as he scrolled through novels on his kindle or played games on his smartphone.
Though his interest in fantasy novels and video games had technically led to his downfall, they were two of the only things that added even a hint of color to Thomas's life. He would often imagine himself as the Protagonists of various worlds, confident that his hard-working nature would allow him to succeed in virtually any world that wasn't his own, fucked up reality.
One of the games Thomas had gotten into most recently was a Mobile/PC game called Genshin Impact. Growing up on a farm in the most rural part of the United States had ingrained in him some admittedly bigoted views towards the Chinese, but his time in college had changed that. He wasn't particularly fond of their government, but their culture was fascinating to the point Thomas had often imagined himself reincarnating in cultivation worlds.
Though he didn't start playing until the 1.9 Update, Thomas really enjoyed Genshin Impact. In his opinion, not enough games made proper use of an open world. Genshin Impact was one of the few exceptions, so much so that Thomas spent the first four days of playing just exploring the world in search of chests, Anemoculus, and Geoculus.
Unfortunately, as enjoyable as the gameplay was, Genshin Impact was ultimately a Gacha Game, the type of game that required you to gamble just for minuscule odds of obtaining rare characters and weapons.
Though he did his best to stay F2P(Free-to-Play) for as long as possible, Thomas ultimately yielded to the Gacha Gods during the Raiden Shogun Banner. He had missed the opportunity to acquire some of the strongest characters in the game, so he wanted to obtain at least one of the Seven Archons before Raiden was invariably added to the list of characters that never got a re-run.
When everything was said and done, Thomas ended up spending close to $850 just to obtain a C3 Raiden Shogun. He had a few thousand dollars in the bank, but it was still a heavy blow to his wallet, a blow made heavier when he realized he couldn't even upgrade Raiden without advancing the story and completing the Inazuma content.
By the time Thomas completed Inazuma, several other banners had come and gone. A few of these included characters considered 'must haves' for the late game, so Thomas found himself spending hundreds of dollars on C6 Xingqiu, C2 Kokomi, and C3 Tartaglia(Childe).
After getting in the groove of spending, Thomas no longer hesitated even when his bank started sending him texts informing him he was spending beyond the limits he had established for himself. Playing Genshin Impact and reading were the only things that made Thomas happy, so even when he exceeded spending upwards of 40% of his income on Gacha, he didn't care. Others spent just as much on drugs, sex, smoking, and alcohol. At least his hobbies wouldn't kill him. At the very least, that's what Thomas believed until he had a catastrophic brain hemorrhage while trying to C6 his Hu Tao...
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("What the fuck...!?")
Feeling a sensation similar to an elevator starting, Thomas attempted to open his eyes and grasp the closest thing to him. He managed to do both, but everything in his vision was ridiculously bright and blurry. All he could tell for sure was that he had been picked up by a pair of hands that were somehow large enough to wrap around his entire torso.
Struggling violently, Thomas attempted to break free from the monstrous entity that was picking him up. His body felt weaker than it would after a sixteen-hour workday, but Thomas managed to flail and kick as if his life were on the line.
*Sounds of a man and woman speaking in a foreign language.*
Hearing the soft voice of a woman and the deep voice of a man ostensibly trying to comfort him, Thomas slowly ceased his desperate struggles. His heart and mind were still racing, but instead of feeling fear, a burgeoning sense of excitement began to permeate his entire body as he mentally exclaimed, ("Holy shit! Please don't let this be a dream...!")
Believing he had been reincarnated with his memories intact, Thomas's excitement reached the point that a peal of infantile laughter emanated from his throat. The man he presumed to be his father was more than a little surprised by this, but, moments later, he supplied a laugh of his own before placing Thomas against his chest and saying something in a voice the latter couldn't understand.
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As exciting as the prospect of reincarnation was, Thomas found being a baby extremely inconvenient. All he did was eat, sleep, and soil himself for the first few weeks of his life. His body was so weak that he couldn't even raise his head from his cradle. To make matters worse, he couldn't make out anything but blurry shapes for the first two and a half weeks of his existence.
Fortunately, Thomas's vision wasn't impaired. Just as he was beginning to believe he would spend the rest of his life wearing glasses, he awoke one morning to find the rails of his cradle in focus. He could also make out the pattern on his sheets, so, at the very least, he wasn't completely blind.
One of the first things Thomas noticed with his newfound sight was that the entire world seemed to be covered in some kind of hazy, cel-shaded filter. Even his hands were a rich and creamy shade of beige, almost like an exceptionally skilled artist had painted them.
Though he dared not believe it at first, Thomas giggled like an idiot when a young woman wearing a maid outfit entered his nursery. He wasn't able to see her at first, but once she leaned over to pick him up, Thomas got a clear view of her aesthetically pleasing yet distinctly cartoonish features. He had absolutely no idea how such a thing was possible, but she looked like an anime character that had stepped into the real world.
Seemingly amused by Thomas's reaction, the bespectacled, black-haired Maid adopted a smile as she cheerfully said something in the language he didn't understand. Then, after carrying him over to a small yet expensive-looking piece of furniture, she said something else with a vibrant smile on her face before promptly plopping out her perky and full breasts...
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By focusing on 'training' his body every single day, Thomas was able to raise his head, roll over, and even crawl by the time he was four months old. He had the distinct impression that the gravity of his new world was weaker than that of the Earth he was familiar with, but that was nothing compared to the other discoveries he had made.
Though he could barely understand more than a few words, Thomas had managed to sus out his name after hearing it repeated hundreds of times. His father had named him Paul, a relatively disappointing discovery until he heard one of the Maids addressing his father as Lord Notos.
While the name Notos might not resonate with everyone, it meant a lot to Thomas, now known as Paul. After all, it was a name he recognized from his past life. More specifically, there had been a character named Paul Notos Greyrat in one of the novels he read many years ago. The reason it was still fresh in his mind was because it had recently been made into an anime prior to his death.
Paul was a little disappointed that he hadn't reincarnated as the original protagonist, a boy named Rudeus Greyrat, but it didn't bother him. After all, the original Paul ultimately went on to be the father of Rudeus. Unless the reincarnated Paul followed an identical route, the plot of the original series didn't matter in the slightest. As far as the latter was concerned, he was now the main character of his own life.
If there was anything Paul could complain about, it was his apparent lack of a cheat. He had his knowledge and memories from his previous life, but a Master's Degree in Game Art and Design wouldn't get him very far in a fantastical world filled with swords, magic, and monsters.
After trying and failing to summon his 'system' more times than he could count, Paul concluded that the only things he had to depend upon were his status as the First Son of a Great Noble House, Paul's inherent talent for Touki, the energy typically used by swordsmen, and his strong work ethic.
In his previous life, Paul had convinced himself that he would thrive in a fantasy setting through pure hard work. Being the son of a Greater Noble was already a pretty massive golden spoon. He just needed to work hard, and he would eventually become the Lord of the most prosperous region in the Asura Kingdom, the most powerful nation in the world. That, alone, could be considered a cheat. With twenty-eight years of supplementary life experience to pull from, he may as well be suckling a diamond spoon rather than a young woman's breasts...
