1 Introductions are in Order

Oh, hello there. I suppose you are here to hear about my reincarnation and subsequent adventures. Where should I start? I can see the temptation, to begin with some action and skip over the fabled death as many story-tellers do with a brief mention of a certain soul yeeting truck. In that case, I should begin with my first, and possibly last, duel.

The sect was in high spirits that day. The crowds were noisy. The smell of freshly baked food from food vendors hawking their wares, including some kind of burnt pork, was wafting through the air and burning my nostrils. The crowds were chanting in unison as if they had practiced for days. It was almost musical. The chants carried their fondest wishes for all of the participants in this year's Junior Cultivator Tournament to do their best. The mortals from the nearby town, in particular, were exceptionally excited about the rare sight of battles between cultivators, even if they were only juniors.

The eyes of the various sect leaders and elders of the participating sects, meanwhile, were ravenously eyeing the competitors like a freshly roasted lamb. I know I'm cute, but dang, I'm way too young for those old fogies. Most of them already have a crease or two on their face, and they're cultivators, so that means they're practically ancient to be showing that kind of age. If they were still mortal, they'd be the dust of a desiccated corpse by now.

The hot summer sun was baking my skin, as the sweat produced in the last several minutes of vigorous activity was rolling off my eyebrows and stinging my eyes. More important than all of that, however, was the edge of the blade that was less than an inch from connecting with the bridge of my nose. While my own sword was still heading towards the ground, having failed to connect with its target. I probably had the most comically rounded, cross-eyed expression on my face at that moment as both of my pupils were fixated on the sharp edge heading straight for my face.

I wanted to curse my sword, but I knew that it wasn't its fault. My timing was all wrong and my opponent was too fast. He feinted and I fell for it, that's all there is to it. In that fraction of a second that seemed like an eternity, I began to resign myself to death ... again. I could almost see that smarmy, bastard Nathan's face again.

Oh right, you don't know Nathan. Perhaps this isn't the best place to start. I should explain who Nathan is. But to tell you who Nathan is, I'll need to tell you how I died. And to tell you that I'll need to tell you who I was before I died.

I could just give a couple of stereotypical descriptions of myself and call it a day. After all, the death and life before it are essentially meaningless. Some transmigrators will try to tell you their previous life as an average, everyday Otaku gave them a hidden strength that they used in their next life. But what hidden strength does an Otaku have that will prepare them for the life of a Cultivator? Is it the skill to order food through delivery apps? Is it the skill of spending a day in such a lethargic state that even the average wet noodle engages more muscles than the Otaku? Somehow I don't think my previous life's impressive video game or book collection will come in handy. Maybe if some of those books were about survival or how to socially engage young masters with bad tempers then they might've served some purpose.

I can tell you right now, nothing in my previous life prepared me for the next one. If anything, my memories of my previous life held me back and made me weak. Life on Earth is too kind. That may sound strange to you. With Earth's tycoons greedily sucking up resources, abusing both employees and consumers in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Poor people turn to a life of crime and harm other poor people to make ends meet. Entire regions live in destitute poverty while the world turns a blind eye. Even so, Earth is too kind. Once one embarks upon the path of cultivation, kindness is a privilege only accorded to the strong. Can an Otaku be strong?

I suppose this brings us to the beginning. Introductions are in order. My name is Tommy Johnson. Or it was ... until it wasn't anymore.

My name wasn't always Tommy, what it was before isn't important. In my early childhood, I was fascinated by a certain green ranger named Tommy. I loved how he would swoop in and single-handedly save the other rangers, and then disappear from the scene, never taking credit for his heroics. That kind of silent heroism left a deep imprint on my young and impressionable brain. There were of course many more similar heroes I would read of later that didn't have to wear a tacky green outfit and a motorcycle helmet, but at the time all I could talk about was Tommy this and Tommy that. I even wanted to be called Tommy, and since I was a boy in my previous life, people did call me Tommy, as per my request. Several years later, when it was clear I wasn't growing out of the name, my parents got me a legal name change. That was probably the last thing I saw them do happily together.

I don't remember much of the following years. That's probably a good thing. The reincarnation wiped a lot of the memory of any trauma that occurred to give the soul a fresh start. Even before I died though, I didn't remember much, the brain is a miraculous thing. It can heal harmful memories given enough time. Then, of course, there were also the seizures.

Between the ages of seven and eight, I had frequent seizures. Bolting up from a dead sleep, ridged as a board, screaming, saying things I don't remember saying, sleepwalking off the edge of my bunk bed, and slamming into doors and walls. This is how it was all described to me. I, of course, don't remember any of this. But I do remember the tests. Staying up for forty-eight hours straight so that the doctors could hook a bazillion wires to me and then tell me to fall asleep on command. I never did fall asleep during their tests. Even so, they diagnosed me with something scary-sounding that would for sure cause me issues for my entire life.

Then like a lie, the seizures were gone. The end of the seizures corresponded exactly with the date of my parents' divorce. Doesn't take a genius to know the cause. Stress-

induced seizures they're called. No one would suspect an eight-year-old boy of suffering from such great stress that it would result in near-nightly seizures. No one would suspect that the parents who dragged their kid to a doctor's office together were getting into yelling matches almost every night. Or that it had escalated to physical abuse. Nor would they suspect that the abuse had spilled over to the kids.

The following years played out as you might expect. My mom went through many, many, many, many men. There were many guys I liked a lot among them, she would run away from them without fail. There were many mean ones that she would stay with longer, a couple of whom she kept returning to even though she knew they were bad for her and us. She eventually settled on a shrewd and bitter man, but he was nice under the surface. I guess she needed that bizarre mixture.

Meanwhile, my dad dated for a short time then quickly married a loathsome creature with red hair and a teal dress suit. The color teal still physically makes me sick. My ex once wore a teal dress after she dyed her hair red. It gave me the creeps. In any event, this foul creature brought her demon-spawn with her and each and every trip to Dad's became an unpleasant experience.

As for me I went to school, got bullied, then went to college, didn't finish. At some point, I checked out of my own life and just started checking the boxes of what you're supposed to do. I got a job, lost that job, and got another dead-end job. Then I got married. Even though I was doing all these things, I wasn't invested in any of it, and gradually my life got taken over more and more by fantasy. The classical Otaku.

And then reality slapped me in the face, followed by the tailspin that resulted in my death.