But how?

For the first time in his life since his family died Adrian was unwilling.

He was unwilling to accept his fate, so he let out one last resounding yell, rustling the leaves of Alabaster park and then he died. Once again the park grew quiet, without even the rustling of wind.

Suddenly a strange phenomenon appeared above Adrians rapidly cooling body, a shimmer of faint grey smoke wafting away ever so slowly.

And yet whatever the smoke was not even that would be allowed to depart peacefully from this world, for cracks seemed to appear in space, creating a dark black void.

Faintly a figure appeared in the void boasting a strangely sinister grin, like somebody highly entertained by a gruesome gory scene most would frown at.

The figure gestured, and the grey smoke made a beeline towards the void as if it was being pulled with excessive force.

The figures grin grew ever wider as it stabbed its finger into the depths of the grey smoke, leaving a tiny black speck within.

And then the void closed.

-----

Adrian awoke this time within a messy living room, there was a couch pushed to the middle of the floor and a flipped over coffee table, Adrian was lying on neither of those, as they were both occupied by strangers he had no recollection of. And yet he knew, this was the first time he blacked out at a party, at 17 years old, shortly after the untimely accident.

Something was different however, this felt real.

More real than his previous recollections at least.

Something also felt different, there were scorch marks on the wall and fist sized hole in one of the couch cushions. Although it was possible he just didnt notice them previously, he didn't think so, there was just a strange feeling about them, like a lingering scent or a lasting indentation.

He surveyed his surroundings as he got up shakily, he wasn't quite wure what to make of the situation and didnt want to immediately get his hopes up.

There was a digital clock on the same wall as the scorch marks, but the lower left corner was half melted, and the clocks flickering LED lights seemed to be stuck at 1:32AM 08.09.2052

Which probably meant it was still Sunday the 8th.

Adrian remembered this, he hadnt been home since friday, and would stay here partying all the way until Tuesday, missing 2 days of school.

Adrian wasnt going to make the same mistake this time though, dream or no dream.

He looked around for his t-shirt which he seemed to have lost at some point the night before, it didn't seem likely he was going to find it however, with the current stare of this place.

Adrian cut his losses, and decided to walk home shirtless it wasnt that far from here and he had been through worse during his homeless days.

As he approached the front door, he had to tiptoe by a few more strangers passed out in the strangest places, one of them was sleeping in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, Adrian wondered how this person even managed to crawl in there.

He opened the front door, without even having to unlock it, to nobodies surprise.

As he stepped out into the glaring morning sunlight, he was astounded.

There were people zipping through the sky, ranging from young men to wrinkled old grandmothers.

Not on any futuristic tech though, they were simply flying as if there was an invisible hand leading each and every one where they wished to go.

Adrian marveled, and figured it must be his dying mind playing tricks on him.

It didnt take him long before a cold gust of wind passed his bare upper body, reminding him he still had places to go.

Adrian took a deep breath, and quickly started jogging past the familiar, yet unfamiliar scenery towards the place he currently called home.

It was an orphanage, he and his brother had no close relatives that had been willing to adopt them.

As such they were both sent to a local oprhanage, so they could at least continue attending their schools.

There had been people willing to adopt Nick, but he always refused to be separated from his older brother, throwing wild crazy tantrums if even the slightest attempts were made.

Eventually, the orphanage workers gave up and explicitly stated in his files that they would have to take the older one too.

Nobody wanted to adopt Adrian though, he was heading nowhere good, on the fastest tracks possible.

While recollecting what he knew about the current situation Adrian arrived.

It wasnt one of those stereotypical terrible gray church orphanages, it was a colourful pastel yellow and blue building with a bountiful playground.

Every child had their own room, complete with a bed, a cabinet, and a desk.

Adrian made a straight beeline for his room, fully intent on figuring out what exactly was going on.

He had a laptop, which he could use to google the current affairs of the world.

Reaching his room it was mostly the same as always, except for some minor details. He had completely different stickers on his laptop, where he had previously had a Monster Energy sticker, there was now a Qilin Ripper sticker featuring a strange horse like creature he did not ever remember seeing. And instead of a sticker featuring his favourite pornstar there was now an image of a buff burly man punching the air with a blazing flame encasing his fist.

This wasnt of any huge consequence though, all of his laptop stickers were from before his parents died, he had long lost interest in any previous favourites.

He opened the laptop and got right to searching, first he looked up the news.

There was a lot of terminology and nonsensical stuff he had never seen before,

headlines such as

"David Azul has broken through to Void Traveler, another powerhouse is born"

"Dr. Brian North has invented a new condensation art"

"Raoul Naheem has torn space and has safely set out to explore Tengreen realm"

To make sense of the happenings, he searched up "What is a breakthrough", and although he couldnt understand any of the articles, he could figure out that a breakthrough referred to something called cultivation, or empowerment.

And so he searched up "What is cultivation", lo and behold he didnt even have to scroll far before coming upon an article named "The short history of cultivation, how a simple asteroid changed humanity."

As it turned out, a giant asteroid filled with a natural gas hunanity had never seen before hit the Pacific ocean in late 2039 causing massive mutations in every known animal species, and further ones humanity had never seen before.

Of course humanity also changed, developing a sort of 7th sense.

Suddenly humanity could feel tiny particles of energy, and most could even absorb those particles strengthening the human body to points never before thought possible, and granting superhuman powers to a rare few.

Recently humanity had even discovered other dimensions, and started exloring them.

This had spurred massive all around change in the very core of human society.

Systems were destroyed, reformed and created all over.

Governments fell, got stronger, or were replaced, all in the span of a few years.

Currently all schools started teaching cultivation to 16 year old students all up until 18 years of age, where students graduated high school.

That would mean Adrian would've already started learning cultivation.

Without realizing it the sky was already beginning to darken, Adrian had been reading and learning since noon spending a good few hours in a trance like state.

He closed the laptop walked over to his cabinet and looked at himself in the mirror for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

Adrian was a rather fat young man of average height, he was 179 centimeters tall and almost a 100 kilograms. He was still growing pretty fast though so it was fine. He had jet black hair, and sported rather good looking facial features, although they were obscured by dark bags under his eyes, too much fat and a short scar running from his right eyebrow all the way down through his right cheekbone.

He shook his head, clearly not happy with how he currently looked, then waltzed decisively to his bed. Before lying down, he hesitated before taking off both his socks and his pants, he had totally forgotten to put on a shirt once he got to his room.

He made this decision, because he wanted to appreciate his newfound youth, and having the option of sleeping safely in nothing but underwear. This wasnt something he could ever have done while homeless, so it was time for a new him to ditch old habits.

He pulled his blanket over himself lay down on the soft comfy pillow, and closed his eyes.

While drifting off to a land of dreams he made his decision, if he woke up the following morning, that meant this was real.

If he could be brought here after death, then what did that mean for his family?

Perhaps it was one such cultivator that had brought him here?

And as such he made the decision, to grow in strength and find a way to bring his family back, and protect his little brother along the way.

Soon peaceful snoring could be heard from Adrian as he finally reached aforementioned land of dreams and fantasies.