Chapter 3 : Hyumans

"Pre-booting process completed.

Initializing loading sequence…

Loading completed.

Connecting to the Origin source…

Connection complete.

Verifying host's eligibility and assessing host's capabilities…

Verification completed.

Assessment completed.

Starting up programme…

Start up completed.

Welcome, Lucas Yohan Saunters.

Please check your inventory for the System Activation And Welcome Package."

A few lines of words filled Lucas' vision as he stood frozen in shock. Although there were a bunch of words, one thing crossed Lucas' mind at that moment, 'system'.

If it were prior to his transmigration to Earth, Lucas would be confused right now, but it wasn't. Before the age of 27, when he became popular on the international stage, Lucas had spent his time exploring the culture and technology of earth. Even after that, he still had a few hobbies and pastimes outside his research. One of them was reading; however, it wasn't just reading research papers, library books and informative articles but also novels. From them, Lucas knew a lot of fantasy terms and ideas, some of which, surprisingly, were real in the world of his first life.

Seeing one play out in front of him, Lucas couldn't help but feel suspicious. In most similar tropes, the system was a creation of a certain being who either wanted to utilize the host for a greater plot or possess him. In summary, it rarely meant he would have a peaceful ending.

'When did this happen? Who could it be?' Lucas contemplated as he furrowed his brows.

All the names and faces of top mages, witches, deserters and cultivators in his first life began to cross through his mind but none of the seemed to fit the shoe.

'Well, one step at a time I think.' Lucas thought as he decided to communicate with the system first.

At the moment, his first priority was to understand his new environment, but with the racist treatment he got earlier, that would be difficult. Luckily, this time around, Lucas had a system with him.

"System," Lucas spoke quietly.

"where am I?"

"The host is currently located in the suburbs of Baylands City, which is located in the Groeten continent of planet Eretre, which in turn is in the Kellan solar system. For more details on this, host needs to explore on his own or fully unlock the system." The mechanical voice from earlier sounded once again.

"Definitely not Earth."

Receiving the system's response, Lucas sighed as he had now confirmed that he was in another world.

Earth was in the Milky way galaxy and in an unnamed solar system. Although unnamed, one thing was for sure, the solar system wasn't Kellan and the blue planet wasn't named Eretre.

"System, what are you?" Lucas asked the next question on his mind.

"I am the Training system for the Crafts god. My very existence lies within my role, which is to grow the host to be a competent craftsman and rise to the rank of god."

'A god? And a Crafts god at that.' Lucas was surprised at the response as he never expected it.

It wasn't like the books he read where the system helped the host to get stronger and reach the peak of strength, but instead wanted to aid him in crafts.

'Wait a minute…'

"System, are you the one responsible for my first transmigration?" Lucas asked with a serious tone.

In his first life, Lucas was known as Yohan and he was one of the top 3 most popular and skilled forgers of all time. What's more, he was the youngest of the three and managed to reach that level far earlier than the others. At the age of 443 years, Lucas or rather Yohan, had managed to become a grandmaster at forging and sixty years later, his skill was rumoured to be closely approaching that of the second greatest forger alive at that time, a man with more than three thousand years of experience.

503 years might sound like a lot, but to Yohan and those around him as well as the society of that world, he was actually a junior who just reached adulthood. He was destined to become one of the best in history if not for that incident back then which lead to his death.

Thinking about it now, Lucas wasn't suspicious that the system had planned his death, but that it had taken his soul away from the cycle of samsara and transmigrated him onto Earth with his memories intact, before doing so once again now.

"Correct."

It was just one word but it stunned Lucas. Not even the Ancients back in his first life were capable of such, but the system was. This was both impressive but also scary. After all, Lucas now had his life in its hands.

"Since you're to help me, you have no evil designs on me right?" Lucas asked innocently.

"Indeed." The system replied.

'If it had any ideas on me, it should have acted on them already but it hasn't. This means that I've either not fulfilled all the conditions or it is truly harmless.' However, thinking up to there, Lucas chuckled. It was clearly the first option as even the system had somewhat admitted it already.

'Wait a minute, don't the systems in those novels have the ability to read minds? What if it can?'

"I can." The system's voice sounded again.

'...'

Awkwardness filled the air as Lucas froze with an expression similar to that of child who got caught stealing candy.

"Ahem. System, tell me more about this world. Not in terms of location but culture, race and similar details." Lucas asked with a straight face, almost as if he wasn't the one being suspicious of the system's intentions a while ago.

"Due to the host not unlocking the full functionality of the system, only the basic information can be provided."

"Go on."

"First will be the lifeforms. The Kellan solar system has eight planets of which only five are habitable. It is majorly populated by hyumans, with three of the five habitable planets having a concentration of at least 80% hyumans, the fourth planet having 60% while the last having less than 2%.

Apart from hyumans, there are also other winged anthropoids which is actually a common term for two winged humanoid species, the Mara and Vara. Finally, there are the Nysa, the Kerman, and the human races."

'That's quite a lot of races.' Lucas raised an eyebrow at the report, astounded a bit by it.

Although his previous life did have some other intelligent lifeforms, they were mostly monsters that had gained sentience and very few inherently intelligent species. However, just this solar system alone six races on five planets.

"Apart from these intelligent races, there also exist a special class of animals distinctly separated from the usual taxonomy classification[1]. Although they are still in the same domain as other living creatures, they belong to a new kingdom of creatures in the taxonomy; the Desolatum, or commonly known as Desolate beasts." The system continued.

Lucas sighed and felt grateful that his memory was impressive as he could recall his high school biology lessons, otherwise he would be confused by the terms used by the system, just like the readers and the author a few minutes ago.

"The current rulers of the planet Eretre is the Oklo Dynasty. The current ruler of Baylands city is the city lord who is also the head of the Bergs family."

"What about the solar system?" Lucas asked.

Although that was out of reach for him, being able to know this wouldn't hurt.

"Access denied." The system blandly responded.

Lucas' lips twitched.

"Hold on. You mentioned the hyumans as the dominating race and humans as separate. Aren't they the same?" Lucas abruptly recalled.

"They aren't. Although their ancestry can be traced to be the same, the hyuman race is an evolved version of the human race due to artificially controlled intervention." The system answered.

 Lucas finally had an inkling of why he was looked down on earlier, as if he were a cockroach. It was simply because the other party thought of him as a lesser existence.

Even in his past life in Rhodia, racism, although frowned at and very much discouraged, occurred amongst a species that were the same but different due to skin colour. In this new world, the difference wasn't simply skin colour and was on a genetic level, with one being an evolved version, so it was inevitable that the treatment would be even much worse. It was no longer a matter of racism but speciesism.

"Artificial? By who? And what for?" Lucas asked the system as he felt it had the answers he wanted.

"Access denied."

Not too surprised by this, Lucas turned to the only exit of the alley after a sigh and suddenly asked.

"I need information about the training system in this world as well as how to level you up."

When he was outside, apart from noticing the difference in their soul wavelength which determined them as a different species, Lucas also discovered that the hyumans were much stronger. Some of them even seemed to possess some sort of special energy within their bodies. Without a doubt, those were practitioners of a special kind of magic system, martial art or something similar.

"Access denied."

"The heck?" Lucas cursed out loud.

The system however, ignored him and continued.

"To level up the system, host has to complete missions and make achievements. The host is also reminded not to be over-reliant on the system for information and explore this brand new world."

It seemed that the system's first response was to the first half of Lucas' question which could be counted as an individual question.

At that moment, footsteps sounded at the exit of the alley. Three figures appeared blocking the path and set their eyes on Lucas.

'As I thought.' Lucas frowned.

His intuition had sensed something which was why he turned towards the exit and in the end, he was right.

One of the three men suddenly smiled at him.

"A human, huh? And a young one at that. You look quite healthy and handsome. Hehe. I wonder how much you will go for in the slave market."