A glistening droplet of water cascaded through the canopy of a lush green tree, falling from leaf to leaf and branch to branch, reflecting the golden rays of the sun. Eventually, it landed on the face of a young, sleeping boy, startling him awake.
The sun was at its zenith, its golden rays beating down with a cruelty that seemed to banish any clouds from the sky. The young boy's eyelids fluttered open, slowly taking in the view.
"Where am I? Wasn't I being chased by a dog?" he murmured, his low voice reverberating across the empty field.
He blinked twice as his azure-blue eyes trying to comprehend his surroundings.
"A huge tree?"
He tried to sit up, but his face twisted in a grimace of pain.
"My hand!" He noticed several bruises and gashes, along with faint streaks of dried crimson blood covering his arm.
"Hiss!"
Gently touching his face, he winced. "Is my face bruised too?"
Suddenly, a sharp jolt of pain from the back of his head made him groan in agony. Along with the pain came memories that were not his own.
Digesting these new memories left a bad taste in his mouth.
"Are kids nowadays really this cruel?"
Instantly, his entire body began to tremble, his breathing turning ragged as he struggled to calm down.
'So I died, and my soul took root in this body?'
He was familiar with the concept of transmigration, but he didn't know the finer details. As an active student who enjoyed hanging out, he completely lacked the encyclopedic fantasy knowledge of his nerdier peers. He only knew the term because of a friend whose entire life seemed to begin and end with fantasy novels, completely detached from reality.
'Sigh! I should've read at least one fantasy book."
Shaking his head in disappointment, he shifted his focus to the open, empty field. Everywhere his eyes wandered, they were met by a jagged, lonesome mountain that dwarfed the other peaks in the chain, piercing the sky itself. Strong winds slammed mindlessly against the rock face over and over, howling in powerless rage.
Cold shivers ran down Sam's spine as he realized exactly where he was.
The Eastern Plateau!
His inherited memories provided a geographical map of this world: a chillingly cold region in the North, a South blazing at 2500 degrees Celsius, the Plateau region in the East, and finally, a desert region in the West. It was as if the planet itself defied nature.
The most crucial piece of information was that this planet was massively larger than his previous Earth. Rumor had it that humans had only discovered and settled about five to eight percent of its total area; the remaining lands belonged to primordial monsters that humanity dared not interfere with, lest they be wiped out completely.
"Hiss! Doesn't that mean humanity could be wiped out at any moment?" Soon, a spark of realization flashed in his eyes.
This world was fundamentally different from his past life because here, humanity wasn't completely helpless. They had "runic warriors" who fought against these monsters and kept human territories safe from invasions.
It was a dangerous world, yet undeniably a magical one.
A brilliant light seemed to flash through Sam's eyes.
According to his new memories, this magical era of runes had also birthed a myriad of amazing technological advancements. The technology here was far ahead of his previous world, bringing countless possibilities with it. One of those possibilities was currently right before his eyes: a wristband that seemed to seamlessly meld with his skin.
It was a product of BlueBlack, a company that maintained almost total surface-level control over the world, and this device was just one of their many creations.
He easily understood that society here still operated much like his previous world, but he was absolutely shocked by the wristband's functions.
"Is it really this magical?" Curiously, he brushed his finger over the wristband on his right hand, and a screen suddenly popped out.
Buzz! The black band trembled slightly, and he felt a strange force circulate through his body before quickly returning to the device. Data materialized on the glowing screen:
Strength: 2
Agility: 2
Physique: 2
Spirit: 10
Endurance: 3/3 [Physique + 10 percent spirit]
Rune Energy: 10 [Spirit]
Rune abilities: [None]
Special abilities: Merge
"Strange! These aren't the original stats, and there's a special ability too?" Sam stared down at it, entirely captivated by how new and enticing everything was.
Reining in his curiosity, he closed his eyes and sifted through his memories.
'What could have caused these changes?'
He raised an eyebrow in thought. "Maybe my arrival is the reason."
Shaking his head, he pushed the lingering questions to the back of his mind and curiously tapped on the word 'Merge'.
Special abilities: Merge
- Merge anything to gain merge points.
'Merge? But what can I merge? Anything at all?' Countless ideas raced through his head, but he forced his curiosity down. His current situation didn't afford him the luxury of experimenting; right now, he needed to focus on the absolute basics. Who was he, and why was he here?
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, skipping past the miscellaneous information to dive directly into the core memories.
The original owner of this body was also named Sam, an orphan and a citizen of the Alahar district. He had lost his parents at an early age.
However, thanks to a government initiative meant to "educate every child" regardless of origin, he had been admitted to a state school. Its main focus was building strong foundations and teaching students how to be well-versed in basic weaponry.
Because of his outstanding performance in every event, he quickly became the benchmark—the perfect "other family's child" that the parents of his fellow schoolmates constantly compared their own kids to.