Ling Xiao opened his eyes to the Burial Chamber of the Fallen Celestial Sovereign.
Having run the final boss fight of Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations at least a thousand times, he instantly recognized the scenery surrounding him. He groggily pushed himself up against the armrest of the massive voidstar throne, blinking around at the yawning spires enclosing the arena. Lava bubbled a dozen feet away, heat licking at his face, the sensation strangely vivid.
"What?" he mumbled, head foggy. "Where…how…?"
Hazily, he looked down at himself. He was dressed in a hooded black robe covering him from neck to ankles, a thick, luxurious garment gilded with swirling purple designs. It was a familiar piece of gear. As the best-in-slot robes for mages, he wore them around constantly. But they'd never felt so real. Uncomprehending, he tugged at the fabric, and it shifted across his skin.
The natural conclusion was that he'd fallen asleep still logged into the massively popular VRMMO Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations. But there was one problem with that. Technology was improving fast, but even the most advanced games couldn't imitate real life. Not to this degree.
The sound of bubbling lava, the sweltering heat, the feel of this robe brushing against his skin—those subtleties couldn't be imitated.
"What in the world?"
Unsteadily rising to his feet, Ling Xiao swept his gaze around the Fallen Celestial Sovereign's arena, his brain working into overdrive.
"[Status]," he said.
A screen appeared in front of him.
"Ling Xiao
(Eclipse Sovereign Legion)
Level 2109 Abyssal Celestial Sovereign
STR: 162,196
AGI: 102,342
CON: 1,188,232
MAG: 24,923,239
WIS: 7,693,326"
For a long while, he stared at the status screen, numbly trying to comprehend what had happened.
"Might have gone crazy, I suppose," he said. His voice sounded weird to his own ears—like it wasn't his own.
Because it wasn't his own.
He looked down at his pale white hands. The creases were in the wrong spots. That might seem like something a person wouldn't notice easily, but he did so instantly. He traced one of the lines, then closed that hand into a fist. He shivered. His hand quested up to touch his cheeks next, and he marveled at how realistic the sensation was.
He was definitely here, in the flesh. There was no denying that. And it was no dream; he would have woken from shock alone.
On top of that, he wasn't even in his own body, but that of his character, Ling Xiao.
As for the name…look. He'd made the character when he was fifteen. Sure, he could have changed it, but he'd grown attached to the slightly edgy imaginations of his younger self. And honestly, he'd only sort of outgrown that love for flair. Enough so that he recognized, fine, it was dramatic, but he secretly kept liking it anyway.
"But how?" Ling Xiao asked, head spinning.
Yesterday had been a repeat of his not-very-admirable lifestyle: grind all day, go to bed with bags under his eyes. Nothing explained his transmigration. Certainly he hadn't thrown himself in front of a bus to save a clueless child, then after being splattered across the road, been granted an audience with a sympathetic goddess with an offer to reincarnate into a world of his choice.
He laughed at the idea, the noise tinted with panic more than amusement, and he cut himself off and took a calming breath.
Well, anyway.
He needed to focus on reality. No amount of pinching himself was helping. It was only reminding him how real the tactile feedback was.
It made no sense whatsoever, but he was here, in the Burial Chamber of the Fallen Celestial Sovereign.
Almost because of how strange it was, he focused on the practical. On what he could actually do, as a way to distract himself.
"[Inventory]," he commanded.
He scanned the grid-like display, flipping through pages to confirm. The scant few items—a set of potions and some miscellaneous consumables—jogged his memory as to what he'd been doing when he had last logged off.
Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations was a skill-based game, with almost all attacks being dodgeable or counterable, so technically, it was possible to clear even late-game raids solo. Even the final raid. And he'd done just that: cleared The Burial Chamber of the Fallen Celestial Sovereign on mythical difficulty. He had earned the unique title Usurper of the Ashen Throne for it.
Point being: in Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations, unsecured items and Spirit Jade Tokens were dropped on death, so he'd been doing those challenge runs with a set of minimal supplies. He had barely anything.
His best gear was equipped at least, since that wasn't dropped on death.
"[Guild]," he voiced next.
Unlike when he'd tried to open his inventory, the voice command didn't yield a status screen. Brow furrowing, he tried again.
"[Guild]. [Guild Status]. [Guild Management]."
None worked.
Hm.
So, the game functions weren't one-to-one. Whatever had happened, he couldn't rely on this world to act identically to the game he knew.
"[Skills]?"
A screen cram-packed with abilities appeared. Nothing looked out of place, but it would take a while to confirm.
"[Quests]."
No response.
"[Map]."
Nothing.
"[Crafting]."
That was interesting. But he would deal with that later.
"[Friends]."
Once more, no result.
"[Settings]."
To be fair, he hadn't expected that one to work.
"[Log Out]. [Quit]. [Force Quit]. [Request Moderator]. [Report]?"
Nor any of those.
He rattled off a few more commands to little avail. It seemed there were a few screens he could use, but most of the meta-functionality of the game had been removed.
He mulled over what to do.
There was one immediate factor that would determine his next steps.
Could he die?
Rather, could he respawn? There were no resurrection spells in Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations. When a player died, they were reborn in the nearest temple, all unsecured items and Spirit Jade Tokens dropping on their death point.
Did real life work that way?
"Not that this is real life," he muttered.
Though it was. His head hurt thinking about it.
If he could die, he needed to be cautious. A visit to a temple would give an answer, so that was his first goal.
To the nearest city then?
Scanning his ability list, he found the skill he was looking for: [Greater Warp]. Before he teleported out, he hesitated.
There was one more thing he needed to check.
Looking around, his eyes landed on the voidstar throne. Walking behind to gain access to a large, smooth section of glassy black material, he rubbed his sleeve around to polish himself a mirror.
His in-game avatar stared back.
"Oh, no," Ling Xiao said with dawning horror.
His flair for the dramatic extended beyond how he named his characters.
"Why?" he groaned.
He had long curling celestial horns, which he tugged on with amazement. A pale face with a neutral expression and bored crimson eyes. Long white hair that cascaded down to his mid-back, with crimson celestial runes glowing faintly across his skin.
All of that was fine. It was in the realm of normalcy for a fantasy-world character.
But one particular aesthetic choice made him wince. He traced a finger down his cheek, mortification growing at the glowing crimson celestial runes that started at his eyes and descended like tear stains.
He sighed.
Maybe he had enjoyed the aesthetic when it was an avatar in a game—and secretly did even now—but now that he was living in this body, he looked at his reflection and decided, no, definitely not. He would not be walking around in public with crimson celestial tear trails glowing on his cheeks.
There wasn't much evidence supporting the claim, but he did have some sense of shame.
Unfortunately, scrubbing furiously at the marks didn't help.
"At least I have magic, I guess? [Celestial Veil Shroud] should be able to fix it?"
As a band-aid solution, anyway.
Getting rid of the distinguishing trait was probably smart from a tactical perspective, regardless. He wanted to gather information about the world and remain incognito. As the game's highest-ranked player, and someone who had been—what, reincarnated?—straight into the game's world, he suspected the name 'Ling Xiao' would draw attention. And there probably weren't many Abyssal Celestial Sovereigns walking around with glowing crimson celestial runes.
So, some quick magic to clean up the mistakes of his former self, then off to civilization.
"Magic," he said, musing over the word.
Magic was cool. He had always thought that. He picked some variant of a mage class in every game he played. If a game didn't have a mage class, that usually meant he wasn't playing it.
One of the reasons he'd fallen in love with Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations was the excellent design behind abilities and especially spells. There were a seemingly endless number, and each had been so fun to use. The visual design of the game was unparalleled for its time, and the tactile and other sensory feedback, while primitive, was good enough that certain spells and fights could get his heart racing even after tens of thousands of hours of gameplay.
Magic in real life—for a twisted meaning of that phrase, 'real life'—was even cooler. And it didn't work at all like how it did in Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations.
He would only realize he should be disturbed after the fact, but his brain knew what to do despite having definitely never cast a spell before. Mentally reaching inward to a glowing ball of energy sitting somewhere high in his stomach, he funneled mana through the many channels running through his body and extruded that white-hot resource into the air.
And then things really got weird. Through instincts he shouldn't have, he molded the mana with his mind, shaped it, twisted it into proper form, folding long strands of molten energy into swirling shapes and patterns that began to take on their own meaning. Until eventually, somehow, he had finished.
"[Celestial Veil Shroud]," he incanted.
The air in front of him shimmered, and he was done. He peeked into the glassy mirror of the voidstar throne and confirmed he no longer had glowing crimson trails running down his eyes—and also, the recognizable design of the Vestments of the Voidwalker had lost its purple designs to appear instead as plain black robes. Those too, after all, might draw attention, and it wasn't like he had a change of clothing on hand.
But more importantly.
"What was that?"
Nothing had felt unusual about the process of channeling and shaping mana. It had felt as natural as breathing, something he'd done a million times before. And it had definitely been his first time casting magic.
Where had that familiarity come from? It wasn't like a VRMMO like Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations could hook so thoroughly into a person's brain. While he loved how diverse the spells were, actual spellcasting was as simple as invoking the appropriate vocal commands or using an assigned series of gestures.
So he hadn't just been given a new body. But also a new mind? Or rather extra stuff had been packed in. Stuff appropriate to the character, Ling Xiao.
That was…weird? But kinda cool? He had extremely mixed feelings. A person's mind was what made them them.
That said, he felt like the same person. He was certain nothing else about him had changed. He'd just picked up a few tricks. Still, it was bizarre enough to unnerve him.
As weird and slightly terrifying as it was suddenly having the instincts of an experienced spellcaster lurking in his brain, though, he had just used magic. In a far realer way than any game ever could imitate. That made up for almost anything.
Forcing himself to move past the experience—in the same way he was ignoring the whole, somehow-in-a-different-world thing—he began to layer protective spells into himself.
He added two more effects to the list, just in case.
By the time he was done, he'd gotten a good taste for what casting real magic was like, and there was a satisfied buzzing in his skull. Yes, he was very much going to enjoy messing around with what he could do. But later. He had more important goals.
Ready for whatever he might find in the capital, he began casting his final spell. [Greater Warp]. But halfway through shaping the mana, he crashed into a brick wall with a sudden realization.
He couldn't complete the spell, because he had no target. There were no [Warp Anchors]. His items and levels had carried over, but his warp points had been wiped clean.
He pulled the mana back into himself, grimacing. It wasn't a pleasant experience. But releasing that much half-shaped mana into the air would result in something catastrophic, with the mana taking a life of its own and choosing what it wanted to be. Which never ended well. Magic, given a choice, preferred chaos. Another aspect of spellcasting he just knew somehow.
"Huh."
So [Greater Warp] was out. The next best option was Fast Traveling, but he wasn't able to access the map.
"Am I going to have to walk?" he asked incredulously.
Well, no. He had spells to speed up travel, flight and acceleration to name the obviously useful ones, but the world of Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations was huge. Even with those, it would take a while to move any great distance.
"There's still [Gate To Nearest City]," he mumbled. "That'll get me to Xuanhai Imperial City, but Tianwu Capital is thousands of miles south."
Not that he had any idea how space would translate. Clearly, he couldn't trust everything in this world being one-to-one. But the final Heaven-Tribulation had been as far north on the continent as possible, and Tianwu Capital, the capital city of the human kingdoms, was roughly two-thirds down.
"Can I really not warp?"
Getting to Tianwu Capital was important for a few reasons: that was where both the Guildhall and his personal house were located, and thus a majority of his items…assuming those hadn't been wiped clean too, which he hoped wasn't the case. When he looked at his status, he was still in the Eclipse Sovereign Legion, so that at a minimum hadn't disappeared. Even if he couldn't access the Guild tab.
Unfortunately, he couldn't think of a way to instantly transport himself there if [Greater Warp] had no [Warp Anchors] to link to. Just like in the game, he'd have to get there manually and set one. That meant tons of hours on a Greateagle, probably, or flying himself.
That didn't actually sound so bad. Flying through the sky and watching the world of Chronicles of the Seven Heaven-Tribulations pass underneath him? He was marveling at simply existing right now. The arena of the Burial Chamber was breathtaking, the huge black stone spires engulfing him like the open maw of a giant beast, lava surrounding him on all sides.
There was a whole world like this to explore. What would the Sky-Pillar Range look like? The Ossuary Isles? The Gloamwoods? And a thousand other places that had been stunning even in the digital world, much less this higher fidelity one. What would the people be like?
So, while inconvenienced, he didn't find himself too upset.
Logically speaking, it was better to visit a smaller city first, anyway.
"Off to Xuanhai Imperial City, then." He dropped a [Warp Anchor], took a breath, then activated a skill. "[Gate To Nearest City]."