"Ding! Binding with host, Feng Xinya... Success!" Feng Xinya could tell by the tone of his voice that Xiao was very happy.

As a responsible know-it-all after reading many system novels on nvleoupdates and wattdope, Xiao was a seasoned veteran in the system department even without reading the Shanghai Tower version of the manual.

Thus, he explained everything he knew to Feng Xinya,

"First of all, I am your system. You can call me Xiao. I'm not one of those point-based systems because I don't like math. With me around, you can travel to different worlds and complete missions. The end-goal is to successfully complete ten different worlds, and that would fulfill the terms of our contract.

"You won't be working for free. After the completion of each mission, you will receive a fixed amount of stat points that you can allot on your own anytime. The fixed number is 50. You have five parameters to fill up--strength, agility, dexterity, vitality, and charisma. Strength is self-explanatory. Agility is overall speed, acceleration, and basically anything to do with your footwork. Dexterity controls attack and movement speed and accuracy, as well as evasion. Vitality is your health and stamina, while charisma is basically your handsomeness and ability to charm others. Host is already very handsome and perfect eye candy, so I cannot recommend investing much points into the last stat. You probably already know that, though.

"There will also be rewards in the form of physical objects like legendary weapons, potions, accessories, skill books, etcetera. The quality of the rewards will rise accordingly with the difficulty of the worlds.

"You have the ability to choose the difficulty of the world before you enter it. There are three levels of difficulty--Low, Middle, and High. Although you can choose the difficulty, the world you enter will be completely random. In each of these worlds you are prohibited from acting out of character, OOC. In the case that you do, you will automatically fail the mission.

"Your body will disappear from this world when you transmigrate into the other worlds. However, you don't have to worry as it will be as if time had stopped until you come back. Due to technicalities, after the completion of each mission, you are required to stay in your world for a period of 24 hours before you can go to the next world.

"By the time you are done with all ten worlds, even if you chose all Low-level difficulty for all worlds, you would still be a man amongst men. If you choose ten High-level worlds, then you would be tantamount to a godly existence. Mid-level is somewhere in between. Then again, it depends on your initial status, and I can see that you are already very powerful. Unfortunately, your captives are leagues above you. Sigh, so this is what they mean by mountains beyond mountains."

Feng Xinya was indifferent to everything and remained silent throughout the entire exchange. He only spoke up after Xiao was completely done, "Let's go."

Xiao was rendered speechless for a split second. I said all that, and you only reply with a "Let's go?"

Having not received a confirmation for what seemed like half a day, Feng Xinya raised a questioning brow as if silently asking, "Is there a problem?"

"Err, what difficulty would you like to choose?"

"Middle."

The large man's lean and toned body promptly disappeared from the mausoleum-cum-dungeon, leaving the clinking sounds of the chains clashing into the wall to reverberate within the dark, enclosed space.

***

The scene in front of Feng Xinya was no longer the murky dungeon he had grown used to for the past 18 years, nor was it the completely black space that he ended up in after his body disappeared from his own world. He was sitting in an armored vehicle as it drove through the slums of a large city.

All of a sudden, he was hit with an ear-splitting migraine as unfamiliar memories started flowing in.

He was currently in the body of Feng Xinya, a special forces soldier from A country, the most prestigious country in the world. However, he was currently stationed in B country awaiting orders.

By a stroke of luck on the Ye family's part, he happened to be in the country when their precious son was kidnapped by the top criminal organization in the world that based itself in B country, Shadow. Ye family was the top family in B country, and their son was this world's protagonist, Ye Xia.

Shadow was an organization that dealt in all sorts of shady deals, from mercenary work, drug dealing, human trafficking, and organ harvesting among many other things.

They were hired by a competitor of the Ye family to kidnap the darling son of heaven, free to do whatever they wanted to him before killing him after a set amount of days. Ye family was a political family and the head, Ye Xia's father, was running for presidency. The election was to be held in a week's time and he was sure to win. However, his competitor lowered himself to threaten his campaign with his son--if he didn't back out of the election before it was over, then he wouldn't even get an intact corpse back. Although he promised his son's life in exchange for the presidency, Ye head knew that his son was fated to die even if he resigned.

Unwilling to compromise neither his son nor his presidency, Ye head ran to Feng Xinya, hoping he could rescue his son from Shadow singlehandedly and undercover.

Feng Xinya had consistently rejected the job offer, as he only took orders from his direct superiors, however, Ye head eventually figured that out and somehow got Feng Xinya's superior to order him to accept and complete the job.

Thus, Feng Xinya immediately started planning and set off for the location that Ye Xia was being held in--one of the illegal brothels run by Shadow in the slums.

He ultimately rescued Ye Xia, but then subsequently received his next set of orders which was to house and protect the boy until the organization had been taken care of by his comrades. The estimated amount of time needed was six months.

Anyway, he ended up taking the 16-year-old boy home. As the hero who saved the beauty, the beauty obviously fell in love the hero, though his feelings were unrequited since Feng Xinya was a military man who adhered strictly to orders and was practically a robot. Nevertheless, Ye Xia felt that Feng Xinya was the one for him and relentlessly pursued him in his own home. Not only was Feng Xinya a hot and capable man, he was richer than his Ye family! He could tell by the suite he temporarily rented that even his father would hesitate to rent for one night!

Six months completely passed by and there was only one more day for them to be together. Ye Xia was under house arrest for the entire time, and finally convinced Feng Xinya to let him go outdoors. Ye Xia considered it as a date, since they were going to the mall, then watching a movie, followed by a late and romantic dinner.

Things didn't go completely the way he wanted, since he ended up meeting the male lead of the world, Qin Luofeng. Qin Luofeng was the big boss of Shadow, who fell in love at first sight with Ye Xia when he saw him six months ago. He had a grudge against Feng Xinya for taking away his possession--his wife.

Though the encounter with Qin Luofeng interrupted his date with Feng Xinya, Ye Xia did feel his heart thump at the equally dashing yet dangerous man. However, he still believed in his feelings for Feng Xinya, so he begged Feng Xinya to take him home, which Feng Xinya agreed to because it was his job to protect Ye Xia. Feng Xinya successfully deflected all of Qin Luofeng's offensive while defending Ye Xia before escaping the scene.

Of course, when Ye Xia said home, he meant Feng Xinya's home so that's where they returned to. He then proceeded to climb up Feng Xinya's bed claiming that he was sad and scared to leave with Qin Luofeng still wandering about even after Shadow had already been taken care of. Feng Xinya cared little for such small personal matters as he had to contact his boss about Qin Luofeng so he apathetically kicked Ye Xia out from his room, slamming the door and locking it behind him.

In a fit of resentment a few days later, Ye Xia snuck out of the suite only to run into Qin Luofeng, who ended up pampering him to the heavens and showing him how much better he was than Feng Xinya. Ye Xia was starting to be swayed but convinced himself that if they are too easy then there would be something wrong. Also, he had known Feng Xinya for much longer than he did Qin Luofeng, so he stuck to his conviction that he loved Feng Xinya.

When Feng Xinya walked out of his bathroom after a quick shower, he immediately noticed that Ye Xia was gone. Cursing the kid in his mind, he promptly set out to find him with the tracker he installed in every one of Ye Xia's boxers. Sticking a tracker in a phone was less trustworthy than boxers since unless they were unsanitary, boxers would be on a person 100% of the time while people could intentionally and unintentionally leave a phone at home.

He eventually found his way to Ye Xia and Qin Luofeng, interrupting their little rendezvous. Although he could care less about the boy, he lived by his orders, so he was directly responsible for Ye Xia until his superior told him otherwise. Also, Qin Luofeng was Shadow's ex-leader and thus not a trustworthy man, so he had to retrieve his target from him no matter what.

They ended up fighting, and they were toe to toe with almost no gap in their strength and skills. Ye Xia was originally stuck between who to support until Feng Xinya mortally wounded Qin Luofeng with his knife. Without thinking, he immediately pushed Feng Xinya aside. Since it was such an abrupt and unexpected acton, Feng Xinya was caught off-guard and Qin Luofeng took advantage of that split second to deal a killing-blow to Feng Xinya.

Ye Xia was regretful over Feng Xinya's death, but he felt his heart constrict when he saw Qin Luofeng's wound. That's when he found out he was only infatuated with Feng Xinya for his looks and wealth, while he fell in love with Qin Luofeng's entire being.

Feng Xinya ended up dying so he didn't know what their ending looked like, but he felt resentful. All he wanted to do was complete his mission, but he was caught in the middle of a lover's quarrel, ultimately propelling their relationship and failing his mission for the first time ever--resulting in his death.

Xiao, who was currently a simple and tiny silver cross necklace adorned across Feng Xinya's neck, timely chimed in with the mission after Feng Xinya finished processing the contents of the original body's memories,

"Xinya, your mission is to fulfill the original body's unresolved wish.

"He didn't want revenge. He was apathetic even in death. What he wanted was to successfully complete the mission to keep his perfect record.

"Don't think this mission is easy. It is a mid-level mission because the protagonist ends up falling for the dangerous male lead and you are responsible for protecting him from the male lead himself even when the protagonist wants to stick to the male lead like glue. Good luck!"

With that, Xiao became still akin to an actual normal necklace with no soul or life as he sat back to see how his host would perform. Feng Xinya simply laid his back against the seat and rested his eyes. He only opened them again when the vehicle stopped a few minutes later at his destination.

During that short time frame, he had already silently come up with a concrete plan to successfully complete the mission.