Darkness. Endless. Timeless. Light. 

"Professor, she's awake!"

Voices...

"ÿÁí.De>, you need to stay awake!"

It's so cold...so so cold.

"God damn it, we're losing her again. We need to ♠▄ã"

I don't know, I—I can't. It's all too...much.

"░ƒJ▲ð╝ Anansi will fail! We need to –š▬«"

Finally—Silence.

 

--------

[Error! Error! System failed to integrate ïÊÓ◘\‹}]

[Searching for other procedures]

[Please remain on standby] 

 

My eyes slammed open and I stared at the cold dripping cave ceiling. 

"What the fuck just happened?!" I cursed. My head felt like it would burst open any second now. And those memories... 

"Anansi," I muttered, "a god damn long time since I last recalled that bastard's name. How did I even remember this shit? I was sure I'd deleted this memory. Was my spell imperfect? No, that couldn't be. But what was i—"

Then it hit me, "It must have something to do with that weird electronic voice—the System, was it?" 

Then it hit me again, but this time like a truck, "No way! Did I somehow land in the wrong world, and now I'm in some weird, uhh...Isekai game thingy?" 

I jumped up, ignored the throbbing pain in my head, and frantically looked around the area. Long stalagmites and stalactites had grown everywhere, which was certainly not a good omen for the rest of the cave. Yeah, the entry area changed significantly, but it still looked somewhat the same. How long was I down here?

A shiver ran down my spine from a gloomy premonition, but I pushed the feeling aside for now—I needed to be sure about something before I drew the wrong conclusions.

I went further up the tunnel with hesitant steps, and everywhere I encountered the inescapable proof that my short vacation had clearly lasted much longer than initially planned. Did anyone even look for me? I think they may have simply forgotten...

After a while, I reached a moveable cave wall, activated the lever I'd placed beforehand on this side—yeah, no magic involved—and entered the main cave. Yep, the sword-in-stone was still there. Bummer! Were people really this stupid? It was literally a sword in a stone; use a god damn pickaxe or stupid explosion spells. Goddess, it couldn't be that hard. Why did I even put it there when no one would be interested in it in the first place? Humans were greedy, so there was no way they didn't try to pull it ou—

Somehow, everything became clearer the longer I looked silently onto the sword. I didn't switch worlds at all, this cave was the proof of it, but something fundamentally changed indeed. What did the System do to this world? Were there maybe other forces that might have also altered the world?

But one problem after another. I heightened my senses to perceive the magical boundaries of my temple. Yep, the wards were still intact—how? They were not designed to hold this long. Something tinkered with their longevity. Another mage? No...

Then I sensed the weird energy in front of me. Annoyed by the feeling, I went to the sword, pulled it out, and pointed to the ceiling.

"By the Power of..." I began to shout but stopped myself before saying something idiotic. 

"Something's definitely off," I muttered. 

I examined the weapon. This was my creation, but yet, it wasn't. Somebody tampered with it. It radiated a bizarre power that tried to affect me—mind you, in a good way. Anyhow, what the fuck?! Which asshole laid hands on my sword? 

Ohh, if the System worked like I thought it did, I might know which bastards tinkered with all my stuff.

I analyzed the now ruined, ravished blade again and took a more detailed look. Somehow the emanated energy felt similar to a Higher Blessing. Were there any beings besides her and I that were capable of this? 

I poured mana into the blade and tried to understand its effects. I could feel soul-like energy threads enveloping the weapon but couldn't pinpoint where they came from. Some of these threads attempted to connect to me. I tried to understand what they wanted to achieve but to no avail. They wanted to give me some kind of 'Bonus', however, it was not particularly surprising that they failed. 

"Not integrated into the System yet, huh?" I smirked, gloating. Hell, the world really became game-like. 

Suddenly, a feeling of wrongness overcame me. The world changed in a way I yet failed to comprehend. Everything looked the same, though somehow different. 

What exactly happened while I was gone?! Why didn’t I feel these changes—had my domain protected me? Logically, it should have at least affected my door, but it didn't! Discomfort,with a touch of excitement spread through my body. 

My attention wandered again back to the sword. The threads that enveloped the item seemed to be of various origins and were connected to each other in different ways. The golden ones felt more like Higher Blessings, but even they divided into several sub colors. 

"Blessings from different beings," I noted. None of them were connected to each other, only with the bigger grayish thread that was at the center. It was evident that this was the one that belonged to the System. 

Without any warning, I smashed the sword into the ground, whereon it shattered into thousands of pieces. At this point, I was fuming with rage. 

"Motherfucking cocksucking whore-gods!" I screamed. "How dare they lay hands on my property, to this world!"

No, no, I needed to calm down. Everything was trembling, and I could already see some cracks in the walls. The wards should stop anything from leaking outside, though.

I took a deep breath in, and let it out. Yes, this was better. Losing my temper would only worsen my condition. But now I was kinda curious. Those threads were affecting a soul and strengthening it. Was the effect permanent? Were only the blessings temporary and the System permanent? Ohh, I already had so many questions and theories I wanted to explore! Could they help me out with my Abyssal Depths or even with my medicine? What else changed in a world where everyone got caught up in a lunatic magical system that probably could also control you—or not. I dunno! How exciting!

Giddy, I forgot about my hatred for gods for now—not you, Anansi, fuck you—and walked to the cave's exit.

 

The sharp natural daylight blinded me for a second—hadn't seen any for a long time. I stepped out from behind a pillar and saw the mossy and crumbly walls surrounding the main temple. With ease, I leapt up to the rooftop and caught sight of the temple complex for the second time since its construction. But my gaze did not linger on it for long, instead moving on to the vicinity.. I was utterly aghast by what I saw there.

Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing but buildings. A house there, a house here, a big cathedral, a castle, a palace, something that looked like another palace but smaller, big freaking town walls, a market, and so on and so forth.  

Directly around the temple complex were bustling streets, cafes, and shops right at my doorstep. I never could have expected this. There were even human professors, students, travelers, and other people in front of the entryway of my temple, studying and marveling at the structures, glyphs, and stone walls where my wards began. My hideout had become a motherfucking tourist attraction.

However, I wasn't seriously angry about the situation. Yeah, they somewhat bulldozed the entire forest and replaced it by stone, plain logs, and planks, but the end result was awe-inspiring. Not bad, for humans at least. However, it was still no match for the building skills of the high moon elves.

Anyway, when the temple was built, it was surrounded by a beautiful evergreen forest. Thriving wildlife, rare exotic plants, stunning flower fields midst a clearing; everything just gone. Funny how some things could change over time.

Apropos time, I had been standing up here for quite a while, watching the colorful canvas of the town as it darkened in the light of the declining sun, only to be illuminated again by magic lights.

Even if it looked like I was doing nothing, I actually spent the time thinking about my next steps. Sure, I could simply walk into the town and act like it was my first visit, but how boring was that? No, I had another plan that fitted better with the experience and information I wanted to gather. 

First of all, this town had four main streets that started around the temple complex and went in each of the four cardinal directions. This might seem uninteresting at first, but hear me out! In a magical medieval era like this, the way to a metropolis spoke volumes about a nation's condition. And I didn’t mean in the city; it was not about how the streets were inside the town walls but how it was outside.

How well was the road guarded? What was its state? Were there frequent raids, and most importantly, how crowded was it? All those details were necessary because the residents here either might not want to talk or were totally oblivious to what was happening outside of their own safe walls.

So yeah, my plan was already set in stone. Still, which street should I take? The southern one went through decaying slums. The western proceeded through an area that seemed to house various main workshops of artisans and craftsmen. The eastern road was surrounded by places that definitely looked like guilds, expensive inns and cheap taverns, barracks, warehouses, and many normal residences. The northern street only went to the palace and cathedral, which I immediately dismissed as a possibility. 

From my memories, the western one only led deeper into human territory, like the southern, whereas the eastern road went toward the elves and beast-kins. And if I remember correctly, humans always loved to enslave them. 

I nodded, "The eastern road it is."

I mean, if you thought about it carefully, there was simply no better way to fathom the state of the nation and the world itself than this. And yeah, I could just walk into the town and go into a library and probably read about history, but races often lie about their achievements and other stuff. Humans once believed elves were cannibals, you know?! They clearly never ate an elf; they taste really horrible! But whatever, that wasn't the point right now. 

I pondered for a moment and thought about how I should get there without seeing too much of the city. Didn't want to ruin my sightseeing later on. 

I sighed, "I really need to do this, don't I?"

Without hesitation, I jumped to the ground and went back to my door. It had to disappear before my teleportation would work again. Goddess damn, this process will take me some time…

I broke off one of the stalactites and began to draw old runic glyphs onto the rocky floor with magic. They literally burned themselves into the cold stone. The sizzling sounds got louder and louder, and the area where I engraved the old glyphs looked a little bit like a tiny mountain surrounded by lava. 

A rumbling could be felt throughout the cave as I cast the magic to make my door disappear. 

It was so powerful that it overcame my wards of protection and spread to the city. I sighed—all that just to be able to teleport around.

With every step, every shape, every movement and flourish, mana from the world poured itself into the glyphs. The tremor reached its peak when I finished the last glyph, and they began to shine like tiny stars. For a brief moment, nothing was visible, and when you could see again, the door—and that stupid anti-teleportation area that it always generated—was gone. Only the extinguished symbols on the floor testified to the magic that had been wrought here.

I smiled, and with a blink, I teleported to the rooftop. Yep, worked just fine. The town, though...

It wasn't destroyed or anything, but it was the middle of the night and yet the streets were filled with people. I heard screams, commands, and other things I didn't understand. Interesting, an unknown language. Anyhow, this was something I could worry about later. 

With a blink and another and another, I went from rooftop to rooftop towards the eastern gateway. My own wards were useless against me, so I simply went through them. Why no one destroyed them after all this time was another enigma I had to figure out in the future. 

The town was on alert—soldiers in heavy armor everywhere. Luckily, my teleportation was fast, and not one soul noticed me in the dark. Those who did might possibly think that they drank too much. 

When I teleported myself onto the eastern town's gate tower, I knocked the standing guards out with simple sleeping magic—no need to kill any innocent, yet—and took a short moment to carefully appraise the forest before me. Being part vixen gave me the needed night vision to overlook the area.

I grinned and teleported myself as far as I could see down the road towards the forest. I wasn't crazy enough to teleport right onto the street—I could be seen much too quickly. Instead, I followed alongside the road from the forest until I had passed a few villages and forks. I covered quite a considerable distance. I didn't really pay attention to the surroundings, or rather, I didn't want to and hadn't. Teleportation rules!

I stopped a few miles beyond the fourth village I had passed, and it would probably take a week to walk back to town. The perfect distance to get a sense of this new world. 

It was now the middle of the night, and I was about to head out onto the road when I heard screams and sounds of fighting echoing from a little deeper into the woods.

I smiled, "Ah, what a promising start!"