Chapter 1—Into the universe
by Bocchan13
W worriedly looked at the time. Any minute now, he would be sent to the world with Wu Xin in it. After finding out about that bastard, he was dubbed the laughing stock of the Transmigration Bureau. He would never live this down for a thousand years!
Luckily, Wu Xin had only transmigrated to 30 worlds and his powers hadn’t manifested close to the Lord God’s yet. There was still time to capture his soul. W and the others in the company scrounged around his file, searching for any clues as to why he started transmigrating and why W who was his ‘caretaker’ wasn’t notified of any activities regarding him.
W was the one who found that the golden finger he set up had a few loopholes. But that wasn’t his fault if it was pre-installed!!! W wasn’t in charge of making these boosters, only applying them to certain people in accordance to their soul!
When W found out, he punched the wall in anger! Despite it not being his fault, it was his responsibility to get this sucker back.
In conclusion, W had to go to the world where Wu Xin was currently in and take his soul back. W looked at the system and had to sigh in relief. The Transmigration Bureau would allow him a system in order to contact headquarters and follow him in the new world. In case it was hard to find Wu Xin or something happened as he transmigrated, the system could at least guarantee his soul would not be obliterated.
He creepily smiled as he added all of the boosters and golden fingers he could think of and watched in glee as his inventory tab got filled more and more.
Mwahahahahaha.
Suddenly, he felt an invasion in his soul. A hot searing pain enveloped his head, making him clutch his head, gasping in pain.
“Testing, testing. 1, 2, 3. Can you hear me?”
W groaned in assent. The deep voice was loud and coherent.
“Lord God?”
“Yah?”
“Why are you in my head?”
“Ah. You know, I heard from my secretary that you screwed up BIG TIME. Since I can’t leave the office, I just tapped into your soul for a bit.”
“You know that can be considered sexual harassment, right?”
“Gah! I would never! Don’t say that, or my wifey will come down from the heavens and strike me dead!”
W rubbed his temples in exasperation.
As an employee to the Lord God, he had a somewhat complicated relationship with him. When he was just a young soul, flying aimlessly through time and space; almost disappearing, it was the Lord God who found him and nurtured his soul back into existence.
The wee little soul was so innocent and cute; the Lord God paraded his image to all of the other gods and dubbed him as ‘Little Cutie’, so much so that when he finally became corporeal, everyone around him had already made bets to see if he was actually cute or if the Lord God was shooting out of his ass.
Not to toot his own horn, but W could be classified as ‘a face that could bring down a nation’™. So when he finally manifested, bets were exchanged and now the gods who had nothing better to do, had bet whether W would replace the Lord God after he ‘hibernates’ since he became first place in the beauty department, over the Lord God who had that title since the dawn of time.
W, who prided himself more on intelligence rather than looks, started working his way up into the echelons of his ‘parent’ company and had spent more than a millennium changing everyone’s minds.
W massaged his tense shoulders and opened the system screen, adding in a few more things here and there.
“Go on, say what you need to say.”
“Hahahahaha, well you know as well as I do that going through the transmigration portal will be difficult. You will have to use your own soul force and parasite yourself to a person instead of going there with your body. We did the math, and the Upper Plane people can’t go to lower plane worlds…So you might have some…mild side effects when you get there.”
W nodded. He knew that was the case. Why else did they pluck youngsters from lower planes, if not because you can only get stronger, not weaker?
“What kind of side effects?”
“Nothing too serious. Mild aches and pains, memory loss, loss of limbs, disease and death, etc; etc.”
W’s eyes twitched.
“Why can’t you send a low level officer into these realms instead?”
“Hahahaha! That’s the thing. We can’t track this scum down. His soul seems to be fragmented, so it’s mightily difficult to find him. Besides, he was under your jurisdiction. If anything, you are the most adept person at finding him.”
W’s eyes twitched again.
“Frag…mented?”
“Yes?”
“Fragmented.”
“Ah huh?”
“Like in…his soul is not complete?”
“Uh…yeah?”
W closed his eyes trying to calm himself down. He clenched his fist and once again hit the wall of his office. A small boom could only be heard from the outside.
“You mean to tell me…that I’m going to MORE than ONE world??”
“I thought you knew!!”
“No! All I heard was that I was just gonna retrieve this vagrant asshole and drag his INTACT soul back into the bureau!!!!!”
W opened his system screen and saw the pitiful 100 boosters in his inventory. He jabbed the screen adding more and more items, clogging his storage. A pharmacy space? Get it! A Midas touch? Get it! A freakin zombie purification stone? Fucking get it!
“H-hold on! Little Cutie!!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHA, I’m fucking going on a freaking adventure here! I NEED THIS SHIT!”
W continued the add-ons until the inventory storage was filled to the brim. W was still not done, and instead raised his stats, so that every world he would have the absolute best BODY!
W gasped and leaned back in his chair, the system looking quite haggard as it inputted the new information. He heard quietness in his head and thought the Lord God had logged off.
“Umm…we also got information from the World Engineers…um…since his soul is fragmented, the transmigration portals will take you to the worlds where his soul is biggest…and um…they might be closed worlds.”
W could see that beautiful bastard coquettishly touching two fingers together, with his head hunched! W suddenly didn’t want to do this shit anymore. He gulped down his anger still because he needed as much information as he could.
“So, even I won’t know what world I would go to?”
“That’s the case. Wu Xin’s soul being fragmented is part of the reason you weren’t able to detect his activities for so long. He has long been putting his souls into different worlds. We have managed to find about 5 of them so far, but there might be more.”
“What if it’s a closed world?”
“If it comes to that, you will have to complete some missions in order to stay in that world, or else you would be rejected.”
W really REALLY didn’t want to go anymore. Closed worlds were like those of books. They had a set storyline, a fixed plot, and the world consciousness was created to make sure that these steps were met to a certain extent. So Closed worlds didn’t have much in terms of culture, blurry history, and horrible writing. Think of those updated online stories of normal average girls who suddenly transmigrated into a villainess of a novel. You could change the storyline, but the main events in the world were still applied. This meant that if W went into a world where he was a cannon fodder, he wouldn’t be able to OOC.
W shuddered if he had to become one of those Butler#2 ™ that was completely enamored of the cutesy, eccentric average girl aesthetic. Shudder the thought.
Unlike Closed worlds, Open worlds was just a world with no fixed goal. If W was a farmer, he could change his fate and become a king. These worlds were more in-depth with lore, geography, politics, and overall world building. These worlds had a higher ranking.
Like the world of Avaria, the goddess that would enter the lands didn’t have to choose whether to be the goddess or willingly leave. There was no fixed plot and every decision they had was theirs.
W hoped that Wu Xin had some taste and chose open worlds. He crossed his fingers and prayed that he would be sent to a nice open world!
The Lord God briefed W on more things, taking into account the time he would have to go to the transmigration portals. Finally, his system screen was notified that a soul fragment was detected. W got out of his chair and walked the labyrinth to the portals.
W had never gone into the portals before, so seeing it with fresh eyes was an experience. The doors leading inside were a gigantic two door gold-inlaid monstrosity. The pictures carved into the gold were scenes depicting the very first transmigration: a young boy entering the land of the Boundary and saving the gods from the Destruction God, sealing his soul and body away into the Abyss. The lord God’s story of how he became the one true god.
W opened the doors using soul force and saw inside a couple of his co-workers standing wearing white robes designed with gold. A tall white haired man was drawing runes on the floor, his eyes pensive and tired.
“All’s well?”
The man looked up to see W and huffed in exasperation, “The portal will accommodate you, but in order for us to know where you are located, we have something.”
The man beckoned to his assistant who came out carrying a golden box. W lifted his eyebrow. Were the Engineers so obsessed with gold? W opened the box and unexpectedly saw a crystal bell. White and icy to the touch, the bell was connected to metal tassels that jingled when moved. W admired how pretty it looked.
“Although we have the system, it might malfunction while you are in the new world. This bell was forged in the Upper Planes. If you input a little bit of soul force, its resonance can be felt in our dimension. Please take it.”
W did not hesitate and grabbed it, but unexpectedly didn’t know where to attach it. Confused, he looked back at the man who sighed deeply.
“Haaaa…put it in your inventory.”
W paused.
The man paused.
W sighed and opened his inventory. It was full. Looking at the man with pleading eyes, the man just jutted his chin.
W begrudgingly took out the food buff that made his food taste 3x more delicious and put the bell inside.
[ERROR: Inventory has reached maximum capacity, please take out some items]
W glared at the system and took out a buff that could write for him.
[ERROR: Inventory has reached maximum capacity, please take out some items]
W’s eyes twitched.
He took out two buffs that healed minor wounds…
[ERROR]
A halo that made girls appreciate him
[ERROR]
A booster for speed
[ERROR]
A buff for poisoning
[ERROR]
W threw the crystal bell on the ground. The impact made a large hole on the floor, but the pretty bell was still intact, shining like it was laughing at him!
“I don’t want this shit!”
The white haired man was shaking slightly in silent laughter but coughed to hide it, “The bell is an UPPER plane object. I’m afraid you will have to take out at least 1/3 of your inventory”
W glared at the bell, then at the man. Was it too late to do pet duty? Less than 20 minutes later, the bell was placed inside his inventory. W sobbed silently at the measly 100 boosters, buffs and halo’s he had before talking to Lord God.
Life was unfair!
Sighing heavily, W turned to the white haired man and tiredly swayed, “Let’s get this over with.”
The white haired man patted him on the back and led him to the center of the large circle. Holding W’s hands, he whispered a few words in the archaic language and a white light enveloped them. W’s eyes opened in shock as the portal opened beneath him.
“You will experience a little pain and dizziness. If you have any troubles, notify us through the system or through the bell. May Lord God bless your journey.”
“May Lord God bless my journey.”
The white light completely covered W, converting his body into particles of light.
Ouch, fuck! It hurts so bad! Who said it was slight fricking pain?
…
Ye Zhou opened his eyes to a dim morning. He felt a panicky feeling as the unfamiliar surroundings enveloped him. He felt water on his face but realized they were his own tears. He heard the sound of birds cawing and footsteps scurrying everywhere, yet they did not help him in growing anxiety.
Looking at his thin pale hands, a large thick braid slid onto his shoulders showing black hair. A single bead was the only adornment. Looking at the bead, he felt his heart hurting. More tears pooled his eyes, as he scrambled to put his thoughts into place.
Who am I?
o shit