New Beginnings (2)

The "System" cast their triumphant gaze over Leigh Han's astounded face, which remained frozen in the visage of someone who just ate sh**.

That was magic?

And she was a system?

Putting aside his disappointment at the odd little magic trick she did, the confusion of that weird optical cutscene thing, and the fact that he still didn't believe her, it would probably be in his best interest to go along with whatever this kidnapper of his said, as long as it was harmless. Agreeing with this line of thought, he recovered his face and gave the "system" a profoundly amazed look.

"Wow! That's uh... neat! Maybe you can teach me sometime..."

"Impossible." She said sternly.

"Huh- Why not?"

"Your species of human are manaless beings, and more susceptible to magic damage. If something were to inject you with mana - parts of you might start to mutate, and if there's enough, you could even explode! In fact, when I dragged you over to this world your body became somewhat mangled in the process from the sheer amount of mana involved. I had to sacrifice much of my own magic power in the meanwhile to keep you alive, and even more after that to fix you up."

She pointed to the bloody bucket, and smiled.

"There was a lot of blood, but you survived! You're really lucky I'm created by Gaia's own hands; If it were any other god, with any lesser ranked mana, you would have died a thousand times over!"

Leigh felt a chill run down his spine, looking at her cheerful expression as she described how he could have been a bloody mangled mass of flesh flying through the realms, until he arrived and exploded at his destination.

"Well, thanks... I guess." He secretly chose to doubt this bit of information, for the sake of his own sanity if anything else.

"*sigh* ...You said something about me, a civilization, and prospering right?" He attempted to keep the conversation moving.

As soon as he spoke those words, an excited expression appeared on the so called "system's" face, before she abruptly stood up and walked over to his side of the table, and then behind him. He heard the unsheathing of her blade, which frightened him immensely.

"Hey! Wait! We can still tal-"

His voice trailed off as he felt the restraints around his arms suddenly disappear. He then saw her quickly come back to his front shortly thereafter, ignoring his absolute lack of clothing and immediately severed the bindings that kept his legs stationary as well. With a soft 'clink' the sword was sheathed once more.

Leigh was a bit too taken aback to say anything, much less think to stand up himself. His mind was going in circles a few thousand rotations per minute as things progressed so quickly. What was she up to? He ended up feeling a small and soft sensation encompass his arm coaxing his entire body to be pulled upward to stand. Upon a glance, noticing that it was her hands, he confusedly stood in compliance.

It would be a lie to say that there weren't any thoughts to break away and escape, but a strange curiosity kept him from doing so, plus, it wasn't like he would know exactly where he was once exiting the tent.

Without a word, she excitedly dragged him outside and into the harsh, cold, open air, revealing a scenic view of distant, snow-capped mountains, valleys, rivers, and spacious, rugged open plains. The landscape was quite diverse and incredibly beautiful. The tent behind them was perched scenically near the top edge of a two hundred meter tall, near vertical cliff-face of stone rubble which contributed greatly to their present view of the land. And behind that (the tent) was a kilometer-long clearing of flat grass and earthy patches. A few dozen other large tents had their walls fluttering gently in the wind around them.

For a moment, Leigh was scared he'd lose the ability to speak, with how stunned and confused he had become in the past few minutes, not to mention seeing the spectacular view right in front of him. The System snapped him out of it with a yank towards an adjacent tent, that looked slightly different from all the others, and had an air of importance roiling around it. As they approached, loud conversation could be heard from within, where three different voices could be distinguished. Two were men, as far as he could tell, and another was a woman's soft voice.

Before Leigh could even think to be anxious of being around more people, he was thrust into the tent by the girl, stumbling past the entrance flaps and regaining balance in the cool interior. The conversation he had heard previously suddenly stopped dead in its tracks, and he felt three different pairs of eyes bore into him.

There were three people sitting around a large, round table, much bigger than the one in the previous tent, with chairs that also seemed a step upwards in size and quality too. Two men and one woman, just as he had thought. The first man was considerably well built, with finely toned muscles that seemed to be trained to perfection, and couldn't go unnoticed even under the cloth garments he wore. His face was bearded, and hair an untidy display of curliness. His gaze was proud, yet without complacency, and his dark brown eyes looked at Leigh trustingly. The second man was more thin by comparison, less muscled, but equally as firm, he seemed more scholarly, he wore some ancient looking robes and had long hair tied up in a bun. If Leigh were to give his honest opinion, the second man looked like an ancient Chinese scholar, while the first was some ancient European general or soldier or something. Besides the latter's gaze, the former's was one bound with more curiosity.

The last person, the woman, was incredibly beautiful and voluptuous, she had an airy feel about her and her dress was similar to the general-looking man. Her wavy blonde hair was neatly organized into braids that ran down the shoulders. Her green eyes were full of intelligence. But Leigh noticed her face was unproportionately red compared to the rest of her body. It was quite discomforting. For a second, he was concerned that something was up with her health, until he tracked her gaze onto his own nether regions, which were blatantly exposed to the air, as was his entire body; nude like no tomorrow.

'F***!'

He stone-facedly backtracked out of the tent, and had almost managed to do so when he felt a figure collide into his back, who had been attempting to enter the tent after him...