Chapter 1: Endless Void
A boy wandered in the void.
Endless and immeasurable, it stretched in every direction, an expanse of nothingness so profound it defied comprehension. The darkness was absolute—not a single speck of light or sound to be found. His body drifted aimlessly, weightless and untethered, yet he couldn't even tell if he had a body to begin with.
He couldn't see anything. He couldn't feel anything. The silence was deafening, oppressive in its stillness. He tried to grasp onto something—anything—but his mind was as empty as the space around him.
He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how long he had been in this endless void. Minutes? Hours? Years? It was all the same. Time had no meaning here.
Most of all, he didn't know who he was.
The thought struck him like a phantom blow. Who… am I? He tried to reach for a name, a memory, anything that might tell him something about himself. But there was nothing.
No memory. No identity. No sense of self.
"Am I even alive?" he murmured—or at least thought he murmured, for no sound emerged.
He couldn't tell if his lips moved, or if he even had lips. His thoughts floated like echoes in his mind, faint and unsteady, on the verge of dissolving into the surrounding void.
"How did I get here?"
No answer came, only the weight of the void pressing on him.
Despair began to creep in. Was this his existence? To drift endlessly in nothingness, alone and forgotten? Or was this some form of punishment for a sin he couldn't remember committing?
He tried to move, but there was no ground to step on, no air to push against. He was suspended, powerless and insignificant.
"I don't want this… I need to escape… I—"
Before he could finish the thought, a faint glimmer appeared in the distance.
It was the first thing to break the monotony of the void—a tiny speck of golden light, barely visible, yet undeniably real. It flickered, pulsing faintly, as if calling out to him.
His heart—if he still had one—stirred with something he hadn't felt in what felt like an eternity. Hope.
The boy reached out instinctively, his focus narrowing on the golden light. For the first time, he felt something—a pull, faint but undeniable, drawing him toward the light.
As he floated closer, the light grew brighter, enveloping him in a warm, golden glow. It was soothing, like the touch of sunlight on skin, a sensation he couldn't recall but instinctively recognized.
Then, a voice echoed in his mind.
[Do you seek purpose?]
The boy froze. The voice was neither male nor female, ancient yet ageless. It resonated deep within him, stirring something he couldn't name.
"Purpose?" he thought, the word foreign yet tantalizing.
[Do you seek power?]
Power. The word carried weight, more than he expected. It ignited a spark within him, a yearning he didn't understand.
Before he could respond, the light flared, and the voice spoke again.
[Then prove yourself worthy. Rise, and claim your fate.]
The golden glow began to shift and reshape itself, forming symbols in the air. Strange, glowing runes circled the boy, each one resonating with a strange, rhythmic hum.
One rune in particular caught his eye—a shimmering hourglass that rotated slowly, its golden sands flowing in both directions at once.
As he stared at it, something stirred in his mind.
[Game initializing…]
The words were faint, almost imperceptible, but they sent a ripple through his consciousness.
"What… does that mean?" he wondered, but the answer eluded him.
Before he could ponder further, the light flared once more, and the voice spoke for the final time.
[Time is a river, and your choices are its tributaries. Will you navigate, or will you drown?]
In an instant, the golden light consumed him, and the void shattered like glass, replaced by a torrent of blinding energy. The boy felt himself falling—falling into a world he couldn't yet see but instinctively knew would test him in every possible way.
And as the light carried him forward, a faint memory stirred in the back of his mind—a name, buried deep within the recesses of his fragmented consciousness.
"Who… am I?" he whispered.
...
The boy awoke with a sharp gasp, his chest heaving as if he had been drowning and finally broke the surface of the water. His eyes fluttered open, taking in the dim light of a wooden hut. The faint scent of damp wood and herbs hung in the air.
He lay on a rough straw mattress, a thin blanket barely covering him. Above him, the ceiling was made of uneven wooden planks, their gaps letting in streams of light from the outside. He could hear the faint rustling of leaves and the distant chirping of birds—a stark contrast to the oppressive silence of the void he had just escaped.
"Where… am I?" he whispered hoarsely, his voice foreign even to his own ears.
As the question formed in his mind, a sudden wave of memories surged through him like a flood breaking through a dam.
They weren't his memories.
Scenes of a simple yet disciplined life flashed before him—a life of waking before dawn, practicing martial forms in the courtyard of a grand sect, enduring grueling exercises to temper the body, and surviving on meager meals.
The name Yan Xiu surfaced in his mind, clear and undeniable.
"This… this body's name," he murmured, clutching his head as the flood of memories continued.
Yan Xiu, a Trial Disciple of the High Heaven Pavilion. A mere 7th Tempered Body stage cultivator, three steps away from breaking through to the Initial Element realm.
Images of Yan Xiu's life sharpened: sparring matches, lectures on cultivation, and the strict hierarchy of the sect. Trial Disciples like Yan Xiu were at the very bottom, scraping by with limited resources and constantly at risk of being expelled if they didn't show progress.
"This isn't me," the boy thought, his breathing quickening. "These memories… this life… it's not mine."
Yet, as foreign as they felt, they came with an undeniable sense of reality. The feel of calloused hands from gripping practice swords, the burn of sore muscles after hours of training, the sting of humiliation from losing a duel—all of it felt vivid and real.
But one thing was certain: he wasn't Yan Xiu.
"I was… someone else," he muttered, struggling to hold onto the fragments of his past self. But no matter how hard he tried, his previous life was a blank slate. Only the void remained—a suffocating emptiness that offered no answers.
His fingers tightened into fists as he sat up, his body moving instinctively, guided by the muscle memory of Yan Xiu's life. The movement was fluid, practiced—a testament to years of discipline in martial training.
"High Heaven Pavilion…" he murmured, the name resonating with a sense of awe and foreboding.
His thoughts were interrupted by a faint whisper in his mind.
[The game starts.]
He froze. The voice from the void—it hadn't been a dream.
Before he could process the words, a translucent golden hourglass appeared before his eyes, spinning slowly in the air. It was faint, like a mirage, but its presence was undeniable.
"Wh-what is this?" he stammered, reaching out to touch it. His fingers passed through the hourglass as if it weren't there, but the moment he focused on it, words began to appear.
[Would you like to start your first Life Simulation?]
To be continued...
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I wanted to try out writing another fanfiction, this time with a system. I will release chapters of this work less frequently than "Naruto: The Medical God" but I hope that you will follow this work anyway.
Also, don't forget to check out my original novel Hyperborea!