Robert had become a dark mass of energy in the void. Darkness surrounded him, there were random white specks of light that made the void look like a starry sky.

The dark mass that had been Robert Wood wandered aimlessly.

He could sense a mass of light, like a Will-o'-the-wisp that appears sometimes in a distance, and he followed it into a cloud of dark energy. There were flashes of energy in that cloud. Some as small as distant stars, some as bright as the full moon, but they all dissipated into the darkness exploding like a bright firework.

He didn’t know how many eons had passed, he didn’t know what those specks of light were. He waited. While it felt like only a second had passed, it also felt like an eternity.

And suddenly new lights started appearing. They formed a human body and all the major veins and energy channels were ablaze. They didn’t dissipate as fast as the other lights.

The human-shaped light started to suck in the surrounding specks of light. The dark mass that was Robert was also attracted to them. Another one of this human-shaped energy body appeared and specks of lights started flowing into the body again. Finally, it also started to dissipate. Suddenly an explosion of energy formed near the body. The explosion gave birth to a cloud of light which was absorbed by the body. Vortexes began to form at many points of the body, and everything in the vicinity of them got sucked in. The dark mass representing the consciousness of Robert Wood was also sucked into one vortex.

“Ah...”

Gasping for air Robert opened his eyes, his body was like a human porcupine, silver needles pierced every inch of his body. The needles were absorbing what looked like a white cloud of mist from a blue stone with the bright core that was lying beside him.

The world turned dark, again.

A hand tearing a hole through space pierced Robert’s body with another needle.

He felt helpless,

“This must be hell“, he thought.

“If I have another life, you devil, I’ll kill you a thousand times over!”

This voice and the face of a skinny old man, with an expressionless face, was the only thing he was able to perceive.

Out of the blue, memories of somebody else started flooding Robert’s mind. The last memories were clear as day, the older the memories went the foggier they became, like a foggy night.

He saw himself being tortured by an old man with a thousand needles.

While hunting in a lush rain forest, he saw himself being approached by a young man for help and following him into a tattered house.

Memories continued to flood his consciousness. The memory of that day, then that week, then a month before, on and on it went. The life of a young orphan boy with all its struggles was etched into Robert’s mind.

“So I am not in hell! Those were just memories!“

It took him a while to understand what had happened. He had somehow transmigrated into the body of a young man called Riley.

The matter-antimatter reaction, instead of destroying it, sucked his soul into an infinite void. And a weird ritual done by that skinny bald old man had put his soul into the body of Riley.

Slowly opening his eyes, he woke up to his new world.

Robert was lying in wooden bed, the dark wooden bed had veins of an amber glow. Lifting his head he saw the walls of a room covered by plants. The different plants grew so thick that they covered every inch of the wall. It was only when he rose up that he understood the warmth of the bed he was lying in. The glowing amber veins had heated up the bed somehow.

Riley’s memory made it possible for him to recognize some of these plants on the wall as medicinal herbs. He had picked them in the woods to sell them at the pharmacy.

An orb of light floated in the air above the bed, illuminating the whole room in a warm glow.

He slowly got up. As he was about to get out of bed a smiling old man, his head bald and beard white, dressed in a snow white cloak, came into the room. Riley’s memory told him that he was the lone healer in this village, Westfae. His name was Gereon, he was a benevolent man who was born in this village and traveled throughout the Lorvale nation to learn the art of herbal medicine. Finally, after mastering the art, he came back to the village to establish a hospital and help the village prosper. The village attracted many people from even distant cities seeking care from Gereon.

“Oh, you are awake,”

The old man appeared to be genuinely happy that Riley was awake.

“All thanks to you sir,” Robert spoke.

“No no, this old man did what he could with his herbs but your body was in a dire state. You slept for a month and anything that might have hastened the process along would have been too expensive. You had only one silver with you. All I could do was to give you a safe place in this herb garden. It was only your luck that you got better. ” the old healer didn’t hide the truth from Riley.

Riley's memories confirmed that. Even if he wanted to get treatment, he couldn’t afford it. Riley didn’t even own anything that he could have pawned to get more money. All Riley had was the hut he lived in and the stuff in it.

Riley had a well-built body for an 18-year-old guy. His hair color was a mixture of black and red, his eyes were also black with a red tint. He was average looking, in his opinion, but compared with everyone else in the village he certainly was above them.

In this world, everyone seemed to possess the power of magic. Although Robert was not sure how it could be explained scientifically, there seemed to be an overabundance of energy in this world. Perhaps it was the dark energy that scientific community had debated in his former world.

It could be said that Riley’s magic power was normal. He could summon fire arrows which he used to hunt wild animals, but his limit was an arrow every hour.

This world had wild animals as well as spirit animals. The latter possessed magical abilities. With Riley's magical power, even if there were ten of him, he wouldn’t be able to even hurt a spirit animal.

After expressing his thanks, many times, Robert bid his farewell to the elder. “He truly is a benevolent man,“ Robert noted the help given to him as a debt in his mind. “In the future, when I'm able to, I must repay this debt.“

Robert was at a loss concerning his identity. He had already died, only his consciousness remained, this was Riley’s body. “I also own his memories. So who am I?“

Pondering about it for a while Robert decided to go with the name Riley in this village. “This is not earth. Robert doesn't belong here. Roberts dream of being a pioneer in the field of physics is gone now. But I'm in an unknown world with nothing holding me back. “ A grim expression appeared on Robert’s face. “Except maybe revenge on that old man who tortured and killed Riley,“

After a short pause, Robert added "And all the other innocent people..."

Gereon had, although hesitantly, told him about the gore the villagers found in the tattered house, and among the dead bodies were 4 of Riley's friends. Those four were Riley's only friends. This made all the sweet memories that Riley had with them resurge into Robert's mind.

Surviving as an orphan in any world was truly hard, Robert thought about when he was in the orphanage. He had it easy, the orphanage fed him to his fill. The only thing that bothered him there was the absence of kids of his age. To escape from this, Robert had taken the library as his friend. Day and night, he spent there, reading new things.

The bald old man’s face and the final cry of Riley were forever etched in his mind, he could also imagine how all the other victims felt, he had experienced it first hand.

Dread, helplessness, anger.

As he was walking through the village he noticed that most of its houses were made out of logs. Only a few buildings were made with something resembling cement.

Robert wanted to know more about this world. He wanted to know if he had ]traveled through space and time and, if possible, find out where this world exists relative to his old world.

Robert spent the silver to buy a few books about this world from a general store that seemed to have almost every merchandise that a village needed. There were light orbs, food grains, magical kilns, cauldrons, basic books of magic, and so on. Riley bought “The history of Eastly continent” and “Magic for Dummies”.

The storekeeper gave Robert a strange look when he heard that Robert was there to buy books, but then he broke into a slight smile before taking out the books from a shelf behind him.

Robert wanted to understand what this magic was, as it seemed to be the base for power in this world.

The books had thick leather bindings. “Magic for Dummies” had runes inscribed in the bindings and the history book had a map of the Eastly continent on its front page.

After spending a whole night reading the two books, Robert finally understood something about the world, as well as magic.

The Eastly continent was one of the two main continents humans have discovered. This mega-continent was divided into NorthEastly and SouthEastly. Both controlled by an empire. It had 2 Empires and 21 kingdoms in total. Both these empires were at constant war for centuries.

The Westfae village existed in SouthEastly, in a Kingdom called Lorvale, the nearest city was Goldfair city. This information was not in the books originally but written by hand in the back of the book.

“Magic for Dummies” introduced him into the world of magic. It had a brief history of magic itself, the main schools of magic and the classification of magic.The magic had many different types.

The elementary magic consisted of Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Wood.

Then there were the classes of Light and Dark. While Light added the power of creation to an element, dark added the power of destruction.

The element was determined at a child’s birth. But the class was chosen by the user. So there existed dark and light magus of each element.

The light magus of water used their power to heal, while the dark magus of water can create ice spikes that impaled their enemies.

The light fire magus could purify ores and the dark fire magus would end up destroying it in the process.

Those who chose the class of creation, had a peaceful life in the cities, while those who practiced dark magic fought for their country.

There were also different stages of power for magic. Starting with “normal”. From there it went to apprentice -> journeyman -> expert -> master. The stages were further divided into 10 levels each. The book also speculated about the existence of higher levels but didn’t into the details.

Right now Riley was a normal fire magic user level 5.

Robert willed and formed a small candle-like flame on his index finger and thus used magic for the first time.