Chapter 3

Translator: Exodus Tales

Editor: Exodus Tales

A night passed.

As the horizon lit up with the rising sun, Fang Zheng finally completed organizing the memories in his brain and understood his situation.

First of all, it was true that he had died. This fact made Fang Zheng quite speechless himself, since all the while he’d seen himself as a rather careful person, always used to making the most preparations to deal with all risks and accidents of varying types. From breaking up with his girlfriend to the bankruptcy of his company, to when his business partners ran away with the money, to when a mugger tried to kill and rob him and to when he had encountered a drunk driver while crossing the road. All sorts of risks and possible accidents were always considered by Fang Zheng, and possible responses pre-emptively prepared. 

He liked this sensation of having control over everything in his life, using that stable, unchanging mentality to deal with all the unpredictable changes of the world. That was his philosophy, and that was also why he had the success he had today.

What he had not expected was for life to always be so mysterious, hitting him with accidents beyond his wildest expectations and preparations.

Like when he’d jumped into the river to save someone, he’d never thought that he’d be able to successfully save that person, and to just be underneath a telephone wire pole as one of those wires snapped and fell onto him. He’d been watching the ambulance take the person he’d rescued away as that happened.

And now, unexpectedly, he was dead, just like that, rebirthed into another world.

And as for the things that happened to the original owner of this body that he’d reincarnated in, Fang Zheng found himself equally speechless as well.

Putting it simply, it wasn’t quite that complicated an event. He had this treasure thing that the small nobleman had, and just a while ago, some knights from a holy church of sorts were pursuing him for what they claimed as an unholy treasure. Demanding that he hand that treasure out, the treasure that his family had passed down, the nobleman refused, naturally. Thinking that’d be it, he made the knights leave and left it at that… Only for those very knights to return the same knight, attacking his home and raining down a massacre.

And this person named Williams was merely small-time nobility. He’d never seen anything like that happen before, and so he took his treasure and left in a fright. Originally, he had planned to go into the city to look for the other nobles to come to his aid, only to realize that the city of the holy church had announced Williams and his family to be involved with evil forces. They were sentenced to be hunted down and killed.

The holy church commanded utmost respect in this piece of the mainland, and the noble family that Williams belonged to were small fry in the first place. There was nothing that could be done in resistance, and without much of a choice, they could only choose to flee- to no avail. They all lost their lives here at the hands of the city of the holy church.

With a third-person view like the one Fang Zheng was thinking from, it was without a doubt that this holy church must be the type that looked all proper and righteous, while its members were in actuality the vile type of men who liked to play with little boys. Yet, after absorbing all of this little nobleman’s memories, Fang Zheng discovered, to his dismay, that the kill order issued by the holy church…

Had not misaccused this nobleman at all.

After all, according to Williams’ memories, his family only kept the front of worshipping and believing in the goddess- in truth, they were strong believers in a cult called “Doomsday”. This strongly believed that all things would come to an end- they claim that one day anything and everything would be destroyed, including the godly themselves. When the time came, the God of Destruction would be revived, and when it dominated the world, what the cult would do was to mince down the strength of those lapdogs of justice before the day came, and so on and so on.

Naturally, Williams’ family also had their underground connections, the dirty businesses that weren’t quite favorable in Fang Zheng’s perspective. Even if there weren’t a holy church deciding justice in the name of the gods, this family would’ve been executed a hundred times over in Fang Zheng’s own world already.

How come I’ve been reincarnated in the body of someone like this?

Thinking of this, Fang Zheng felt quite a headache. Other people getting into this type of situation would always get some guy with a deep vengeance, or the main character type that had to work in stealth, so how come he had to be reincarnated in some cultist who preached about doomsday?

What was even more troubling was that, after taking in Williams’ memories, Fang Zheng discovered that the holy church wasn’t the only one that had listed him as a wanted fugitive. Even the doomsday cult wasn’t a place where he could go back to, simply because that cult’s treasure had been destroyed in the process of his runaway!

How the treasure was destroyed wasn’t too important. Williams had simply decided to destroy both fighting sides in one final gamble as the church’s men closed in. Either he had horrible luck, or he’d messed up one of the steps, for when he channeled his magic into the treasure, it shattered in a burst. Williams fainted and died right there, with Fang Zheng entering at that point.

This guy deserved to be hunted down!

Fang Zheng could imagine that his life would be over if the cultist got to him and realized that he couldn’t return the treasure. They were a cult, after all, and it didn’t matter which world they were in. They all had their cruel methods and punishments, no end to them at all. One would not want to go through with something like that. It might be a bit better if the church got to you, after all, at least they’d just end you with one sword strike…

But even so, Fang Zheng knew that this was a world where power was everything, judging from Williams’ memories. There was magic, knights, dragons, undead, and all sorts of monsters here, and that wasn’t even mentioning the holy beings and angels… Different from the holy groups of Fang Zheng’s world, where they just prayed on faith alone. In this world, there really was something up in the clouds!

In comparison, while he was quite capable himself, there was nothing he could use to offer up a fight to those true practitioners of magic as well as those godly sword arts. As for this body he’d inherited? Well, Fang Zheng knew already that Williams’ was probably at the strength level of some knight’s squire or something. The cult of doom or something didn’t even give him any goddess’ blessing or anything like that either. Normally, it’d seem that just one of those knights from before would be able to handle ten Williams.

However, it was still fine. This world lacked many things, but it didn’t lack surprise.

With that, Fang Zheng raised his hands, and, following that motion, the beautiful, grand and thick book came into being once more. Only here did Fang Zheng carefully examine this book that appeared before his hands. It looked so rich and thick with text, but felt like a feather once he held onto it. On the great, dark black cover of the book, Fang Zheng could see a gem of radiating colors glimmering in the center. With this gem as the central focus, lines of silver circled and expanded from it, as if it were groups of stars orbiting in a galaxy.

Flipping open the book, Fang Zheng could see his name at the top, with an inward dent at the center. This dent had a beautiful piece of white gem, a cold, misty look on its surface. It felt frosty.

On the lower part of the page, there were three options: “Summon”, “Improve”, and “Teleport”.

This was what Fang Zheng had received after coming into this world; the Dimensional Codex!

The most important thing here, however, was that it was the system of a video game Fang Zheng had made before his reincarnation!

Looking at this hyper-familiar interface, Fang Zheng’s lip twitched. He’d only been guessing earlier, but now he was sure, this was the system he’d developed!

This was a new game still in development, called “Dimensional Codex”. In the game, the player assumed the body of a young person. They could decide their gender and features, and, following the game’s story setting, the player would be teleported through into a different world, waking up in a brand new one. They’d receive this great Dimensional Codex then, Dimensional Codex of Dimensional Spellbook, and begin their journey from there.

In the game, upon receiving this Dimensional Codex, the player would become a Dimensional Mage. As the name implied, this mage would be capable of moving between dimensions and could use this book to teleport himself to worlds of different sorts to gain Dimensional Points. These points he could then use to summon Soulstones that contained the ‘power of strong souls of other worlds’, as well as use it to Improve the Soulstones’ own properties.

At this moment, the one Fang Zheng was equipped with was the ‘Beginner’s Summon’ Soulstone that he’d just received after his first summon, the Soulstone of Lich King Arthas.

As the creator of this game, Fang Zheng naturally knew how the Soulstones should be used. There were two methods. One was purely by ‘inserting’ it into the book, giving Fang Zheng a permanent buff that would provide him certain blessings, until he used Dimensional Points to improve the Soulstone in the sense of leveling up in games, unlocking new abilities and skills.

The other one was to fully activate the strength of the Soulstone, and during the activation period, Fang Zheng could use all the power belonging to the being, not much different from the original’s strength, just like what he had done in the battle with the knights. It was power completely belonging to the Lich King, and before a phenomenon like that, even proper knights of the church wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Pity though, that the activation had its limited uses, however, cool it may feel. Firstly, activating it would start a cooldown period, like the cooldown in the skills of games. Other than that was the direct number of times the activation could be done. The Soulstone for summoning Arthas had only five uses, and once he’d use it all, the Arthas Soulstone would break and disappear.

As such, Fang Zheng would have to choose between summoning another Soulstone, or… Or dying.

User: Fang Zheng

Dimensional Points: 0

Equipped Soulstone: Arthas

Benefits: King of the Undead (Increases perception with undead by 50%, increases damage dealt to undead by 50%, increases protection against undead by 50%)

Strength: E (No different from a regular person)

Agility: D (Running faster than others has its uses)

Constitution: E (Getting killed means dying)

Perception: D (Looking and listening are basic functions to you)

Charisma: D (Unless one is blind, they will feel your outer beauty)

Equipped Skills: None

Specialized Quest: Curse of Frostmourne

This runeblade longs to consume souls in pain. Your task is to fulfill that desire…

Frostmourne hungers.

(The user is required to have no less than 1,000 in soul strength in the next mission. Mission success will result in random reward+1; Mission failure will result in the Curse of Frostmourne. Time limit, 24 hours).

“God…”

Looking at this quest, Fang Zheng couldn’t help but grit his teeth. He knew that the strength of souls basically meant human souls, and in order to complete this quest, one thousand lives must be taken…

These aren’t a thousand pigs he was told to kill! Even if it were a thousand pigs lining up, he wouldn’t have time to cut through all of them in one day!

But to give up on this quest? Hah! It wasn’t as if he never played World of Warcraft, he knew just how scary this sword could be! Frostmourne’s curse? Like hell, he’d be able to hold against that.

But, what troubled him was how he’d even gotten his hands on this thing. He knew perfectly that he’d just finished the setting’s framework of the system, and as for the other missions and the Soulstones that held them, Fang Zheng never completed that at all! The development of programming didn’t take place as well, but how come he was able to summon a Soulstone from this half-finished product? And to summon the Soulstone of the Lich King, of all things!

And this “Teleport” feature…

“Man…”

Looking at the interface before him, Fang Zheng took a long breath. If it were possible, he’d really rather not finish this mission. After all, who knew which world this system would throw him in? But, if he didn’t go, Fang Zheng knew perfectly well that he had no strength for resistance as he was now if the church were to send more men.

Fang Zheng had thought of just hiding in the mission world, of course, but unfortunately, he knew well that there was a time limit for the time spent in mission worlds. After all, he set that himself. Not only that but like the Soulstones, every time he left a mission world, the “Teleport” function would enter cooldown. It’d only be available again after a while, and Fang Zheng wouldn’t be able to just hide there forever, nor could he just keep doing missions to avoid the church or the cult altogether.

Other than improving his own strength, there wasn’t much to be done. Plus, he had a premonition that if he didn’t do quests now, it’d be much more of a complicated matter further down the road.

And his instinct was usually accurate.

“Teleport!”

With that, he stopped his hesitation and slapped the Dimensional Codex closed, mumbling the word. Soon, the book condensed into rays of brilliant circles, surrounding Fang Zheng and enveloping him. In the next moment, Fang Zheng’s figure disappeared instantly, followed by the dissipating of light circles as they vanished with him.

The flapping of winds thundered. It was not long after Fang Zheng had disappeared when a number of pegasi descended down on where the man had been a moment ago.

“My sisters, what do you think?”

On the pegasus was a man who seemed to be dressed in similar white knight’s armor. He inspected the ground and spoke softly. A female knight on another horse closed her eyes and perceived her environment before shaking her head.

“I don’t feel any presence here, holy friend. He must have left.”

“Cursed cultist…”

The man held his fist closed after hearing the reply.

“Not only has he murdered our people in cold blood. He’s sullied their bodies and souls as well! This behavior is unforgivable! In the name of the Goddess of Law, we cannot allow our warriors to die in vain! Justice must prevail!”

With that, the man waved his arm in an arc.

“We must go, search on! That cultist must not have gone far! Scour the land for that man!”