Chương 1: Despairing Realization.

"Ugh, my body feels like lead. I don't even remember having any drinks last night." I mumbled while struggling to get my eyes open. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in complete darkness, floating amid nothingness. In panic, I tried to open my eyes even wider, but nothing came into sight.

"Oh my god! I am blind!" I tried to rub my eyes, but found I didn't have any hands. Actually, I don't even feel any of my limbs. Instead, I feel like I've turned into a sort of cloud that floats in the sky.

"Ahhhhh?!?!?!" After a few silent screams, I slowly calmed down.

"What's the matter with this floating feeling. Did I get sent to space while sleeping? Or am I being kidnapped and used for some kind of alien experiments?" I commented as I observed the pure black emptiness around me. Sifting through my blurry memory, I tried to remember which event led me to this place. The last thing I remember is sitting on my comfy couch, watching TV while waiting for my popcorn to pop. Then there is a sudden, loud explosion from my kitchen.

Did I die because of an explosion, or because I overcooked popcorn and pulled the god's wrath? Anyway, I've died for real. Accepting I've died so easily might seem weird. But when I tried to recall things, the memory of being burned by an explosion also returned. The explosion had thoroughly burned my body, the kind that's burnt on the outside and crisp on the inside. Luckily, I died pretty quickly and neatly, so I don't feel that much trauma from my death.

Right after I looked at my surroundings and accepted my status as a deceased person, an unknown memory hit me right in the brain. The size of that memory is quite enormous and made me feel dizzy. Slowly, those memories merged with the others in my mind, and the headache lessened. After I sorted out those memories, I found out it actually contained information about cheats, or specifically, cheats that I've awakened.

I called it cheats because it consisted of several abilities that were connected yet distinct from one another. First is an ability I named [Devour]. It is the ability to swallow souls and convert them into energy that can be used to upgrade or activate my other abilities. No matter how I see it, the ability to devour souls sounds demonic. When I looked into it further, I instinctively felt there were some unknown limitations, upgrades, and hidden features to the ability.

But that information is quite blurry, and I can't retrieve it from my memory no matter how hard I try. I suppose I need to find out about it myself later. Next, there is an ability I called [Calculate]. It's an ability that increases my calculation, memorization, and memory retention. Thanks to the boost from the [Calculate] ability, I could clearly recall most of the details from my previous life. What a pity, most of my memory is somehow missing.

Except for the moment before I died, the memories I could recall mostly consisted of the endless hours I spent reading online novels, manga, or watching dramas and anime. Even the memories related to my name, friends, and relatives are blurry. At most, I know my mother is a female human, and my father is a male human. Whether they're caucasian, asian, or african, I have no memory at all. I don't understand why I can recall those useless novels when I've forgotten even my own name.

Are those novels really more important than my own name? Also, I feel kinda weirded out because I've realized I am pretty chill about losing most of my memories. Guess when you already lost too many things, you simply stop caring about it, huh? I think I lost my memories because of that explosion that led to my death. Maybe the blast messed up my brain a bit before I died? I didn't have enough clues, so I decided to just push that mystery out of my mind.

Anyway, like with [Devour], I can feel some unknown limitation and possible upgrades on [Calculate]. Moving on to the next ability, I simply called it [Scan]. It is the ability to scan my surroundings and gather information. As for the specific, just like the other two, I'll need to test them myself. Finally, the fourth ability is something I call [Anchor]. It is the ability to connect and anchor others into myself. Through the [Anchor] ability, I could spend energy to lend my cheat abilities to other people.

The abilities I lent remain within my control. I simply grant them secondary access to borrow it. Except for that, [Anchor] also allows me to exchange thoughts with the creature I anchored as long as they have met some sort of criteria. This ability sounds extremely overpowered, but equally weird. Furthermore, unlike other abilities, I could vaguely sense that this one had been activated, and an unknown person had been anchored to me. I tried to activate the ability to contact that unknown person.

Yet even after a long time has passed, there's still no response. So, I just shrugged it off for now. After I gave up on activating [Anchor], I rechecked my abilities. Soon, I couldn't help but complain. Why don't the memories include the limitations and upgrades of those abilities? Why must I test it on my own? Doing something halfheartedly is a bad habit, you know? This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Well, at least the current four abilities are good enough. That's right, 'current'. I found out those four abilities aren't the limit, as I could sense a few other abilities locked behind. For example, I sense an ability that's related to sending things from one place to another. Some sort of teleportation skill, perhaps. Except for this one, there are also a few other abilities that I have no clue about. Anyway, based on the years I've spent reading web novels and comics.

The skill sets I've already unlocked feel useful for the 'kingdom building' genre or for novels where the MC has OP comprehension. The [Calculate] skill fits the kind of novel where the protagonist has high comprehension and can learn any technique in an instant or slap faces by showing others their exaggerated learning speed. Meanwhile, the [Anchor] skill seems extremely useful for the kingdom-building genre, as it would allow me to lend my cheat skills to my future subordinates. Now then, I already got my cheat.

So, when can I leave this place and begin my journey to build the greatest kingdom, sect, clan, nation, academy, or whatever? Fantasy world, here I come! I may be casual about this whole reincarnated thing. But that's because being sent to another world is my greatest dream! My wish is to obtain supernatural power, reach the peak of the other world, and trample every living creature under me. Mwahahaha!

＼⁠(⁠◎⁠o⁠◎⁠)⁠／ I am already prepared to build the most enormous palace in the world and fill it to the brim with my harem members, just like what a main character always does. Umm, now that I think about it. Actually, a palace full of a harem might be too much for me. I am afraid I might die from exhaustion if I indeed got thousands of harem members. Furthermore, I prefer the pure romance genre between one male and one female character rather than a harem.

So, even if I built a kingdom, I'll be the kind of king who only has one wife. I continued my flight of fancy for an unknown length of time before I ran out of things to think about. Doing nothing while getting stuck in this empty space is making me feel bored out of my mind. So I decided to spend my time testing the abilities I had and trying to sense the energy often mentioned in the instincts, like the memory I got. First, I tried to activate [Scan] to detect my surroundings and check my current condition.

The instant [Scan] is activated, I sensed the world through a special state. The darkness around me is still pitch black as usual. But there is now a new thing floating around the center of my [Scan]'s radius. From what I could understand, those things are formless and shapeless yet truly exist. The reason I can see them now is only thanks to [Scan]. After slowly reviewing the information I got from [Scan], I suspect those floating things are the energy often mentioned in the memories related to my abilities.

Curious, I tried to control how that energy moved. I didn't immediately get the ability to control them. But, after tinkering for a moment, I finally found a way to manipulate them to a certain extent. As I willed it, that energy actually changed their trajectory. The energy that initially moved at random has now taken a circular trajectory, with me at its center. After a few circulations, I tried to stop them all at once.

Seeing them stopping at the same time, I played around with them for a long time before I felt bored and stopped. Then I tried tinkering with the other skills, but I stopped when I got no reaction. Unlike [Scan] and [Calculate], which can be used everywhere, the [Anchor] and [Devour] abilities require a target to use. Feeling a bit irritated from such a long wait, I shouted into the nothingness.

"I am bored! Let me reincarnate in another world already!!!"

After an unknown amount of time passes. While I am wasting time by drawing 3d shapes with the energy I have, I sense a reaction from my [Anchor]. I don't know what's going on, but not long after I felt that sensation, the darkness in front of me slowly receded, and I finally felt something new. It's the familiar feeling of having a physical body that's bound by gravity. I tried to open my eyelids, but realized I couldn't control my body. Am I in a coma?

Or am I still inside my mother's belly like those usual reincarnation stories? But I don't feel the warmth of the amniotic fluid around me. Aside from the inability to control my body, there is some kind of membrane separating my senses from it. To say it in a comprehensible term, it is similar to the feeling of wearing a thin, full-body rubber suit. I can still feel something soft beneath me, but the feeling is slightly dull.

I can also hear some noises, but they're pretty muffled, almost like they're coming through a thick wall. While thinking about the whole rubber full body suit nonsense, 'I' finally opened 'my' eyes. What comes into my view is a wooden room with stone tiles and a dressing table standing near the corner of my vision. After staring into the surroundings, a confused voice sounded from 'me'.

"An unfamiliar room… Wait a minute, where am I? Was I kidnapped?" Shocked by the word that 'I' uttered without any conscious command, I immediately panicked and tried to move my arms. Yet, the action proved futile and merely increased my panic. What's happening?! Why couldn't I control my own body? After several futile attempts at controlling this body, I somehow missed the empty space. Although there is nothing in that space, at least I could still control my own nonexistent body.

When that thought of that empty space came into my mind, I felt myself returning to the dark, empty space I am familiar with. But this time, there is a difference compared to before I entered that body. Compared to before, I could now pinpoint that the one connected to my existence through [Anchor] is the owner of that body I previously entered. Well, what a sad realization. I thought I had finally left that dark space, but the fact is, I have just possessed someone's body for a short time.

No wonder I couldn't control that body; it is actually someone else's body, and they're most likely still alive. Focusing my attention toward the person connected by [Anchor], I feel the surrounding darkness change into the view of that room I previously saw. Having already understood what was happening, I calmly watched the scene while trying to analyze it. From the current view, the owner of that body seems to have just woken up from his bed and ceased panicking.

I saw their sight move toward the dressing table as they slowly stood up from the bed. Once they arrived in front of the dressing table, they stared into the bronze mirror located above it. The mirror reflected a bruised boy with shoulder-length hair. That boy wore a complicated ancient Chinese garment, the kind that seems like something nobles wear in historical dramas. The kind of idol historical drama casting handsome and beautiful people who won't get dirty even during war scene.

In the mirror, that boy touched his face in disbelief as he muttered.

"This unfamiliar body and clothing style… Did I transmigrate to another world?" Hearing his words, I feel like cursing my fate. Why am I stuck in this silent darkness while this guy can easily transmigrate to another world to have an adventure and whatnot? Furthermore, from the way this guy acted, he doesn't seem to get stuck in a dark space like me. After all, if I finally leave this dark space, the first thing I would do is shout 'I Am Free!' or at least kiss the ground around me like a madman.

Now, if only he got a cheat, then my envy might reach its limit, and my patience might snap... WAIT A DARN MINUTE! Once the thought of cheats arrived in my mind, a sudden realization struck me. Those amazing cheat-like abilities I have, being stuck in an unknown space, the description of [Anchor] that says I can lend my skill to creatures anchored to me, and the fact that there's a transmigrator anchored to myself already... DID I TURN INTO THE CHEAT?! Am I going to get stuck in this empty space forever?

༼⁠; ⁠´⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠۝⁠ ⁠༎ຶ⁠༽