Chapter 1: the unexpected transmigration.

  Alex, 24 years old and slightly overweight, was a talented chef. He had recently been fired from the restaurant where he worked—not because of his skills, but due to the shop’s financial troubles. Thankfully, it wasn’t a big deal for him,he had been saving for years and was already planning to quit soon to open his own small restaurant. Be his own boss.

  He had no close friends or family, having grown up in an orphanage. He didn’t attend college, but he had a sharp mind and a natural talent for cooking.

  After being fired—well, technically, after quitting ahead of schedule—Alex decided to take five days off and travel to the countryside for some fresh air.

  On the third day of his trip, life threw him a completely unexpected twist.

  ***

  In a small bedroom with simple decorations, a slightly overweight young man lay sprawled across a 1.4 meter-wide bed, sound asleep. He looked completely exhausted.

  He was so deep in sleep that he didn’t even stir when a wisp of black smoke seeped through the gap beneath the door and surged toward him like lightning, covering the distance between the door and the young man in an instant. The temperature dropped, and eerie sounds filled the once quiet room.

  The smoke wrapped around the sleeping man like a predator, cloaking him in darkness.

  Moments later, the smoke began to dissipate.

  But the young man was no longer in the bed. to be precise, he was not even in the room or the hotel.

  Of course, that man was none other than our protagonist—Alex.

  ***

  Waking up with a splitting headache, Alex groaned and rubbed his forehead.

  “I didn’t drink anything last night…” he muttered, confused.

  He tried to sit up, but his hand pressed against something cold, hard, and rough. Surprised, he opened his eyes—and what he saw shocked him more than anything in his 24 years of life.

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  He wasn’t in a hotel bed. Heck, he wasn’t even in a room.

  He was in a huge hall. A breathtaking, beautiful rocky Hall, its walls adorned with glowing moss and luminous plants of all colors—blues, purples, reds, and even golden hues that pulsed like slow heartbeats. Small crystalline veins shimmered in the rocks, and a soft breeze carried an earthy, oddly sweet aroma.

  Alex froze. His brain struggled to comprehend what was happening.

  Even stranger, his slightly chubby arms were gone—replaced with lean, toned ones brimming with an unfamiliar strength.

  Not that he was weak before, but this new body… it felt like—no, it was a completely different level.

  In fact, his entire body had changed. It felt foreign, like he’d been given someone elses' physique. He touched his smooth, firm cheek and ran his fingers through his now shoulder-length hair.

  “Where… am I?”

  “Who am I?”

  “What’s happening…?”

  Three questions burst out of his mouth in quick succession.

  But as the headache gradually faded, a new surprise surfaced.

  There were unfamiliar memories in his head. Though scattered and faint, he knew it was not his

  After slowly piecing things together, Alex came to a wild—but also the only reasonable conclusion he could think of.

  He had transmigrated.

  The idea wasn’t baseless. First of all, this body was definitely not his. Even without seeing his face, the drastic differences were undeniable. Just the sensation of his now smooth jawline compared to his previous one was proof enough.

  “Even if I am sometimes shameless, I’m not dumb enough to think two days of light exercise did this.” he muttered as he continued to inspect himself and the cave.

  As for why he believed he had transmigrated rather than awakened some superpower? Aside from being a web novel fan, he had a strong reason, the foreign and unfamilier memory.

  “Transmigration really is unpredictable… I gave up on these fantasies back in my teens. And just when I was finally about to be called ‘boss’…” He sighed.

  Despite his complaints, Alex wasn’t truly angry. After all, the body he now had was strong—clearly powerful. This was the kind of fantasy beginning others could only dream of.

  “It’s not like just having the money for the capital would guarantee a successful restaurant…” he mumbled. “Still… all my savings… are going to waste. I could’ve at least donated it to the orphanage…” he pull his now shoulder-length hair, stomping his foot in frustration.

  "But, how did i transmigrate? don't tell me i died? i mean, i did not work overtime, nor did i got hit by a truck. i just died while still on vacation, in the middle of a goodnight sleep? that absurd." Alex was confused, but still... his life has always been absurd, just thinking of the fact that he only ate once or twice a day and walked to work everyday, but still so fat, his mouth couldn't help but twitch.

  He thought to himself 'that even more absurd'.

  After venting, he took a deep breath and began sorting through the jumbled memories in his head, trying to extract as much useful information as he could.

  It took a few minutes, but once he was done, his expression darkened.

  “...What a mess.”

  The body he transmigrated into was named Xalo. He was not born an orphan, but became one at the age of eleven because of war.

  This world is very dangerous. An apocalypse world were humans battle against monsters who suddenly appear on their planet; they were only eight monsters in the beginning called Monster Queens but those eight monsters had a terrifying reproductive system. They can give birth to hundreds of monster a day, as long as they have sufficient nutrients.

  Monsters have the ability to absorb blood from other creatures, but only the Monster Queens can use those blood to grow stronger, or as nutrients to give birth.

  Fortunately the humans in this world have powerful people amongst them—called Cultivators. Cultivators are very powerful people, not weaker than monsters; there are even powerful Cultivators who can slay Monster Queen.

  Unfortunately those monsters came at the time of kingdom war; they absorbed a large amounts of blood from the battlefield to create millions of monsters and attacked cities with fewer Cultivators.

  But those were not why Alex was speechless. It was the fact that the memories were incomplete.

  The memory stop when Xalo was twelve years old, and looking at his current body which is definitely more than twenty years old.

  “-“ Alex was speechless.

  “How am I going to survive in a fantasy world with more than seven years of memory missing?“ he wondered.

  Author note:

  Thanks to everyone for reading my novel, this is my first novel and the first chapter, please enjoy.