As I lay bleeding out onto the dusty rubble that littered the grimy alleyway, I looked back on my short and miserable life.

Born to parents whose only reason to have a child was to claim benefits from the state, I grew up dirty, lonely and avoided by classmates.

I never really made friends and ended up stuck in a monotonous dead-end job that barely paid enough to cover the rent in my shoddy one room apartment in the dangerous part of town.

Even in the corporate world I was an outcast, shunned by my fellow office drones. I often ate lunch alone and was the last to leave work after completing tasks my lazy bosses dumped on me.

Thus, one evening on the walk home in the pouring rain, with only a rusting umbrella covered with holes to keep me dry, I found myself face to face with an armed mugger.

Despite handing over all of my valuables, a meagre collection containing my off brand phone, a dirt cheap electronic watch and the minuscule amount of cash I kept in my wallet, they still decided to stab me three times.

Perhaps it was for the best. I hadn’t really been living, just existing. Drifting through while doing my best to stay afloat. As my vision faded I felt something tugging on my consciousness.

“Congratulations mortal, you have been chosen for reincarnation! You will be granted power beyond your imagination in a brand new world. Make the most of it.”

I couldn’t believe my luck. Reading endless webnovels and various manga had been one of the only hobbies I had. It was a great way to escape the miserable repetition of my existence.

It seemed I was going to become the main character in my very own story. I felt the pull at my ethereal body once more, and excitement grew as I readied to see what I would reincarnate as.

I realised too late that something had gone wrong. I watched as my soul was dragged through a portal, leaving my consciousness behind in this dark and empty space.

HELP!

I tried to scream out to whatever deity had brought me here, but no words would come out. I had no body after all.

As the portal closed I felt a crushing weight on my consciousness beginning to grind what remained of me into nothing. It seemed my afterlife was fated to be just as pitiful as my life.

~ ~ ~

Kade was woken up rather rudely as a wave of ice cold energy washed over him. He’d thought it was just another one of his fellow disciples playing a prank, but looking around he discovered his bedroom was empty.

He went to brush his teeth, as he usually did to start the day, but fell back on his ass in surprise as words began to appear in his mind, seemingly from nowhere.

Unknown System Anomaly detected

Threshold for awakening has been met

Cannibalising Unknown System Anomaly to initiate awakening…

Kade’s body suddenly felt searingly hot and sharp pains erupted in his head, bones and muscles. He struggled to remain conscious amid the stinging agony.

As an outer disciple of Mystic Solar Valley, Kade was not any ordinary mortal, although his cultivation had only reached the second stage of martial refinement after seven years in the sect, making his progress utterly underwhelming when compared to his peers.

Even so, someone at his cultivation level could withstand a blow from an elephant, so it was easy to imagine just how powerful this mysterious force was to cause such destructive pain.

Ultimately, the combination of the brutally intense headache and burning muscles and bones were too much for Kade to handle, and he passed out on the floor of his bedroom.

His second awakening was much gentler and the indescribable agony that had wracked his body earlier had vanished as if it was simply a dream, but the fact he was laying on the floor rather than in his warm, soft bed told him that wasn’t the case.

There were also the mysterious words that once again permeated his mind as a reminder of his rather traumatic morning as well as a rather nasty smell coming from a film of black goop covering his body.

Realm Engineer System has been awakened

The system is currently at Tier 1, consume further system anomalies to increase its tier

Excess energy from cannibalisation has been used to reinforce host body

System functions have been unlocked: Anomaly Identification, Fate Assimilation

Cannibalised anomaly has been identified as [Battle God Gacha System]

Kade struggled to make sense of the odd messages being planted in his mind. The only part that he somewhat understood was the message about reinforcing his body.

A quick internal inspection followed by throwing out a few punches was enough to inform him that his cultivation had risen by two entire stages, firmly placing him in the fourth stage of martial refinement.

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Such speed of improvement was unheard of in the entire world! Rising two stages in just a single morning was a mythical feat.

Unfortunately for Kade, this rise in his cultivation only increased his status in the sect from pathetic to average. A large portion of the disciples recruited in the group after his, just three years ago, had already surpassed his cultivation.

On the plus side, he at least now had a chance of making it into the inner sect during the next round of examinations. At his previous rate of progress he had been at risk of being kicked from the sect for being a drain on their resources.

He slowly got to his feet, still slightly shaken despite his body feeling completely revitalised. It was only now that he noticed his sleeping robe was stained red with blood around a small cut in the fabric over his heart.

It looked suspiciously like someone had stabbed him, but there was no wound on his body. An intriguing mystery that he would have to solve. That one might actually be a prank from his fellow disciples.

It was just the kind of psychologically tormenting ‘fun’ that Kade was often subjected to. His lacking talent had made him the target of many a bully or spoiled young master over the years in Mystic Solar Valley’s outer sect.

Furthermore, the inspection of his chest for a stab wound had revealed that his treasured necklace had vanished. The item in question had been in his possession since he was a child.

The necklace itself was nothing more than just a leather strap he found lying around in his home village, but the enigmatic pendant was a mysterious gemstone he’d discovered as a young boy.

For some reason, when he held the deep purple gemstone close by, Kade felt a tremendous sense of comfort and safety, and so he’d fashioned it into a necklace to ensure it was always with him.

He really hoped it hadn’t been stolen in his sleep. The pranks he could let slide, since the only thing they tended to wound was his pride. The necklace however, was his most prized possession and gods save whoever had dared to snatch it.

The first thing he did was wash himself in his tub, thoroughly scrubbing every inch of his body to get rid of the disgusting smell of the impurities that breaking through two stages had pushed out.

For the last ten minutes while Kade had been washing himself, the words Fate Assimilation had been flashing in his mind, almost begging him to interact further.

He was unsure how exactly to activate whatever was supposed to happen, but simply focusing on the words seemed to do the trick, bringing new options to the forefront of his consciousness.

New fate has been cannibalised, would you like to assimilate or store it?

Assimilate | Store

The words in his mind had mentioned cannibalising and systems quite a few times now, but Kade still had no clue what most of it meant.

Fate on the other hand, was something he had a rudimentary grasp on. It determined the path one would follow in life and what they were destined to encounter and become.

Many sages interpreted the stars when a child was born and used that as a measure of how great their destiny was fated to be.

Kade was a bit sceptical of the entire field and believed people could forge their own lives through hard work, but divination and karma were certainly real, and so far all of his hard work had amounted to nothing compared to this fateful incident, so perhaps it was time to refresh his outlook.

As for the question posed to him, he was unsure how to proceed. It might be extremely dangerous to ‘assimilate’ the fate of another into his own, but he doubted any texts or scriptures he could find in the sect would have knowledge of this utterly unknown phenomenon.

So far he’d experienced the worst pain of his life at the hands of this strange intruder in his mind, but also had his cultivation massively boosted.

Rather than languish in mediocrity for the rest of his life, Kade decided to risk everything and trust this mysterious ‘system’ which had progressed his cultivation more in one day than his own seven years of effort, and opted to Assimilate.

FWOOSH.

A deluge of information and memories flooded his brain and Kade almost fell to the floor, just managing to steady himself on a nearby chest of drawers.

In the memories, he saw a young man living life on an entirely alien world - one without cultivation, but instead strangely advanced technology.

The life of this man was extremely pitiful, to the point that Kade felt tears welling up in the corner of his eyes. A loveless childhood followed by a near meaningless career in a strange metal and glass tower.

The violent death of the man was strangely comforting to Kade, as it was the only part of the memories that was somewhat similar to his own world. Death was normal in battles between cultivators and those at the peak of power reached said heights on a mountain of corpses.

Somehow, the man’s consciousness pervaded after his death and he encountered a mysterious being, perhaps some kind of deity. The deity promised him reincarnation and great power in a new world - one that looked oddly familiar to Kade.

He saw a portal opening and the man’s soul being dragged through, but his consciousness was left behind, doomed to be crushed under the pressure of the void.

Right before the memories ended, Kade peeked through the portal, his eyes widening in surprise at the scene on the other side.

He saw himself, peacefully sleeping - his treasured necklace still intact and around his neck. A masked intruder approached his body at the same time as the young man’s untethered soul.

The would-be assassin was about to strike Kade’s heart with a small dagger when a blinding flash of light burst forth from his necklace, blocking the view. When it faded the intruder was gone, the only evidence of his assault a small gash in his robe above his heart.

The soul then dove straight into Kade’s head, and it was then that the replay of the man’s memory ended. Everything lined up perfectly with the time that Kade had awoken.

Fate assimilation complete

Assimilated system anomaly was identified as a Rank 2 [Gacha] type

Realm Engineer Gacha has been unlocked

Through a series of utterly confounding coincidences, Kade had managed to survive an attempt on his life and receive mysterious powers meant for another. He had so many questions.

What was the flash of light that came from his necklace right before the assassin’s strike? Why had the man’s reincarnation gone wrong? What was that other world he saw in the memories? It was too much to think about right now, with his head still pounding from the overload of information.

All he knew was that his cultivation had progressed by leaps and bounds, and that he had a once in a lifetime opportunity to turn his ordinary and lacklustre life around.

He was about to try and figure out how to access the Realm Engineer Gacha, when a knock at his door interrupted him.

“Junior Brother Kade, the resource management elder has requested you report to her office. If you don’t show up there will be consequences,” shouted a high-pitched, nasal voice from outside.