Levi Winters woke up later than he wanted. The sun was shining on his face when he should have been up before the sun. Tapping his phone to check the time didn’t work. He tapped and tapped the black screen, and nothing happened. In a small bit of panic, he mashed the side buttons until the dreaded image appeared. An empty battery with a charging cord flashed, mocking him and reminding him how he failed to do a simple task. While reaching for his phone, he got a good whiff of his armpits. Horrified by the smell, he plugged in his phone and rushed to take a shower and eliminate said smell.

While in the shower, his phone recharged and turned on. It lit up, displaying notification after notification. It was clear Levi had missed something important. His phone kept beeping, buzzing, and lighting up until its owner returned. With a toothbrush in his mouth and the towel rubbing his head dry, Levi peered at his phone. There was a message from his boss, his friends, and his mother. They all had texted him. There was another notification he didn’t recognize.

They weren’t particularly urgent messages. His mother had sent him a reply to the game they were playing together. His friend had asked him how his date went last night. He thought about his date; it was average. It was not like anything was wrong with the woman she went on a date with, but he had entered a rut. The dates all had the same format: some kind of mediocre activity, a cheap dinner, and small talk. He came home and played video games for far too long, it was clear he forgot to charge his phone and wake up to his alarm.

The message from his boss was him trying to convince Levi to come back to work. Levi had just quit. Like dating, he felt like he was in a rut with work and wanted something new. After looking over the familiar notifications there was one that stood out the most. It was an odd symbol he had never seen before. It was blinking in and out, prompting Levi to touch it.

Congratulations, you have been accepted into the Summoners Guild.

Teleportation Sequence has been initiated.

“Summoner’s Guild? Teleportation?” Levi said. “What does that mean? What is-” Levi felt an odd sensation throughout his body. He felt like he was going through a loop d-loop on a roller coaster over and over. Tossing and turning, he blacked out.

…. Calibrating

…. Calibrating

…. Operating System has begun.

…. Teleportation completed.

Levi Winters has successfully been teleported to the world.

Levi woke up with a throbbing head. He had his towel in his hand and a toothbrush in his mouth. Scratching his head, he felt a massive bump. Levi tried to look around, but his eyes were so fuzzy he couldn’t really see anything. He rubbed his eyes to try to clear it up. In front of him Levi saw two people standing there giggling. They were girls, presumably sisters, but Levi had no idea. They were speaking but Levi could not understand a word they were saying.

To Levi, it sounded like gibberish. Levi sat up, holding his towel, and looked around. A terrifying fact dawned on Levi. If he was holding his towel, what was covering his private part? Standing up in a flash, he awkwardly wrapped the towel around his waist and smiled awkwardly at the two women.

“Uhh,” Levi said. “Sorry about that.” The women looked him up and down. Embarrassment took over even more as he looked at his scrawny body. One of the girls handed him a weird looking stone. The stone was about the size of a fist and purely white. She had a smile on her face, but Levi wasn’t sure if he should be trusting this stranger.

“What is going on?” Levi said, more so to himself. “Am I in a foreign country? Did I get teleported to Asia? These… uh girls. Are clearly Asian, but they are super tan. Uhhh...” Levi tried saying hello in the various Asian languages he knew. He was not well-versed in many languages, but he knew how to say hello. To his dismay, nothing worked. “I don’t know why I thought that would work?” The women looked at him with confusion.

“Why is the naked man just staring at us?” One of the girls said in her language. “Can you understand him?”

“I cannot,” the other replied. “It is strange that he doesn’t know the common tongue. It appears that he is trying to communicate with us. He is so skinny,” she said, turning her head to stare at him. “I haven’t seen someone so skinny in so long.” She gave the milk chocolate brown man before her an assessing look.

“He’s kind of cute, though,” the first girl responded.

“Why do you always go to looks right away, Piper?” the second girl asked, annoyance in her tone.

“I have eyes, Anna. Relax,” Piper responded. Anna rolled her eyes and pulled out a language stone. She had no idea if this man was a magic user; if he was not, it would just look like a stone.

“Maybe he’ll be able to use this?” Anna asked nervously. “But is he willing to trust us?” Holding out the stone, Anna waited patiently for the man to take it. He kept babbling in the same language and looking at the women. After a couple of minutes of the women putting on their best, ‘we’re not here to kill you smile’, Levi gave in and grabbed the stone.

Grabbing the stone, Levi looked over, turning it over in his hand. It was cool to the touch. The rock was smooth, but he felt something the longer he stared at the rock. A blue symbol started to appear. The symbol was a small pencil and piece of paper; staring deeper at the symbol, a dim light started to glow bigger and bigger. The light got so bright Levi had to shield his eyes. Shortly, the blue light had disappeared. The bright light left him seeing spots for several seconds. He rubbed his eyes and heard a voice.

“Did it work?” Piper asked.

“I don’t know, Piper. The glowing should indicate that it worked. But he is just staring at us…” Anna replied.

“Yes,” Levi responded. “I can understand you. My freaking eyes hurt.” he said, rubbing his eyes. “What did you do to me? Why can I understand you now? Where am I? Who are you two? WHY AM I NAKED??”

One of them giggled at Levi's panicked reaction. The other just stared at him with blazing intensity. The one who handed him the stone clearly indicated with her facial expressions that she was not happy with Levi. The two women were definitely not sisters. After getting a better look at them, they looked nothing alike.

The woman on the left, the one who gave him the stone, had Asian features and dark skin—what Levi thought to be a darker Sri Lankin. She had long, dark black hair slicked back into a neat bun and two little curls just above her ears. She had a button nose and dimples. Her eyes were hazel, which was prominent with her dark features. She was relatively tall, by Levi’s standards, and very fit. She looked like she had been an athlete her whole life. She was very attractive, the kind of attractive where it was clear she got a lot of free stuff. Levi assumed she was hit on constantly. She had a wand at her hip and carried a book. She wore what Levi assumed to be wizard robes. The robe was midnight blue with sparkles of white throughout it. The robe was a bit more form fitting than the cliche robes he was accustomed too, it reminded him of a witch from a popular superhero series he enjoyed watching. She had a cloak on as well that had a symbol of a book on each of the cloak’s clips.

The other woman, the one on the right, who was constantly giggling, also had Asian features, but she was lighter-skinned. It looked like she was from the Pacific Islands, like Hawai’i or Samoa. She had wavy brown hair that was down just past her shoulders. Her hair had two French braids that kept it from falling in her face. Her nose was a little larger, and her lips were a little fuller. Like the other women, she looked extremely fit and was stunning. Her grey eyes were captivating to look at, Levi kept getting lost in them. She had a short sword in a sheath at her waist. It looked like she also had some throwing knives attached as well. Her outfit was much more Jedi-ninja. Her outfit was form-fitting that covered her body. It looked like it was good to run in and hide in the shadows, as it was purely dark but offered little protection. She also had a cloak, but the pins were different symbols. It was a symbol of two daggers crossed against each other.

“Calm down,” The one with the wand said. “You clearly had too much fun last night.”

“Last night I played video games until way too late in the night,” Levi said.

“What are video games?” the other women said.

“What are your names? I keep calling you wand woman and the other woman in my head and that is not good.”

“You mean to tell me, that you don’t recognize her??” The other woman asked incredulously. “I’m Piper Vendular.”

“Uhh,” Levi said, scratching his head, once again feeling the lump and wincing. “No,”

“Quiet Piper. I am Anna,” she looked around frantically. “Sands…” she said unconvincingly.

“Anna Sands?” Levi asked back slowly.

“What is your name?” Piper asked.

“Levi Winters,” He responded.

“Winters?” Piper asked.

“I recognize the hypocrisy in my reaction and now we move on. Seriously though do you have any extra clothes I can wear or something?”

“Why?” Piper said, looking Levi up and down again. “Embarrassed.”

“Completely,” Levi replied. This drew a giggle from the women.

“There is a small town a few hundred meters that way,” Anna gestured the opposite way they had come. Piper was about to protest, but a sharp look from Anna shut that down immediately.

“Cool, appreciate it,” Levi said and started to walk away from the two.

“Anna,” Piper pleaded as the helpless man started walking away. “He has no money. He cannot buy anything. Why would you send him away without helping him?”

“Because, Piper, I am a princess. People want to kidnap, harass, and rob princesses. We cannot just help a half-naked man on a dirt road. He is not our problem, and we cannot concern ourselves with him anymore. Come on, friend. We must return before nightfall.”

“Yes, M’lady,” Piper said, frowning at the poor half-naked man. Anna frowned. Piper was never formal unless she was upset. Then, the formalities came out to show there was a clear power dynamic going on.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Levi started to wander into the small town. As he approached from a distance, he noticed some people were hanging their clothes. The houses looked older than he expected. They looked more like cottages than anything else—small brown cottages with low cobblestone walls. Levi counted 25 buildings that he could see, buildings that were not just houses. Electing to wait until night, he decided to hide in the bushes until night fell. Looking at the sky it was clear blue, it was quite pretty.

The sun was setting in the distance, and a few stars had already appeared for the night. Levi let his mind wander about his situation. He hugged his knees, which were under the towel and thought. The last thing he could remember was he was reading messages from people cause his phone had died. There was a weird symbol he touched. His eyes shot open wide.

“There was that voice,” Levi said. “It said something about a summoning glide or something like that. But it also said transportation ready!” As the reality of the situation dawned on Levi, he was unsure what to do. He was sitting on the grass, in a towel, with a toothbrush, waiting for nightfall to steal some clothes that may or may not fit. Closing his eyes he tried to take a deep breath in to calm himself but that didn’t work.

“Okay,” Levi said. “Let’s think about my options. 1) steal clothes. 2) enter the town naked and get some clothes without any money. 3) follow those girls, 4) cry. Yeah, those are all good options. I’m leaning towards option number four that seems to be the most plausible. What the hell man, I wish I had some sort of help.”

Help

A textbox appeared in Levi’s vision. “Uhhh,” he gave a mental command for yes.

Quest: Make it to the Summoner’s Guild

Objective - Go to the city of Arcross in the Onyx Kingdom

Reward for completing Objective - 1-star token.

“That’s not helpful,” Levi said.

Character Log: Levi Winters

Class: Summoner

Star Ranking - 1-star level 1

Ability: Ritualist

Ritualists are able to use skill books, use ritual magic, and create their own summoning and ritual circles with minimal materials needed. Base Mana pool is significantly larger.

Ability: Elected Stranger

You have been accepted into a guild in a new world with new things. Elected Stranger gives you the ability to understand the world from a chosen perspective. Customize perspective? Yes/No? Allows quests and objectives.

Ability: Locked

Ability: Locked

Ability: Locked

Stats:

Strength 10

Speed 10

Stamina 10

Vitality 50

Wisdom 100

Levi accepted the prompt to customize his perspective to understand the world around him. There was an option to choose his language. He chose English, since this was his first and most fluent language. The next prompt was to customize his vision. This reminded Levi of the video games he used to play. In the top left corner he added a map, he was excited hoping it would be helpful… it was not. Everything was grayed out except the start point where he landed and the few hundred meters he walked. Disappointed, he made the map hidden until he commanded it to show up.

On the right side of his vision, Levi added a health bar, mana bar, and stamina bar. The health bar was not what he expected, his options were limited. It was a small man that was grey, except a small yellow portion of his head, where the bump was. The mana bar was ten times the size of the stamina bar. The bar for mana was blue and the bar for stamina was green. Below that he had a small backpack icon, when he commanded it would open up his inventory. His inventory was huge, there were thirty boxes, each box had thirty open slots. Levi wondered if the items in this world would stack and if there was a stack limit. To his surprise he had already had some items in his inventory.

He tried giving a mental command to grab the item, but it didn’t work. This time Levi elected to reach out and try to touch the inventory box in his vision. He felt like this was augmented reality and the box wouldn’t be tangible, but it was. The feeling that it gave Levi was similar to touching a phone screen and somehow grabbing the item. Once he did, he looked down at his hand and he was holding clothes.

Item: Simple Pants

A basic pair of black pants.

Levi slipped on the pants. A screen appeared in front of him.

Player Customization

You may place any clothes, accessories, or familiars directly in the customization tab. In this tab you will be able to change quickly.

In the tab Levi saw that he also had underwear, a type of shirt, sandals, a belt, and a hat. Putting the underwear on immediately, he felt something change inside of him. For the first time in a few hours Levi was in control of something. He was no longer naked, confused, and afraid. He was just confused and afraid. Levi looked at the shirt, it was a brown tunic, it was not very comfortable or really his style. Levi’s frail body was completely hidden in the large tunic, it felt like he was wearing a burlap sack. The footwear he was wearing were sandals, some of his friends would have called them Jesus’ slippers. These were the most comfortable things he was wearing. The belt was black and made his sack of a shirt fit a little snugger.

“I look like a hobo from the 1600s,” Levi said out loud. Continuing to look at his U/I or user interface. He noticed there was a counter at the bottom. There were four types of coins. The coins varied in different sizes and colors. There was a copper piece, a silver piece, a gold piece, and another piece he couldn’t tell… diamond? Platinum? He assumed it was the highest value, it was the smallest of the four pieces.

All the counters were at zero. He had no money whatsoever. Which meant that he could not get any food to eat or place to rest. It looked like he was going to be camping the night away. By now the sun was almost gone and it was almost too dark. Levi had done some camping before, and he was a big fan of those nature tv survival shows so he knew the basics to survive. He walked away from the little town and grabbed some branches. He found several of the dead branches, which was convenient.

After some time, he was able to make a small fire and feel the warmth of the fire. Levi had cleared a small area to sleep. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him. It had been over 24 hours since he had eaten, and he was starving. The little man indicated where he was getting hurt showed his stomach start to turn yellow. The cautionary color of pain. Levi felt different being wherever he was, not emotionally or mentally. But physically. Physically he felt stronger, a little less tired. He never had the best posture; he never really had the best body type.

Only standing at six feet tall, he wasn’t the tallest person either. He weighed just about 125 pounds. Not heavy for people his size. Some would call it an unhealthy weight. Levi was never into sports or working out or doing anything that required physical activity. Although for a little bit he did start doing some yoga because his hips and core were so weak from sitting at a desk most of the hours of his day. Whether it was at his 9-5 or when he was playing video games and watching TV.

Levi sighed, “What am I doing here?” He was laying down looking at the sky. It was littered with stars. There were constellations he had never seen; he was pretty sure the moon was two times bigger. If anything confirmed he was no longer on Earth it was the sky. The one thing that Levi or other people could consider to be any type of activity is camping. He did really enjoy camping, he happened to live in a place where it rained all the time, and he hated getting wet, so camping was a summer/fall thing exclusively.

With his head resting on his hands, laying on his back looking at the stars. Levi wanted to do something, but he wasn’t sure what. He knew he had gotten a couple of quests but wasn’t sure what they were. He mentally acknowledged the screens to appear.

Quest: Tutorial

Complete all the necessary steps to prepare you for your next adventure.

Reward: Varied

4 of 5 completed.

Objective: Check Character Log - Completed

Reward: Star Token - Rank 0 x5

Objective: Check Inventory - Completed

Reward: Simple Pants

Reward: Simple Tunic

Reward: Simple Belt

Reward: Simple Sandals

Objective: UI Personalization - Completed

Reward: Basic Waterskin

Reward: Copper pieces x5

Objective: Player Customization - Completed

Reward: Star Token - Rank 0 x5

Objective: Level Up Stats

Levi pulled out the star token he had gotten. It was a small golden medallion that had fit nicely in his palm. It didn’t feel like metal but not like rock either, he couldn’t really distinguish what the material of the coin was. Not really knowing what to do, he had a feeling that he should eat the medallion. Levi had no idea what could have possibly compelled him to want to eat a token but what else was he going to do with it. Putting it in his mouth it quickly dissolved and was a tart flavor, not the worst thing he has eaten.

Star Token - Rank 0 has been consumed.

Where would you like to apply the small bonus to?

Levi was caught off guard. Where did he want to apply it to? He assumed that had to do with his stats he was looking at earlier. He looked at his body and had some guesses at what each of the stats did.

“What the hell,” Levi said. “Strength?”

Strength has gained 2 points...

Strength is now at 12.

“Okay so each of those tokens are worth two points... Got it,” Levi said to himself. “It also took care of my hunger. I’m eating tokens in the wilderness. I have lost my mind. Maybe I’m dreaming or maybe this is Jumanji and I got sucked into my game?! No, that doesn’t make sense, I wasn’t playing Jumanji or any RPG for that matter. Well, I have nine more tokens, might as well have dinner.”

Levi ate the rest of the coins he elected to put most of the tokens into strength, speed, and stamina equally. He wasn’t sure what they would be good for, but Levi has played a lot of video games. It was clear whatever his class was mana dependent. His wisdom being so much higher than strength, speed and stamina.

Strength has gained 6 points...

Strength is now 18.

Speed has gained 6 points...

Speed is now 16.

Stamina has gained 6 points...

Stamina is now 16.

Peering at his stamina bar, the green bar had increased slightly.

“Progress,” he cheered sarcastically, “punching a fist in the air.”

Objective: Level Up Stats - Completed

Reward: Summoning 101

Reward: Pouch of coal dust

Reward: Pouch of salt

Reward: Pouch of sand

Quest: Tutorial - Completed

Reward: Unlocked Ability

Reward: Gold Piece x2

Reward: Silver Piece x 10

Reward: Copper Piece x 50

Ability: Familiar Bond

You have unlocked the ability to summon familiars. Familiars are summoned creatures that bond with the user. They only need to be summoned once unless destroyed in combat, then they will need to be resummoned. Different familiars provide different bonuses to the summoner. Current familiar limit 1. Rank up to add a familiar bond. Next rank 2-Star.

“A familiar bond?” Levi said sitting upright. Was this his chance to get a familiar right away?