The sun’s rays kiss the blue waters, and the crimson warblers sing an ode to love and death. Down below, a man is walking through small monster trails on the forest floor. This man is searching for something. Something to kill.

The man is Adam.

“I was lucky that I met that explorer party before nearing the city gate. To think that I would have to pay ten coppers just to enter unless I had an ID or showed proof that I killed a monster in the nearby area. I blew them off on their offer to hunt together since I thought those guys were messing with me, making me do extra work for the city. But the guards confirmed it.”

He scans the area ahead of him with Sight to see if there were any monsters. He sees none. However, after thirty minutes of searching for a wild monster, he finally spots a small, bright light ahead with Sight. A royal blue boar is drinking some water from the stream on the path ahead. It is large, over twelve feet long and five feet high. Its tough, blue hide protect it from other magical creatures like dire wolves and giant firebreathing newts. Red and white tusks jut out from it snout, longer than a man’s hand. Seeing the boar, Adam smiles.

“This looks like a good monster to test my skills directly.”

He walks forward and stops when the boar notices him.

“Although this body can use elemental spells, the previous owner specialized in illusion spells.”

The royal blue boar, looking at Adam, roars loudly and charges at him – its body and tusks flash with blue and red light.

Seeing the charging boar, Adam’s mana swirls in his stomach and is launched from his hands as a beam of colorful light.

Seeing the kaleidoscopic array of colors heading toward it, the boar tries to dodge it, but trips suddenly on a large rock.

Well, it thinks, it tripped on a large rock.

The boar missing the beam of green magical energy falls headfirst rolling like a blue ball toward an oak.

CRRRAAAASSSHHH!!!

Adam seeing the downed boar prepares another type of illusion magic. A purple gas spreads across his surroundings and converges on the boar. The gas looks like it is alive.

The boar, angry at missing the intruder, roars loudly and enters a berserker state bulking up.

Charging through the gas, the boar, using its sense of smell, rams the puny intruder.

Puff!

Instead, it runs through a puff of smoke.

Still in its berserker rage, the royal blue boar continues to charge at its phantom-like intruder.

Adam is currently hiding in the underbrush observing the wild monster. After he shot out that quick beam of light, he immediately hid in the underbrush and his body that the boar saw was replaced by an illusion.

His spell Quick Hypnosis quickly hypnotizes opponents who are hit by the beam of mana. “However, this was not the case this time.”

The boar was affected even though the mana beam missed the opponent.

“Although I need more experiments to confirm this, I think if an opponent just sees my mana beam, they fall under the hypnosis.”

Similarly, his second spell Hallucination spreads a psychedelic gas in front of him. When an opponent breathes in this gas, they are trapped in an illusion of their own making.

“However, when I used it this time, I saw that the boar’s mind was trapped in the illusionary space within myself. It seems that it will be stuck there until either I let it out or I run out of mana to maintain the illusion.”

“I don’t know how, but I like these improvements.”

Adam smiles with an evil grin and looks at the struggling boar both in his dreamscape and in the real world.

He gave the boar a nightmare it will never forget.

After an hour, the boar lies helpless on the ground with it mouth foaming. Its legs are broken and there is blood on his tusk. Puncture marks can be seen on its body. It is blind.

Adam is out of breath and exhausted. Maintaining the Hallucination spell for more than an hour seems too much for him. Seeing the helpless, miserable royal blue boar, Adam uses the third of his four illusion spells on a tree branch to finish the boar.

“If my other spells were strengthened to such an extent, I am thinking this should be enough to it.”

Taking the tree branch, his mana flows into it. Black tendrils wrap around it and move around it changing it to a small dagger that was in his imagination. He is exhausted.

Holding it with both hands over the foaming boar’s throat. He plunges the black dagger into its throat. It goes through but the black tendrils stick into the boar.

“AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”

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The boar shouts like a human. Its eye wide open like it has seen an absolute abomination.

Adam releases the dagger and backs away while the boar continually shouts as its life is forcedly dragged away from it. When it dies, a weird silence pervades the forest and blood gushes out of its mouth. It died of a heart explosion. Its tongue is sticking out and its eyes are wide open. Its eyes look as if someone stole its soul and dragged it to a greater nightmare of the Great Torment of Dread Thea and darker than the abyss of the Void Prison.

Feeling a little sorry for the monster, Adam pays his respects to it and using a small hunting knife cuts mana stone out of the boar.

“I certain that my spells did not have this kind of power then. If I had this kind of power when I met the trolls, I do not think I would have needed to rely on my last charm to strengthen my Inferno and Lightning Ritual. I could have just taken on those two trolls directly using only illusions.”

It is known fact that the more intelligent a creature is, the more easily it can resist illusions.

“There was not hitch in my illusion affecting the boar. I know boars on Earth were relatively smart animals. They are smarter than babies,” he thinks.

He starts walking away from the boar with the mana stone in a small pouch that he got from the explorer party he met earlier.

“I think my illusions should be able to affect intelligent creatures that are not too bright. I still don’t know if my illusion spells can consistently work on most people yet. I will test it out when I get the chance.”

Steeling himself, he passes by a small babbling brook and sees two crimson warblers in the green moonlight singing a song of love and death.

The slightly bigger male warbler approaches the female. It sings to her wanting to mate. The female looking at him deems him unworthy and unleashes a song of her own. Both angry they attack each other in a battle to the death. After a minute of aeronautical acrobatics, the female warbler pierces the heart of the male crimson warbler with her beak. Unwilling, the male falls down to the ground dead while the female warbler returns to her perch singing of her victory.

He remembers what the mother of the previous owner of this body said to him as a boy of an ancient legend.

It was once said in the old myths that the Goddess Aria fell in love with the God Lamech. Finding out that Lamech had a human lover, Aria fought against Lamech to make him repent and if need be, slay him. However, Lamech, a master of battle, overcame the force of arms of Aria and raped her in his Golden Coliseum. He then made her a prisoner of his dungeon to be his slave. Humiliated and desiring vengeance, Aria trained her body to gain her revenge. After a hundred years, one of Lamech’s human lovers stumbled upon Aria in the dungeon. Moved by Aria’s story, she freed her. Giving her thanks, Aria gave the lady a red dye as a gift. Moving swiftly, Aria then broke through Lamech’s Tower by herself and faced him again at his Golden Coliseum. Although Lamech fought fiercely almost slaying her a few times, she was able to overcome his strength and bisect him with her sword. Thus, Aria became the Goddess of Love and Battle.

Due to the titanic battle of the gods, the lady dropped Aria’s red dye down Lamech’s Tower. It fell and landed on two warblers dying them red. Thus, the crimson warblers were born.

“It looks like I’ll be able to recall the previous owner’s memories as I experience more things in Arda.”

Under the moon and stars, Adam climbs a small, rolling hill and sees the great city of Merchant’s Rest. As one of the largest commercial cities in the Kingdom of Baudren, Merchant’s Rest was well-known for being a hub of industry, trade, and commerce in the region and for being a seaport despite being inland. Baldwin’s Canal connects Merchant’s West with the Barbarossa Sea and ship-of-the-line can be seen occasionally inland along with great merchant treasure ships.

Lights of all kinds can be seen in the city with the smoke of chimneys creating an artificial cloud. Blues, Yellows, and Reds mix and match and swirl together creating a colorful landscape that pops out of the dark countryside and forest. The road is paved and noises of laughter and shouts echo across the night.

Descending the hill, he approaches the city gate with the boar’s mana stone in hand.

Having arrived at the city’s north gate, he shows the guards the mana stone. Opening his eyes and mouth wide in shock, the guard lets him in.

“I think you might have a talent being an explorer, Sir!” the guard says.

“Why don’t you apply to be an explorer at the Explorer’s Guild here, Sir?” another guard continues.

“Thanks for the recommendation,” Adam replies smiling.

“I want to sell these items anyway. Do you where the guild is at?”

“Why it is right down that way, Sir.”

The first guard points in the general direction where the Explorer’s Guild is and tries to explain to Adam how to get there.

Adam thanks him and walks toward that direction.

Despite being evening, the people of all different walks of life can be seen walking through the city. Merchants’ Rest is a melting pot housing a menagerie of individuals from fair skinned Baudrenians to dark-skinned Serapians, from forest elves to mountain dwarves, from scholarly mages and magicians to the beggars in the alleys. Merchant’s Rest is a vast tapestry of differing cultures, races, classes, and peoples. Reflecting back to his encounter with the boar and the birds Adam thinks,

“Why are there boars and birds in Arda? Shouldn’t the animals here have a separate evolutionary path than the one’s on Earth? I know that in evolution certain designs of animals converge again and again; however…”

He looks at a tall broadleaf tree planted near a walkway for pedestrians and sighs.

“I lack too much information. I need to get my priorities in order.”

Passing by some laughing children he thinks,

“First, I need money and second I need information. To earn some money, it would be best if I can take advantage of my mathematical knowledge from earth; so, being a temporary math lecturer at the college in the city would work. I can then use the money that I earned to feed myself and build capital for future projects. Since this job is also in the city, I will have enough free time to check books first at the local library and then later at the college archives. I can also learn more about different kinds of illusion magic in my spare time as well since I don’t have to leave the city hunting monsters. I can even research what happened to my body. Once I have accumulated enough knowledge and resources here, I can then move on and explore the greater world of Arda to help regain this body’s past memories,” he thinks while he passes through the throngs of people.

Passing by an alleyway, he overhears a conversation between three patrol guards.

“Who knows? Merchant’s Rest has not been under a Lord or Lady for seventy years. It is possible that the Mayor might ask for a guarantee of the city’s independence from either the Duke or His Majesty.” the second guard responds.

“Does it really matter?” a third guard says.

“Why of course, since…,” the first guard says.

“Hey! Get lost. This is official business,” the second guard says to Adam.

Shrugging his shoulders, Adam moves away from the guards.

Their voices trail off as he tries to find the Explorer Guild. Asking around, he eventually moves past the winding streets, maddening crowds and brightly lit buildings and finds the massive Explorer Guild. It is made of stone. Loud noises can be heard inside, and bright light can be seen beaming out the windows. Moving closer, the smell of alcohol wafts in the air.

Opening the double doors, he sees rowdy men and women of all shapes and sizes and races laughing and drinking to their hearts content.

CRASH!

A table and a chair are broken. A woman laughs and flexes her arm.