Toby was cooked. Literally.

That old man on that floating cloud said that I would be reincarnated as a turtle in a world of magic. But he didn’t say anything about how being inside an egg was so hot. And not in a complimentary way. Toby thought when he opened his eyes.

[Setting up My Turtle Life System. Progress: 10%]

Following his instinct, Toby banged his little turtle head on the shell, hoping the eggshell would break and he could get some nice fresh air. He headbutted the shell repeatedly. Pulling his head back Toby banged with all his might. Finally, light and hope.

And yet, when Toby poked his head out of the eggshell, he was welcomed by two ugly faces.

They had green skin, bald heads, out-of-focus eyes, and pointy ears that were half as long as their faces. Ah yes, their faces. Faces with sharp canine teeth and twisted proportions that even their own mother wouldn’t love.

“Holy shit, goblins.” Toby tried to back off.

But he was in a floating egg so he flipped the egg instead. With the egg capsized, Toby was thrown into the boiling water.

“Too hot. Fuck. I’m gonna dieee.” He flopped his flippers as if he was drowning.

[Setting up My Turtle Life System. Progress: 20%]

Suddenly, Toby remembered he was a turtle. So he followed his instinct and swam up from the bottom. When he resurfaced, the two goblins were still looking at him.

From what he could see, the goblins were preparing turtle soup. No surprises here, he was on the menu. But instead of using their weapons to kill Toby right away, the goblins pointed at him and laughed. Once they had laughed their fill, they moved somewhere else.

Believing it was his chance, Toby used his flippers and grabbed onto the low-hanging rim of the pot. He failed since he was used to having hands, not flippers. He slipped and fell into the boiling water again.

[Setting up My Turtle Life System. Progress: 40%]

One of the goblins caught the sight of him falling back into the pot. It slapped the other goblin and pointed at Toby. They laughed, then continued smashing something with their clubs. Somehow, his newfound senses allowed Toby to ‘see’ everything happening fifty feet around him with an almost omniscient view.

He could move his viewpoint and zoom in or out from anywhere within those fifty feet.

Toby looked at the goblins. And to his horror, they were smashing the corpses of another, bigger, turtle. Blood and pieces of meat splattered everywhere. The turtle had one of its eyes popped out, hanging from his eye socket by only the optic nerve. It was a scene right out of a certain green-skin monster’s slayer anime.

“Nope nope nope. I’m getting my ass out of here.”

[Setting up My Turtle Life System. Progress: 60%]

He dived down to the depth of the pot, clamming his mouth shut, and withstood the heat as the lower he was, the hotter it got. Before he touched the bottom of the pot, he did a ten out of ten recovery move and swam up to the surface. If he could judge it himself, Toby would say his recovery move was as skillful as an Olympic diver after they performed a pike dive.

With his momentum, Toby shot out of the pot in one move.

Switching his focus to the goblins’ reactions, he breathed a sigh of relief as they didn’t even bother to look back. Slowly but surely, Toby started to crawl away from the goblins.

But once again, his turtle flippers weren’t up to the task even when he moved as fast as he could. Sadly, he could only move at, well, turtle speed. Even so, with great focus, he crawled toward the bushes.

“@%UI$%#” Toby heard a voice behind and looked toward the goblins. One of them had noticed him.

[Setting up My Turtle Life System. Progress: 80%]

“You get turtle.” The goblin who was smashing the other turtle into meat paste said.

“Me get turtle. You keep smash.” The goblin walking toward him answered.

No. I can’t die here. I was just born. Toby continued his struggle.

[Setting up My Turtle Life System. Progress: 100%]

[All System, online. Greeting new user of My Turtle Life System. We, The Room Between Worlds, pride ourselves in our ability to support the user. How can My Turtle Life System assist you?]

“Get me the fuck out of here.” Toby roared in a rubber duck-like voice.

[Understood. To get the fuck out of here, please use the first out of three tutorial gifts: Rank 1 Skill – Magic Hand, and throw yourself away from the goblins into the creek a hundred feet Northeast of your position.]

“Do that, do that quickly,” Toby yelled as the goblin was right behind him, bending down.

[Understood. Initiate Rank 1 Skill – Magic Hand. Target, small creek. Distant, one hundred feet. Engage.]

Just when the goblin was about to grab Toby, he felt an invisible force lift him and hurl him away from the evil claw of the goblin.

“So long motherfuckers. Toby out.” He laughed as he flipped his flipper toward the goblins.

[My Turtle Life System had integrated the user’s way of speech. Combined with the knowledge of the user’s old world, Earth, My Turtle Life System determined the best remark for this successful escape is: Fly you fool.]

“Huh? Wait. What do you mean by thaaaaaaa…” Toby couldn’t finish his sentence as he was thrown by that invisible force again, but with much greater focus this time.

Shedding tears as he flew into the air, Toby lamented. Why is my life so difficult?

Just the night before, he was a regular twenty-seven-year-old salaryman at a stand-up comedy show inside a bar with his one and only friend in the city. They were having a blast drinking away.

“I’m telling you man, that little ball of sunshine is my life. Everything changed when you became a father.” His friend raised his cup, Toby answered with his own as they emptied the content. He was so happy for the guy.

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His friend was going on and on about how awesome it would be for his son and cool uncle Toby to slay dragons in Groundrim V. Once the baby was a little bit older, his friend would take three of them around the Summer Anime Oxpo and check out cosplayers together, especially the hot ones.

“It’s already late, stay here and I’ll call you a cab,” Toby said when they were outside of the bar.

“Nah, I’m fine. I’m not that drunk. I can still walk home.” His friend lurched away. Toward a speeding car.

Noticed the sound of rubber burning against the road, Toby dashed toward his friend and pushed him out of the way while he himself backed away just in time. Luckily, they were able to dodge the car.

Alas, in his drunken state, Toby took one step too many. Once Toby noticed his lack of solid footing and the rotten egg smell. It was already too late. He only had two thoughts in his head as he was plunging headfirst down to his death.

Why was there an open manhole in the middle of the city? How did that make sense? And. Thank god, the baby won’t lose his dad.

Unlike Toby, the guy had a loving family waiting for him back home after all.

Wiping away his tears, Toby looked at the creek below and covered his eyes with his flipper. With a move as elegant as a swan sky diving, Toby dove into the creek. It was cool and comfortable inside the creek. The water felt like a part of him, and he was a part of the water. The gentle current flowed around him and carried him toward the shore.

Flopping his flippers onto the ground, Toby dragged himself on the shore and lay down.

He was finally able to get some rest.

[Objective completed. Radical.] The System said with a deadpan voice that had as much emotion as a two-month-old dried, salted, and fried fish.

“Can you not talk using that 80s slang? I’m not that old.” Toby grumbled.

[Understood. My Turtle Life System will stop using language from the 80s on Earth. Would you prefer My Turtle Life System to speak in the language of the 90s instead?]

“No. Speak normally. Like you’re one of my co-workers.”

[Understood. My Turtle Life System will install the speech pattern of the user’s coworker. Which one of the user’s co-workers’ style would the user like My Turtle Life System to speak in?]

“You know what, never mind. Just speak the way you want to.” Toby lay flat on the ground.

[Understood. My Turtle Life System will search the speech pattern of “the way you want to” and install the patch after a full analysis.]

“…Never mind. Anyway, I’ll call you Turtle System from now on. Your name is too long.”

[Understood. From now on, My Turtle Life System's name will change to Turtle System according to the user’s wish.]

With the nonsense out of the way, it was time for Toby to ask what he really wanted to know.

“Where am I?” He asked. He knew this was a different world but he needed something more specific.

[Information locked. The user needs more Life Experience.]

“Huh? What do you mean Life Experience?”

[Life Experience. The accumulation of the user’s life in this world. It is everything that the user does and says and goes through. Everything the user experiences for the first time will be added to Life Experience.]

“…Ok?” Toby didn’t quite get it. “How do I get Life Experience?”

[The user can live his life and explore the world to get more Life Experience.]

“Ok, that does not help.” Toby sighed. “What can Life Experience do?”

[Life Experience can be used to Rank Up or to exchange for Skills and Items in The Shop.]

“The shop?” Finally, something Toby could get behind. “Quick, open the shop. I want to see what's inside.”

[Information locked. The user needs more Life Experience.]

“Motherfucker.” Toby slapped his flippers down on the ground. “When can I open the shop?”

[The user can open The Shop when the user reaches Rank 2.]

“Where can I see my rank?”

[The user can access the Status Window by thinking about opening the Status Window.]

“Status Window,” Toby said as he raised his flipper.

A blue screen appeared in front of Toby. It looked just like a game screen he was so used to. A table with rows and columns depicting his information. Like his name, race, Level, Rank, Experience (Exp), and Life Experience (Life Exp).

But more importantly, it showed his Path and stats. His Path was something called [The Dark Lord] and [Healer]. Toby had no idea what that even meant.

“What’s this Path thing?”

[Path is what every sentient being in the world follows. Each Path provides the being with different upgrades, skills, and bonuses. Each Path has branches a sentient being can choose to specialize in.]

“Oh, so it’s like Class in an RPG. Neat.” He titled his head. “Then why am I The Dark Lord and a Healer? Shouldn’t I get to choose?”

[The user was the first being to be born during the Dark Rebirth Celestial Cross and the Mercy To The World Starline. These events only overlapped once every ten thousand years. Thus, the user now carries The Dark Lord Path and Healer Path.]

“…Can I give them back?”

[The user cannot go back once a Path is chosen.]

“I didn’t choose this though.” He sighed. “What does this Dark Lord Path do?”

[The Dark Lord is the most powerful being in the world and can use every skill of any other Path. But because of the overwhelming power, the more skill the being has, the more corrupted they become. A corrupted Dark Lord brings about death and destruction to all living beings in the world, regardless of who or what they are.]

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Toby slammed his head on the ground.

[No. Turtle System is not fucking kidding the user.]

“Is there something else I need to know?”

[Heroes chosen by the stars will emerge along with the resurrection of The Dark Lord. Their mission is to either prevent The Dark Lord from being corrupted or slay The Dark Lord to keep the world safe from death and destruction.]

“…Greaaaat. Just what I needed.” Toby rolled his eyes.

On the bright side, he had an overpowered Path. With corruption, and death, and a target on his head. But hey, it was still an overpowered Path.

“Hold on, why can you explain this in such great detail? I don’t need more Life Experience?”

[The Dark Lord Path and Healer Path are what the user was born with. Thus, it requires no Life Experience to gain access to basic information.]

Moving on from the headache, Toby asked about the other things on his Status Window.

First was his other path.

He found out that the [Healer Path] wasn’t exactly how he expected it to be. Instead of waving his hands to heal anyone, anytime, anywhere, he could only heal when there are elements corresponding to his Skills nearby. Either in the environment or in items he carried.

Using said elements or items, Toby could heal and cure sickness of others.

“That’s quite restricting, isn’t it?”

[Yes. Compared to other Paths, Healer Path does have more restrictions. However, the result of each Skill in Healer Path is unique and no other Paths have any similar Skills.]

“Okay. Good news, I supposed. Moving on. What about my stat?”

He had stats such as [Strength], [Dexterity], [Resilience], [Charisma], [Mind], and [Mana]. Basic stats that every gamer was familiar with. The System explanation of these stats was almost the same as what Toby had thought they would be.

[Strength], [Dexterity], and [Mana] were self-explanatory.

[Resilience] was how tough his body was and how quick his body recover. The higher it was, the harder it was to hurt him. Both physically and magically.

[Charisma] affected other’s likability toward Toby, making people believe his words easier. It helped when he wanted to lie, cheat, fraud, persuade, or simply to improve his image in their minds.

[Mind] indicated the strength of his will and his ability to focus.

As a turtle, Toby's best stat was his [Resilience] at a whooping thirty. Almost triple every other stat.

But the thing that got him curious the most was his skills. And with his stomach rumbling, it was time for him to search for food while testing his skills.

Toby crawled slowly along the creek, very slowly. So slowly, it was driving him insane. And as they said, insanity and genius were only a paper-thin line away. That was why Toby had a brilliant idea.

“System, can I use [Magic Hand] to float myself?”

[The user can use Rank 1 Skill – Magic Hand to float. However, doing so would severely drain the user’s Mana.]

“What if I do this?” He said as he controlled the [Magic Hand] and made it dive down the water.

He carried the water up and controlled the hand to spread out the water, turning it into a flying platform.

[Calculating… New skill created]

[Rank 1 – Floating Water Platform acquired]

[Reward: 10 Life Exp. Life Exp 10 -> 20]

Looking at his new skill and the Life Experience he got. Toby nodded with a smirk.

Just when he thought it couldn’t get any better. His instinct told him a meal was near. He just needed to move ahead just a little bit more.

He did. But when he arrived at the spot his instinct told him. He found a worm. Using one of his skills, [Insight], he saw his supposed meal.

[Earthworm - Rank. 1 - Lv. ???]