The Place Where Everything Begins

Inside a bedroom of a certain man in his early 20s

"Urggg..."

A man lying on the bed groaned.

After groaning, he felt an enormous amount of information embedded itself forcefully into his brain, he then abruptly opened his eyes and started retching nauseously accompanied by a very severe headache like his head was going to explode from the inside.

He retched to the side of the bed ceaselessly.

Before long he stopped the retching and started to pant instead.

*Pant* *Pant* *Pant*

'*Sigh*, What a tormenting period.' He thought while looking around the room and spotted the sun staying high in the sky outside the window.

Right after looking around, he found himself in his own bedroom but he realized something amiss. He then recalled the new information inside his head.

After sometime had passed, he smiled widely filled with happiness and ecstasy.

'Indeed, what a wonderful spell, I have come back to the past. Now, I'm in my old world, Earth.'

He didn't come back to his senses for a long time, it was like, he was an idiot smiling incessantly.

More than 2 minutes later, he stopped smiling and analyzed his current situation with a calm attitude.

He was Jeremy C. Lakota, a US citizen. He was also a former space sage with colossal power enough to destroy his current world effortlessly, but now he was only a puny human called Jeremy.

He was a 23 years old unemployed living his everyday life by spending heritage and assets left behind by his deceased parents who had passed away in a plane crash accident 2 years ago.

It was a turning point in life for him, he left the university and confined himself at home for months. He cut off almost all social connections in his life including his friends, girlfriends, and relatives.

That left with only 3 close friends...

After that incident, he spent 2 years as a full-time NEET or the less known name 'Not in Education, Employment, or Training'. He spent his days playing games, watching animes, and reading novels and mangas.

That was until today, after his consciousness coming back to the past via the spell, after knowing what would happen in the near future, he decided to prepare for it, prepare for the worst nightmare that would befall this little piece of shit world.

He looked at the date on his Iphone X Plus. It was Saturday, June 22, 2019, a little bit more than 3 months before the first batch of humanity was transported into another world, Ortus.

After that, he checked his online banking account, it showed 847,285.31 dollars, enough for him to spend tens of years comfortably.

On Sunday, September 29, 2019 at 1:35 p.m., UTC-4.

It was the day when the first batch of humanity got transported onto Ortus. Scientists called it 'The First Doom'.

Indeed, if there was 'first', then there must be second, third, and so on. There were a total of 8 Dooms. In each doom, there would be around 1 billion people transported onto Ortus to undergo a baptizing event called 'Tutorial'.

The reason why there was the so-called baptizing or tutorial was because 'they' wanted humanity to get used to the rules of Ortus, one of the rules was 'the strong gets all', someone called it 'weak meat, strong eat.

*Sigh*

'And because of that shit tutorial, there are only a little more than 5% of humanity remaining on the Ortus.' Jeremy thought.

When he was transported into the tutorial, anyone might imagine about an otaku geared up with a super cheat system and rare jumbled up bloodlines overpowered everyone who obstructed him.

But, in reality...

Hell No!!

The tutorial, it was like a living hell for someone like him. He didn't get any cheat ability or an ancient bloodline, he was only a petty otaku who was forced to fight with monsters, alien races, and even humans.

Not only the external threats which he had to fight desperately with, there was also madness and craziness inside his heart that might erupt and pollute his mind at anytime.

According to a certain biologist, it was called a 'natural selection'.

In this place, the nature was tutorial and Ortus, while the humanity was the one being selected. That made Earthlings were not in anyway different from being weak preys for the ferocious predators.

After the end of the 8th doom, there were only about 400 million humans from Earth alive on Ortus. It was a pathetic number that was not even one-third of the China's population.

There were many races living on Ortus waging wars to one another to gain more resources and powers. Each race believed in different Gods, different in believes caused conflicts, conflicts caused wars, and those wars were endless.

But those were not all, in term of battle prowess, human race was very weak if not the weakest compared to other races.

Not gaining much hope of living in a brand new world, it instead diminished their hope further down to the drain.

Some people committed suicide, some people went crazy, and some people decided to become devout religious believers but the problem was, it was the devil religious believing and teaching about madness and destruction.

After Jeremy sourced out his memory, he planned his next steps of action.

'I know that I cannot change anything before I become strong enough. So, my first step is to get ready for the tutorial. I will not only barely pass it this time... I will crush it with the highest achievement in Ortus history, and create a decent living place for humanity.'

Jeremy thought with a resolute determination.

He picked up his phone, wore his jacket, put on his shoes, and picked up the car key. He was ready to go to the store to buy the training wears necessary for his short-term plan.

But before that... there was sounds coming from his stomach.

*Growlingggg*

'First, let's go to the nearby restaurant on the way there. After that, I'll go buy the things'. He thought.

After finished eating a sumptuous meal and buying the things, he looked at the time on his phone. It was about 10:30 a.m. He realized that it was not an appropriate time to go to the gym yet. So, he decided to go back home to play some games and watch some animations that he missed so dearly.

He looked at the gym's arrogant name 'World Championship Boxing Gym'.

'Indeed, a very arrogant name. I hope they are as good as their name.' Jeremy thought sarcastically.

After coming into the gym, he spotted many people training inside.

Not long after, a 2 meter muscular man walked to him and asked.

"How can I help you?"

"I want the best trainers here to train me to become a decent fighter within 2 months. The money is not a problem. Can you do it?" Jeremy said.

"..."

The muscular man silently sizing Jeremy up from head to toe.

"..."

"Come with me.", said the muscular man before walking back inside the gym.

Jeremy followed the man while looking around the gym.

After coming inside the gym, the man led Jeremy directly to the registration desk to register Jeremy as a monthly membership.

As for the grade of membership, Jeremy chose the highest grade available which was platinum grade.

Like this, he would be trained directly by 2 proficient trainers who used to train many world champion boxers. One was a retired world champion middleweight boxer, another was a retired world champion Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

As for the price?

It was a staggering 45,000 US dollars for a total of 2 months.

From today onwards, he needed to spend at least 4 hours inside and outside the gym according to the training programs. Together with the new diet meal programs tailored made for him by the 2 trainers which would complement his body building process further.

And starting from today, he would have to learn various boxing techniques, skills, and ways to fight barehanded from this gym.

As for the reason for the old monster like him who had lived more than 28 eras on Ortus to trouble himself with 2 trainers on Earth whose total lifespans had barely been combined up to around 80 years old was because...

He had long ago forgot about how to fight barehanded. Except for some skills in spearmanship that he barely practiced in his free time, he knew almost nothing about fighting barehanded.

(A/N: Well, on Ortus, one day had around 50 hours and one era was equal to 1,000 days. That meant, calculating by Earth's standard, Jeremy's total age was more than 180 years old... a literally old monster.)

In fact, he had become the great sage of humanity for more than 10 eras. The great sage who only had to lift a single finger to obliterate the entire country into nothingness.

So, was there any reason for him to fight close combat anymore?

It was too pointless for him. It was that, he preferred spending his free time into researching runes and arrays rather than learning how to fight in close range as a close combat mage.

Nevertheless, he still had some spells up his sleeve as the emergency measures for when there were some assassins sneaking up to kill him.

'Well, I didn't think that my demise was originated from my lack of experience or lack of skills in close range combat. But I think that it was rather because that I prepared too few emergency measures for the ambushes of 9 legendary ranked assassins all at once. Anyway, how did they break through my impregnable defense again? It was too bizarre. Hmmm...'

*Sigh*

The now sweating profusely, Jeremy thought to himself, and sighed into the air.

After finishing the 2 hours of intense training, Jeremy then took a short break and sat on a bench alone inside the gym thinking to himself about many things in his previous life.

Certainly, one of them was about his downfall in the last battle which had spanned more than 7 days on Ortus.

And many more things and ideas that he had to think about and to prepare for the upcoming tutorial in around 3 months.

After sometime had passed, he felt that he already had enough energy to walk and drive back home. Thereby, he decided to grab some foods in the convenience store on the way back home according to the special diet meals arranged by his trainers.