Chapter 1: Death

I was waiting for the bus to arrive while reading the first chapter of Volume 10 of The Beginning After The End.

When my friend recommended this, I thought this would be a typical cold op mc novel, but after I started reading it, I read through the first three volumes in two days.

I pressed the Next Chapter button as I finished reading the chapter, but nothing happened.

Trying to refresh the site and try again nothing happened, and I saw I had no signal...

Come on, I'm in the middle of the city. How is it possible to not have any signal here?

With a sigh, I put the phone in my coat pocket and looked at the cloudless sky, only a single airplane could be seen.

Wait, why is it heading toward me? That's not an airplane.... it's a truck!

HOW THE FUCK IS A PLANE FLYING, AND WHY IS IT HEADING TOWARDS ME!

I tried to run away but wasn't fast enough, and the truck crashed into me.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"Ughhh..." With a groan, I opened my eyes to be greeted by darkness.

Was it a dream just a while ago?

"No, it was not." I heard a feminine voice and turned around to be greeted by a woman with white hair sitting down and drinking from a teacup.

I tried to say something, but she cut me off before I could speak.

"Before you say anything, have some tea."

I was still trying to figure out what was happening, so without thinking much about it, I did what she said and sat opposite her, and a teacup appeared before me.

Taking a sip from the tea, I felt lighter.

"So I'm dead?" I asked the woman, but I was calm like death wasn't a big deal.

"Yes asked my friend to send one of her executives to fetch your soul to me." She said with an innocent smile.

I feel like I should be angry at this, but I'm not.

"Oh, that would be because of the tea. It calms your emotion. I don't want you to have a mental breakdown." She said.

"I see." I said while taking another sip of the tea ignoring the fact that she could read my mind.

"So now to why I brought you here. I saw you reading the new volume of TBATE and decided to reincarnate you in that world!" She said with an excited tone.

"And you did it without asking me?" I asked her."I'm a goddess, so I don't need to ask you, and you always wanted to be reincarnated in a world with magic." She said as she put down the teacup on the table.

"I can't deny that..." I said and also put down my cup.

"Then let's start." She said, and the whole area changed with a snap of her fingers.

The chairs and table disappeared, and beside us, I could only see the platform we were standing on.

"Before I reincarnate you, I will grant you some skills." She clapped her hands, and silver and golden cards appeared and floated around us.

"You get to choose one gold card and two silver cards for your next life... The cards are skills that won't interfere with the world of TBATE, so don't search for a Sharingan." She said and sat down on a throne that appeared.

I nodded and began to look at the cards starting with the golden ones.

The world of TBATE has two different types of energies, Mana and Aether.

I remember them being described as Mana being the liquid in a cup, changing to fit whatever shape, always moving and flexible. In this metaphor, Aether is the cup itself, stiff, unchanging without lots of force. It is solid, it will never change itself without some outside force. That was true until Arthur created his aether core and learned that the Djinn could manipulate the Aether as they wished.

The best choice would be something that would help me manipulate them better.

After checking all the golden cards and reading the description to understand what I would gain, I narrowed it down to two.

The first was Realmheart, and the second was Legacy.

Realmheart would allow me to see all the Mana and Aether surrounding me and use it more efficiently.

I always loved how Arthur's Realmheart transformation looks and what he could do with it, but it seems like nothing compared to what I could do with the legacy powers.

It would give me an unrivaled connection to Mana, the capability of wielding every element and all of their deviants. Then there were also things like pulling Mana directly from the cores of other mages and Asuras and even repairing and improving mana cores.

While it doesn't give me the ability to manipulate Aether freely, the Realmhart card wouldn't do it either, at least not more than an Indrath.

Also, my body wouldn't be strong enough to handle an Aeather Core, but maybe learning Aeather Arts from the Djinn remnants could be possible.

Deciding to pick the Legacy Card, I looked at the silver cards. They weren't anything extraordinary like the gold ones but were still very useful.

The first one I chose was Regeneration. It wouldn't regrow any limbs, but it would heal the wounds. I wasn't entirely sure to what degree, but a healing ability would be good in that world.

Picking the second card took me some time, but I went with Quick Reaction after thinking about what I would need. This skill would shorten my reaction time from an average of about 0.3 seconds to something like a trained fighter of 0.15 seconds.

While I could do it with enough training, I wouldn't have enough time before the war started.

"I choose this three." I said and gave the goddess the cards.

When I gave her the cards, the other disappeared, and she looked at my choice.

"Hmm... Good choice. Now then, it's time for reincarnation." She said, and the cards flew into my body.

My body started to turn into light particles, and my eyelids felt heavy, like I hadn't slept for days.

"Oh, and don't worry about your memories. I will put a barrier around all the memories surrounding me and the novel." Was the last thing I heard.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this chapter.

If you enjoy this story, remember to vote and leave a review if you haven't.