Sten

No matter how much his mind wandered, all he saw was the remains of a once prosperous era. Humans fought like beasts for resources, ignoring the meaning of ethics or empathy in the process.

Sten didn't know exactly why, but one night he was thrown into a very long... dream? His consciousness suddenly left his body and began to wander the world freely, without being noticed by anyone, without being able to contact anyone.

He explored the world in search of a solution to his predicament, and he saw the changes in civilization through the long years.

Governments fell and ascended, but Sten could only watch as the world slowly walked into a pit of destruction, and war.

He lost count of the years, but one day... the earth was bombarded by nuclear weapons and many powerful martial masters fought terrifying inhumane battles, more damaging than the bombs.

Years ahead of the beginning of the global conflict, humanity's civilizations were razed to the ground, and survivors had to deal with the aftermath by themselves.

Sten watched as humans acted worse than beasts, betraying and killing each other for scrambles.

The once mighty martial masters disappeared, and all tentatives to reestablish civilization failed.

When Sten already believed it was his fate to simply watch everything until the end... his mind returned to the same night the dream began, and he returned to his body.

Sten felt a cold all over his body, he was trembling and sweat was dripping from his forehead. He wondered if it was just an illusion, or if he really returned, it felt too good to be true.

After a few minutes, he acknowledged he returned, he was back to the past.

"It's illogical, how can I return to the past?" he muttered and took a bath to try and calm himself.

"Time travel should be... no, it is impossible!"

After the bath, he wore clean clothes and looked at a mirror, as if trying to see if that was his face.

"Is this a parallel world?" Sten wondered.

He was aware of many unfounded theories circulating in society, but he was still dubious about what was the truth.

Suddenly, he felt a tingling inside his head, as if a work was walking inside his brain.

[Simulation finished, the operating system completed its purpose and exhausted its energy reserves, it will now self-destruct.]

"What!" Sten was dumbfounded when he heard a cold mechanical voice in his head.

He felt a strong current of energy slowly spreading from his brain to the rest of his body, it was hot and sharp.

Sten felt like his internal organs were being pierced by a thousand blades, he vomited blood and passed out.

When he awakened, he saw that a pool of blood formed around himself, but no wounds were visible and he felt well.

He went to his bedroom and wore a silver digital watch on his pulse, it then showed a hologram above its screen with data about him.

[Sten, ordinary citizen??

23 years old, legal adulthood.

Already completed obligatory military service and left the army completely.

Physical status: Healthy, no apparent injury or sickness.]

"The scan watch says I'm okay, but what about the blood?" he muttered and wondered if he should go to the hospital.

It was then that he noticed a change happened in the hologram.

[Detected a change in the owner's Realm, scanning...

...

...

The owner :Sten: was promoted from (Ordinary Citizen) to (First Star Martial Apprentice)

Shall the new data be open to the network?]

Sten was shocked and hurriedly checked his body, he immediately noticed he was much stronger than before, about three times stronger overall, despite his body looking the same.

"I can't believe it... I am a martial apprentice!?" Sten muttered with a shocked face.

Too many things happened in a short period, and Sten felt overwhelmed by all the information. He also just returned from the long "dream" he had.

After almost an hour of sorting his thoughts and memories, Sten reached a preliminary judgment.

He didn't return from the future, but he saw a potentially true future. The voice he heard before he passed out told him it was a simulation, after all.

Although he didn't know how something like that was possible, he also didn't know if it was possible to be promoted to the Martial Apprentice Realm like that, but he did.

After understanding a bit of his situation, he began to remember what kind of surroundings he was living in. Those were distant memories for him, because of the long simulation.

Sten was an ordinary young man who just left the regular army, he was about the enter a science academy to study and graduate.

His family was structured and he had two ordinary parents and a dead brother, who was stillborn.

The world he lived in was peaceful and cheerful, science flourished and every day new things were discovered.

He lived in one of the most powerful countries in the world, in terms of economic and military influence, the Constellation Federation.

Sten chose to take a walk in the streets to calm himself further, and he saw how cheerful it was, without any semblance of the dreary future.

Despite how hurried most people looked because of their work or other things, they were clearly in good condition.

He felt a vibration in his pocket and took his smartphone out, he saw that it was his mother calling.

He suddenly remembered how his mother died of old age, he could only watch at that time.

He felt his emotions boiling and reluctantly accepted the call, "Hey, mother, what's up?"

"I called to know if you are okay, did you have lunch?" his mother asked.

"...I had, thanks for worrying, how are you and father?"

"We are fine. Sorry, I have something to do right now, I will call later," his mother hung the phone.

Sten sighed, memories of how busy his parents were slowly resurfaced from the depths of his mind. They worked harder than anyone, and despite that never looked tired at home.

In the simulation, he watched them dying of old age, still in pain from losing both of their sons. At that time, the world was still prosperous.

Sten felt too mentally tired to do anything meaningful that day so he decided to drown in alcohol first. He walked into a street pub and began to drink like a fool.

When the night was already deep, he received a call from his mother, but he was too drunk and didn't want to accept the call.

He paid the bill and left to wander the streets like a ghost.

From time to time, flashes of distant future memories awakened his drunken mind, to make him compare the calm streets to the destroyed world of the future.

Perhaps because he was a martial apprentice, but his body was quick to recover and he sobered up after two hours of aimless wandering.

"What are you doing here at such a time with such a face?" a calm voice called his attention, a young man approached him with a curious face.

"...Xavi, it has been a while," Sten was surprised to see his friend and a distant memory of him dying from a sickness surfaced in his mind.

"Your expression worsened, are you thinking shit?" Xavi snorted and asked, "You reek of alcohol, what the hell have you been up to?"

"I drank a few," Sten answered, "Just because."

"Just because?" Xavi frowned, "You aren't like this, don't you trust your pal? Just tell me what's on your mind."

Sten sighed and shook his head, "Forget about it, a blockhead like you can't understand."

"Look who is talking!" Xavi sneered, "Since you can curse others, you shouldn't be too bad. Go home, it's too late for children to wander about."

Xavi then walked away as if nothing happened.

Sten observed with a thoughtful look but said nothing more, he wasn't in the mood to go home.

He sent a few messages to his mother and went to a park, he sat beside a tree and calmly felt the cold wind brushing against his face.

He spent the rest of the night like that as if he was a homeless man. The next day, he felt his heart was a little more stable and began to think hard.

Why did he receive such a "simulation?" Why was he the one to go through such a situation? Those are the foremost questions that popped up in his mind, but he had no answers or clues to them.

The third question was if he was actually mentally sick and everything was false, but the digital watch showed that he was apparently fine and that he truly became a martial apprentice.

The fourth question was... what was he going to do? Was he going to live an ordinary life? Was he going to choose and fight against the dreary future?

The global war would only happen after about a hundred years, he would be dead by then unless he cultivated to a higher realm. It was a matter of choice.

But he knew he had no choice. He was doomed to try his best to stop that dreary future from happening. It was his heart that ordered him.

If he had descendants, would he be happy to know they would simply die in the war? What about his friends' descendants as well? And didn't he want to make his parents live even longer?

Sten felt suffocated. He wasn't confident of being able to stop that war, he felt overwhelmed to the point of despair.

But he had no choice, and he knew that.

Slowly, he steeled his heart and mind and set his primary goal, to change the future.