The Place Where Everything Begins

Inside a bedroom of a certain someone in his early 20s...

"Urggg..."

A man lying on the bed groaned...

After groaning, he felt an enormous amount of information suddenly embedded itself forcefully into his brain. Then he 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 his bed ceaselessly.

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

*Pant* *Pant* *Pant*

'*Sigh*, What a tormenting period.' While looking around the room, he thought and soon spotted a single 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 some time had passed, he smiled widely, filled with happiness and ecstasy.

'Indeed, what a wonderful spell, I have actually come back to the past. Now, I'm really 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 year 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 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 anime, 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 upcoming 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. Around 1 billion people would be transported onto Ortus to undergo a baptizing event called 'Tutorial' in each Doom.

The sole reason for 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 get all', someone called it 'weak meat, strong eat'.

*Sigh*

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

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

But, in reality...

Hell No!!

The Tutorial, it was akin to a living hell for someone like him. He didn't get any cheat ability or an ancient bloodline; he was only a petty otaku forced to fight monsters, outlanders, and even humans.

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

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

In this place, nature was tutorial and Ortus, while humanity was the one being selected. As a result, Earthlings could only be weak prey for the ferocious predators to eat.

After all 8 Dooms had befallen humanity, only about 400 million humans from Earth were alive on Ortus. It was a pathetic amount that was not even one-third of China's population.

Many races were living on Ortus while waging wars against one another to gain more resources and powers.

The cause of all those wars started off with something very tiny, but later it became bigger and bigger.

As each race believed in different gods, the difference in belief caused conflicts, conflicts caused wars, and those wars were endless.

But those things were not all. In terms of battle prowess, the 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 went crazy, and some decided to become devout religious believers. Still, the problem was, it was a devil religion believing and teaching about madness and destruction.

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

'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, for that is my duty...'

Jeremy thought with an unwavering determination.

Then 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... some terrifying sounds were coming from his stomach.

*Growling*

'First, let's go to the nearby restaurant on the way there. After that, I'll go buy those training-related wears'. He thought.

After finished eating a sumptuous meal and buying the things he needed, 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 home to play some games and watch some animations that he missed dearly.

At 4 p.m., he came to the best boxing gym he could find in his neighborhood. Even so, it took him 40 minutes of driving to reach here.

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 suggests.' Jeremy thought sarcastically.

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

Not long after, a 2-meter muscular man walked up 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 sized 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 in curiosity.

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

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

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

As for the price?

It was a staggering 45,000 US dollars for mere two months.

According to the training programs, he needed to spend at least two hours inside and two hours outside the gym, together with the new diet meal programs tailored for him by the two trainers, which would further complement his body-building process.

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

As for a reason for an 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 forgotten about how to fight barehanded. Except for some skills in spearmanship that he had barely practiced in his free time, he knew almost nothing about fighting barehanded.

[A/N: Well, on Ortus, one day has around 50 hours, and one era equals 1,000 days. That means, if calculating by Earth's standard, Jeremy's total age is more than 180 years old... a literally old monster.]

In fact, Jeremy 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, were there any reasons for him to fight close combat anymore?

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

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

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

*Sigh*

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

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

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

He had to prepare and think about many things before the tutorial event that would be happening in the next 3 months.

After some time had passed, Jeremy finally felt that he already had enough energy to walk and drive 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.