Awakening Memories

The street was a blur of neon lights and scantily clad young women, the traffic lights blinking at the crosswalk, a runaway cement truck...

Beep!

A sharp horn blast pierced the dream, and Tao Yu jolted awake, gasping for breath, sweat drenching him.

A faint smell of mildew and stale sweat filled his nostrils with each gasp, gradually bringing Tao Yu back to his senses.

It's happening again, this dream, so real it blurs the line between fantasy and reality.

Tao Yu, a salaryman from the 21st century, now also a youth in the Outer City about to turn eighteen, found it hard to distinguish.

He'd had this dream occasionally over the years, but as his eighteenth birthday, the Awakening Day, drew closer, it became more frequent. In the last month, it felt like it happened every time he closed his eyes.

At first, he thought it was just stress and hallucinations brought on by the approaching Awakening Day. But with the increasing influx of information and memories, and the coherent system of knowledge that felt entirely self-consistent, he knew it was all real.

Based on the novels he remembered from his dreams, he must have reincarnated from another world...

He recalled the peaceful, warm, beautiful world from his memories, and then looked at the damp bed made of bricks and wooden planks before him. He looked up at the stains on the asbestos-cement walls and the window paneed with cardboard.

Tao Yu's expression became somewhat dazed.

Through a gap in the cardboard window, he saw only darkness outside. He listened to the wind whistling in the night, and the faint, indistinct murmurs and whispers that made his heart grow even more complex.

An old oil lamp sat by his bedside, its bean-sized flame casting a dim glow over the small room. But the light stopped abruptly at the window, as if unable to penetrate the darkness outside.

The occasional flicker of the flame made shadows dance within the room, as if they were alive, suggesting the tiny flame could be extinguished at any moment.

"Is there really a peaceful world where everyone can eat meat..."

Tao Yu had lived in this world for eighteen years. Recalling the memories of his past life in his dreams gave him a sense of having lived through ages.

Things he had taken for granted in his previous life were now utter luxuries, impossible dreams in this one!

Why hadn't the version of himself from this world transmigrated to the other?

With the combat and survival skills he'd painstakingly practiced for eighteen years, he could have at least been a bodyguard or a live-in son-in-law in the 21st century.

The Abyss...

The Sword of Damocles hanging over everyone in this world, the end of all worlds.

It had been countless years since this world was targeted by the Abyss.

From Tao Yu's limited knowledge, pieced together from fragments of information, he understood that when the Abyss first began to devour the world, the World Will instinctively awakened and bestowed upon everyone the power to resist the Abyss.

It was through the Pioneers venturing deeper into the world fragments within the Abyss's rifts and collecting Wish Power to sustain the world that they had managed to survive until now.

Tao Yu didn't know what had happened over these many years, but the Gray Mist, a sign of the Abyss's encroachment, had already spread across the world, confining human settlements to cities and shelters.

Most connections between cities had been severed. Traveling through the Gray Mist required navigating by the light of a Will-o'-the-Wisp, barely maintaining dwindling communication.

The Flame of Civilization that dispelled the Gray Mist in each city, and the Awakening Day on everyone's eighteenth birthday, seemed to be the World Will's final gifts...

Cluck cluck cluck~

Faint rooster crows echoed from outside the dark window, and as if in an instant, the darkness outside vanished, replaced by a hazy light.

The rooster's crow jolted Tao Yu from his thoughts. Looking at the gray light outside the window, he sighed inwardly. He then twisted the oil lamp by his bedside, stained with black oil, and extinguished the bean-sized flame.

The disappearances in the Outer City had been increasing lately. He wondered when it would end. He hoped today, his Awakening Day, he would successfully awaken a combat talent. Given his parents' talents, the best he could hope for was Dynamic Vision.

If Dynamic Vision reached C-rank or higher, his status might change.

Putting on his plastic-soled shoes, covered in an unknown black grime, Tao Yu pushed open the old wooden door, which let out a grating creak. Outside was a living room similar in style to his bedroom.

The living room walls were primarily made of asbestos-cement sheets and tin plates. In the center stood a rusty table fashioned from a tripod. The few stools in the living room were all different styles, as if pieced together from various discarded materials – some wooden, some made of composite boards, some metal.

He walked over to a water vat, picked up a porcelain basin nearby, and scooped a basin of water with a dented aluminum ladle.

Looking at his reflection – a face that was slender with a hint of refinement – Tao Yu felt a complex mix of emotions.

He wasn't bad-looking, just seemed malnourished. The high frequency of dreams this month had caused his thoughts to merge more and more with his past life, making him feel much sharper.

Creak~

The same grating sound of a door opening echoed, and a dark-skinned, capable-looking woman emerged from a room. Seeing Tao Yu, she smiled, revealing her pearly white teeth.

"A'Yu, today is your Awakening Day. You should be resting. I'll handle the farm work."

"Sister-in-law, I couldn't sleep."

Tao Yu nodded politely at the woman, then reached out to wash his face.

"Alright. Mom and Dad are also due back at noon. They should bring you some useful weapons and equipment."

The woman sighed, assuming Tao Yu was too nervous, and offered words of comfort.

"I'll get you something fresh to eat. You can eat it on your first day there."

"Thank you, Sister-in-law."

Tao Yu finished washing his face and expressed his gratitude.

He supposed this was his third sister-in-law. However, his eldest and second brothers had both died on their Awakening Days. His fourth sister was married, his fifth brother died on a cannon fodder mission, and his sixth sister went mad and was killed by the Security Team. Besides himself, only his parents, his third brother and his wife, and his sixteen-year-old younger brother remained in the family.

To lower their priority for cannon fodder assignments and increase their own weight, his parents were likely considering having a ninth child. He wasn't sure if they could still have one.

Although his parents had relatively stable jobs, and he had lived a "relatively stable" life growing up, he had witnessed death from a young age.

The Abyss's invasion marked the beginning, the World Will awakened and granted people the power to resist, and Awakening Day became an extremely important turning point for everyone.

From Awakening Day onwards, everyone in this world needs to spend a certain amount of time delving into Abyss rifts to search for Wish Power to strengthen themselves, which also serves to strengthen the World Will's resistance against the Abyss's encroachment.

While not a system of data and panels, the World Will allows individuals to clearly understand their abilities after Awakening Day. They can accelerate their strengthening through Wish Power, and personal talents will also awaken.

Personal talents are incredibly varied, with most not offering much help in combat but significantly impacting an individual's growth rate.

Due to limited resources, combat-oriented personal talents are more likely to receive company cultivation, granting corresponding privileges and resources.

For instance, Tao Yu's father, Tao Long, possessed the talent [Eagle Eye] (C+). Although its direct combat utility was limited, it offered advantages in scouting, sniping, and reconnaissance, which allowed him to survive for so many years.

His mother, Hong Xia, had [Dexterity] (F). Theoretically, [Dexterity] is more suited for combat than [Eagle Eye], but its innate level was too low, only slightly better than the lowest F-.

Although there were rumors of individuals improving their talent levels, even achieving metamorphosis or acquiring multiple talents, such things were clearly impossible for an ordinary family like theirs.

Therefore, his mother eventually chose to marry his father, hoping to cultivate the more standard combat talent [Dynamic Vision].

Meanwhile, she specialized in a manufacturing-related skill, becoming a seasoned, skilled worker at a leather factory through her nimble hands.

Combined with the bonus weight of having many children, they hadn't been assigned cannon fodder missions by the company all these years.

While individual talents are significantly related to genetics, among Tao Yu's many older siblings, only his Third Brother, Tao Tong, inherited the optimized talents of their parents, acquiring [Dynamic Vision] (D+).

Theoretically, his achievements should have been higher, and he even joined the company's Security Team at one point.

However, everything came to an abrupt halt after he lost both his legs during a mission.

Neither items for regenerating severed limbs nor mechanical prosthetics that would allow him to continue fighting were affordable for their family.

Fortunately, because he was injured while on a company mission, and for propaganda purposes, the company 'generously' exempted him and his wife, Li Li, from the mandatory conscription for cannon fodder missions for life.