Ian Calvender

A solid cast-iron cannonball screamed across hundreds of meters of sea and slammed into the Windbreaker's hull at the waterline.

"BOOM—"

The old oak hull shattered with a crash. Razor-sharp splinters swept through the hold as the cannonball bounced inside, still carrying some of its momentum.

"AAAAAAAH—"

The slaves crammed into the lower hold had nowhere to hide. Splinters and the cannonball swept them off their feet, sending up a spray of blood and severed limbs.

Moans and screams rose one after another, filling the hold with fear and despair.

Lin Yuan "felt" a heavy object bouncing toward his back.

"Dodge!" he instinctively rolled away, avoiding the "attack."

But then a splash of scalding liquid hit him in the face, filling his mouth with the taste of rust.

Lin Yuan abruptly sat up and opened his eyes. Before him lay a mangled body with a gaping hole in its chest, blood spurting out like a fountain.

The shocking sight left him no time to ponder the strange dodge he'd made in his dream.

"I'm not dead. I..."

He looked around and realized things weren't quite as he'd imagined.

A huge hole had been blasted into the crowded hold. It was also the only source of light, and it sat right at the waterline. As the ship rocked, seawater poured into the hold in waves.

People packed the hold, disheveled and dressed in strange clothes. Blood sprayed everywhere, broken limbs lay scattered about, and anguished screams filled the air.

The pungent stench of fermented excrement, blood, guts, and seawater assaulted his senses in waves.

"Am I really not dead? But where is this?"

He remembered getting into a car accident on his way home from work.

While he'd been waiting at a red light, a truck that had swerved to avoid an electric scooter had careened straight toward him. He'd been staring down at his phone and only realized what was happening when a passerby shouted. By then, it was too late—his head had met steel.

"I shouldn't have been looking at my phone. If I'd seen it coming sooner, maybe I could've dodged."

"Wear a helmet, stay safe. How could I forget mine? Maybe it would've saved my life."

As he tried to remember, Lin Yuan edged over to a section of the hold's wall away from the hole and leaned against the hull to steady himself.

"This isn't my body." Lin Yuan looked himself over and found quite a few wounds. Some had gone pale, but they all seemed old, and thankfully, none were serious.

Apart from that, he felt fine. His movements just now had been quick and nimble, his body well-coordinated, and his muscles sharply defined. He was incredibly strong.

His old self, on the other hand, had spent so long working overtime on code that his health was always below par. This definitely wasn't his body!

Had he transmigrated?

"Who am I? What do I do?"

He had to admit, he was a little panicked.

Lin Yuan took deep breaths and crouched against the wall, doing his best to calm down.

In a daze, he seemed to enter another world. The moment he arrived, a flood of unfamiliar yet familiar memories surged into him.

His name was Ian Calvender, the seventeen-year-old son of Baron Arnold Calvender, lord of Storm Cape at the southernmost tip of the Poldoria Kingdom.

This world was called Aiolanga. It had Extraordinary Sequences and many intelligent races. Humanity ruled the continent of Aiolanga, having dominated it for thousands of years, ever since the beginning of recorded history in the Ice Age.

The continent was divided into eastern and western halves, forming a slanted T shape, with the two sides facing each other across thousands of miles of the Storm Sea.

The Eastern Continent was long and narrow, only a third the size of the Western Continent. It stretched northwest to southeast like a curved blade piercing into the Sea of Death.

The Poldoria Kingdom was the largest kingdom on the Eastern Continent, occupying its southern tip.

For the first 2,600 years of the Fifth Epoch, most of the lands around the continent had been shrouded in endless fog. The fog contained supernatural power. Anyone who entered it would lose their bearings and eventually perish in the vast ocean. Thus, the foggy sea beyond the continent was also known as the Sea of Death.

But thirty-three years ago, in the year 2602 of the Fifth Epoch, the Mana Tide gradually cleared the fog over the ocean. Adventurers discovered islands far out at sea and returned with enormous fortunes. Humanity went mad with excitement, and the Age of Exploration began.

Some made vast fortunes, while others used the opportunity to enter an Extraordinary Sequence. The Sea of Death became the Sea of Miracles.

Storm Cape had originally been nothing more than a promontory jutting out from the southernmost tip of the Eastern Continent. Its territory was sizable, but it had little farmland and poor soil, so its people made their living from fishing.

It was called Storm Cape because the region was often battered by storms and towering waves.

But it had a natural deepwater harbor and served as a staging point for exploring the Sea of Miracles to the south. As a result, the lord of Storm Cape became one of the first to profit from the Age of Exploration.

However, just a few nights ago, a massive pirate fleet had launched a sudden attack on Storm Port. Among them was Blackbeard, one of the three great pirate crews of the Storm Sea.

The attack had come without warning. The castle built atop Shelter Cliff by the shore had been breached, and pirates had poured in, including more than a dozen Extraordinary individuals.

There had been six or seven Extraordinary practitioners in the family castle. Besides his father, a Tide Hunter Sequence 8, and Ian, an Alchemist Sequence 9, there had been several others, including the captain of the guards and the steward.

But caught off guard, they had been no match for pirates hardened by bloodshed and battle.

At the moment of crisis, his father had shoved him off the castle, then stayed behind with his older brother and the guards to hold off the pirates.

Ian had fallen into the raging Storm Sea. His father's contracted sea beast, a Deep Sea Swordfish, had already received its orders and carried him out to sea.

During their escape, Ian and the swordfish had been struck by an unknown curse. After shaking off their pursuers, the swordfish had taken him to a reef and collapsed from exhaustion.

Under the curse's influence, Ian had been dazed and barely able to hold on. His last memory was of a passing merchant ship "rescuing" him while he was barely conscious.

In the chaos, he experienced Ian's short life, taking in his memories and emotions. They were vaguer than his own experiences, yet more vivid than a movie.

"Looks like you couldn't hold on in the end."

Lin Yuan calmed his complicated feelings. Since he'd transmigrated, from now on he would be Ian Calvender.

Coming back to himself, Ian realized he was in a hazy space. His body seemed to be made of nothingness, drifting freely through the space with every thought.

An endless curtain of void covered the "sky," like a deep expanse of pristine darkness without a single star.

Two "celestial bodies" hung high in the void.

Right in the center was a golden "sun," radiating a gentle, warm glow that filled the entire space.

Beside it was a small "star," glowing a faint red.

Beneath his "feet" lay a small, thin, luminous lake. It didn't seem very large, and it was almost dried up.

The most striking thing in the space was a tree that looked newly sprouted. It stood in the middle of the small lake, about as tall as a person, with a straight trunk and sparse branches and leaves.

Its roots alone were enormous, like a vast neural network plunging deep into the "lakebed." The exposed tangle of its main root and side roots even formed a "small island."

"This must be the Spiritual World. And this tree must be the Original Tree at the core of my Extraordinary profession's sequence!"