Free Extra: Carter Yang
Free bonus chapter: Carter Young
Carter Young is a renowned Britain archaeologist and adventurer, best known for his adventures at the Tutankhamun Pyramid in Egypt and the Chamank Ghost Swamp in the United States. He wrote bestselling books about these two adventures in the Britain, which have sold over a million copies worldwide.
However, he has another little-known identity—a passionate enthusiast of mysticism and magic. He has read hundreds of different fantasy novels about magic and mysticism, with his favorite being the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling.
He had read the novels no less than ten times, and could practically memorize every plot point and detail. Not to mention, he was an honorary member of the official Harry Potter fan club in Great Britain, and had even had lunch with author J.K. Rowling a few times.
On this day in 2021, at the age of 32, he embarked on another great adventure.
This is a sparsely populated mountain range located in the northern region of XZ.
He is no stranger to China; he is actually a Britain Chinese, born in China and moved to the Britain with his parents when he was three years old. His parents are very traditional Chinese and they had some reservations about his choice to become an adventurer instead of entering the financial industry that his parents had arranged for him.
Of course, Carter's current achievements are enough to shut his parents up about his career, but they have shifted the focus of their family conversations to Carter's marriage.
Carter's work meant he was often homeless, Accio around the world for months at a time, sometimes to places so remote he couldn't even make a phone call. He couldn't settle down and have a proper relationship.
Let's get back to this adventure!
After exploring the mountains for several days, he finally found his destination: a mysterious cave. The entrance to the cave was inscribed with many complex and mysterious symbols. Carter recognized them as an ancient script from the Middle Ages— Ancient Runic Magic Symbols.
This script evolved from the Phoenician Alphabet and represents the mysteries of the universe in Northern Europe mythology. It was discovered by Odin, the father of the gods, on the Yggdrasil.
As the world has changed, the ancient Ancient Runes has long been extinct and was gradually replaced by the Latin alphabet after Christianity spread to Northern Europe. The modern Ancient Runes that exist today, such as Elder Futhark, are actually only partial writing systems that have been successfully reconstructed by many mystical scholars and archaeologists through their efforts to find and trace ancient documents. They are completely different from the ancient Ancient Runes that existed in the Middle Ages.
Carter considered himself quite accomplished in ancient writing, not much different from professors at Ivy League universities in the United States. However, as he gently touched the mottled and peeling symbols carved on the stone wall, he embarrassingly discovered that he could hardly decipher a single character.
Holding a specially made, powerful flashlight, he cautiously strode step by step into the bottomless depths of the cave.
After five hours of darkness, he finally emerged from the long cave tunnel and arrived at a stone wall covered with countless Ancient Runic Magic Symbols.
What truly caught his attention was an enormous spiral character in the very center of the stone wall. He vaguely remembered seeing this character on a Thangka in the XZ Potala Palace, and in his somewhat hazy memory, he vaguely recalled that it represented something like "reincarnation" in esoteric Buddhism.
Looking at this mysterious symbol, Carter felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Although he was cautious by nature, at this moment his eyes were fixed intently on the symbol, as if drawn by some invisible force, unable to look away from it, while he heard a series of indistinct murmurs in his ears.
As if summoned by some unseen force, he touched the swirling symbol with his hand. The instant his fingertip touched the swirling image, a barely perceptible dark green light flashed, and something terrible happened.
The space around Carter suddenly began to distort in an indescribable way. In the blink of an eye, Carter was pulled into a vortex by an extremely powerful suction force and disappeared from this world forever...
This is the first chapter of the discarded original manuscript. Long-time readers may have already seen it. I put a lot of thought into designing the identity before the transmigration, and it felt like a waste to throw it away. Since I was writing about Carter Young, I thought I'd release this chapter as a free side story.