Transmigration

If you accidentally transmigrated into the world of Lord of the Mysteries and knew nothing but the book's title, how would you survive?

Here are a few tips for reference:

1. The Assassin potion is better suited to keeping you alive.

2. If you have some savings you want to invest, you can seek out the famous mine owner Lanevus.

3. If you can't find Lanevus, don't panic. He's just gone to find new investors. You can try looking for his pregnant wife.

4. If you want to take up a hobby, buying a telescope to observe the stars is a good choice.

"What even is 'Lord of the Mysteries'? I've never read it. Why recommend this video to me?

These algorithms nowadays... ugh."

Chen Yuzhe muttered as he watched the video on his phone. As a university student, his biggest headaches were failing classes and taking fitness tests. Especially the fitness tests-if he couldn't pass those, he wouldn't even be able to graduate.

He'd stopped fantasizing about transmigration back in secondary school.

Besides, even if transmigration really existed, how could it ever happen to him?

Chen Yuzhe had never had much confidence in his luck. As someone so unlucky he couldn't even guess a coin toss right, he didn't believe something as wonderful as transmigration would ever fall into his lap, even if it actually existed.

Huh? Why do I feel a little dizzy?

Why does my heart suddenly hurt too?

With a thud, Chen Yuzhe collapsed onto the floor, his face contorted as he clutched his chest with both hands and writhed in pain.

Am I about to drop dead?

No, please! I'm still young. I can't...

Chen Yuzhe looked at the phone in front of him.

At least... at least let me wipe... wipe my phone!

He struggled to reach out, but his hand fell limp halfway there.

No! My reputation can't just...

Ah!

His body curled forward, but after only a couple of spasms, he felt his thoughts slipping away. Then he stopped moving altogether.

Loen...

The City of Cities... Backlund...

Did I... transmigrate?

Chen Yuzhe pressed his forehead. His head was buzzing, countless fragmented memories flooding into his mind. He felt as though his skull was about to burst.

Looking down at clothes clearly far behind the twenty-first century and hands that obviously weren't his own, he felt irritated and frightened.

All I did was complain a little, and I actually got transmigrated!

Is this the world of "Lord of the Mysteries"?

I only watched one video and heard a few terms. I don't even know who the protagonist is!

Did I transmigrate into the protagonist?

Uh, Lorne Dysenk. That's the original owner's name.

Is that the name of the protagonist of "Lord of the Mysteries"?

After calming himself a little, Chen Yuzhe began examining his surroundings.

It was a small, somewhat cluttered room with ordinary furnishings. From a modern perspective, the entire room looked extremely old-fashioned.

He was sitting at a desk piled with bottles, jars, and all sorts of strange-looking ingredients.

Some peculiar sense of kinship told Chen Yuzhe, without a moment's thought, that this was definitely a single person's room.

Why? Just call it intuition.

At the same time, a strange premonition told him that this really was the world of Lord of the Mysteries.

After about fifteen minutes, Chen Yuzhe gradually calmed down and began sorting out his situation.

"Lorne Dysenk-that's the name of the person whose body I'm in now.

So, did he die?

How on earth did he end up like this?"

According to the memories in his head, Lorne was from Backlund in the Loen Kingdom on the Northern Continent. His father's family had been merchants for generations, while his mother had died of illness shortly after his birth.

Lorne's life had originally been quite comfortable, but after his mother died, his wealthy merchant father began making one bad decision after another.

Lorne's father was named Tarkin Dysenk.

First, Tarkin had swallowed the nonsense of a banker friend, who claimed he could help him invest in businesses belonging to the Hall Family, a family of prominent bankers and nobles. To do so, Tarkin had not only put up all his cash but also sold all the family's land in the Rorsted Archipelago, a Loen colony, and even the Spice Plantation, which could have provided a steady income for years.

In the end, that friend had played him. The man had used a trick of wording: he'd said it was a Hall Family business, but the investment wasn't in Earl Hall's own bank. It was in a fund belonging to Earl Hall's daughter. Worse, it was a closed-end fund that couldn't be redeemed in the short term or sold to anyone else.

This had suddenly deprived Tarkin, a merchant, of a vast amount of working capital. Many businesses that had been running smoothly could no longer operate, bringing him to the brink of bankruptcy almost overnight.

Unwilling to accept his failed investment, he still refused to give up. To raise more money, he sold the family's several properties in North Borough, in the capital of Backlund.

Then he started investing again, only to be persuaded by a factory-owner friend to invest in numerous newly established arms factories.

The problem was that he hadn't done any market research. Demand for arms was low, and those factories had no chance of turning a profit in the short term.

Finally, unwilling to accept another failure, he poured all his remaining funds into the grain market, hoping to cash in on the recent steady rise in grain prices.

But with his cash flow already having collapsed, he owed the bank a large sum of money.

The bank had seized that grain as collateral. Although rising grain prices meant it successfully covered his debt, the grain would surely have earned far more if he'd held on to it. Feeling that he'd lost out, Tarkin suffered a devastating psychological blow.

The original owner's father had always been impatient for success. After a string of failed investments, he no longer had the capital to make a comeback anytime soon, and his health hadn't been good to begin with.

Overwhelmed by anger and anxiety, he had simply-died.

Thinking about this, Chen Yuzhe was speechless.

Was he trying to become an arms dealer by investing in so many arms factories?

Why overreach so badly?

And they were all long-term investments. With demand so weak, the only way to see a quick return would be for a world war to break out.

Worse, he even sold all that real estate. Houses in the capital were obviously going to hold their value, not to mention all that colonial land. For those to lose value, the capital would have to be invaded, or the colony would have to gain independence.

But the Loen Kingdom is thriving right now. Neither seems remotely possible. The value of the properties he sold can only

keep going up.

And so Lorne's standard of living had plunged from that of a wealthy young heir to that of an ordinary citizen.

Actually, even now, his situation wasn't all that bad. The trouble was that the original owner had inherited his father's temperament.

In pursuit of a supposed comeback, he had started gambling too. Only his gamble was on mysticism.

The original owner had stumbled upon the existence of supernatural powers and had even given up his chance to attend a business university for them.

Instead, he had studied Hermes, along with some Jotun and Elvish, neglecting food and sleep.

Then, with extraordinary luck, he had bought a potion formula and spent the rest of his family fortune gathering the ingredients.

In the end, he had collapsed from overwork and extreme excitement.

And then Chen Yuzhe had transmigrated into his body.

After recalling all of this, Chen Yuzhe could only conclude that being a compulsive gambler never paid.

Beyonder?

That seems to be the term for someone who gains Beyonder abilities after drinking a potion.

Chen Yuzhe carefully searched his memories for the terms that had suddenly appeared in his mind.

After thinking for a while, he glanced at the newspaper on the desk. Its headline read, "Corn Laws to Be Officially Repealed Next Month," and it was dated May 27, 1349.

"Ugh!" Realizing that he probably wouldn't be going home anytime soon, Chen Yuzhe sighed.

"Looks like I'm Lorne Dysenk from now on."

As for whether he was the original story's protagonist, Lorne had a gut feeling about that too. He definitely wasn't.

He didn't believe the original protagonist would have had such a dramatic beginning, either.

The thought left him feeling inexplicably dispirited.

"What's the point of transmigrating if you don't get to be the protagonist?"

Looking up at the chaotic assortment of ingredients on the desk, Lorne finally remembered that the potion formula he had bought was called "Monster."

Potions were probably the source of this world's supernatural powers, and their names likely corresponded to the respective supernatural professions. But Lorne really couldn't bring himself to like a profession called Monster. It didn't sound like anything good.

Still, now that he had transmigrated, it seemed wrong not to gain supernatural powers.

"Right, Assassin. That video mentioned it."

"Maybe I could choose Assassin." Lorne's eyes brightened as something suddenly occurred to him.