Novel Bin Chapter 1: The World Traveling System
Chapter 1: The World Traveling System
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After having gone through a lot of crap, you might expect me to never get surprised anymore for random things that I cannot predict occurring in my daily life, right?
I mean, since my father went away and all, it has been pretty crazy.
Well, these last years, it had stabilized a bit, and now, I think I have finally found some peace where I can slowly make up my life and resume where I left it before everything went downhill.
Phew, I was looking forward to my first day at high school in a new country and all…
I was watching some conspiracy videos that this strange algorithm often throws at me.
And as I fell asleep with the phone over my chest...
Boom.
Or more like spark?
Anyways, the thing is, a terrible pain enveloped my entire body.
I think I have felt it before when I was younger and touched a broken electric wire.
Quite the electrifying experience.
The pain continued for a few agonizing seconds until it stopped.
And my vision completely changed.
I was standing in a completely different place than my bedroom.
With a weird mechanical voice speaking inside of my head…
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[The APP World Traveling System has been initiated!]
[Welcome to the Beginner World: Terra (Farm Town APP), User: Frank James!]
"…What?" Frank said, as he glared at his surroundings, the sun was brightly shining atop the clear blue sky. There were barely any clouds atop the beautiful clear blue heaven, something that he had not seen much since he went to live inside the big and clustered city, often filled with too much light pollution or gloomy days.
There was a free, and refreshing breeze going through the environment, something almost soothing to his tired heart, which made him instinctively relax as he breathed upon it, filling his lungs with the air, and then sighing in relief… but he was not relieved at all.
To his left, there was a large house, seemingly made entirely out of wood, which was beautifully painted with white and brown colors, to his right, there were large green fields, which extended across half a kilometer, and to the far, seemingly in the \'background\' of this world there were vast plains filled with green grass, resembling oceans of greenery, and small forests spread around such natural beauty, resembling a painting brought to life.
"Ugh… Am I dreaming?" he thought.
Frank could not help but wonder what had just happened.
Just a few seconds ago, he was peacefully sleeping on his bed.
However, as he slept, he felt a sharp pain, almost… electrical, which began to affect the phone he was holding in his hands, as he had fallen asleep while watching PouTube videos about cooking that the algorithm of the app randomly suggested to him.
When he woke up from such pain, he saw that the window in his room had been shattered and that the strong storm outside finally calmed down…
He had assumed that the heavens sent a thunder upon him just to wake him up. He had checked his body but found that nothing had happened to him… aside from his phone.
His phone was strangely showing colors and windows after windows, it was seemingly overloading with electricity, releasing sparks all across his bed, Frank tried to move away from the dangerous item only to trip with a cushion and slap his face into it directly… he was not the luckiest, to say the least.
And when his face fell upon the phone, he felt as if the electricity crossed across his entire body.
And then, he found himself in this space… Can it even be called space? It was simply another world.
The strangest of things was not only this but the mechanical voice and the holographic windows showing ahead of his sight.
It welcomed him to a \'Beginner World\' of sorts… and it even was some kind of APP?
"Beginner World? The Farm Town App? No way in hell this is real…" muttered Frank, sighing.
Frank began to think about what to do.
He could not help but be in denial of all of this, it was simply way too fantastical.
There was even a bit of fear quickly blossoming on his heart, as he was thrown into this new world out of nowhere.
He might have always fantasized about such events, but now that it was actually happening, he simply could not sort his mind out properly, even cold sweat began to drip from his neck.
This was bad…
The world, however, was peaceful and tranquil, the breeze crossed across his entire body and he could not help but feel relieved… whatever this world was, it was very real, and although the breeze made him feel relieved… the concern was still present within his mind.
"Well, if it\'s just a dream, let us go with it… At the very least, I will have some relief from my daily life… Though this dream seems vivid and realistic… Perhaps I am becoming schizophrenic?" Frank wondered.
Frank tried to take this all like a dream, it could not possibly the actual real world, right?
So he decided to assume that this was a dream and to enjoy it and try out things.
He sat down in the dirt, and grabbed it with his hands, he felt the dry and muddy dirt, and as he put his hands deeper into the fields, he would find fresher and colder dirt below.
"This is way too real…" he muttered.
Frank decided to touch the plants, they felt strong and alive. Although they were simply some very tall grass, they exuded a soothing smell.
The moment Frank noticed this, he could not help but swallow some saliva.
"Indeed, it is way too real…" he muttered again, checking his clothes.
He found that he was simply wearing farmer clothes… boots, jeans, a red-colored shirt with black squares, and even the iconic straw hat…
These clothes had come out of nowhere, he did not remember wearing them before… Making all of this even more weird, mysterious, and confusing.
However, Frank tried to play this off as a dream…
"Damn, I am rocking this style…" Frank thought.
"I wish everyone at home could see this… And because it feels that everything is so real… could it not be a dream then? Well, there is the last test before deciding that" Frank said, glancing at his hand.
He had come to the obvious conclusion to see if he could feel pain, like any person would try to do when they were experiencing something that they could simply not believe, imagining that it might be a dream.
Frank then pinched his hand with the fingers of his other hand…
Pain.
He felt a bit of pain by doing so.
And the concern in Frank\'s mind became even bigger…
This wasn\'t a dream.
"I have never had a vivid dream like this, nor one where I could actually feel pain… This is not a dream, I am really… inside another world? And it is the world of an… App? God, what kind of web novel setting is this?"
Frank could not help but sigh again at the over-the-top ridiculousness of the situation.
He tried to play it off inside of his mind with some inner comedy of his own as if he were trying to calm down his own consciousness.
He decided to stand up… and as he did, more System notifications, accompanied by the mechanical voice and the holographic windows appeared one after another.
Frank was startled for a moment, as he slowly glanced at them.
An ominous text appeared within such surreal holographic windows.
[You have entered the Farm Town App, Frank James! To exit, simply will it with your mind!]
[If you desire to stay, why don\'t you begin doing some quests?]
It seemed to tell Frank that he could \'exit\' this world at any time he wanted.
Was this some kind of VRMMO or something?
Frank even thought that he might have been kidnaped and forcefully put inside a futuristic capsule to live inside a VRMMO world…
But well, if that were the case, it would not simply tell him that he could \'exit\'.
"Quests…? And I can exit whenever I want? Then let me-"
[First Quest Acquired!]
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[Harvest Weed!] (Quest)
Grade: F
You were a simple wimp in your school but suddenly got struck by lightning while sleeping with your phone!
Now you are the owner of a crazy System that can make you travel through App Worlds! How crazy is that?
As you are in the Farm Town APP, why do not you begin your farmer work and harvest all this aromatic weed, which you have not touched for over half a year!
Since you did not even touch this APP for so long, it had grown all the way to one meter! Good luck!
Don\'t worry, maybe you can get to kill some monsters soon too!
Mission Rewards: A Small Amount of EXP, [Farming Technique Scroll], 20 APP Points.
Mission Failure: Death
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"Quests? Are you for real- Wait, mission failure is Death?! Are you kidding me? How can I have an option here if I fail to do it, I die?!"
Frank was shocked, the system seemed too friendly… but the mission failure was simply death.
It was even more ominous than he had imagined, this was not a game at all, this thing, whatever it was, was telling him to do something, and if he did not, death was the only thing waiting for him.
Frank once more swallowed some saliva, as he slowly calmed himself down.
Somehow, due to the effects of some kind of power within him that had recently awakened, his mind would instantly go calm the moment he panicked too much.
"But wait a minute… there isn\'t any time limit? Then I can harvest it whenever I want? Wait, then isn\'t the failure just a nothing burger?" thought Frank.
Ding!
[Now that you have entered a world in an App, it has become real!]
[That means that the weed will rot in a few weeks if you do not take it out soon!]
[You will die if you do not do it… in a few weeks]
"…Okay? That was oddly specific… So I have a few weeks to harvest it… Wait, why do I have to obey you anyway? And who are you exactly, can you explain to me what is going on?" asked Frank.
[If you want, you can check your Status, by simply saying \'Status\']
The System did not answer any more questions to Frank and simply suggested him to do something else.
Frank sighed internally, as he did as the window told him, for now…
"Status…?"
Ding!
[Name: Frank James
[Race: Human, (???)
[Titles: World Traveler.
[App Points: 10
[Job: Farmer.
[Job History: None.
[Level: 1
[Health Points: 10/10 (+10)
[Mana Points: 10/10
[Strength: 1 (+5)
[Defense: 1 (+5)
[Magic: 1
[Resistance: 1 (+5)
[Agility: 1 (+5)
[Passive Skills: [World\'s Traveler Body: Level -], [Gift of Life: Level 1]
[Equipment: [Farmer\'s Jeans (F)], [Leather Gloves (F)], [Leather Boots (F)], [Farmer Shirt (F)], [Straw Hat (F)]
[Active Skills: None.
[Relationships: None.
[Tamed Monsters: None.
[Worlds Visited: Earth, Terra (Farm Town App).
[APP Special Functions: Inventory, World\'s Gate, Quest Board, APP Gacha (Locked), APP Shop (Locked).
"Unbelievable, I really have a status… Did this game even have something like this? No, this I\'m fairly sure this game wasn\'t even about leveling up or having Skills…" Frank thought while rubbing his chin.
Frank decided to check out the Skills, thinking about how the System told him to just \'think\' things for them to happen or appear, such as when he wanted to exit.
The \'World\'s Traveler Body\' granted him the ability to have a body capable of adapting to the conditions of any world he traveled without any complications, to the point of giving him the possibility to adapt to any type of energy present in such worlds.
This Skill also seemed to affect his own mind and might be the reason why Frank\'s mind would become calm the moment he panicked too much, it was as if the Skill itself was adapting his mind to the situation.
And the \'Gift of Life\' Skill was a rather simple Skill, as its description said that it used Frank\'s own Life Energy to transfer it to others or his own body to heal wounds, it seemed to even have the ability to heal negative status effects.
"I see… So one Skill is for me to adapt to… other worlds. Am I really traveling to other worlds? I guess so now… And the Equipment, can I see it?"
Frank glanced at his equipment slots, as each equipment seemed to have its own window, each window showcased the equipment stats, and also if they had any bonus or special effect, his whole set of equipment brought him a tiny amount of extra stats and nothing much to talk about other than that.
He could not possibly get the best gear at the beginning, so he accepted the mediocrity of such equipment quite fast.
"Oh wow, what an annoying text wall… Well, pretty much everything is like a game… And those two skills are especially useful if I am really world-traveling… Oh, and the equipment, grants bonuses to stats even if they look like simple clothes? That is why I have plus five in most stats in between brackets… So, what do I do now?"
Frank was not relieved at all even after seeing all of this info, everything was simply unnerving.
Although he had always imagined having some kind of special ability that gave him a Game-like System, the way he got it was rather overwhelming for his mind.
Frank glanced at the crops for a moment, the breeze always calmed down any worries he could have, he simply sighed and decided on his next course of action.
He was curious about the rewards that simply taking this weed could give him, and also about what could happen if he gained Experience Points and leveled up.
Amongst his greatest fantasies was the ability to level up and become stronger just like a game character…
At least, he wanted to try.
"Alright then, time to work. No point babbling around. I can go back, it seems… But I want to enjoy this place a little longer… Maybe I will get some more answers if I complete the Quest. How hard could it be to harvest weed?" Frank said, putting his hands at work.
Frank quickly got to know that farmers are not to laugh about, the weed had grown so big and was deeply rotted into the ground, it took him three to four minutes per weed to take each one out, and each time he had to rest a bit…
As he worked his ass off, a small child glanced at Frank from inside the house through the windows and behind the curtains.
It had a small, orange-colored fox tail behind itself, and fox ears atop its tiny head. It glanced at Frank with surprise, widening its beautiful and shiny emerald eyes.
"W-Who is that person?! It came out of nowhere! Why is it taking out the weed? Uwah… I have to call mommy!"
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Author\'s Note: If you like the story please give any powerstone you could spare, if we reach a nice number there will be bonus chapters at the end of the week, it all depends on you!