I had been walking around, depressed, for the fifth time this week after being rejected again — without even making it to the interview.
'Haa, damn it! Why does an entry-level job need such bullshit requirements!'
"I need to stay positive," I muttered to myself while crossing the street. Suddenly, the people around me scattered in panic.
'Why are they panicking?' I turned my head to the left and saw a speeding truck heading straight for me. It slammed into my body, sending me flying a couple of meters down the street.
"Call an ambulance and the fire department!!"
"Hello? There's been an accident on 47th Street — we need two ambulances."
"Hello? A truck caught fire on 47th Street! Yes, we need help as soon as possible!"
'Fuck! My entire body is in pain.' My eyes slowly closed and my consciousness drifted away as the voices around me faded into nothingness.
My eyes suddenly snapped open. "Where the hell am I?" I scanned the room — it was an apartment, but not the one I had been renting. As I sat there in disbelief, a notification sound from a phone on the floor cut off my train of thought.
I picked up the phone and tapped the notification on the screen. It opened the email app, and an email read: "Dear Mr. Arron, after reviewing your performance from the test we conducted, we deem you qualified to join our guild as an analyst and expect you to start next Monday."
"Who is Arron? And they said 'guild,' not 'company'? But before any of that — what happened to my injuries from the truck?" I turned on the phone's camera to look at my face.
"Who is this?" What I saw was an average-looking face with brown eyes and black hair. He clearly showed signs of starvation — the jawline was too visible, along with gaunt cheeks.
"Ugh!" My stomach suddenly rumbled with hunger as my senses slowly returned. I clutched my stomach while searching for money — checking my pockets, the cabinet — and found a wallet inside the cabinet. I opened it, revealing five bills. I took one out and examined it. It had a sword and shield printed on it, a yellow, white, and black color scheme, and the number five hundred printed in the upper left corner.
"Is this toy money?"
"Alright, wait — let me search online to see if this currency is real." I searched using the phone and found a matching picture of the bill.
"It seems this money is real! What country uses this currency?" I searched further and found that it belonged not to a country, but to something called the Eden Continent.
"Huh? The Eden Continent?" I tried searching for the country names I was familiar with, but none of them existed. After a while, I realized I was in another world — not the Earth I knew. From what I read online, this world was called Gaia and had six continents: Eden, Varnis, Sylvara, Nocturne, Zephira, and Thalor.
"Hahh. So I'm in another world. I would have loved this situation four years ago. Well, I need to buy food first — but where's the key to this apartment?" After a few minutes of searching, I found a keycard with a number, a name, and a QR code printed on it: {Arron: R20}.
"Oh, my eyes!" As I opened the door, the light blinded me and I had to shield my face until my eyes adjusted. Once they did, I looked around at the apartment building — it was in poor shape, with cracks running across the entire structure. I finally arrived at a convenience store by following the map app on my phone. I went inside and asked an employee where the ready-to-eat food was.
I picked out what I wanted along with a bottle of water and headed to the cashier. "How much is it?"
"That comes to six hundred aegis, sir."
"Here you go." I handed over two of my five-hundred-aegis bills, and the cashier gave me my change. I exited the store and spotted a bench near the entrance. I sat down and ate there.
"Hoo, that feels refreshing. I feel like I haven't eaten in days." After eating, I cleaned up the bench area and threw my trash in the nearby bin. I returned to the apartment, and the first thing I did was open the window to let in some light, then cleaned the room as best I could to at least make it look like a decent human being lived there.
"Finally, it looks like it's been cleaned." I wiped the sweat from my forehead and headed to the bathroom. It was small — no shower, just a faucet, a bucket, and a water scoop. After bathing, I changed my clothes and started searching the internet for information about this world and the job I had been hired for.
"Hmm, interesting." This world had something called celestial energy rather than mana, which originated from the mirror world — or dungeon gates, in simpler terms. These mirror worlds had appeared across the globe fifty years ago, along with monsters that emerged from them. The monsters couldn't be killed by normal means; celestial energy was required to do so. When they first appeared on Gaia, certain people awakened powers and were hailed as heroes. This eventually led to the creation of the Celestial Hunters Association and several guilds.
"Now, about my job." My role as an analyst involved reviewing mirror worlds and artifacts, scouting candidates for the combat team, and providing information and strategies to the guild. The average salary was forty thousand aegis a month, reflecting how important the role was within a guild. The main qualification was having an appraisal skill — a skill being something people were born with due to mutation caused by the celestial energy in the atmosphere.
"How do you activate a skill?" To activate a skill, you had to say its name while actively channeling your celestial energy to the part of your body connected to that skill.
"Okay, but how do I use celestial energy?" To use celestial energy, you first had to feel the flow of energy within your body and then guide it to the desired location.
"Alright, let's do this." I closed my eyes, and after ten minutes, I began to sense the celestial energy. I tried moving it toward my eyes — since appraisal, as portrayed in fiction, seems to work through the eyes — and after an hour, I finally managed to move the energy there. I was sweating heavily, and exhaustion washed over me.
"Now then, let's try it. Appraisal." I focused on the phone in my hand, and words began appearing.
{Titan Version 1}
The Titan Version 1 was released to the public in 2014. It was a mid-range phone at the time. Its body dimensions are six inches in length and three inches in width, featuring a dual-camera setup and a 68% screen-to-body ratio. Its processor, called the Crystal Core 001, is optimized for multitasking and energy efficiency, paired with a three-thousand-milliamp-hour battery.
"Whoa, this is so cool! But using celestial energy for that long is exhausting as hell." I collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath, but I felt ecstatic. The teenager in me was thrilled that I could use celestial energy. The old dream of having superpowers and being the main character came rushing back — but I shut it down immediately.
"Me, an MC? Who am I kidding?" I scoffed at my own delusions. Appraisal alone wasn't enough to call me a main character. Even though I had transmigrated into another world, I was still a nobody. I didn't have a system, and it wasn't like I'd transmigrated into a novel where I had knowledge of future events. I kind of wished for something like that, but reality isn't so simple — wishes don't just magically come true. I was just a regular guy with an average mindset, and I seriously doubted I could survive the things an average MC could.
"But at least I've got a job. Even if it's in another world."