Micah felt amazed and scared at what he got himself into, but in the end, there was no other alternative. His medical fees were getting out of control and his life expectancy was not looking good. So, when a chance came for his bills to be paid for and not fall on his family, he jumped at it, but like most things it is better to read the fine print.
It was true that his family would not have to pay any of the debt, but he thought the price would be only death. He thought since he was going to die soon it would be a genuinely good way out of it, but it was not that simple. He found himself as a test subject for something that he had no experience in and that was he would be part of the first batch to do virtual transmigration.
It was not that he lived under a rock or something, because he of course had been in virtual reality, because it was such a big part of society. He was never into the games, but he took a virtual vacation with his family a few years before he was struck with his condition. Micah had always been the type to like reality more, so he was a rare person in today’s society. He was part of a survivalist group that would go out in nature and live without any of the benefits that was so much a part of today’s society now.
His father had been a park ranger, so he and his brothers had spent their childhood doing things out in nature. They learned how to build things from scratch and survive out in the wilderness, and after he was married, he carried on the tradition. His children preferred virtual reality to the real wilderness, so he took them on adventures there, but on his own he would still leave for the wilderness and enjoyed that feeling.
He did so until his mid forties when he came down with a Terminal disease, and he spent the last four years wasting away racking up debt. He had just turned fifty when the offer came, and he decided to accept so his family would not be burdened. He had no idea at the time that he was a Guinea pig that would test out the feasibility of virtual transmigration. Micah was one of the subjects that would leave their body and life behind in the effort to transfer the human spirit into a virtually constructed world.
That was how he found himself standing overlooking an expanse of forest on a small continent. His only motivation was the longer he could survive the more income he could amass for his family to live out a quality existence in real life. He had long understood they could never go back and why it still hurt him emotionally he understood this was going to be his new life.
The mixture of technology and artificial intelligence was combined to make this world that had no actual server in real life. The information he had gained upon arriving here was that this place was created by artificial intelligence in a place that had no boundaries. Where he exactly was had not been disclosed, but there was no server that could go offline, and an ever-growing location that was started from this single continent that would expand.
He did not know how many people were in this virtual world, but he did know that there was no true history, and he could meet his final death here. The small bit of information that he received upon waking only told him of the system in place that everybody had accessed too and the rules everybody had to follow. He did not know the consequences of if he broke the rules, but he imagined they would not be good.
The interface was not what he expected because he only had five things in it right now. The first tab was his attributes that were broken down to four categories of physical, mental, spiritual, and social areas. The second had his affinity and karma and the third one had his abilities and powers. Finally, the fourth tab had his personal journal and help manual and the last one had his genealogical history. He only had access to his first four tabs now and the genealogical history was grayed out.
He had no skills, abilities, and powers now and his attributes did not seem that high at all with all being 1 except his spiritual which was currently 5. Micah arrived here naked and baring it all to the world, and there were no signs of any type of civilization. It was like a total restart except he started out as a late teen and according to his information he was only sixteen years old.
“Mission Alert.” A female voice was heard in Micah’s mind. “You are alone and without any support. Find food, water and create a secure place to stay. Time limit none, reward 10 progress points and a unique reward. This mission is an F ranked mission. Do you accept this mission? Yes or No.”
Two boxes seemed to appear in front of him that he could see through. One had a yes in it and the other a no. He thought about it and focused on the yes box with the intent of pushing it and without hesitation it lit up and both boxes disappeared. There was no confirmation of his acceptance or even mention of the mission as if it was just an illusion that came and disappeared.
He thought about the mission and the information appeared in his head and showed that there was a mission in the journal section of his interface. He knew that he needed to find food, water and shelter to complete the mission and each one had a percentage bar under it to show how far he was from completing that part. Micah sighed as he tried to orientate himself to where he actually was, and looked at his surroundings.
Micah was now standing on a hilltop, and he could see a river meandering through the base of the hill. He could see a few birds in the sky and compared to what he knew of Earth they were larger that the ones he had encountered. He knew that the key to survival was providing the three necessities, which was shelter, food, and water. Micah saw a water source and now he had found food and shelter.
Micah slowly worked his way down the steep hill and quickly he felt the bottom of his feet feel raw as he seemed to hit every twig and rock that was there. The light breeze seemed to be very brisk making what seemed like a nice day feel almost chilled. By the time he reached the bottom of the hill and looked up at where he came from, he felt an overpowering feeling of hopelessness as the distance he just traveled did not seem extremely far at all.
His white skin seemed to stand out from the green background of the grass and trees as Micah pushed on and made his way toward the nearest grove of trees. Again, he felt like it took him an eternity to just get a little way as he could now feel the scratches that were caused by the blades of grass on his ankles and thighs. The moment he reached the first tree he looked around, and he moved toward it. The closer he got to the tree the more his feet were cut by the loose debris, but he kept on going.
He made his way over to a small round boulder near the tree and just as he was about to sit down when he felt a small bite on his leg, and he slapped finding a large ant left in his palm. He stepped away from the boulder and saw that there were ants crawling all over it and suddenly another bit occurred on his ass, and he slapped and found another two-half dozen climbing his body. Micah scrambled and made his way to a grassy area before patting himself down making sure he got all the large black ants on him.
Micah realized it was much harder starting from scratch than if he had the proper gear to be a survivalist. He moved over to another tree farther away from the ant hill as he could. He looked at the next tree carefully before carefully moving his way over to it. Micah scanned looking for anything that could bite him and then made his way over to the tree.
He realized that right now his feet cut up the most, but he had an idea about what to do about that. Micah looked along the ground near the tree roots and after a while he found a long slender rock that had a sharp end. He then ran his fingers along the bark of the tree and found a gash and slid the sharp edge of the rock in and started working behind the bark until he finally started to pry the bark away from the tree.
It took him a long time before he was finally able to strip away a large patch of the bark, and then he went over to the roots grabbing some roots and trying to cut them away with the rock as well. Eventually after some time he had cut the bark in to pieces and punched holes in the bark slid the thick roots through the holes in the bark and tied them in to a loop and then with a sense of pride he slipped the two pieces of bark under his feet with the bark down and the smooth up, and he created a form of clog that would protect his feet from getting cut anymore.
