[ Countdown until Summoned Hero Ye Yaoming Arrival: 06:42:09 ]

  "Still got about six and a half—" Cyrus didn't manage to finish before a grumbling interrupted him. His stomach.

  He was already feeling somewhat famished when he got into the pod, being instructed to stop any food consumption six hours before the dive in case something went wrong. The sense of hunger was unfound when he was at the Forlorn Pavilion, but the moment he touched ground, it came back like a punch to the gut.

  Now his stomach had twisted into a knot, acid burning into its walls.

  Until a moment ago, he was hoping to make a quick trip to the village to check out his future Faith generators—the mortals. Gathering Faith for a god was simple. He just needed mortals to believe in Mo Tian and worship Him, with temples in their hearts and temples on their lands.

  But it sounded like he needed to fill his stomach first, with his hands already shaking from hunger and all that. Once he was full, he couldn't postpone the eye-removing business anymore. He imagined he'd need time to recover after that and before Yaoming got here.

  "Food should be just outside," he muttered. At least he hoped so. The forest didn't feel empty even though he didn't come across any living beings on his way here. "I guess I should go find something to eat and a homecoming gift for my dearest first Hero before I incapacitate myself." He grunted, getting up to his feet. "Since I got [Hunting Blade], surely I'm equipped with some weapons. Let's see..."

  Cyrus patted himself down thoroughly but found nothing on him. Aside from the simple darkened bamboo hat, an old but jade pendant that sounded cheap when he flicked a nail at it, and a few plum-colored silk ribbons with golden seamlines tied around his wrists, his mortal avatar was seemingly empty-handed. But, something about him, his posture, clothing, and aura, screamed cultivator—he just had that kind of air to him.

  And as a cultivator, Cyrus was convinced that he had a sword on him, just not physically.

  He tried mentally calling upon his sword. Nothing.

  Then, he yelled some keywords out loud like a lunatic—"sword", "weapon", "blade", "Hunting blade". Still nothing.

  This seemed like the exact moment a tutorial should kindly present itself to him. Maybe in another game, it would have, but in Salvation and Beyond Immersive, Cyrus was left to figure things out on his own.

  Even Moshi, the only form of help available, was as useful as a crow on a sinking ship. All they could tell him was that his mortal body was indeed a cultivator who, from the Foundation skill, likely practiced a form of the Forester Path in addition to the Path of Adherence Mo Tian scripted before the game started. A dual path cultivator was what the Archon called him.

  "How does a cultivator summon their sword?" Cyrus grunted. "How does a game character take out their weapon? Ah." He recalled something. "This is a bit embarrassing, but I guess I should give it a go."

  He softened his knees and kept his back straight, standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, and his right foot slid forward slightly. He stirred up his memory of the sword stance he'd learned just enough to get a passing grade, and never again.

  Sword wasn't his thing. Guns were. Bows and arrows were preferred too—anything but close combat. In fact, he would rather not have to do any combat at all if he could help it. He had never been a fan of violent clashes, even if he couldn't always convince people about that.

  But now he needed to fight to stay alive, and his skill pointed to swordsmanship, so he focused again. With his left hand, he reached toward his hip and 'grabbed' the imaginary scabbard, closing his fingers around nothing. His right hand hovered above where the hilt would have been.

  He shut his eyes, focusing on the feeling and the phantom weight of the sword. He visualized and copied the typical, admittedly cool-looking stance a swordsman character would perform before their attack sequence—one he'd seen more than enough.

  His thumb pressed against the space where a guard should be and pushed with a click. He pressed his right hand below the hilt and drew, pulling back the scabbard and out the blade.

  His shoulders turned, and his right arm swept outward before he held the hilt with both hands and slammed it down in a clean diagonal line. A solid weight filled his hands mid-arc, sanded wood hardened against his rough palms.

  Shii—ng.

  A distinct, crisp unsheathing sound rang, swiftly followed by a low whoosh as the blade cut the air.

  [ -2.99% HP (Light Physical Damage Taken) ]

  "Ouch, ouch. My joints."

  Cyrus opened his eyes to a thin, longsword with a straight, steel blade—much different from the katana he was taught with. The blade had a shorter hilt, designed for one-handed precision, and that made things awkward with his grip.

  Moving the sword to his left hand, he rubbed his aching wrist as he used [Crow Eyes] on it.

  +++

  Weapon: Light Longsword

  Durability: 100%

  Effect: None

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Rating: ?

  +++

  A 1-Star sword for a 1-Star Hero.

  "Yeah, no. Let's just pull more Heroes to do the fighting for me," he decided. "Ain't no way I'm fighting when I'm doing 3% damage to myself by just taking out my weapon." He could talk all fists and blades in games, but physically, no thanks—at least not with his current conditions and not when the pain was real.

  Good thing Yaoming, who would no doubt make a decent damage dealer, was getting delivered by celestial express soon enough.

  Cyrus moved from his wrist to massage his sore shoulder next. It wasn't just his joints that were aching from that single move; a tingling sensation crept up from his stomach, scurrying up his neck, and settling at the center of the area between his chin and throat.

  His body was weak—that, he knew. He found out that he wasn't the fittest fiddle when he ran out of breath after just a few minutes of walking on his way here. His Stamina had halved within two minutes of full sprint, and he couldn't physically force himself to continue sprinting once it hit fifty. He had a feeling that his one-digit Vitality had something to do with it, but he didn't have enough samples to make a proper guess.

  But, this? This wasn't a simple frailness. Something was wrong with his mortal avatar. He was delicate, something inside him broken prior to this.

  Cyrus already had a guess from what he could piece together from his profile and Path: a cultivator who dwelled, likely in seclusion, in some forest, hunting beasts for an unknown reason. Now this reason seemed to be a disease of some sort that weakened his body. Poison Immunity suggested that the disease had something to do with, well, poison, where he'd likely consumed enough of them to gain an immunity.

  Couldn't they just tell me head-on about the character's full backstory? Making me play detective about 'myself'.

  It was almost like the developers were afraid hell was too cold. Still, he would find out eventually. There was no need to know everything on the first day.

  Stepping outside, Cyrus gave a mental command to apply [Crow Eyes] on his surroundings, not knowing what to expect. Exactly what he should have expected happened when a square screen of a simple map interface unfolded at the top right corner of his field of view because, of course, it was a map. [Crow Eyes] seemed to be there to take care of all the basic functionalities of an open-world game: map, appraisal, scout, and navigation.

  "Anything easy to hunt for dinner?"

  At his question, a dozen dots, small and large, appeared on the unobscured part of the map around a golden triangle that represented him. Most of them were colored in shades of green, with a few rare ones that instead ranged from soft to bright red. He guessed the colors most likely indicated the enemy's strength.

  With a thought, he summoned the previous handy-dandy arrow navigator, but what looked like swirling graphic elements that seemed to indicate gusts of white gale rushed past him instead. He couldn't actually feel the wind, and nothing around him swayed to a breeze, but the visual flow of air guided him in a direction.

  He compared the direction with the map and realized that it was leading him to a small red dot.

  "Yeah, no thanks. I'm not dealing with a red enemy. Lead me to a weaker green one."

  He wasn't hungry enough to fight a boar or a bear. A small rabbit or chicken would do. He didn't mind fighting a stronger enemy for some loot or maybe an achievement, but he was not going to risk it all for one meal—not when he had no clue about his own strength, or lack thereof.

  The wind paused, and when it came again, it darted past him, down a different direction, one leading to a small light green enemy.

  Cyrus followed the breeze, watching the triangle move and making sure he wouldn't run into anything but his target. When the triangle reached the targeted dot, he stood under tall trees with trunks thicker than what he could hug in his arms.

  "Where's it?" he mumbled, glancing around before spotting a small monkey cuddling a low branch as it slept soundly. He wasn't sure whether monkey could be eaten, but [Crow Eyes] pointed it out when he asked for dinner. The monkey did look plump, so even if it didn't taste good, it should fill him sufficiently regardless.

  "What's the range of [Callous Stroke]?" he wondered, and at his pondering, the full description of the skill appeared before him without his active summon.

  [ Callous Stroke: A single, deliberate sword intent attack—cold, ruthless, and beautiful, like an inky stroke from a nomadic painter that defined the forest with his brush: pressed boldly at the start, then fading as it reaches its edge. This single element-infused slash deals damage equal to 50% of the target's max HP, capped at 1,000 HP. The attack consumes 60% of your max Stamina and 5% of max HP. Performing a Callous Stroke demands absolute focus. ]

  "Oh," he let out a surprised sound, blinking at the text before him. The Mortal Vassal Reformations screen had a description of what Callous Stroke was: the damage, the cost, and the part about needing to focus. But the first line was new to him. He took a mental note to check out the other skills later as he read over the first sentence.

  "Pressed boldly at the start and faded away at the end," he mumbled. "Sounds like damage decreases the further the target is."

  Another thing to note was that it was called a sword intent attack. Normally, in games and novels, sword intent or sword aura was something only strong and extraordinary swordsmen could muster, which his mortal self certainly didn't appear to be, with him unable to even hold his sword effortlessly.

  "Let's just try it out," Cyrus decided.

  He stepped back and lined himself with the blissfully sleeping monkey, lining his sword directly at its neck. He had no clue how to activate this [Callous Stroke] but let his instinct guide him as he did a simple, vertical slice, swinging the sword down as if chopping wood, no, as if beheading a criminal.

  The sword lowered, a blueish gleam slithering around his steel blade as he felt his core heating up behind his heart. His element manifested as a single droplet of dew dripping into an unseen body of water. A precise drop touched the surface, the sound reverberating in his mental space as his focus peaked. The blue glow reached its high and shot through as a crescent blade.

  The immaterial water strike sliced through the air and reached the branch in a blink, its length cutting through the thick of the wood and the monkey's neck. The monkey didn't squeal, didn't even wake up. It plopped down in two pieces, dead before it even knew.

  [ Marua Lv. 3 Slain. +5 Fate ]

  [ [Special Action] First Bloodshed. +10 Fate +3 Minor Insights ]

  [ Notice! You have obtained your first Enlightenment. ]

  But the monkey didn't fall alone. Cyrus dropped to his knees at the same time, clenching his chest as the tingling sensation from before returned. Only this time, it wasn't a teasing nibble. It bit and chewed down hard on his heart, stabbing at his veins and braiding his muscles.

  "Ugh! F—!"

  He glanced at the last notice screen he didn't get to read.

  [ -5% HP (Light Metaphysical Damage Taken) ]

  Cyrus opened his mouth to curse, but what came out instead was thick, black sludge with a metallic rot. Gushes of dirty blood rushed out of his throat with huge tissue-like clots. It felt as if he was vomiting out shredded pieces of his blackened heart. The pain was nothing like what he'd ever felt before—not the worst he ever had, but certainly the nastiest.

  When he was done emptying his guts, the pool of black blood before him seemed larger than the fresh red pool where the beheaded monkey lay. This was way more than what he expected to happen upon losing merely 4 HP.

  "Haha." Cyrus laughed, spitting out the bitter leftover, "Guess I'm very enlightened now."