Chapter 1
"Manager, I'm quitting!"
Aisen handed his resignation letter to the middle-aged man in front of him—a man with thinning hair and gold-rimmed glasses with his tone was firm.
"Mr. Turner, are you serious?" John, the old manager reached up to smooth down what little brown hair he had left, then glanced back and forth between the letter and Aisen.
"Yes, Manager. I think I can do better in the future if I were to leave this company." Aisen shrugged, his voice perfectly calm, showing no signs of anything unusual.
"If I remember correctly, you just started this morning?" John's face took on a strange expression, as if to say, 'Are you trying to mess with me?'
"That's right. I'm very sorry, but I have to make this choice!" On the surface, Aisen said this apologetically, but inside he was constantly complaining: 'I don't want to quit either where else would I get such an easy job, but my luck has finally changed after eighteen years in this world, so how could I still stay here.'
"Alright then. I wish you a brighter future!" John's expression froze. He clearly wanted to yell something but didn't know how, so in the end he just nodded and accepted the resignation, even offering Aisen a good luck note.
"Thank you!" After expressing his gratitude, Aisen turned and went back to the office to pack his things. The whole conversation had been rather bizarre, as nobody knew the fact that he was a reincarnator in this world.
Aisen Turner, in his previous life, had been just an ordinary person. His days were as flat and uneventful as a lazy turtle, his final memory was collapsing while staying up all night to fix bugs in a pay-to-win game his company was developing. The next thing he knew, he had arrived in Manchester, England, reborn as a baby born in 1972.
His family circumstances in this life were similarly average. His father, Jeff Turner, was a technician at a car factory, and his mother, Ivy Merlin, was an editor at a book publishing company.
Growing up in such a household, Aisen never enjoyed the privileges of a rich second-generation heir, but he never had to worry about food or clothing either. More importantly, ever since he realized he had been reborn decades into the past in Britain, Aisen had already planned out his life.
Starting from primary school, he basically cheated his way through everything, maintaining excellent grades all the way to university graduation and becoming "that kid from someone else's family." During that time, he also used memories from his previous life to accumulate more than two million pounds—by plagiarizing novel works, songs, and other stuff.
Since he had made quite a bit of money, his parents had no objections to his plans for the future. So Aisen joined a film company in London, intending to work there for a few years to learn the ropes before starting his own movie company. That way, he could "borrow" the great films he remembered and even collaborate with his mother's publishing company to develop IPs.
On the morning of July 4, 1990—today—Aisen had just started as a production staff member at Emerald Forest Film Company. Everything had been going according to plan… until an unexpected event at 10 a.m. completely derailed the life plan he had so carefully laid out.
After packing some files into his briefcase and finishing gathering his belongings, Aisen left Emerald Forest Film Company. He went downstairs and turned into a corner coffee shop on the street.
After ordering a coffee, Aisen sat quietly by the window and calmed down. To any onlooker, it looked like he was simply enjoying his coffee alone, but only he knew that a translucent screen had appeared in front of his eyes.
Yes—this was the reason he had changed his life plan. On his very first day at work, he had suddenly activated the legendary System. On the illusory screen was a character panel:
Name: Aisen Turner
Talent: Mana (Activated)
Mana Value: 10 (Increases by 10 daily)
Extraordinary Traits: None
Miracle Traits: 1 portion (Automatically gains 1 portion per year)
Looking at the character panel before him, Aisen suddenly felt that the world had suddenly turned more colorful. From the panel, his extraordinary talent was "Mana," which was already activated, and he currently had only 10 points. Coincidentally, the System increased mana by 10 points every day—meaning this talent had only activated today. But what was mana for? Could he cast magic with it?
If he remembered it right, there were many novels he had read where to do magic this mana thing was required, but what if this world has a different magic system all together, so he was a little confused.
At this thought, a slight curious smile appeared on Aisen's face. However, when he looked at "Extraordinary Traits" and "Miracle Traits," he grew puzzled. Just from the names, he couldn't figure out what they did.
Aisen tried focusing his mind on them, but whether he concentrated on Miracle Traits or Extraordinary Traits, he felt no change at all—as if those two features didn't exist. For now, at least, his system seemed quite limited.
There were no physical stats like strength, stamina, or defense that he had imagined. No skills either. The only clear thing was the mana value, which increased by 10 daily—but its actual use was still a big question mark.
Time passed slowly. Suddenly, something dawned on Aisen; a smile even crept onto his lips. He got up, left the coffee shop, and walked into the bookstore next door. A few minutes later, he returned to the coffee shop and sat back by the window. with some stuff to write down.
After filling the pen with ink, Aisen wrote a large line of character Mana arts.
Though Aisen knew that it was plainly stupid of him to do that here, that too in britain, he still decided to write down the mana techniques he could still remember from those novels.
Building a core, tempering with his body or opening his meridians, he had written down everything in a matter of just a few hours and then began to try those techniques on himself as well, hoping a single in all of them would work.
Yet the character panel remained unchanged. Aisen had originally hoped that by creating and studying those otherworldly skills himself, he could unlock a hidden skill panel in the system—but it still failed.
Next, instead of copying more skills from different setting novels, he tested ones he already knew well: programming, writing, etc. But obviously, none of them appeared on the character panel.
By this point in his experiments, Aisen had already somewhat expected this. His System apparently didn't have that function. Realizing this, he couldn't help feeling greatly disappointed. It meant his idea of learning skills by "slapping his past knowledge" wasn't going to work.
"This system really doesn't seem powerful enough!" After a while, Aisen put away the pen and notebooks and sighed.
Awakening an extraordinary talent was certainly good, and regardless of what level 10 mana represented, gaining 10 more every day was definitely nice, but what to do if he couldn't understand its use.
But right then, Aisen suddenly remembered something extremely important: personal safety. That's right—he had lived in this world for eighteen years without ever worrying about his safety.
But now that the System had appeared and he had awakened an extraordinary talent, Aisen couldn't help doubting the nature of this world.
Did he really just get a rebirth into normal Britain decades earlier? Or was this some kind of a parallel world hiding powers? If he hadn't awakened mana, he definitely wouldn't have thought in that direction.
But since he now had mana that grew daily, that possibility couldn't be ignored. Once this thought occurred to him, Aisen began muttering to himself, "Looks like until I figure things out, I need to keep a low profile and study this matter!"
Glancing at the briefcase in front of him, Aisen suddenly felt a wave of regret. If he wanted to stay low-key and study this matter, the best thing would have been to continue working quietly, pretending nothing had happened.
But the sudden appearance of the System had thrown him off balance, and in a moment of impulse he had quit his job. Realizing all this, Aisen immediately felt that he had been too hasty in decision making.
But what was done was done. He couldn't exactly go back and shamelessly ask to keep his job. So the somewhat mentally exhausted Aisen gave up on that unrealistic idea.
With a thought, the character panel vanished from his view, and he began thinking about his next steps.
Time ticked by slowly. Soon it was noon. When he snapped out of his thoughts, Aisen still hadn't decided what to do next. He ordered a plate of pasta at the coffee shop and casually ate to tide himself over.