The light of transmigration was blinding. The process itself was an amazing feeling.

Wrapped up in mysterious energy, my soul traversed the barriers between realms—the walls between worlds. It was truly an out-of-this-world experience. Pun intended. But as I looked out at the scene that lay before me, I could not help but frown quite deeply.

"No..." I muttered. "No way."

What were the words that I said just seconds before my transmigration?

[ Let me enter my novel. ]

"I am an idiot." I cursed. "Perhaps the biggest idiot of all time."

This place... this world... this... novel... It was the creation I entitled [ Evergreen Passage ], and oh boy, that book would be best explained in two words.

[ Tragedy ]

And,

[ Calamity ]

Nothing more, nothing less.

"GODS DAMN IT!" I screamed to the heavens and swore against my own name. "AMBROSYA, YOU ABSOLUTE DIMWIT."

I was brought into a world that was going to turn to ash in just a few volumes. Moreover, death here meant that I would lose everything. I did not have the option to die. I could not allow it.

Thus, I blinked. Slowly. As slow as a cat would when it blinks at its beloved owners. I allowed my focus to return to the scenery before me.

There I saw a sparsely populated forest placed upon brown, dry earth. A sky of grey filled with low-lying clouds. A sloped landscape with sharp edges and cliffs. It was a piece of nature that was present in all my books.

With only a single difference.

In the great, great distance, spreading out infinitely behind me, there was the Great Plains.

A city could be seen just touching the horizon, brushing against the grey blanket of clouds. An invisible, infinitely tall tower that only I knew about should be standing there, at its very centre.

My descriptions of the location matched perfectly.

I was sure that this was Emerallia. A world that would be on the verge of utter destruction during Ragnarök. An event that would have arrived in the eighth volume.

To add insult to injury, I was familiar with this body that I was inhabiting.

I unsheathed my rusted dagger, and in between the patches of brown oxidation, I found the face I now wore. Black hair, black eyes, and a youthful face that looked somewhat androgynous.

"Caelum Phricius," I clicked my tongue as the memories of my character document flooded into my brain in great detail.

"A villain beneath being third-rate. A throw-away character that only lasted a few lines." I ridiculed, "Tragically slain by the main character, Virion Von Santos Sol the moment he drew blood from one of Virion's friends.

"Introduced in chapter 1, died in chapter 2." I continued. Boiling rage bubbled up from within me as more swear words threatened to rush out of my lips.

Inevitably, I controlled my anger and sighed.

"The world is going to end me even before the world itself ends."

I was dust blowing with the wind. Weak and puny.

Depressed, I sat down on the ground and breathed.

"****."

...

After an hour of wallowing in my sorrows, I stood back up. Quite sluggishly, may I add.

I reminded myself that, no matter what, I could not die. Not here and not now.

Perhaps never at all... If I achieve the highest of heights.

"Immortality... It is a path that I hold dear to my heart. I want it more than anything else in the world." I chuckled, wryly.

To achieve immortality, I had to solve the problem at hand first.

I pursed my lips before muttering out loud, "Back to Caelum Phricius. I remember writing down the fact that he was part of a bandit group called the Luster Mountain Bandits. At the meagre age of 16, a life of crime was all that he had. Blood stained his hands, all for the necessary riches he needed to survive.

"He wishes to go to [ Aethercaller University ], located in [ Central Ring, Aelthrie Mana Metropolis, Great Plains, Emerallia ]. But alas, he can only wish for it. He is much too weak to even participate in its entrance exams that will be held in a week.

"He has no time to grow strong enough."

I shook my head.

Aethercaller was an important focal point of [ Evergreen Passage ]. I needed to attend its classes to reinforce what I knew of the world and leech off its sponsored resources.

I knew the bigger picture of this world, but I lacked all the minute details.

E.g.,

When I described mana as having the ability to become a mana program through the correct manipulation of spiritual mana, I did not elaborate on every single detail or actually create a mana program to represent it.

I knew things, but not exactly how to do them.

The exceptions, of course, were how big plot-changing devices and items were made.

A wonderful example would be the [ World's System ].

Originally, the World's System was crafted by the human gods of Emerallia to keep their faithful believers alive and combat Ragnarök. To stop the end of the world.

Thystaina, the goddess of concepts was the one who crafted such an idea. But she died just as Ragnarök began. Her works were discovered by the desperate gods and they tried their best to create the most powerful World's System possible.

Thystaina's calculations only required a few ingredients for its creation:

Her powers.

Mana as its fuel and coding language.

The Gaian Membrane (more on that in the future) as its medium.

Finally, a human brain for its consciousness or A.I.

But the gods did something else.

They used the same mana, the same Gaian Membrane, but instead of Thystaina's powers, they used her corpse. Instead of a human brain, they used a god's brain.

What that created was a system so great that it could defy even its creators.

I, on the other hand, could make something simpler. Something better.

All I needed were the powers of one of Thystaina's demigod children, the same mana programs, the same Gaian Membrane, and the left hemisphere of the human brain.

This would create a very stable system. One that would trump even the gods' creations.

"But alas, that is only something I can do in the future." I sighed again.

How many times have I sighed today? My anger was fizzling out because of how tremendous a task it was to survive in this world of calamity I created.

"Nonetheless, I have to at least try."