Feyland World.
The Age of Titans and Dragons.
The High Barbarian Mountains, where the grasslands meet the forest.
The sun blazed overhead, scorching the earth like a furnace!
"Tribes of the High Barbarian Mountains! By decree of the Royal Court, fifty eagle-warriors are to be conscripted! You have three days to march to the Sea of Trees Forest and heed the command of the God of Thunder!"
Above the cliffs, a dark-feathered eagle-man hovered mid-air, gripping a bone spear in his talons as he barked the order to the eagle-men below.
Among the crowd on the cliffs, Mack looked around in confusion—at the sky, at his surroundings.
"Where… where am I?!"
Soon, he noticed the differences.
All around him were eagle-men—human-faced, beaked, with taloned feet and dark feathers covering their bodies. They wore crude hides, their frames gaunt and faces sallow, clearly malnourished from long hardship.
And he himself… was just a fledgling, standing beside a motherly eagle-woman.
Fragmented memories of the young eagle-man surfaced in his mind.
"Messenger! Our tribe has barely two hundred eagle-men left. If all our able-bodied warriors are taken, how will we survive in this wasteland? Please, show us mercy!"
At the front of the crowd, a tall, broad-shouldered eagle-man pleaded with the hovering envoy.
But the messenger cared nothing for their survival. With a cold snort, he declared:
"Hmph! I care not for your excuses. Arrive on time, and you live. Fail to appear… and your tribe will be wiped out!"
With that, he flapped his wings and leaped away, flying off to another place, leaving only the eagle-men behind with faces full of despair.
Night.
A bonfire was lit atop the mountain cliff.
Upon it roasted the last remaining provisions of the eagle-man tribe.
The young and strong eagle-men ate their meat in silence, their families beside them.
Mike stood with his mother beside a male eagle-man.
The male eagle-man was tall and imposing—the chief of this eagle-man tribe, the same towering figure who had begged the envoy for mercy during the day.
Finishing his meal, he turned to Mike, sighed, and then patted his head with a smile.
"My son, you must grow up strong and healthy!"
Though Mike was now a different person, having merged with the memories of the young eagle-man, he still felt a stir of emotion upon hearing this.
Then, the chief turned to the female eagle-man and spoke solemnly.
"Shelly, the war between the Titan Gods and the Ancient Dragons has raged for a thousand years. Ten years ago, our fathers left and never returned. This time, when we depart, our fate is just as uncertain. After I'm gone, Mike will rely on you to raise him."
The female eagle-man's eyes glistened with tears.
"Morgan, can't you just... not go? Let's leave the High Savage Mountains, flee far away."
"It's impossible. The entire world is carved up and ruled by the Titans and the Dragons. Here, at least, we can barely survive. If we go elsewhere, we'll only meet destruction."
Eagle-Father replied helplessly.
"Morgan… you must come back safely!"
"I will."
Early the next morning,
all the young and strong eagle-men, led by Eagle-Father, took flight toward the west, heading for the Vast Sea Forest.
On the cliff, the elderly, the weak, the women, and the children of the eagle-men watched as the warriors disappeared into the distance, instinctively holding their own children tighter.
...
Three years later.
In a forest near the High Savage Mountains,
Mike gripped a short stone spear in his claws, perched on a tree branch, his cold, vertical pupils fixed intently on the scene below.
A large and a small thick-skinned boar were being ambushed by three forest wolves.
The smaller boar had already lost half its head to the wolves' savage bites—dead beyond any doubt.
The larger boar, driven mad by grief for its lost offspring, ignored its own wounds, lowered its head, and charged with its tusks raised.
One wolf was impaled and died on the spot, another had its belly torn open and lay panting on the ground.
The last wolf delivered the final blow to the enraged boar.
Just then, an eagle's cry rang out.
Mike swooped down from the treetops, thrusting his stone spear with deadly precision into the eye of the remaining wolf.
As the beast died in agony—
[You have slain a forest wolf. EXP +10]
Without pause, Mike turned and flew toward the heavily wounded wolf lying on the ground, hurling his stone spear in a swift, decisive motion.
The spear struck true, piercing its throat.
[You have slain a forest wolf. EXP +10]
The entire sequence was startlingly fast—clean and ruthless.
Only after the battle ended did three young eagle-men descend from the trees to the ground.
"Mike, you're amazing!"
"We barely even flew down from the branches, and you'd already killed them all!"
Mike smiled and nodded.
"Ryan, Vincent, Cross, take some of the prey back first. I'll keep watch here."
"Got it, Mike. Be careful!"
After speaking, the three young eagle-men worked together to carry away the large and small thick-skinned boars.
Watching them fly into the distance, Mike quickly masked the scent of blood from the three forest wolves before taking to the treetops again.
Perched on a branch, he gazed at the setting sun in the distance, flicking the blood off his stone spear.
"Open status panel."
[Name]: Mike
[Race]: Eagle-man
[Age]: 9
[Attributes]: Strength 5, Constitution 4, Spirit 9, Agility 8, Charm 3.
[Level]: Locked (Sealed. Unlocks after game activation.)
[Skills]: Throwing (Proficient), Spear Combat (Proficient)
[Skill Points]: Locked (Sealed. Unlocks after game activation.)
[Talents]: None
[Quest System]: Locked (Sealed. Unlocks after game activation.)
[Game Activation Countdown]: 3,650,136 days, 5 hours, 35 minutes.
Seeing that [Game Activation Countdown], Mike couldn't help but twitch his lips.
Transmigrated as an eagle-man, stuck in a disastrous starting scenario, and the game system wasn't even usable yet.
"Who knows if I'm an NPC or a player?"
He let out a deep sigh.
"Can't rely on the system for now—gotta depend on myself. At least I can still check my stats and skills, so it's not completely useless."
The golden light of dusk filtered through the leaves, casting a warm glow.
Snapping off a twig, Mike idly swung it through the air, muttering to himself.
"Nothing else to do. Might as well sort things out again."
"Three years in this world, and I've confirmed it—this is the ancient era of the Ferland World game, the Age of Titans and Dragons."
"When I first entered the game, it was during the fifth chapter—the era of the Human Empire's rise."
"By then, the Age of Titans and Dragons was long gone. After the Primordial War, the Titans vanished without a trace, and the Dragons retreated to their island."
"There's too little information about this period. From what I remember, there's only one notable record: three years before the final battle between the Titans and Dragons, the Thunder God Yatri slew Azure Dragon King Alilotus—the beloved youngest son of the Primordial Dragon Emperor—in a territorial war!"
"That is, the ancestor of all blue dragons in later ages."
"This incident was the spark."
"The Dragon Emperor, in his fury, mobilized the entire dragon race to wage an all-out war against the Titans, ending in mutual devastation... and allowing the goblins to rise in the chaos!"
"Back when I watched the lore cinematic, I didn't pay much attention to the eagle-men's history."
"Right now, the eagle-men still have their royal court ruling over hundreds of thousands of their kind across the primordial world, counted among the intelligent races."
At this thought, he glanced down at his own form and sighed.
"By the fifth chapter, eagle-men had become weakling mobs, no longer even considered an intelligent race. Players couldn't even choose them as a starting option."
"Honestly, their innate potential is just too low. I've tried so many methods from later eras with this young eagle-man's body, but none could unlock supernatural abilities."
"No talent means no talent!"
"If I can't even awaken supernatural powers, forget about the future."
His brow furrowed in thought.
"But I remember a legend that persisted into the fifth chapter."
"An ordinary turtle bathed in the blood of a Titan during the primordial age and eventually became a demigod, surviving all the way until the players arrived."
"I originally wanted to try the same method to awaken supernatural power."
"But in these three years, I've heard that bathing in Titan's blood doesn't empower you—it burns you to death. Without exception!"
"So how did that old turtle survive bathing in Titan's blood, let alone gain supernatural power?"
Mike fell into deep thought.
"I've completed that old turtle's quest before. If I recall carefully, there might be clues!"
The sun had fully set, and night arrived with a sky full of glittering stars.
Mike and his three companions carried the remaining three forest wolf carcasses back to the High Savage Mountains.
By then, a bonfire had been lit on the cliff, and the plump thick-skinned boar was roasting on a spit.
The eagle-men gathered in circles around the fire, their eyes filled with anticipation as they watched the boar sizzle over the flames.
Some of the eagle-man children were already drooling, unable to hide their eagerness.
The thick-skinned boar was the most succulent and prized prey in the Whispering Forest—even now, Mike and the others rarely encountered one.
This time, stumbling upon the wolves ambushing the boar had been pure luck, an opportunity that didn't come often.
Once the roasting was done, Mike was given the juiciest cut of boar meat.
After all the eagle-men had eaten their fill, an elderly eagle-man with gray-white feathers and a hunched frame—Morgan—shakily rose to his feet and made his way to the bonfire. Facing the gathered eagle-men, he spoke loudly.