The first thing he felt was a light tingle of sensation in his fingers and toes. Opening his eyes Ryder found himself floating in a white void.
"Is this what death feels like?" he mused his voice echoing weirdly in the empty space around him.
Looking down Ryder realised that he was only wearing his underwear, though he noticed that there were no new scars on his toned, athletic body. All things considered he thought he looked pretty good for a dead man.
"Ryder Edevane," called a soothing, female voice.
"Yes," he answered looking around.
Suddenly there was a flash of bright, blue light. When his sight cleared he found himself standing in a small, well furnished room, the soft fur of a sheepskin rug massaging his feet.
"Please take a seat," instructed a kind looking woman with long, sapphire blue hair motioning to a plush, comfy looking chair opposite her.
Moving to sit down Ryder studied the woman, she had an amazing figure, soft and plump in all the right ways. The little bit of skin her flowing, white dress showed was toned and firm, her large breasts sitting high on her chest in defiance of gravity.
"I am Aevanna, mother goddess of Rystra," said the woman fixing her kind, silver eyes on him.
Ryder didn't know what to say to that, he wasn't a very religious person in life but he'd never heard of a goddess called Aevanna or a place called Rystra. His confusion must have shown in his eyes because the goddess smiled a warm, loving smile.
"This must all be very confusing for you, allow me to explain" she told him, sliding a large, china cup of something dark and warm towards him across a floating wooden tray that suddenly poofed into existence.
Taking the cup with a nod, Ryder took a sip of the best hot chocolate he had ever tasted. It was just warm enough to be nice but not hot enough to burn, it was just sweet enough to taste but didn't hide the hint of cocoa in the chocolate. It was perfection in a cup.
Seeing Ryder's eyes twinkle happily, Aevanna began to speak.
"In your world you died, sacrificed yourself to save others," she gave another warm smile, as though that fact impressed her.
"I saw an opportunity to take your soul before it was lost to the ether and I took it, summoning you here, to my home," she studied him for a moment as though expecting a response.
Never one to be hasty in his actions or his words, Ryder simply nodded in understanding and remained silent to allow her to continue.
"I wish to make you my unofficial champion, a hero who can help the people of my world," her words while quick were also well chosen as though she was disguising something from him or not telling him the whole story.
"What more than that?" he questioned, not seeing a problem with calling her out on something at this point.
Sighing heavily the goddess took a sip from her own cup, for just a fraction of a second Ryder saw the woman in the goddess, a very tired, fatigued woman. The perfect facade of alabaster skin reappeared a fraction of a second later, the change so fast he thought he'd imagined what he had seen.
"I see you are as perceptive as I hoped," she admitted with a soft laugh.
"Rystra is in need of a being powerful enough to operate outside its system, someone who isn't under the control of a religion or beholden to the various kingdoms," she stared at him intently.
"And you wish me to be that person. How do you intend for me to become 'powerful' enough to accomplish something like that," he queried putting an emphasis on the word powerful since he didn't understand it being used in this context. A single person didn't have the power to go against an organisation like an established church on their own.
"Rystra is very different to the world you come from, we have something called 'The System". It allows a person to access skills and abilities that make them more powerful as they train in them or raise their base attributes," explained Aevanna.
"Almost sounds like a video game," commented Ryder, suddenly very interested.
"It's actually very similar, though far more complex than the simple systems used to simulate things in your world," agreed the goddess with a happy smile.
"So, Rystra, is it a fantasy world? elves, magic all that stuff," he asked, doing his best to hide his excitement. It had been a not so hidden secret obsession back in his military days. Ryder loved fantasy books and games.
"Yes, though there are far more races than just elves that inhabit Rystra," said Aevanna noticing his growing interest.
"If you intend to make me powerful, can you give me knowledge as well? It might make it easier for me if I knew all the fighting styles and magic I could be up against," he asked leaning forward.
"That would be fairly simple, though you would have to practice them to actually use them," answered Aevanna with a smile.
"As long as I know what I need to do practicing should be no problem," confirmed Ryder.
"So you're happy to take the role I have in mind for you?" she asked excitedly.
"Sure, provided you give me time to train and get used to my abilities," he agreed drinking the last of his hot chocolate.
"Thank you so much," said the goddess letting out a relieved sigh and giving him a grin that showed she really was thankful for his agreement.
"I get to do whatever I want though, right?" he checked quickly.
"Yes, I don't think your true nature poses any risk to Rystra or her people," confirmed the goddess happily.
"Well, I guess I get a second chance at life, so I should thank you too," he said with a warm smile.
"I will admit you've taken the news very well, I will send you to a region deep within the Storm Woods for you to train and get used to your abilities," she told him, waving the tray and their drinks into nothingness.
"Sounds good, getting rid of some lingering injuries would be pretty good too," he added with a grin.
"Don't worry about that, you'll be given a new body when you appear in the world, you should spend the first few hours to get used to The System and increasing your abilities when you first arrive," she instructed him kindly, placing a hand on his chest.
"Yes ma'am, Thanks for the second chance," he quipped with a cheeky grin.
"Good luck Ryder Edevane, This goddess wishes you well on your journey," she said solemnly.
Behind him a swirling silver, blue portal opened, a lush heavily forested region beyond it. Saluting the goddess Aevanna smartly, Ryder stepped through the portal into a new life.
There was a moment of disorientation, a sensation of directionlessness and accelerated movement before his leading foot stepped out onto soft, cool grass. Stepping out of the portal into the forest Ryder took a deep breath of the cool, damp air, the scent of damp loam and dry bark filling hiss nose. Behind him the portal closed with a whump.
Surveying the area around him, Ryder took in the massive trunks of ancient trees, soft moss growing at their base, the ground was relatively open, only a few small saplings growing beneath the ancient boughs of the forest. A loud beep interrupted his appraisal of the surrounding area.
At the corner of his vision a small icon was blinking with a blue light, moving his hand he tried to press the icon, suddenly a blue list of screens filled his vision. Confused, Ryder read through each tag on the screen. Attributes, inventory, skills, abilities, Special skills, Blessings they were all things he was used to seeing in a game, right now the personal tab was open displaying his basic attributes and the status of his body.
Moving his hand to the flashing attributes tab he was surprised to see a massive number of points above the basic attributes lined up on his page. He had the option to distribute nine hundred points into seven stats that would effect the way his body would tolerate and be perceived by the outside world and its people. Right now each of his stats were set to one hundred, which he assumed was this worlds base level.
Sitting down for a moment Ryder considered how he wanted to spread out his stats, he felt a rush of excitement at how similar this was to a video game. Whistling to himself he read through each attributes descriptions before deciding what he would put points into.
After an hour or more of deliberation Ryder eventually decided to distribute his stats more towards strength, dexterity and vitality spreading out his points fairly evenly in those three and then as he felt he would need amongst the rest.
He ended up settling on luck as his fourth highest attribute followed by intellect and willpower with charisma last, his status screen also told him that he was level one and that he would receive one hundred points every time he levelled up.
Skipping across the the next glowing tab which was the skills menu he noticed that he already had several skills which included some that had been unlocked by high attributes in dexterity and strength. He found he had another thousand points to place into his skills as well as to unlock new ones.
Tapping on one of his skills, Ryder began to understand what the goddess had meant by making him more powerful. Each skill only had five levels that cost two skill points each, he started at level three in all of his skills. Using his points to fully level all of his available skills left him with close to seven hundred points remaining and another fifty every level up.
Reading his skills Ryder wondered if his attributes were as far off the scale as his skills. According to his menu description, level five in the sneak skill was a comparison to ancient legendary figures who lived in the shadows.
Reading through his abilities, special skills and blessings Ryder noticed four very interesting special skills and two blessings. From what he could tell special skills were more like passive effects that were always effecting him right now he had four. Prodigy, a special skill that tripled his experience gain, Sage a Special skill that increased how quickly he mastered skills, Immortal a Special skill that increased his health and magnified his healing factor by a hundred times meaning he would heal almost instantly and finally Adaptive. A special skill that caused his body to quickly adapt and become more hardy to everything that effected it, including poisons, temperatures and damages.
The two blessing he had were Goddesses Chosen a blessing that just overall increased his experience and skill gain as well as boosted his abilities. The other was the Blessing of Knowledge a blessing that gave him a book that listed every spell, martial art and alchemy art in the world of Rystra for him to learn.
Closing his menus Ryder stood up, a movement that felt far more fluid and easy than it had when he sat down, smiling to himself a little giddy from the excitement of living in a world that was basically made from his greatest dreams. Closing his eyes he could hear the gentle trickle of a stream off to his right.
Realising that he was basically nude except for his underwear he shrugged to himself and ran towards the stream he was surprised by how quickly his body adjusted to uneven terrain and how quickly it seemed to regain its balance. Moving through the forest quickly he soon found himself next to a wide, knee deep stream of clear, running water.
Taking the opportunity to look at his reflection in the waters surface he was surprised to see his own face staring back at him, though a few years younger than he had been when he died. His amber coloured eyes stared back at him from a youthful, square jawed face that was far more handsome than it used to be, his short black hair ruffled by the wind.
"Well, maybe I should spend some time training to get used to this new world and stuff," he laughed to himself as he cupped his hands to drink from the stream.
"Ahh, yes, this is going to be a good life," he said cheerfully, looking up at the azure sky.
Taking the opportunity to survey his surroundings now that he was out from under the thick canopy of the forest. It appeared that the large valley he was in was ringed by massive mountains that stretched up into the sky, their peaks vanishing above the clouds. The valley appeared wide, the mountains in the distance only just visible to the human eye.
The excitement of his new life waning, Ryder's basic training kicked in. With a water source secured he needed to find shelter nearby and secure a food source, for that he realised he would need tools to hunt.
Yes life was going to be very interesting indeed.