A black-haired youth stood before a mirror, his dark eyes fixed deeply on his own reflection.
"This… this is how I looked? No… it's a bit different than my past self. The features are close—so close—yet not the same. I guess it's true, though it's odd. I feel as if the past me is a stranger. The me before meeting God, and the me now… we're like two separate beings. As if I watched a movie of someone else's life. Augh, whatever. My mind hurts with all this thinking."
The black-haired, black-eyed boy had pale skin adorned with scattered beauty marks—small black dots across his face like a fragment of a night sky filled with distant stars. His frame was small and skinny, the body of someone no older than twelve.
He moved to his bed and lay down, staring at the ceiling, reflecting over the past few days.
A few days ago, during school judo club activities, he had landed awkwardly, his head striking the mat with a sickening force. A concussion, they said. But alongside the dizziness and nausea came something far stranger—a flood of memories. Not hazy dreams, not imagination. Memories. Like watching a film projected directly into his mind.
They belonged to a dead person.
To someone who had met God—or rather, a being claiming to be some sort of god.
"This is all kind of crazy. I mean, I lived in this world all my life. I've never seen anything bizarre or supernatural—well… it's a hidden side of the world for a reason, I guess. But how am I meant to get started? I don't have any resources. No techniques from the murim I gained in my trials. And to access the trials, I need to enter my mental realm first. But how? It's not like I can just ask God. I'd need some ritual—some medium of communication. But what ritual? Man, this sucks. I don't even have a way to begin. And these memories of my past self are so crude, torn up, censored… I can't even capitalise on shared events like stocks or anything useful."
He sulked deeper into his bed.
His room was small. A single bed. A desk. An old PC that, to anyone else, looked normal—but to him, it looked ancient. After seeing what computers in 2025 looked like, how could this bulky, blocky machine compare? Even if it was standard for 1993, the gap between those two eras was simply too vast.
After a while, he stood and walked to his desk, grabbing a pen and paper. He began drawing random symbols from the top of his head.
"Well… the ritual can't be too complicated. If that god expects me to use it without prior knowledge, it must be something simple. I could trial-and-error my way through it, use online research to supplement… or maybe the first thing that comes to mind is the right one. Maybe he left some subconscious trigger in my head."
He finished drawing a large, symmetrical octagram. Each point branched outward like a tree bearing fruit. Within the smaller offshoots were written gibberish symbols—words without meaning or comprehension, yet drawn with eerie confidence.
He picked up a small keychain from his desk—a tiny rabbit dressed in clown attire—and placed it at the centre of the drawn array.
Then he grabbed a needle.
Pricking his finger, he let a small orb of blood swell at the wound before a droplet fell onto the centre of the drawn symbols.
The blood began to steam.
It evaporated slowly, and the array glowed faintly—just for a moment—before returning to normal.
"So, what do you want?"
A bored, apathetic voice cut through the wonder and mystique of the scene.
The clown rabbit spoke.
"Well—erm—you're God, right? You kind of didn't explain much about how I'm meant to use my wishes. Like, how do I enter my dream realm? What are the trials exactly? And how would the martial arts and inner energy from the murim carry over into this world?"
The rabbit's glossy black eyes stared at the boy without blinking.
"That's all? Where's your payment? Ahh, whatever. To enter your dream realm, simply clear your mind and think of a keyword—a trigger word of your choosing. Boom. You're there.
"As for your trials, you will gain access to an experience of the murim. Once that experience ends, you must fight and defeat the three strongest opponents within that martial realm. Each realm you conquer grants you access to an additional experience. As for what 'experience' truly means… you'll have to wait and find out.
"Now then—despite possessing cultivation techniques for inner qi, you cannot easily or safely use this world's energy. Your best choice is to perform well in your trials and earn additional rewards. Perhaps miraculous medicine to increase your natural qi capacity. You may also convert some of your life force into qi… though I wouldn't recommend overdoing it."
The boy hummed softly, trying to memorise every word.
"Okay… okay. Thank you, Sir God. I think I get it now."
"Good. Then I'll take my payment."
The rabbit's cute voice carried an unsettling sharpness.
Suddenly, the boy's face twisted in agony.
His left eye burned.
A sensation of overwhelming, irrational pain flooded it—as if something unseen had sunk claws deep into his vision.
"Don't be too worried," the rabbit said casually. "Your eye still works. It's merely more sensitive to light now. Who knows? It may even benefit you. Though… the constant torment will be quite irksome to endure."
The rabbit's glossy eyes reflected the boy's trembling figure.
The boy tried to open his left eye the slightest opening of his eyelid caused a visual overload of light as if he had just been flashbanged gritting his teeth in pain closing his eye rolling on his rooms floor