Darkness!

There was darkness before his eyes.

“Where am I now? Am I dead?”

Tolly lay motionless on the ground, his eyes closed. Sharp pain arced through his body and a sickening, burning smell came to his nostrils.

“Did I really get struck by lightning?”

Tolly remembered that he had just been dealing with Sam and his friends on the roof of the school building and that the heavens were even about to help him by exacting divine retribution on them.

He had expected that the blue lightning would have struck them, but instead, it had gone to him without any mercy. He was by no means an evil person, after all. He could not even be able to stand himself to step on an ant when walking outside.

Was it that the heavens did not act from any wish to be benevolent and dealt with all things as sacrificial straw dogs?

‘But why did it have to occur to me? What a crazy world!’ Tolly thought,

‘Goodbye, my dear Jenny! And see you, my beautiful Luna! The tattoo looks good to me, yet it couldn’t be able to help an unlucky soul.’

‘Such a fantastic school would have offered me a bright future.  I always told myself that I would study hard here. Then I would get myself enrolled in a prestigious university, get a decent job, get married, have several beautiful kids, and at last lead a peaceful life like all the other ordinary people.’

‘But the fact is that since I came here, I have been bullied all the time and ended up being struck by lightning. I came here for fortune, not misfortune.’

Tolly closed his eyes, pondering in the darkness. He guessed that it was now his soul that was thinking in the air. He tried hard to open his eyes, but a gentle breeze was blowing on his face, which made his eyes sore and with some tears in them.

‘How strange! If it is my soul that is thinking now, why can I still feel the pain in my body?’

He struggled to open his eyes again, but everything before him was a blur. He couldn’t even tell where he was whatsoever.

Suddenly, the stabbing pain radiated into him from his arm. He jerked his gaze at the tattoo, checking whether it was still there—in fact, he wasn’t even sure if he saw it with his eyes or if he was actually feeling it with his mind.

Anyway, his tattoo was still there on his arm, but it got darker than before—maybe the burning consequence of having been struck by lightning. Though darker, it was getting more deeply outlined.

Nevertheless, what had shocked him most was that Hidden Dragon, which had previously been like a small snake, seemed to have grown at once, turning itself into a real dragon.

The nine odd circular patterns were almost the same as before, but as for the dragon horns on its head, they had become even loftier and seemed much longer. In addition, the place that had been blank before was now covered with patterns of hard scales.

Who on the earth would say this was not a dragon now?

“The ‘Hidden Dragon’ account has been successfully bound to you. The relevant abilities shall be automatically unlocked when the necessary conditions are fulfilled.” A cute and playful voice of a lovely little girl echoed in his mind, scaring the crap out of him.

‘What the hell?’ Tolly thought to himself, startled, ‘Others often bind the Golden Knight, Batman, Vampire Lord, or something cool like that. Why can’t I get one of those? Obviously, they are much awesome!’

‘Though the name of Hidden Dragon kind of fits my wimpy personality, how come it sounds like a turtle retracting its head into its shell? I’ve been staying low for so many years. Don’t I have to continue to hold back and keep myself under the radar?’

“May I know exactly what special requirements are needed to unlock a new ability?” Tolly asked hastily.

“Do you see the nine peculiar circular patterns of Hidden Dragon?” the beautiful silver-toned voice replied,

“They are the nine buttons that can unlock the corresponding abilities of the Hidden Dragon system. Each of them shall be initiated with a secret manual. Please go to find these nine secret manuals in nine mysterious places in this world. Each time you collect one, you will automatically unlock the relevant ability.”

The nine circular patterns were all painted with different lines and shapes, which should relate to those nine secret manuals.

“Who’s speaking? What a sweet voice!” Tolly digressed abruptly.

“I’m the guide of the Hidden Dragon System. You can call me Hee-hee. I don’t have much time to talk to you, so please hurry up and ask me some more important questions.”

“All right, Hee-hee! Can you tell me where the nine mysterious places are located? What do I have to do in order to find those secret manuals?”

“Well, I don’t know about that, either. If these places are easy to be found, how could they be called mysterious and unknowable? You are penny wise, pound foolish, aren’t you?”

Hee-hee burst into a fit of laughter. Apparently, she, as an AI robot, was no worse than Tolly when it came to mocking others.

“So, what am I supposed to do?” Tolly asked helplessly.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and the present is a gift for you. all you need to do is live what you live. You know, cross the bridge when you come to it. Don’t you know that your future can’t be planned?” Hee-hee mocked once more, letting out another silvery laugh.

“Do you mean I just wait and let it run its natural course? But that’s not the same as what my father used to teach me! He always said that if you failed to plan, you planned to fail!” muttered Tolly.

“Was your father a great man?”

“No!”

“Was he a celebrity?”

“Nope!”

“Was he a success in some aspect of his life?” Hee-hee asked in a serious voice, without making a laugh this time.

“No, he wasn’t. why do you keep asking such stupid questions?” Tolly asked in disbelief.

“Haven’t you got my point here? Look! If he’s not a success, then why would you listen to a loser? No wonder you were such a waste in your previous life.”

Another fit of giggles came from Hee-hee. Tolly laughed along, feeling she was absolutely right. Why hadn’t he been aware of that before?

“There’s a little time left for you now. Before I fall asleep, you can ask me one more question!” Hee-hee said.

It looked like so many questions were at the tip of his tongue, but Tolly had no idea where to start. He asked nothing else, but blurted out,

“Am I dead?”

“Yes or no! Your previous life has already ended, but you’ve reincarnated into this new world. I hope you can enjoy your stay here and have a wonderful time. Good luck, my Hidden Dragon Knight, see you around!”

As the voice died away, a puff of smoke went into the tattoo on his arm and disappeared.

“Wait…wait… where am I now? What world is this?”

No matter how hard he tried, Hee-hee’s sweet, angel-like voice did not come out again.

‘The protagonists in all those web novels all have an awesome golden finger, like a vampire system, a werewolf system, or at least a billionaire system, but why do I get such a lousy one that is required to fulfill strict conditions?’ Tolly thought,

‘The mysterious places must be horrible. Without any kung fu or the skills of the spider-man, I definitely can’t get any so-called secret manual. I could die for it at any minute. To make things worse, I have to collect nine. Does it think I’m a cat that has nine lives? Perhaps I can die for another reincarnation, and then if I can’t be an emperor, I can be a duke at least!’

At the time, Tolly felt that his surroundings were no longer as blurred as before and that some dim light was coming into darkness. And the sounds of people speaking nearby came to his ears off and on.

“How strange! The weather is fickle. It was cloudless a minute ago, but all of a sudden, it’s getting dark and there’s lightning flashing across the sky.”

“Yeah, maybe the gods on duty in the sky dozed off and misplaced the parameters of the weather by mistake.”

“Nonsense! It must be that this guy has done something evil and the heavens are going to exact divine retribution on him. One can probably find the word ‘death’ on his back. That’s god’s way of telling us what goes around comes around. Karma will surely come back to haunt us!”

“Hey, isn’t that the punk Duke Charles Smith used to pick up on the road? It’s said that as Mr. Smith was on his way to the city of Fanta many years ago, a sudden rainstorm came. He heard a cry and found a little baby by the side of the road. Later on, Mr. Smith adopted him in the Duke’s Mansion so that the baby could become a servant or a guard in the future. Now the baby has grown up, but he is not honest at all. He has no idea that a drop of water in need shall be returned with a spring indeed. He has even staged a drama of ‘farmer and snake’. I heard he sneaked into Miss Smith’s room yesterday.”

“Oh, my goodness! Did he plan to steal anything?”

“Who knows? But even if he had no intention to take something away, he probably wanted to take advantage of Miss Smith. Ha-ha…, I am sure he’s got a lot of hormones.”

“From the looks of it, the lightning strike has served him right!”

“What a shame! Miss Smith is drop-dead gorgeous, but this guy has ruined her name!”

“What a bastard! Even if lightning didn’t serve him right, we should have beaten him to death anyway!”

Utterly confused, Tolly was not able to get the picture of what they had said. What an uncivilized world! Even if the citizens here did not know anything about charity, at least they should act as humanitarians by calling an ambulance for him, shouldn’t they?

‘When I recover, I’ll definitely post a video and expose their cold actions on the internet.”

Suddenly a loud shout coming from nowhere rose above the clamor of the crowd.

“Here comes the coroner. Get out of the way!”

‘Coroner? Am I truly dead now?” Tolly was left dumbstruck, ‘Is this an act in a film shooting? Have I become an extra actor?’

Soon, Tolly felt someone crouching down beside him and a bad body odor, mixed with the smell of sweat, came to his nostrils. Tolly would like to puke, but he couldn’t.

The person began to poke and prod here and there on his body. A few minutes later, he reported coldly,

“Mouth wide open and the eyes slanted. Cold limbs. And there are red and purple streaks on his body. It appears that part of the flesh has been cooked. Sure enough, he was indeed struck to death by lightning. “

Hearing of it, Tolly was going to hit the roof. Dying was okay with him, but it should not be such a grisly death. Out of nowhere, he suddenly got all his strength and finally managed to sit up. He exhaled some black smoke out of his mouth and gradually opened his eyes.

With his eyes dull and his face lacking luster, Tolly bellowed,

“Hey! Can you guys put better make-up on me? I promise it’ll make a better impression on the audience when it’s on!”

“A ZOMBIE!”

“A GHOST ALIVE!”

“Run!”

The people around him scattered away in an instant.