Chapter 1: Daneel
Although he had been assured that the machine's purpose was just to read his brainwaves, Daneel's life passed through his mind in an instant as he felt himself being strapped tightly onto the chair.
Left at the steps of an orphanage when he was just a month old, Daneel had the stamp 'orphan' branded on him from a young age.
Thankfully, the orphanage was run by a kind old woman who took great care of the kids. Although they lived frugally, Daneel remembered his childhood as being mostly pleasant.
Always showing remarkable results in studies, Daneel won scholarship after scholarship and entered college, looking forward to graduating and earning money to send back to the orphanage. He considered all of the children in the orphanage as his little brothers and sisters and wished for them to have a happy life.
Disaster struck in the form of the son of a politician. One day, he had accidentally bumped into a guy who was avidly pursuing a girl. The guy had an opened bottle of water in his hands, which spilled onto his pants.
Used to a frugal life, Daneel was a fragile boy. The bump had sent him careening onto the floor resulting in everyone looking at them to see what the commotion was.
Seeing the water on the pants of the boy, a few people ended up laughing. The girl also smirked before leaving the guy who looked at Daneel with a murderous expression on his face.
Since then, every day was hell for Daneel. Such a silly accident would have amounted to nothing if it were someone normal, but the guy in question was the son of a very rich and influential politician. Drunk with money and power, the guy wanted to make Daneel wish that he had never been born, and he did everything he could to make him feel so.
Nameless people beat him up. His scholarship was canceled with no reasons given. He was evicted from the hostel and the shop where he had been working part-time kicked him out.
Homeless and hungry, Daneel had to scavenge for food on the roads for the first time in his life.
Mainly not wanting to disappoint the kind old lady and impose on the orphanage, Daneel had to live in the most disgusting conditions imaginable for several weeks.
One day, he saw an advert calling any able volunteers for some 'harmless' scientific experiments. The payout was good and the company seemed legitimate.
Looking forward to the first decent meal in weeks, Daneel stumbled into the advertised clinic, thin, with skin clinging to his bones which were visible due to the malnourishment.
The staff were all very accommodating, giving him a full meal first and allowing him to bathe and shave.
Overjoyed by the hospitality, Daneel decided to do everything in his power to pay them back.
Later on, he was told what the experiment was. The clinic was recording brainwaves to make a database for a new biometric system. For this, they needed volunteers. Volunteers would simply be strapped to a chair and drugged asleep while a machine placed on the head would collect data.
It seemed too good to be true. It was almost as if one was being paid to sleep.
An ominous feeling washed over Daneel as he was strapped to the chair with electrodes connected to his head.
Something was injected into his arm which made him very drowsy.
The last moment before he fell asleep, a jolt of electricity was felt racing into his body from the electrodes on his head.
The last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness was pain. Pain throughout his body, as if he had been set on fire and was being burnt alive.
A robotic voice woke him up:
[*Ding*
World Domination System booting up.
Current World: Unknown
Host Status: Near-death
Current Goal: Survive
Overall Goal: Dominate and Conquer the world!]
As he slowly regained consciousness, Daneel felt shooting pains throughout his body. After the robotic voice stopped, he felt a flood of memories gushing into him.
He did not know what had happened after he had been strapped into the chair, but he suspected that he had mostly died due to some accident.
Like in the many novels he had read online, he had reincarnated into another world.
This was a world of magic and mythical beings. Elves, goblins, trolls, dwarves, dragons and many more races were known to exist although in places far away. Magic could be learnt by those who had the aptitude.
Either by luck or fate, the person he had reincarnated into was also called Daneel. He had also died in a similar way, but much more directly and that too at the tender age of 12. He had stumbled into a silkpants prince and made water spill on the latter. On orders from the prince who glanced at him as if he were an ant, he was beaten to death by the prince's guards. The prince did not even bat an eyelid at the former Daneel's cries of mercy, just like someone who wouldn't care about the plight of an ant that they stepped on. The fact that he was just a small 12-year old kid only made it so that it required a lesser amount of kicks to result in him lying on the ground, losing his life.
That explained the pain which was growing in intensity by the second.
Daneel analyzed the rest of the memories. With a start, he realized that he actually had parents in this world. His father was a disgraced soldier who had been fired due to abandoning the army. This was the official story. The truth was that he had offended a foolish but influential commander who was just in the post due to his family's power. Although disobeying the orders had resulted in him saving 20 people from dying, the commander's ego was hurt and his father was declared as a traitor who ran away from his post.
His mother now supported the family by doing odd jobs around the city. By washing clothes, cleaning bathrooms and sweeping floors she scavenged enough money for their small family to survive. He had no siblings.
Checking his current condition, he realized that there was no way his family would be able to handle the medical costs.
Daneel had always been a filial child. Since as long as he could remember, his days were occupied by mostly helping his mother with her chores. Rarely, he would spend some time exploring the city. It was in one such exploration that this incident had occurred. If he died now, his body would simply be discarded at night by the guards who patrolled the city.
Such was the kingdom of Lanthanor. Most of the things he knew about the world were told by his parents as bedside tales.
12,000 years ago, then-adventurer Lanthanore(pronounced Lanthanoray) led an expedition to slay a dragon which was terrorizing this land.
After accomplishing such a noble feat, he had established the Kingdom of Lanthanor.
With steady management and skillful trading, a small city of 5000 had developed into an enormous capital of 500,000. The kingdom itself had grown to accommodate millions of people, with walls being built on the borders to dissuade invasion.
The capital was known by the same name. If seen from above, the kingdom's walls encompassed a circular area 120 km in radius, with the capital located almost at the dead center.
Lanthanor was a predominantly human kingdom and its main occupation was farming.
[Preliminary Data collected.
Present Location: Lanthanor, outer city.
Host Level: Human-0 Fighter, Human-0 Mage
Host Potential: F-
Host Condition: Critical
New Mission: Drink water from fountain located exactly 617 meters north.
Mission Reward: Recovery of Body
Level Progression: 0%
Do you choose to accept the mission? Failure will have critical consequence. Host has been warned.]
The robotic voice sounded again in Daneel's head. The pain was almost getting overwhelming and he knew he would die if he continued lying there.
Hearing that he could recover, Daneel decided to question who the hell it was in his mind later.
"Yes", he gasped out loud, accepting his first mission.