"Ah."
"Ah."
Li Xi tossed and turned in bed, clutching his head. The throbbing pain made him want to chop his head off with an axe. Had he drunk fake wine last night?
"Thump."
The single bed wasn't wide enough to support his wild thrashing. Finally, during one turn, he fell off the bed.
The bed wasn't high, but the pain of his nose hitting the ground instantly surpassed the exploding sensation in his head. And amidst the stinging in his nostrils, the headache noticeably lessened. This might be a case of fighting poison with poison.
Li Xi was jolted awake by the series of pains. He opened his eyes and first looked at the hands covering his nose. Seeing no blood, he felt a lot better. Then, he remembered he needed to get back into bed and continue sleeping, as he had a lot of work at the company tomorrow.
He ended up seeing a dilapidated earthen house, a window with half its pane missing, and a dark, shiny cotton quilt of unknown material.
"Where is this?"
Li Xi was bewildered.
Instantly, a flood of memories surged into his mind. After a moment of disorientation, Li Xi understood the whole story.
He had transmigrated for some unknown reason, ending up in another world. The good news was that he had inherited the memories of the previous owner of this body, so he didn't have to worry about being mistaken for a lunatic due to his strangeness.
The bad news was that this world had just experienced turmoil. The Abyss had invaded the main world, and gods had descended to the mortal realm as saints. All life on the continent united to repel the demons, and this war lasted for a full twenty years.
Countless lives were lost, many small races disappeared, and hundreds of millions died. It would take hundreds, if not thousands, of years for the continent to recover from this devastating war.
The current situation was that the main force of the Abyss demons had been repelled, the gods were about to return to their divine kingdoms, and the continent's turmoil was nearing its end. There were basically no large-scale battles of over a hundred thousand troops anymore, but the demons left behind in the Abyss continued to plague the world. However, their complete eradication was only a matter of time.
Li Xi roughly understood the history of this continent of gods and breathed a sigh of relief. Regardless, his timing for transmigration was relatively good. If he had arrived during the fiercest part of the fighting, he wouldn't know if he'd survive more than a few days.
Now, as long as he stayed within the city, he wouldn't be in much danger unless he was exceptionally unlucky. After all, these cities were built to counter demons and were protected by numerous factions, making them safe.
Speaking of which, the body Li Xi had transmigrated into had a decent life before. In the overcrowded city of Cado, he owned his own house. For an outsider, this was the equivalent of a well-to-do family. Even if he did nothing, just renting out a part of the house would provide him with enough to eat and keep him from starving.
Moreover, the owner of this body was also an apprentice at a blacksmith shop, where he received meals. He had originally planned to become a master craftsman, use this house to marry a wife, raise a few mischievous children, and spend his old age sitting in a rocking chair, telling his grandchildren fabricated stories. A life like that would have been quite good.
But for some unknown reason, the unfortunate Li Xi had transmigrated into his body.
Li Xi sorted out the situation and could only give a bitter smile. "I, a fine young man from the 21st century, with a good job, who would want to come to another world to be a blacksmith?"
He didn't know why he had transmigrated in the first place. He had a regular sleep schedule, was thinking about asking a girl out for the weekend, and then he opened his eyes here.
"Heavens, all you gods and Buddhas, if you can oversee this world, please send me back! I promise to treat every woman wholeheartedly from now on."
Li Xi had never been so devout and serious, not even when making grand vows to his first love in bed.
But Li Xi waited for a long time, and there was no response.
Just as he was about to give up and ponder his future, a voice echoed in his mind.
[System sensing... Sensing successful.]
[System authentication... Authentication successful.]
[System binding... Binding successful.]
And then:
[Greetings, Master, I am the simple operating system, Xiao Fan. Please guide me.]
This was the first time Li Xi had encountered someone calling themselves that, but having a system was better than not having one. The essential cheat for transmigration had arrived. He welcomed it warmly.
Li Xi tentatively asked, "Xiao Fan, hello, what functions do you have?"
[I possess all ninjutsu and all items from Naruto. When the Master completes tasks, I can provide a lottery for the Master, with ninjutsu and items as prizes for the Master's growth.]
Li Xi had naturally watched Naruto. He still vaguely remembered some parts of the anime, which had a grand setting. As a child, he even imitated the ninjas by running with his hands behind his back, foolishly immersed in his own world.
The numerous ninjutsu and bloodline limits in Naruto were incredibly powerful. If he could truly obtain them, he would surely find his place in this other world. With all these beautiful women of various races, he could even... hehe, creating a new race wouldn't be bad.
Li Xi wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. "What do I need to do to obtain ninjutsu?"
[Master, for every task you complete in this world, you will receive one lottery chance.]
"Then quickly give me my first task." Li Xi was eager.
[Master, Xiao Fan does not have a task system. You need to register as a mercenary in this world and take on tasks yourself.]
Li Xi fell silent. He understood about mercenaries from the memories of the previous owner of this body, Mido. The great war had just ended, and everything was in a state of reconstruction.
From commoners rebuilding their lives to royalty restoring nations, mercenaries were everywhere. They were a group who only cared about money, willing to do anything for it.
High-end mercenaries could earn more in a single job than an ordinary person could spend in a lifetime, but low-end mercenaries often struggled to find their next meal.
With the system, Li Xi certainly wouldn't be a low-end mercenary. He might even become the King of Mercenaries in the future. However, the immediate problem before him was registering as a mercenary. Only after registering as an official mercenary could he accept tasks at the mercenary hall and, consequently, draw rewards from Xiao Fan.
But registering as a mercenary required a one-gold coin processing fee. Li Xi naturally couldn't afford this one gold coin. Let alone one gold coin, he didn't even have a single silver coin right now.
This house was ancestral property. The original owner of this body, Mido, had lost his entire family in the war when he was young. Now sixteen, he was still a minor and hadn't saved any money. His total assets amounted to less than fifty copper coins.
The cheapest black bread on the market cost three copper coins per pound. A pound of black bread could sustain Mido for a day. Officially, one gold coin was equivalent to ten thousand copper coins, while on the black market, it was eleven thousand.
This one gold coin required to register as a mercenary could feed Mido black bread for ten years. Such purchasing power made Li Xi exclaim, "Invincible!" But the mercenary guild, requiring one gold coin for registration, was also black-hearted and inhumane.
However, even if one gold coin could feed Li Xi black bread for a lifetime, he would still choose to register as a mercenary without hesitation.
"Money, where can I get this one gold coin?"
Li Xi lay on the smelly bed, looking up at the thin roof with a small hole. He desperately sifted through Mido's memories. Apart from the forty-three copper coins buried in the dirt under the bed, all he owned was this house and the dilapidated ancestral furniture that looked like it would decay at any moment.
"House?"
Li Xi sat up abruptly. His house was valuable. In Cado city, there were many homeless people, and housing prices had naturally soared. Thanks to the protection of the various religious orders, no one dared to openly bully him, a minor.
However, where there was light, there was shadow. Where there was justice, there was also injustice. Precisely because he was a minor, he was an easy target. Some people had already set their sights on him. If it weren't for his neighbors being acquaintances and the blacksmith master having some prestige, Mido would have already met his end in some stinking ditch.
Although these people were unscrupulous, this also provided Li Xi with a way to get money. Selling the house was out of the question, but taking out a loan was acceptable. With an idea in mind, Li Xi took out the black bread, hidden in a box to prevent rats from stealing it, as the first rays of dawn peeked through.
Just as he was about to take a bite, he smelled a strange odor coming from the black bread. The production process of this black bread was unknown and extremely mysterious. Perhaps one day you'd find a small stone in it, and the next day, you might find a dead rat mixed with meat.
Yet, he had to be grateful for the Agricultural Goddess's blessings to even get such black bread. In this era of chaos, if the Agricultural Goddess hadn't descended with a miracle to ensure high crop yields, the death toll would have been more than double.
Facing the black bread, his nose and mouth were extremely resistant, but his stomach was eager for it. Li Xi forced himself to endure the discomfort, spitting out more than a dozen mouthfuls of sand, a few small stones that could break his teeth, and a small piece of wood before finally filling his stomach.
He then drank a large gulp of cold water, and his breakfast was sorted.
"This black bread is only fit for pig feed. From now on, I will have meat every meal."
Just as Li Xi made his vow, he heard a "bang bang" knocking on the door.
"Mido, I know you're home, hurry up and open the door." A very coarse voice and a powerful knock. Li Xi strongly suspected that his two doors would be smashed to pieces in the next second.
Hearing this voice, Li Xi pictured a man with triangular eyes and a scar on his chin. This man was also a neighbor, but he was part of a gang, specializing in coercive sales, muggings, and tricking foreign women into prostitution. Of course, he also engaged in loan sharking.
Li Xi calmly opened the door. Before the other person could speak, Li Xi calmly said,
"Perfect, Jaddor, you're here. It saves me the trouble of looking for you."
Jaddor had originally been thinking about how to intimidate this stubborn Mido, who wouldn't say a word even under duress. But today, Mido was acting strangely. Facing him, he could actually converse. Jaddor decided to see what Mido was up to first.
"Come in. I need some money recently. How much can you lend me for this house?"
"You want to sell the house?" Mido's words completely shocked Jaddor. He had tried countless methods and spent so much time scheming for this house. If it weren't for not wanting to offend Mido's blacksmith master, he would have found a dark and windy night to kill him and then inherit the property with forged documents.
"Not sell, but mortgage. I understand your rules. Half of the principal as interest per month. If you can't repay within two months, the house is yours."
Li Xi looked at the bewildered Jaddor with a half-smile. "Isn't this what you've always wanted?"
Whether it was selling or mortgaging, Jaddor could accept either. In the end, the house would be his anyway, because after mortgaging it, no one could afford to repay the interest. Most of the time, mortgaging was even cheaper than buying the house outright.
"You really want to mortgage it?" Jaddor still couldn't believe it. He hadn't even used his trump card yet.
Li Xi continued speaking to himself, pointing at the house. "This ancestral house of mine is not of good quality and is in disrepair. According to the current market prices in Cado city, it could normally sell for ten gold coins. I understand your rules, five gold coins will be enough for me."