BXBX NOVEL Chapter 1 My Gold Finger Is A Printer?
"Aah, my stomach!"
A young man in his twenties groaned as he rolled on his bed. His disheveled neck-length hair and pale, sunken cheeks made his otherwise handsome face look ghastly.
"Wait, Bed? How am I on a Bed?"
Ikasa sat up hurriedly. The sudden movement caused him to feel dizzy. He blinked his eyes furiously, to regain his sight. Then he scrutinized his surroundings .
He was in a small room. The walls and floor of the room were coated with mud. On the opposite side of the room, there was a small fireplace below the window. It also served as a cooking station. A small table was placed adjacent to the bed. And on the table was a Printer.
"A Printer?" Baffled by his discovery, Ikasa carefully observed it to verify his guess. It was indeed a printer - A run of a mill, laser jet paper printer.
Ikasa got up from the bed to take a closer look at it. The Printer seemed very out of place in this room.
As he got up, he felt a breeze blow at his lower body. When he looked down, he was shocked. His legs were different from how he remembered them to be. For one, the skin tone was darker. And they were hairy.
He immediately checked his hands. They were calloused and hard, very different from his soft, almost feminine hands.
"No! It can't be..."
Ikasa immediately grabbed the closest thing he had for a mirror, a shiny copper plate. And his fears were confirmed.
Those intense grayish blue eyes were not his. The thick eyebrows were not his. That dastardly handsome face was definitely not his.
If his conjectures were correct, he had transmigrated.
"All I did was take a dump behind your shrine, God! Did you have to give this big of a punishment to me?"
He hurried to the window to look outside. Not a single scooter or a car could be seen. There was not even a proper concrete road. But there was lots of dust and tracks of carriages.
"No! I have really transmigrated!"
In despair, he slumped to the ground.
"I was a young, successful entrepreneur on Earth. I made my Computer Peripherals company from zero to a billion-dollar business within five years. I resigned when I was 28 to enjoy the prime of my life. And I died because some fcukers decided to mess with my water?"
The more he thought about it, the more pissed he got.
"Those damn bastards. So what if they wanted to play a prank on me? Can they take responsibility for this transmigration?"
Ikasa remembered the moment he had passed out. He was in one of the backwater villages of China, visiting as a tourist. He took two of the locals from the village and went to see the Village's protector god, the Kuei-Shen.
Since it was the high noon of summer, he was already feeling a bit weak and dehydrated. When he reached out to drink water, he didn't see the sniggering youths. Soon after, their formula started to show effects.
There was no toilet in the area, and the only Tree that could shelter him from the view belonged to Kuei-Shen. Out of respect, he went as far as he could, but he couldn't hold it in.
He took care of his business right behind the shrine. The laxative and dehydration from earlier showed their effects, and he passed out before he could zip up his pants.
"Hopefully, I didn't fall into my own shit." Ikasa sighed.
After raging and cursing for more than an hour, he had resigned himself to his fate. He was not the type who would dwell on the things beyond his control. 'Make the most out of what's been served' was his mantra.
"It is all past for now. I now have a new challenge and new world to explore." Slapping his cheeks, he cheered himself up.
As he looked at his surroundings, memories of the original owner flooded his head. He saw a paper stuck on the wall above his bed.
'I will change my fate! I will change the fate of all commoners!'
Memories of the time those words were written resurfaced.
An adolescent teenager studied hard to read and write the words to become an Imperial Official. The way he was humiliated when he applied to be the Official Scribe at City Hall.
The ridiculous reason the Administrative officer had used to deny him the post.
'Only those with pedigree are eligible to become Imperial Official.'
The words on the paper were written when he had returned home after that shameful incident. And they had kept the previous Ikasa going.
Ikasa picked up the stack of papers and a Book. He got another flashback.
He saw the past Ikasa burn the midnight oil to copy Books, manuals, and other documents for the influential powers of the City.
"Hmph! Even though the pay was good, they treated this guy as Xerox machine in human form."
Now his attention turned to the oddest object in this room, the Printer.
He saw Ikasa reading about the Ruins in a book. He dreamed of turning his life around by selling the spoils found in Ruin. And he acted on his desire to explore the Ruins.
Even before he had entered the ruins, a large object had slammed into his stomach. And that object was this Printer. He had hobbled home with the Printer.
And that's where the memory ended.
"Looks like this is the cause of his death. Poor fellow. Didn't even get a chance to check his spoils."
Ikasa approached the Printer with caution. The bruise on his stomach was still aching.
When he was a foot away from the printer, a connecting cable suddenly emerged from the device and charged towards his stomach. Ikasa tried to dodge, but he was too slow.
The USB pin of the cable had inserted itself into the USB slot that had mysteriously appeared on his Solar Plexus. He felt as if he had heard a bell chime and a screen appeared before his eyes.
[Welcome to the Printing Interface]
Words accompanied with sound appeared in his head. He mentally commanded the screen to the next page.
[Would you like to go through the Tutorial?]
An additional Skip button had appeared. Out of habit, he chose Skip. And then the ramifications of what he had done registered.
"No, No, No, Don't skip! Back! Go Back! God Damn it!"
But it was too late. He watched helplessly as the new screen appeared.
The first thing that attracted his attention on a new screen was a Golden Print Button. Below it, he saw options such as Cultivation Technique Manuals and Battle Technique Manuals.
He could also toggle the screen from the Print button to the Copy button. But the Copy button was currently grey. In the Right upper corner, he saw two numbers.
CP : 50
BP : 50
By zooming in on the numbers, a description of the numbers appeared.
CP - Cultivation Points. Earned when a Printer generated cultivation manual is practiced by a cultivator.
BP - Battle Points. Earned when a Printer generated Battle Technique manual is practiced by a cultivator.
This was a good enough description. Ikasa zoomed out.
He again focused on the Print button, hoping more information would pop out. Unfortunately, nothing happened. He checked the box beside of the Cultivation technique manual and selected Print.
A confirmation message popped before him.
[Do you want to use 2 Cultivation points for Targeted Printing?]
Ikasa calmly chose 'No'.
"Not gonna rush again. Never again," He muttered to himself.
This time he selected the box in front of the Battle Technique manuals. Once again, a confirmation message popped up.
[Do you want to use 2 Battle Points for Targeted Printing?]
Ikasa clicked 'No' again.
This time Ikasa unchecked both the boxes and activated the golden Print button.
[Ding! Detected First Time User. Activating Bonus Draw]
[User is awarded 1 Bonus Draw]
Millions of characters floated on the screen and disappeared before Ikasa could read them.
[Cultivation manual 'Dumb Belle's Guide to Strength is ready to print.]
The screen in front of him vanished, and he could see the Printer sucking in air from the Paper Tray as a pristine white paper with black letters was printed out, one after another.
As Ikasa marveled at the magical sight before him, the papers had resized themselves. They bound together to form a novella-sized booklet.
On the black background of the cover page, golden letters appeared.
[Dumb Belle's Guide to Strength]
The manual evoked another memory. After he finished going through it, his lips twitched. He had inherited the entire knowledge Ikasa had about Cultivation and its theories. And yet he felt like cursing.
"I know I always wished for it, but I don't want to be unique anymore, God! Please make me like everyone else in this City and give me the ability to cultivate too!"
Everyone had the ability to cultivate, but they couldn't because of a lack of access to Cultivation Techniques and resources. Ikasa was the odd one. He had access to Techniques and resources, yet, he couldn't cultivate.
While cursing his luck, he picked up the manual and read through it. Going through the thin booklet took him hardly a few minutes.
"This... This is a High-Grade Cultivation manual. Much better than the low-grade or Mid-grade manuals sold in Cultivation Manual shops."
Then a sudden thought came to his mind.
'Wait, this is the lowest-ranked tier-3 city. I don't think the three big influences- the Xue Family, the Li family, or even the City Lord's Manor have access to High-Grade manuals.'
"If so, selling this manual would earn me enough money to spend the rest of my life without working!"
Cheering, he stood up with glee, as if to run out and find a buyer. That's when he saw the paper stuck on the wall. He turned serious.
"'I want to change my fate! I want to change the fate of all commoners!' And I was dreaming of happily spending my life after selling one manual."
He sneered at himself for thinking of taking an easy way out.
"No, I can't keep my goals so low. I am now a proud owner of Gold Finger." Ikasa said confidently, but then he gazed wistfully at the table while muttering, "Even though the Gold Finger is... A Printer."
He didn't dwell on it for long.
"Anyways, I should explore the Interface a bit more."
And Ikasa dived right back in.
The Bold Golden print button had now turned Silver. And his points were unchanged. With the intention to explore, Ikasa once again swiped the screen to the Copy button. This time the Copy button was also Silver. Below the option, he could see a list of cultivation manuals in his possession.
Meaning, he saw the [Dumb Belle's Guide to Strength] listed under the copy button. There was a familiar check box. Ikasa checked the Box and clicked the Copy Button.
There was no confirmation box this time. Instead, the familiar sound of Air being sucked into Printer was heard. Soon Ikasa had one more copy of [Dumb Belle's Guide to Strength] in his hands.
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. When he re-entered the interface, the Silver color of Copy and Print had turned White.
He had no choice but to continue exploring. Gritting his teeth, he chose the White Print button.
[Do you want to use 1 Point to randomly draw Cultivation or Battle Technique?]
After hurriedly saying No, Ikasa rubbed his nose.
He dared not explore randomly anymore. The Points were precious, and even though he knew how to earn them, he didn't know when he would be able to.
"Only if there was a user manual…."
[Generating User Manual...]
And soon a User Manual appeared before him.
"Aarrgh!"
He was so furious and regretful at the same time. If only he had asked for the User Manual instead of randomly clicking!