William wearily rubbed his face in an attempt to wipe the tiredness off it. The faster he could get to the coffee, the better.

William forced his eyes open and saw that he was already halfway to the lobby. He frowned and wondered if he had dozed off for half a minute to miss the elevator going down over thirty floors. He had never been exhausted to quite that extent before.

Perhaps that was just a problem with him not being in his teens anymore. This was his body telling him to stop being an idiot and stop the unnecessary all-nighters.

The elevator suddenly made a loud grinding noise combined with a piercing metal screech before it halted. All signs of sleep disappeared from William’s eyes as they grew wide in fear.

This was what he had nightmares of as a kid. Getting trapped in an elevator for hours on end while helplessly waiting for rescue.

William didn’t dare press any of the buttons assigned to a floor due to fear, but he mashed the one for emergencies and held it down.

“This is maintenance. Was this an accidental press?” The woman answering sounded as if she wanted to be doing anything else. It was strangely soothing to William, who could barely hold off the panic building within him.

“No, something’s wrong with the elevator. I’m stuck inside.” William was proud of how his voice didn’t shake.

“Got it. I’ll send a couple people over.”

William pressed his lips together when the call disconnected. It would have been nice if she had stayed on the line.

No matter. He just had to relax and wait for them to get him out. Plenty of redundant features in modern elevators made them extremely safe. In fact, William hadn’t heard of anyone that had died due to this issue in the country.

As if to prove his self-reassurances wrong, the elevator lurched and dropped a few meters before stopping harshly. William hissed in pain as his legs took the full brunt of the unexpected movement, and it felt like his bones were screaming in protest.

He gripped the railing tightly and stayed as still as possible. As far as he knew, what just happened shouldn’t have been possible. A safety feature must have failed.

William held his breath as if that would help stabilize the elevator and listened nervously to the metallic groans around him. His heart sank. He knew that he was in trouble, and it was unlikely there would be a good ending to this.

A sickening jolt made William’s hand turn white as he tried to crush the railing with his grip. He prepared himself for the worst.

“Fuck!” William yelled as his feet left the elevator’s floor and his head banged into the ceiling. That was immediately followed by him crashing to the floor head first.

William could barely think straight with the repeated hits to the head, but he could feel a throbbing pain in his legs similar to when he had broken a bone as a kid. If, by some miracle, he survived this, he would need a lengthy hospital stay to recover.

It felt like William had been in the free-falling elevator for far longer than the few seconds it had been. Just as the thought of lifting his body off the elevator floor entered his mind, there was a loud, deafening noise.

It was a strange feeling. Being able to think clearly after knowing he had been in a horrible accident.

William had nothing he could call a body, nor could he explain how he could think and see. Not that there was anything worth seeing at the moment. It was all just darkness.

Just dark, darky, darkness.

William wondered how long he had been here to lose his mind and think that sentence. He imagined his real body was in a coma since he could still think. If that was true, his parents might have stopped arguing about everything and anything to visit their middle child in the hospital.

It would be an excellent bonding experience for them… probably. William would have snorted at the thought if he had a face.

Still, he was bored out of his mind. He hoped he wouldn’t be stuck in this place for much longer.

A faint light appeared in the distance as if the darkness was listening to his thoughts. It reminded William of those movies and how it generally meant it was a way out. The only difference was that he couldn’t move toward the light even if he wanted to.

It was like he was tied in place. William shrugged and assumed that he would be free when it was time to go. What was the point of fighting against it?

He stared at the light getting brighter and brighter before he could finally feel himself moving. Either that or the light itself was getting closer. William supposed it was the same either way. At the very least, there was something to look at other than the darkness.

William was soon surrounded by unending light that should have blinded him if he had eyes. Thankfully, that didn’t last too long. Unfortunately, it was replaced by something even worse.

He was forced to observe the nauseating burst of colors that blurred and merged around him. It would have been awe-inspiring if the sudden feeling of a terrifying suction didn’t pull at his entire being.

William assumed it was similar to the feeling of being pulled in twenty different directions at once, only somehow exponentially worse. He caught glimpses of fantastical beings in places where the mess of colors didn’t exist, making William think he was in a strange dream.

Why else would he see dragons, strange humanoid cat people, and even a man who seemed to have the power of a god?

Suddenly, the nauseating surroundings disappeared in a snap, revealing him to be hurtling forward recklessly in a dark cave. Even if this should have been terrifying, it was almost a comfort compared to what he was seeing before.

The last thing William saw was the dead-looking eyes of a young boy before the world went black.

William sat up in the bed with a loud gasp, sweat dripping down his face. He grimaced and threw the sweat-soaked blanket off him. He got off the bed and grabbed a towel to wipe his face before looking out the window.

At least it looked like he slept through the night since the sun was peeking over the horizon.

That wasn’t a dream. It was the memory of how he had gotten to this world. And of his death.

William wasn’t sure what disturbed him more. The memory of how he died, or the image of the dead eyes of the body that was now his.

He looked at the small mirror hung on the wall and shuddered before quickly avoiding it. Seeing those eyes was not something he wanted to deal with right now.

William forced himself to put aside the memory and thought about what to do for the day. If Wang Xiaoling didn’t have any work for him, which was likely since everything was sold yesterday, he intended to visit Jade Healing Clinic.

Since he was already resolved to do it, there was no point in delaying. But first, he needed to wash himself… and get a change of clothes.

William was about to head to the bathroom, or washroom, whatever it was called when his stomach announced its presence with a loud growl. Luckily, he still had a Dragonfruit to sate his hunger until he could get some real food.

William quickly finished the fruit and licked his fingers clean.

[+1 Strength]

[RNG activated]

William blinked in surprise at the unexpected attribute increase before his excitement was crushed by the second alert. He knew the chance of having the soul damage affect him was only five percent, but it had already happened once before.

[Result: 746]

William let out a puff of air in relief. He giggled, sounding hysterical, as he pulled up his base stats.

Name: Wei Liang (William Davis)

Age: 13

Level: 2

Experience: 25/250

Cultivation: N/A

Health: 15/15

Strength: 2

Stamina: 1

Agility: 1

Luck: 1

Points: 5

William would worry later about how and why the RNG was activated. He would do the same with why the Dragonfruit could bless him with an attribute point when it failed yesterday.

Right now, he would revel in the success. And wash the sweat off his body.