Gary opened his eyes after a long, long time. He could not recall anything about himself. He just lay there watching the sky without an expression, though internally he was flabbergasted, as in the sky he could see a floating landmass, a mountain, green and large. Furthermore, he just could not fathom the size of that thing. He could not be sure due to the distance, but if that is ignored, he thought it was something even larger than the moon. He groggily got up and started looking around. He was in a clearing in a jungle. Furthermore, he was as confused as any other person would be in this situation. He had read isekai books in his free time for years, and today when he went back to sleep, he was in his bed.
After looking around for a few hours, he had to take some decisions. After thinking for a bit, he picked up a knife-shaped stone and started moving around the jungle. Just as he was getting tired and the sky was getting dimmer, he came across an opening. There he could see a settling. A small village with a few houses with people roaming around a bonfire. He though weather to go there or not for a few minutes but having no other choice decided to go all in.
He walked towards the crowd with hands raised and a stiff smile.
"Hey people, I come in peace," he shouted as loud as he could.
People suddenly turned towards him, examining him like he is some monster.
A girl around 20 pulled out a knife from somewhere, which frightened Gary like nothing before.
The girl started shouting towards him, showing the knife point in some language he could not understand.
He tried explaining his situation to the people by hand signs; after continuous effort for a reasonable amount of time, the villagers became less aggressive.
They helped him sit and gave him some porridge to eat. As he was revealing on the feast after what seemed like days of hunger he started getting sleepy and laid on the stone table.
As he woke up he found himself in a house on the ground with some straw bedding, he could see the same girl who was threatening him sleeping on a wooden bed.
After stretching a bit he went outside the shabby hut and saw all the hustle and bustle of the small village. People were moving around for numerous tasks like cutting wood and opening shops. Children playing around. Seeing all these he thought it would not be so bad getting stuck in this peaceful setting after all the hubbubs of the working class life being a government employee as a CA.
Just as he was thinking about all this, he noticed the girl coming out from the hut; after looking closer in daylight, she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.
She pointed towards him and gestured to follow her into the jungle. He was a bit confused but still followed her; after some sometime she came across a beehive and started burning wood with some kind of oil she was carrying. Gary, after understanding the implications, decided to help her by fanning the flame.
Just as he was concentrated in the task he saw her jump towards the tree with a knife in hand, to his surprise she reached the tree top height in a single jump. Just as his mind was thinking of scenarios the bee hive fell in front of him prompting him to run for his life.
Everything settled in a few hours and the pair returned to the village with the girl with a edgy smile and Gary with red spots all over his body.
This became a pattern in the coming days, sometimes logging and sometimes catching small animals. Days passed, weeks passed, seasons passed.
Gary understood the language and culture to a great extent now. He got to know the girl was the only daughter of the previous village chief who died of old age a few seasons ago. Her name was Long Nu. He himself started introducing himself as Long Hao to better integrate with this world.
He also asked everything he could about this new world but was disappointed to find out that the villagers knew almost nothing about this world as a whole; they knew about nearby towns but nothing about the flying landmass. According to them, it has been there forever.
He also noticed another thing: that his body was getting stronger every day. Definitely not Long Nu strong, but strong nonetheless. When asked about it, the villagers were clueless and thought this was all just normal.
He also heard stories about people flying around from the villagers who heard the same from other people. No one had ever seen something like this in real life.
In such a way years passed; he also married Long Nu, as he was the only young man her age in the village, and she knew him for the past few years and was comfortable with him.
He started living the relaxed life and eventually became a father to a lovely daughter who they named Long Meiling, which meant "beautiful and delicate tinkling of jade." He really loved this village, his wife, and his daughter. He had also made several trips to the nearby town called Yangjie Town to sell the products they got in the jungle. His wife was still very mischievous and aggressive towards him but in a good way.
One day he was playing with his daughter, who is now 4, running behind her when he fell on a stone. It hurt like hell; despite knowing nothing should hurt him this bad after the improvements in his body, he ignored the red bump and went back to the hut. But even after the whole night the bump and the pain did not go away. Just as he was getting concerned, he heard an odd voice in his head.
'System initialised'
'City lord system binded to the host'
Long Hao was very surprised with this new happening. He sat down on the bed and started analyzing the situation with as calm of a mind as he could. Then he heard another ping.
'Host—Long Hao'
'Wife—Long Nu'
'Descendent - Long Meiling'
'Select a city name -'
He though about it for a moment and spoke out loud.
"Long Yuan City"
The voice spoke again -
'Registered name - Long Yuan'
Just as this happened, he saw a few icons in his vision; they did not go away even when changing the line of sight.
One was like a map, the other was like a store, and the last one was like a book.
After clicking on them and playing around he understood the purpose.
The map showed all the places he has gone to, including the nearby towns. The store offered stuff he did not understood anything about for some currency with his balance as zero. And the last book showed 1 task.
'Declare the beginning of the heavenly city to every sane being in a radius of 1000 zhang. - Awards: 20 heavenly city coins
He thought about everything that happened and decided to perform the task from the next day onwards. Thinking about everything, neither too happy nor too concerned, he went to sleep.