Darkness. Cold. Then… pain.
I jolted awake with a ragged breath, eyes snapping open. Above me, twisted branches reached like skeletal fingers across a gray sky. For a moment, I thought I was dreaming. But then the stench hit me—blood, iron, and decay.
I groaned, pushing myself upright. My body felt… wrong. Heavy. Sluggish. As if it wasn't mine. When I looked down, my stomach clenched. My robes were torn and scorched, my chest crusted with dried blood. The wound had long since stopped bleeding, but the mark was unmistakable.
I touched it with trembling fingers. Cold. Dead.
This wasn't my body.
Memories that weren't mine flooded in like shards of glass. A young man. A wizard. A desperate fight in the forest. Bandits with blades drawn, arrows whistling. He had tried to cast a spell, but death came too fast. Steel through flesh, a final scream, and then… nothing.
Until me.
I staggered to my feet, clutching my head as the flood of images slowed. My breath came in shallow gasps. This… this isn't Earth. Where am I?
Then I knew. Not through logic, but through instinct, through fragments of memory and far too much familiarity. The robes, the staff, the words of magic that tickled the back of my tongue.
Faerûn.
My heart pounded. No way. That's impossible. This is… this is the Forgotten Realms? A world of Dungeons & Dragons, a world I had spent years reading about, gaming in, daydreaming over. But this wasn't a character sheet on a screen or a set of dice at a table. This was real. The trees smelled of rot, the air stung my lungs, and the pain in my chest was proof enough.
I had transmigrated.
A shiver ran down my spine. I was in a world of magic, monsters, gods, and endless danger. And I was inside the body of a recently dead wizard—Level 2, if the fragments of memory were correct. Barely more powerful than a commoner with a trick or two up his sleeve. In this world, Level 2 was nothing. A goblin could kill me if I wasn't careful.
Panic threatened to rise, but before it could consume me, something else stirred within. A whisper, not in sound, but in certainty. Lines of text etched into my soul, undeniable, absolute.
[Ability Unlocked: Spell Creation – Cost: XP]
[Ability Unlocked: Permanent Spellcasting – Cost: None]
I froze. My heart hammered. I read it again. Once. Twice. A third time.
My lips parted in disbelief. I can create spells? At the cost of my own experience points? And… and I can make any spell I cast permanent?
The weight of that crashed down on me. That wasn't just powerful. That was broken. Overpowered. Game-breaking in a way no Dungeon Master would ever allow.
Hands shaking, I muttered a word that bubbled up from memory. "Light."
A soft glow formed in my palm, illuminating the shadows around me. A simple cantrip, a beginner's spell. Normally, it would last an hour. Normally, I'd have to recast it. But when I willed it—Permanent—something clicked.
The light anchored.
It didn't fade. Even when I tried to drop concentration, even when I closed my hand, the orb of radiance floated in the air beside me, steady, unwavering.
I stumbled back, staring at it. A permanent Light spell. No material components. No cost. No expiration.
A laugh tore out of my throat, half-disbelieving, half-wild. "Oh my god. I just broke magic."
I couldn't stop the flood of possibilities racing through my head. Permanent Mage Armor. Permanent Haste. Permanent Teleportation Circles. Hell, even permanent Wish if I lived long enough to learn it. With this cheat, I could reshape reality itself.
But then I remembered the other part. Spell creation. XP as the cost.
My excitement dimmed slightly. Experience points weren't infinite. I barely had any at Level 2. If I spent too much, I could lose power, lose levels… maybe even kill myself. The temptation was enormous, but the risk was equally great.
Still… the thought of creating my own spells made my hands tremble. Imagine crafting a cantrip that cleanses wounds instantly, or one that summons endless food. Imagine inventing a teleportation spell that works without circles. A spell to make water into wine, or one to turn enemies into harmless sheep forever. Spells that no one else in this world would have. My spells. My rules.
I clenched my fists.
But danger loomed behind every possibility. In this world, wizards clawed for power through knowledge and sacrifice. They hoarded secrets like dragons hoarded gold. If anyone—archmage, lich, or even god—learned of what I could do, they would hunt me down. They would dissect me, enslave me, or worse.
And Mystra. The goddess of magic, the guardian of the Weave itself. If she realized I was breaking her rules, rewriting the very laws of magic… would she allow me to live?
The thought made my stomach twist. But then I looked again at the glowing orb of eternal light floating beside me, warm and unwavering.
My lips curled into a smile.
"So what if they find out? So what if the gods themselves notice? I didn't come to this world to play by their rules."
I raised my hand, letting the light cast long shadows against the trees.
"I came to write my own."
For a moment, silence reigned. The forest stretched endlessly, and I realized how fragile my situation really was. Alone. Weak. In an unfamiliar body, in a dangerous land. But the fire in my chest refused to die.
I wasn't just some random wizard anymore. I wasn't just a transmigrator.
I was the Spellcrafter.
And this was the beginning of my legend.