Chapter 1577 - 1573: Ye Qiu's New Form

"Y-Yeah… there it is."

Even though this was Ye Qiu's first time entering this world, he adapted to this phenomenon almost immediately.

At the very bottom, a "button" was flashing with light. Ye Qiu tried pressing it, and a warning popped up asking if he wanted to log out immediately, with two buttons: yes and no.

Ye Qiu let out a relieved breath. Supporting himself with one hand on the ground, he sat up.

He looked around once more. Seems like he's in the middle of a dense forest. Colossal trees connected together, stretching toward infinity, and there wasn't a single lamp or light source.

Why did I end up in a place like this… Anyway, better open the map first and check. With that thought, Ye Qiu lowered his head again, looking at the menu window. He reached out a finger—and at that moment, a display in one corner of the window made Qiuya involuntarily freeze.

"Uwah!?" …

Qiuya blurted out without thinking.

At the very top of the window, his nickname Kirito and his race name were displayed. Below that were his HP and Demon Power and his current status values. They were all 400, and 80—those kinds of starting stats. Nothing wrong there.

What shocked Qiuya was the learned skills panel below. Qiuya remembered not selecting anything at all, so it should've been completely empty, but there were actually eight skills listed. Maybe they were the Shadow Race's starting skills, but this is way too many. He tapped the skill panel and started checking in detail.

Lined up side by side were combat-type skills like "One-Handed Sword," "Body Technique," and "Weapon Defense," as well as life-type skills like "Fishing," and the proficiency values above them were kind of abnormal.

Almost all of the skill points were at 900, and some even reached 1000 with a "master" mark attached. Normally in this game, it takes a very long time to fully learn these skills; having maxed-out skills as Early Period values is something that absolutely should not happen.

No matter how Ye Qiu thought about it, he could only conclude the system had a bug. On top of that, he'd been inexplicably thrown to this place—the system really was a bit unstable.

"Is this game okay…? Don't tell me there's no support function?"

He lowered his head, staring at those skills, feeling like they stirred some vague memory. He shifted his gaze back to the skill panel again. These proficiency numbers… he'd seen them somewhere before. One-Handed Sword 1000, Body Technique 991, Fishing 643.

Like being struck by lightning, Ye Qiu finally remembered, and it felt like the air had been knocked out of his lungs.

He had seen these before. Aren't these the exact skill proficiency values Ye Qiu spent two years grinding in that other world? Though some skills were missing; the reason those weren't there was probably because Fairy Fantasy didn't have those skills in its system.

In other words, the final stats of "Savior Ye Qiu," who brought about the downfall of the Floating City Aient City, had now reappeared before his eyes.

His mind was chaos; Qiuya could only think that some kind of incident had occurred. Different companies running different games… If save data could just move around freely… Then—this place is…

"…Inside that world?"

Sitting on the ground, Ye Qiu murmured those words quietly.

His mind went completely blank, and it was several dozen seconds before his awareness finally came back.

Ye Qiu suddenly shook his head hard, forcing his strained thought gears to spin faster, and shifted his gaze back to the window.

He had no idea what had happened; anyway, he should try gathering other info first. This time Ye Qiu opened the items menu.

"Uwah."

Spread out before Qiuya were dozens of lines of numbers-like characters. Mysterious Chinese characters, digits, and letters all jumbled together—yeah, something had definitely gone wrong here.

Probably these were the remnants of the items Qiuya had carried in Aingelant. Sure enough, for some reason, Kirito's save data had been transferred to this world.

"Ah, wait."

Qiuya suddenly thought of a certain possibility.

If all of these were leftover items—then "that thing" should be here too. Qiuya tapped the items panel and slid his fingertip across the screen to search.

"Please, be there… please."

The meaningless strings of text scrolled past at high speed, and Ye Qiu's heart pounded like a hammer on a bell.

"!"

His finger stopped on its own. Below, a line of glowing letters in a warm orange-green hue appeared.

As if he'd forgotten how to breathe, Ye Qiu tapped that name with his finger. He selected that item, and its color inverted. Moving his finger, he pressed the "take out item" button.

A white radiance burst from the window. The light quickly condensed, forming an object. It was a colorless, transparent crystal carved into a teardrop shape. Its center was still pulsing with light—thump, thump.

Qiuya cupped the gem in both hands and lifted it up. He could feel its warmth. Just that realization was enough to make his head start heating up.

God, I'm begging you—Qiuya prayed silently in his heart as he tapped the gem again with his fingertip. And at that moment, pure white light exploded from his hands.

"Ah!?"

He reflexively let out a startled cry and dropped into a half-crouch, stepping back a few paces. The glowing crystal left Qiuya's hands and floated up, stopping when it was more than two meters above the ground. The light grew steadily stronger, dyeing the surrounding trees a pale bluish white, and even the moonlight seemed dim in comparison.

"Ah… ah…?"

Ye Qiu let out a sharp cry as he stumbled back a big step in panic. The crystal that had been glowing in his hands had floated free and risen into the air, stopping about four meters over his head, and the light it radiated grew brighter and brighter, as if it were illuminating the entire world.

Even the moon's glow was completely overwhelmed by the crystal's light.

Ye Qiu's eyes went wide. It looked like a shadow was forming inside the crystal's center, and slowly, that shadow took on a human shape, then shifted from black into a myriad of colors.

Loose black hair, visible to the naked eye, fluttered in front of Ye Qiu's gaze, followed by a beautiful, flowing dress, then a pair of slender limbs. Finally—at last—a girl with her arms wrapped around herself and her eyes tightly shut emerged from the light. As the radiance faded, the girl was revealed before Ye Qiu.

Ye Qiu watched as the girl slowly descended. She seemed a little unsteady when she landed, but she didn't fall, managing to stand on the ground. After a moment, her eyes seemed to react, preparing to open slowly. In the end, she fixed Ye Qiu with a direct gaze, those eyes as clear as the night sky.

Ye Qiu's whole body froze; he couldn't make a sound. He was simply too shocked—even his breathing felt like it had stopped.

The girl looked at Ye Qiu and broke into a dazzling smile.