Chapter 1: Josh
Josh twirled a forkful of noodles and slowly shoved them into his mouth. Even after living in this world for sixteen years, he still missed the feeling of using chopsticks.
Yes—Josh had transmigrated to a world called Muya Continent. A world of wonder and magic… though to Josh, it wasn't all that fantastical. After all the web novels he'd read in his previous life, nothing here felt especially surprising.
The Muya Continent was vast—so vast that no geographer or bard had ever found its edge. The continent was home to five great empires and one massive super-alliance, each composed of various races.
To the far north lay the Golden Empire, founded by orcs and ruled by the golden-blooded warrior clans. To Josh, though, they all just looked like lions and tigers. Strength decided everything there. Even the cute-looking beastkin—like catfolk—were little more than slaves at the bottom of society.
It was, in Josh's opinion, a brutally savage place where the biggest fist made the rules. After the previous Lion King became a god, the empire plunged into endless civil war, plagued by assassination and tribal conflict.
Josh himself lived in the western empire, which happened to bear his full name—Josh Augustus. Yep, he had a pretty badass name. But what was even more badass was that his father, Black Augustus, was the emperor—Augustus IV.
Josh was, by birth, a prince. Unfortunately, that meant very little in practice. He had three older brothers.
The southern part of the continent belonged to the Dwarven Empire, and the east to the Elven Empire. At the center was the Continental Alliance, a melting pot of races and principalities. It was the hub of trade, but Josh didn't care much about it. He had bigger problems.
Staring at the noodles on the table, Josh let out a heavy sigh. Sixteen years ago, he'd pulled an all-nighter at an internet café playing League of Legends. In the final match of his promotion series, he'd locked in Malzahar and gone up against Kassadin—a true Void Mage showdown.
Everything was going perfectly… until the power cut out just before they destroyed the enemy Nexus.
Furious but powerless, he'd stormed out of the café. Sleep-deprived and lost in thoughts of how the game might've ended, he didn't see the construction vehicle turning the corner.
Yeah… he got run over.
Josh shuddered at the memory. That feeling of being crushed wasn't exactly pleasant. He'd blacked out immediately. When he came to, he was a newborn baby.
He fainted again.
By the time he regained consciousness once more, it was clear—he had been reincarnated. And there was nothing he could do about it.
Josh wasn't a genius, but he wasn't stupid either—just a regular guy. However, armed with a wealth of modern knowledge and life experience, he quickly became the star among the royal siblings. He learned things incredibly fast—so fast that people started calling him a prodigy.
But the good times didn't last.
At the age of six, everything fell apart. During the traditional warrior aptitude test, it was revealed that he couldn't cultivate Battle Qi, the power of the Augustus bloodline. No matter how hard he trained, his body remained slim and frail. He'd never become a warrior.
This devastated Emperor Augustus IV. Josh was equally dismayed—he had become a waste. A disgrace.
If Battle Qi didn't work, he'd try magic. The emperor hired several top-tier mages to teach him. At first, they were excited—Josh's spiritual power far exceeded the norm. He even formed his mental bridge and began gathering mana within a month.
But none of the teachers lasted more than a few weeks.
Because Josh couldn't control any known magical element.
Not fire, water, wind, or earth. Not even rarer ones like light, dark, or lightning. Instead, his body pulsed with an eerie silver mana—beautiful, powerful… and completely unusable. Elemental spells simply refused to form.
All he could do were parlor tricks—low-level cantrips with no element at all.
After almost ten mages gave up on him, Emperor Augustus IV lost all hope. He stopped paying attention to Josh—though he still provided for him generously. At least Josh had a decent childhood.
Ten years passed.
On his sixteenth birthday, Josh received his final assignment: leave the capital, Kaizeras, and live out his days as a minor lord somewhere far away.
Josh didn't mind. Since being labeled a failure, people had treated him with thinly veiled disdain. Life hadn't been cruel, but it hadn't been kind either. Wherever he went, it would be the same.
And so he left the capital, escorted by guards, and arrived in a small border city called Constantinople.
Yes—Constantinople. The name threw him off at first, eerily similar to the one from Earth. Maybe it was just a coincidence or a translation thing, but he remembered it vividly.
The place wasn't as bad as he feared. It was backwards, sure, and definitely poor—but the locals respected him as a prince. His life was simple, but comfortable. Of course, it didn't compare to the luxury of the capital.
"Am I really going to be a useless failure for the rest of my life?" Josh sighed.
Even the tomato sauce on his noodles tasted bland—and in a place like this, tomato sauce was a luxury only nobles could afford.
With no appetite, he rang a bell. A maid entered and began clearing the table. In this strict class-based society, servants had no rights. Josh still wasn't used to it. He always dismissed them while he ate, preferring solitude over being watched like a zoo animal. That way, no one could scold him for lacking "noble manners."
Yeah… that part mattered more than he liked to admit.
Back in his room, Josh sat cross-legged on his bed and began to meditate.
Immediately, his mana stirred—silver, wild, chaotic. As elemental forces flowed into his body, they were violently rejected, as if his mana actively resisted them.
That… was the most frustrating part. But what could he do?
With a sigh, he raised his hand, summoning a glowing silver orb of mana. It shimmered, beautiful yet utterly useless. He'd tried throwing it at targets before—it always fizzled out harmlessly on contact. No damage. No effect.
"Am I really going to be the shame of all transmigrators?" he groaned, collapsing onto the bed.
In all the web novels he'd read, every transmigrator eventually rose to greatness—even the most pathetic, trash-tier ones. That one guy who couldn't cultivate for three years and got dumped by his fiancée? He became a legend!
But him? Ten years, and not a damn thing had changed.
"What the hell is going on? If this is some kind of cosmic prank, it's gone way too far."
Frustrated, he summoned another orb of mana. He refused to accept being worthless. After all the stories, all the tropes—he couldn't just be a failure. He had to try.
He compressed the orb, forcing more and more mana into it. It shrank—from the size of a watermelon to a baseball. By then, he was on the brink of collapse. His mana was depleted, his mind foggy.
"Is this really my limit?" Josh muttered.
He glanced at the orb, then hurled it toward the nearby desk. Unfortunately, he'd overexerted himself. He tripped, hitting the ground with a loud thud.
"Damn it!"
From the floor, he watched the orb explode in a flash of silver light—then everything went black.
Once again, he lost consciousness.