Rain falls heavily on the windows of the small apartment on the third floor. Cal Makin sat on the old sofa, staring at cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the room with a look devoid of any excitement. Those boxes were the last remaining belongings of his grandfather who died three months ago.
Cal, a young man of twenty-three, is not the type to attract attention. His light brown hair is cut normally; his features carry no distinguishing mark - neither strikingly handsome nor ugly. Average height, average build, average in almost everything. Even his clothes are ordinary, usually wearing shirts and blue denim jeans.
"I must finish this today," he whispered to himself in a low voice barely heard over the continuous rain sound. Cal is not the talkative type. Actually, he prefers silence most times. Even at work, colleagues barely notice him. He performs tasks as a data entry clerk in a small company without any fuss, arrives on time, leaves on time, and interacts with no one except when strictly necessary while enjoying solitude and quiet.
Even in school before graduation, he avoided any confrontation, even a simple discussion. In university corridors, he chose longer paths to avoid passing loud student groups. Even now, in daily life, he prefers staying in the safety zone, far from any possible danger, however slight. He feels his nature is a psychological condition, but since it fits his desires, he did not really mind.
He rose slowly from his place and headed toward the stacked boxes. Then he opened the first box cautiously. Its contents were simple: old books and some photographs. He scrolled through them quickly without real interest. The second box contained old clothes and some papers. As for the third and last box, it was smaller in size and heavier in weight than the rest.
When he opened it, he found inside an ancient ceramic jar wrapped in a worn piece of cloth. The jar appeared roughly the size of two fists, dark brown with strange, faded engravings on its surface. He felt it was extremely old, perhaps from a completely different era.
"What is this?" Cal wondered in a low voice, lifting the jar carefully from the box. He did not remember seeing this jar at his grandfather's place. In fact, Cal rarely visited his grandfather. Not because he did not love him, but because he preferred staying in his small apartment, away from the outside world and social communications he did not master as much as possible.
He turned the jar in his hands, trying to understand the meaning of the strange engravings. They looked like symbols from an ancient civilization; after a while, he could not distinguish anything meaningful from them. The weight of the jar was also strange, heavier than an empty ceramic jar should be.
While examining it, he felt a sharp sting in his finger. He looked at his right hand and found a small cut on the tip of his index finger. He must have cut himself on a sharp edge in the cardboard box without noticing.
"Damn," he grumbled quietly, trying to wipe the blood drops with his other hand. But before he did, a small blood drop fell from his injured finger directly onto the surface of the jar placed before him. At that moment, something occurred that Cal never expected.
The engravings on the jar began to glow with a faint golden light. Initially, he thought his eyes were deceiving him, but the glow increased in brightness with amazing speed. He looked at the jar and a state of intense panic struck him; then it began floating on the table, suspended in air, rotating slowly around itself as the light became stronger.
"What... what is happening?!" Cal shouted, his voice trembling with fear. He tried to step back, but his feet did not respond. He felt as if his entire body had frozen in place. His heart was beating violently in his chest, and his breaths became fast and shallow. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to run, but he could not move even one step.
Golden light filled the entire room now, so bright that Cal had to close his eyes. He felt a strange sensation sweeping through his body, as if every cell in him was vibrating. It was not exactly painful, but it was unbearably uncomfortable. Then, suddenly, everything disappeared. The light, the strange feeling, even the sound of rain on the windows - everything stopped.
When Cal opened his eyes, he was no longer in his apartment. He stood in the middle of a dense forest. Huge trees rose toward the sky, their trunks several meters thick. The leaves above him were of a size he had never seen before, some large enough to cover a person completely. The air was purer.
"Where... where am I?" Cal whispered, his voice shaking with fear and confusion. He looked around with nervous movements. No trace of his apartment, no trace of the boxes, no trace of anything familiar. He was surrounded by wild nature on every side. In the distance, he heard strange sounds: deep roars, loud screams, sounds unlike any animal he knew.
His heart raced more. His hands began to tremble violently. This was not normal. This was not logical. Is he dreaming? Has he gone mad? He tried to pinch his hand, but the pain was completely real. This was reality.
Suddenly, he felt a massive amount of information in his mind. It did not come gradually, but in a way he could not resist or stop. The information simply appeared in his head, as if it were there, only that he did not realize its existence until this moment. The jar. The ancient jar he touched with his blood.
It was not just an ordinary jar. Rather, it was a legacy from an ancient being, a being who fell a long, unimaginable time ago. This being, before his final fall, left behind this legacy - the jar that carries immense and complex power. When Cal's blood drop fell on it, the jar interacted with him. It recognized him as a new heir. Based on mysterious and ancient laws not mentioned, it transported him to this world.
This world... a world of cultivation and longevity. More information appeared in his mind. This was not his world. This was a completely different world, a massive world exceeding the Earth he knows by millions of times. A world where humans and other beings can cultivate their inner power, exceed normal human limits, and live for hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years.
But this world is also dangerous. Extremely dangerous, in fact. Fierce monsters roam the wilderness. Powerful cultivators kill without hesitation for the simplest reasons. Sects and clans struggle over resources and lands. The laws here are simple and harsh: the strong live, and the weak submit or die.
And Cal... currently at the bottom of the food chain. He had no power. He had no knowledge of cultivation methods. He had nothing but his ordinary human body. "No... no, this cannot be real," Cal muttered, his voice choking with panic. He knelt on the ground, hand clutching his chest as if trying to prevent his heart from leaving. His mind refused to believe all this, but the reality around him was merciless in its confirmation.
Then he remembered the last information that flowed into his mind. The jar... did not disappear. It merged with him. Now, it became part of him, linked to his soul in an inseparable way. With this fusion, he obtained two unique abilities.
First: an internal space of infinite size. The space exists somewhere outside this reality, linked directly to his consciousness. He can use it to store anything he wants, in any quantity. But there are restrictions. He cannot enter it himself. Only things can be stored there.
If he puts a living being in that space—with its consent, of course—the being will enter a state of hibernation. Time for it will stop. It will not age, it will not hunger, it will not thirst. It will remain in a state of complete freeze until Cal removes it from that space.
The second ability is more surprising, and perhaps more terrifying too. Now that the jar has merged with him, his lifespan became... nearly unlimited. As long as he is not killed by external means. As long as his soul is not destroyed by overwhelming power. As long as the world itself does not end. He will continue to live. He will not age. He will not weaken due to time passing. He will maintain the same vitality he has now - the vitality of a twenty-three-year-old youth.
But this gave him no happiness. Instead, it increased his terror. "Unlimited life... in this dangerous world?" Cal whispered, his eyes wide open. To live forever in a world where you can be killed at any moment? To be weak and helpless while surrounded by creatures that can easily destroy you?
Worse yet... the information in his head confirmed something terrifying. He cannot return. In a strange world. A dangerous world. A world where he is too weak to survive even the simplest threats. "This... this is a nightmare," Cal sighed.