Chapter 1: The Awakening

Cover Art is in the Public Domain; it has been extracted, altered, and colorized from a 1895 depiction of Lokasenna by Lorenz Frølich.

This is an Isekai-style story. Isekai stories commonly began as Japanese different worlds or other worlds stories. They are collections of stories with a common thread.

Typically, they revolve around a person who is uprooted and transported to another world. This is usually with no hope of returning. The adventure begins when they start to survive in this new world.

Our Breeder Mage travels from place to place, living several lifetimes.

As I felt myself die, I thought I heard a man’s chuckle.

I had been flying in an antique Beechcraft Bonanza at the time of my demise. It was a low-cost antique rental plane.

It was the same exact model that had killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” - AKA J. P. Richardson. It was out of the ordinary for me to have rented the same model of airplane. It seems odd. When the three rock and rollers had died in this model of plane, the newspapers titled it “The Day The Music Died.”

I’m Edward Cooper, and I was a copilot for a well-known airline. Mostly, I flew as a copilot on small connecting routes. I usually flew the smaller turboprop planes.

This plane has the older V-shaped tail and a thirsty 6-cylinder engine.

After three tours in Iraq, I left the service with the dream of flying big planes for a living. I dreamed of Pretty hostesses and good pay. As an enlisted guy, I had not flown in the military. I had been an aviation mechanic. My love for planes grew from my exposure to them. The excitement of being on the flight line, watching planes take off and land. That’s what motivated me.

Not knowing how to achieve what I wanted, I went to college and took aviation as a secondary interest. I already had my private license, flying mostly older Cessna 152s and 162s.

I had been a lowly flight-line grunt in the service. When I left the service, I still had all my parts intact.

I signed up at a small airport and used some of my G.I. benefits to partially pay for a private pilot’s license. The pilot school had an understanding with a local state college. I got a 4-year degree while working toward my flying license and endorsements.

I ended up taking religion of all things. I always considered myself a heretic. Why did I study religion? I found the bible interesting. I saw it more as a historical document of Bronze Age and Iron Age societies. It had some common-sense morals mixed in with a bit of superstition. I found the juxtaposition interesting.

I took to using the NIV bible for my studies. It was like reading an old book you found in the back of the library. It was readable, whereas the King James was not.

I was trapped in the religious studies pipeline. It seems the VA hates people who change majors. Religion was an easy thing to take and allowed me to also take flying classes on the cheap. At that time, it was the only means I was aware of.

If I had known anyone who knew anything, I would have gone to school elsewhere. I would have tried to get into Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

I did not have a plane of my own. I could afford a very old one, but couldn’t afford the upkeep and hangar space at the same time. Fuel costs are pretty high for planes, and they don’t go far on a gallon of gas. For these and other reasons, I fly when I have the time and some extra cash to burn.

My scheduled and flying vocation prevents me from having a permanent girlfriend.

There was nothing wrong with this little Bonanza when I started out. I had checked the weather, and there was a slight chance of thundershowers. It was typical for the high altitude mountains of Denver.

I soon decided the weathermen had outright lied. It soon started getting pretty rough out. I’d refueled at an outlying field in Denver. The weather was “supposed” to be good.

I took off and turned westward. I required more flight hours to upgrade to bigger, better airline planes. I was never going to fly a really big plane, but I could move to the next seat over in the small planes I fly for work. I could move from copilot to pilot and get a reasonable pay bump if I did. Besides, flying is fun, and I often get to see neat places I have never been to before.

I was flying the Bonanza merely to get more flight hours. I was flying on my own time from Kansas City to Reno, Nevada. I had no plans to gamble there. I learned that lesson the hard way during my military years.

I’m single, and as a mid-level pilot, I had to devote most of my time and money to my passion and career in flying.

I had just crossed over into Utah and was wrestling my way through a surprise thunderstorm. It wasn’t supposed to be there. I had just checked an hour earlier in Denver. I was getting worried. I was in a mountainous area of Utah, South of Provo, about 80 miles. It is not a good place to set down, and there is nowhere nearby I could land.

- Lying $#@* weatherman - I was starting to relax my sphincter muscle when the Bonanza took a hit of lightning right on the chin of the plane. The plane went instantly dark as the engine died.

The controls were fried, and I could plainly smell burning insulation. I tried to restart it, but it didn’t work. This plane was toast. Trying to restart it got me nowhere.

I was searching frantically for a place to land. The sky was very dark, and the rain was so heavy that nothing could be seen. Visibility sucked big time.

I was barely maneuvering on dead stick, trying to find a spot to set down. I looked out and saw trees coming right at me. Shit, I was too low, and it was too late!

I tried to steer through a clear spot, but my airspeed was low, and the plane couldn’t maneuver the way I needed it to.

BAM!

I had flown straight into a big tree. A limb came through the windshield and pinned me into my seat. I could not move. I felt my life leaking out of my chest. I spit up blood as it started to get dim.

&#@$ Lying Weatherman As I felt myself die, I thought I heard a man’s chuckle as the lights went out.

For a long time, I think I did not exist. When I started to wake up, I was rattled and confused. Was I not pinned inside the airplane?

Somehow, I was lying on the ground somewhere in the woods. I had a distant memory of talking with a man. Now, unexpectedly, I am somewhere else?

I must be near a brook or stream, I can hear water flowing nearby. I fell back down into my mental hole again. I awoke to moments of lucidity, which were followed by another period of oblivion. I passed in and out many times.