He was not born a king; in fact, his origins were more humble than most people in this world. But he was a lion by nature—the legendary Violet Archmage Tyson Rodney.

Many years ago, on the Kurtik Archipelago, an unknown textile worker accidentally became pregnant and gave birth to a frail, sickly baby boy. Years later, this boy became the savior of this broken world—the chronicler of history, the golden dragon guardian of time, Crosby.

“When the tide that destroys everything comes, what will you choose?” he asked.

“Avoid the sharp edge for now,” I answered.

“Then what about your people?” he asked again.

I fell silent. Sacrifice is inevitable. I can’t save all my people, but afterward, I will definitely take revenge!

“That’s the way of the wise, but there must always be a foolish reef to block the tide, even if only for a short while.”

That was his choice. For years, he played the role of that foolish reef, blocking the orcs, blocking the undead, blocking everything. What we always saw was his back as he charged forward—this is the fortune of our era.

Memoir "The Lost and the Glory of History," final chapter “Lionheart”—Archmage Jenna Rodney.

This should be the story of a king.

……

Rowland is a human, a very ordinary human, but he happened to fall for the emerald dragon Vivian, known as the “Bright Moon of the Starlight Continent.” Thus, he embarked on a journey that crossed races and classes.

This should be the story of a king, it should be.

……

Rowland is a human, a human from Earth. In the turbulent multiverse, he set out on an immortal journey.

Chapter One: Is This Zhuangzi Dreaming of a Butterfly?

Wandom, a harbor city with nearly a hundred thousand residents, is a dazzling pearl on the Starlight Continent.

This city, situated on the muddy wetland plains, is blessed by the gods. Facing the White Wave Strait, known as the “Golden Road,” it boasts a natural deep-water port. Forty percent of the world’s maritime trade passes through this city.

This brought endless wealth to Wandom and made the masters of Wandom, the The Primo Family, the richest family in the world—without exception. And Wandom itself, in ancient Hebrew, means “a city built of gold.”

In this prosperous city, you can wear smooth silk clothes shipped across the Endless Sea from the distant eastern continent, use whale oil from the frigid northern polar regions, equip yourself with divine weapons forged by dwarves hidden deep in mountain caves, and even buy beautiful female slaves from various races on the continent in the black market!

Here, you can have everything, you can enjoy everything—but only if you have gold coins in your pocket.

Unfortunately, our protagonist, an orphan abandoned since childhood who doesn’t even know which textile worker’s womb he crawled out of—Rowland—has no gold coins. In his fifteen years of life, he has never even seen that yellow stuff.

All his possessions now amount to just twenty silver coins. This “fortune” is clutched tightly in his sweaty palm.

To scrape together this money, Rowland (to be precise, the former Rowland, for he is no longer the same, at least not in soul) sold his only real estate—his foster father’s only home, a dilapidated wooden shack barely different from sleeping outdoors, left to him by the down-and-out old soldier and drunkard Amos. He also pawned his own freedom, borrowing at high interest from the loan shark and thief boss Marlow in the old city, losing everything he owned and even mortgaging his entire future.

He did all this because his foster father was dying. Years of drunken decay had completely ruined his body, and cheap herbal remedies were now utterly useless, not even able to ease the pain. Only the divine magic of the temple priests could save him.

Now, clutching his “fortune,” Rowland stood outside the Helion Church in the old city, hesitating about whether to go in.

A moment ago, Rowland would never have hesitated. He would have done everything to save his foster father, his only family. But now, he was no longer the original Rowland; his soul came from another world, a place called Earth.

There, this world was just a massive holographic game called “Ancient Gods.”

A moment ago, his character was still a powerful warrior at level 41, having advanced to the legendary realm, gathering herbs in the dangerous Moonrest Marsh to craft the “Dragon Slayer’s Power” potion. But in the next moment, after passing through darkness, he became this frail, almost skin-and-bones boy.

When he first arrived here, Rowland even thought he was still in the game, and the strange state around him was just a game bug.