The taste of mud was familiar. It tasted like iron and dirt—the flavor of the weak.
Ren spat a glob of blood onto the pristine white tiles of the courtyard, struggling to push himself up on trembling arms. A heavy military boot slammed down between his shoulder blades, forcing his face back into the grime.
"Stay down, Trash," a voice sneered from above. "You're dirtying the air just by standing up."
Laughter rippled through the small crowd gathering around them. This was the reality of Summit Academy. If you had high mana, you were a celebrity. If you had an F-Rank aptitude like Ren, you were nothing more than a glorified target dummy for the elites to test their new spells on.
The owner of the boot was Damon, a B-Rank fire mage with a father rich enough to buy the school a new stadium. He crouched down, grabbing a handful of Ren's dark hair and yanking his head back.
"I heard a rumor, Ren," Damon whispered, his hand heating up, singing the ends of Ren's hair. "I heard you were trying to apply for the Dungeon Porter exams. You? A zero-mana cripple? You'd die in the first five minutes."
Ren didn't beg. He didn't cry. He learned long ago that tears just made them excited. He stared at Damon with cold, dead eyes.
"I need the credits," Ren rasped, his voice rough. "Unlike you, I don't have a trust fund to wipe my ass with."
The crowd gasped. Damon's face twisted in rage.
"You think you're funny?" Damon stood up, his palm igniting with an orange flame. "Let's see how funny you are when I burn that mouth off."
"Enough."
The single word cut through the heat like a blade of ice. The temperature in the courtyard plummeted ten degrees in a second.
The crowd parted instantly, heads bowing. Walking through the gap was a girl with hair like spun silver and eyes the color of a frozen lake.
Vanessa. The Student Council President. The Ice Queen.
She didn't look at Damon. She didn't look at the crowd. Her gaze slid over Ren as if he were a piece of gum on the sidewalk—an inconvenience, nothing more.
"The Headmaster is conducting a tour with the City Guilds in ten minutes," Vanessa said, her voice bored. "Clean up this mess, Damon. If the guests see blood on the pavement, it will affect our ranking."
She didn't tell him to stop hurting Ren because it was wrong. She told him to stop because it was messy.
Damon extinguished his flame, sneering. "You're lucky, Ren. President Vanessa saved your pathetic life."
Damon kicked Ren in the ribs one last time—a sharp, cracking blow—before walking away. The crowd dispersed, chasing after the elites, leaving Ren alone on the cold tiles.
Ren groaned, rolling onto his back. He stared up at the grey sky.
Vanessa, he thought, clutching his side. She's worse than Damon. At least Damon hates me. To her, I don't even exist.
He dragged himself up. He couldn't go to the infirmary; he didn't have the points. He needed to clear his head. He needed to be somewhere where no one would look for him.
He limped toward the Restricted Sector.
The Restricted Sector was a relic of the Old War—a part of the academy grounds that had collapsed into a series of unstable ravines and fissures. Students were forbidden from entering, which meant it was the only place Ren could get some peace.
He found his usual spot, a ledge overlooking a deep, dark fissure in the earth known as "The Maw."
He sat down, his legs dangling over the abyss. He looked at his shaking hands. They were bruised, scarred, and empty.
"Eighteen years," he muttered to the darkness. "Eighteen years and the System has never once pinged for me."
Everyone got a System Awakening at sixteen. A blue screen, a class, a future. Ren got silence.
Crack
The sound wasn't loud, but it vibrated through his bones.
Ren frowned. The ledge he was sitting on—a slab of concrete that had been there for decades—suddenly shifted.
He tried to scramble back, but his injured ribs screamed in protest. He was too slow.
With a grinding roar, the concrete shelf gave way.
Ren didn't even have time to scream. The ground swallowed him whole.
He fell into the dark, tumbling down, hitting jagged rocks, sliding down steep slopes of gravel. The light from the surface shrank to a tiny pinprick, then vanished.
Thud.
He landed hard on something cold and smooth. The impact knocked the wind out of him. Darkness swirled around his vision.
Am I dead? he wondered. Is this hell?
A faint, violet light flickered to life.
Ren blinked, coughing up dust. He wasn't dead. He was in a chamber.
It wasn't a cave. It was a structure. The walls were made of black obsidian, carved with shifting, glowing purple runes that hurt his eyes to look at.
And directly beneath him... was a coffin.
He had landed on top of a massive sarcophagus made of black crystal. The impact of his fall had cracked the seal.
A drop of blood from his forehead dripped down. It hit the cracked surface of the sarcophagus.
Hiss.
The blood didn't pool. It was absorbed instantly, sucked into the black crystal like water into a sponge.
The violet light in the room flared brighter. The air suddenly grew heavy, smelling of ozone and... perfume? A sweet, intoxicating scent that made Ren's head spin.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
A bright blue screen appeared in front of Ren's eyes. He froze. It was the first time he had ever seen one.
[ANOMALY DETECTED.]
[Ancient Bloodline Seal Broken.]
[Analyzing Host Compatibility...]
[... Compatibility Found.]
The heavy stone lid of the sarcophagus began to slide open. A hand reached out.
It wasn't a skeleton. It was a hand with pale, flawless skin and long, black fingernails.
Ren scrambled back, terrified, pressing his back against the cold wall.
The figure sat up.
She was... terrifyingly beautiful. Long hair blacker than the void, horns curling from her temples, and eyes that glowed with a starving, predatory violet light. She wore the tattered remains of royal armor.
She looked at Ren. She didn't see a boy. She saw food.
"A male..." she rasped, her voice sounding like dry leaves. "Finally."
She lunged.