Tangeni stared at the blue interface floating above his bed and wondered how five years could feel like nothing. The awakening happened when he was fifteen—the day the sky cracked open and dungeons poured into the world and everyone between fourteen and twenty suddenly had potential. He got potential too, just not the useful kind.
[Status Window]
[Name: Tangeni]
[Age: 20]
[Rank: F]
[Class: All-Rounder (Unspecialized)]
[Skills]
[Capture Lv.1 — Records visual and audio data directly from user's perception. No storage limit.]
[Stats]
[STR: 8 | AGI: 9 | VIT: 8 | INT: 12 | WIS: 10]
All-Rounder. The class description said "unlimited potential for all combat paths" and he was so hyped when he first read that. Unlimited potential sounded amazing until you realized it meant zero starting abilities. Other awakened got magic, super strength, healing powers, weapon mastery. He got a recording function.
It wasn't even a good one at first—just the ability to capture what he saw and heard with no edit features, no zoom, nothing useful.
He swiped the interface away and rolled over.
From the kitchen, he heard his mom moving around. The smell of maize porridge drifted through the thin walls of their apartment. She was heading to work soon—cleaning offices downtown until midnight. Dad was already gone, left at 4 AM for the construction site.
This was the life of F-rank hunter families—not glamorous, not special, just survival with extra steps.
"Tangeni!" Mom's voice. "Breakfast is ready. Come eat before it gets cold."
He dragged himself out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen. Their apartment wasn't much—three small bedrooms, one bathroom, a combined kitchen-living room. The wallpaper was peeling in the corners and the floor creaked in three different spots, but his mom kept it spotless. Family photos covered every available surface—his parents' wedding, Nia's school graduation, a younger version of himself grinning like an idiot at his awakening ceremony.
He didn't like looking at that photo anymore.
His mom was already dressed for work—worn slacks, a gray blouse, her hair wrapped up tight. She looked tired, always looked tired these days, and he hated that he couldn't fix it.
"Morning," he muttered and slid into his chair.
She placed a bowl in front of him—porridge with a drizzle of honey, more than they could afford probably.
"You're going to the convenience store today?"
"Night shift," he said. "Four to midnight."
She nodded and didn't push, never pushed anymore. There was a time when she asked about his hunter training, about guilds, potential opportunities, but that stopped around year three when they both ran out of hope to share.
The door to the second bedroom banged open. Nia emerged with her school bag slung over one shoulder and her phone already in hand. Sixteen years old and somehow more awake at 6 AM than he ever was in his life.
"Bro." She dropped into the chair across from him. "Still streaming yourself sleeping? That's content, right?"
"Very funny."
"I'm serious, people do sleep streams and you could corner the market on F-rank depression naps."
Mom gave her a look. "Nia."
"What? I'm being supportive." She grinned at him and stole a spoonful of his porridge. "Love you, bro, make millions today and buy me a car."
"Get out."
She laughed and grabbed a slice of bread from the counter. "Leaving, leaving. Mom, I'm walking with Thato today so don't wait up."
"Be safe."
And just like that, the apartment emptied. Mom kissed his forehead and told him to eat everything. Then she was gone too and he was alone with cold porridge and the weight of twenty years of nothing.
After breakfast, he did what he always did—lay on the couch, pulled out his phone and opened the streaming apps.
The algorithm fed him exactly what it knew would hurt most—dungeon clearing compilations. Hunter highlights. Combat clips that made his throat tight with something between jealousy and grief.
A streamer named VexHunter was trending again—C-rank with flashy skills and a massive ego. His latest clip showed him tearing through an E-rank dungeon like it was nothing, fire magic and explosive finishes while chat went absolutely insane.
[Comments]
[darkslayer99: omg he's so good]
[xX_nova_Xx: VEX SUPREMACY]
[tuna_sandwich: that combo was nasty]
[lonely_ghost: when will i be this cool lmaooo]
He watched the viewer count tick past 50,000 live and felt something curl in his stomach.
He clicked to another stream. This one was a B-rank hunter doing a "first clear" of a new dungeon that spawned in Neo-Lumina's industrial part. She was moving through shadowy corridors with a squad of four, calling out positions, coordinating attacks. Donations popped up on screen every few seconds.
[Donations]
[blade_runner42 ($50): you're amazing queen]
[midnight_owl ($20): first clear content let's gooo]
[jeff ($100): marry me]
The stream hit 100,000 viewers as they reached the boss room.
He kept watching as she fought and won, the chat exploded with hype while donations stacked up to numbers that would take him three months to earn at the convenience store.
Then something clicked.
It was such a simple thought, so obvious that he almost dismissed it, but it stuck in his brain and wouldn't leave.
Capture recorded everything he saw in perfect quality with no equipment needed.
He sat up slowly and the thought expanded.
These streamers used cameras, drones and recording equipment, spent thousands on setups and had entire crews sometimes—all to capture footage that his skill did automatically, for free, forever.
Why was he not doing this?
His heart was doing something strange, not quite hope because he was burned too many times for hope, but something close that felt like five years of rust cracking off a machine that wasn't quite dead yet.
He called up his Status Window.
[Capture Lv.1 — Records visual and audio data directly from user's perception. No storage limit.]
No storage limit.
He never even tested what that meant, just assumed the skill was useless and moved on, but what if—
He activated Capture.
A tiny "REC" indicator appeared in the corner of his vision—a red dot that meant he was recording.
He looked around the apartment and panned across the family photos, the kitchen and the window showing Neo-Lumina's skyline in the distance before he deactivated and checked the footage.
It was perfect—crystal clear with no shake, no blur, no quality loss from his crappy phone camera. The footage existed somewhere in his System interface, ready to export.
"Oh my god."
His voice was rough and he realized he was shaking.
He had this for five years and never once thought to actually use it.
He pulled up the stream platform again and looked at the trending page. Dungeon content dominated everything—first clears, boss fights, near-death clutches. People watched this like it was the new gladiator arena and the ones risking their lives got rich from it.
F-rank dungeons existed—small ones, ignored ones, the scraps that real hunters didn't bother with because the loot wasn't worth their time. But they were still dungeons and still dangerous, which meant they were still content.
No one streamed F-rank dungeons because no one cared about the bottom of the ladder.
Maybe that was the point.
He thought about his stats—F-rank with no combat skills, no weapons and no armor. If he walked into a dungeon right now, he would almost certainly die.
But "almost certainly" wasn't "definitely."
And dying on stream was still content.
The thought made him laugh—a bitter, slightly unhinged sound. He was actually considering this, actually thinking about throwing his life away for views, for the chance of views, for the chance of maybe, possibly, making something of himself before the world completely forgot he existed.
Was that desperation or determination? He couldn't tell anymore.
His phone buzzed. A notification from one of his apps—the dungeon tracking service that told citizens where active gates were in the city.
[ALERT: New F-Rank gate detected. Location: Abandoned industrial zone. Status: Unclaimed. Threat: Goblin-type. Break timer: 72 hours.]
He stared at the notification.
Seventy-two hours and no guild claimed it because no guild cared about F-rank gates—too little loot, too much hassle. They let it sit until some civic duty team cleared it for minimum pay, or someone else could clear it first.
The thought formed into something solid and before he could second-guess himself, he was on his feet and moving, he needed to figure out if this was genius or suicide.
He paced the length of the apartment twice before stopping at the window.
Neo-Lumina sprawled out before him—towers of glass and steel in the center, crumbling infrastructure at the edges. A city that rebuilt itself after the awakening and left people like him in the gaps. Somewhere out there, hunters were fighting, streaming and getting rich while he rotted in a dead-end convenience store job.
He was tired of rotting.
His reflection stared back at him from the glass—twenty years old with his locs pulled back, wearing a worn hoodie and the gold chain his mom gave him for his awakening, the one he never took off even when everything else fell apart.
Behind the reflection, the city waited.
So did that F-rank gate.
"I need to find a dungeon," he said out loud and the words felt like a door opening.
For the first time in five years, there was fire in his eyes.