The first vortex appeared without warning.
No alarms sounded.
No prophecy was fulfilled.
No one looked up.
It was a twisting spiral of darkness suspended in the air above a quiet city street. Within minutes, thousands more appeared across the globe. In skies, oceans, forests, and cities, vortexes that bloomed like scars torn into reality itself.
At the exact same moment, humanity changed.
People collapsed in the streets, screaming as burning symbols carved themselves in the back of their necks. They fall unconscious, only to awaken moments later with power coursing through their veins.
Fire dancing in their palms, strength far beyond human limits, senses sharpened to inhuman levels.
Panic followed.
Hospitals overflowed.
Governments scrambled.
Social media exploded with videos of impossible feats.
People called it a miracle.
A blessing.
The next step in human evolution.
Too focused on themselves, no one paid attention to why the vortexes. Not a single person was able to foresee what would come next.
The first monsters emerged a few days after.
A subway station in Seoul.
A shopping district in New York.
A rural town in Eastern Europe.
Creatures crawled out from the vortexes, some from mythology, others were unlike anything recorded. They had fangs that sunk deep, claws sharper than any knife, and twisted bodies that defied biology.
They attacked discriminately, slaughtering civilians before anyone understood what was happening.
Bullets barely slowed them.
Police lines collapsed.
Entire city blocks vanished in minutes.
This change made people name the vortexes as Dungeons.
Only after a few hours of this happening, the death toll reached the millions. Military forces proved ineffective against creatures that ignored conventional weapons. Cities fell faster than they could be evacuated. Communication networks shattered. Entire nations declared martial law before going silent.
The newly powered humans were the only ones who could fight back.
They were called Awakened.
Some rose as heroes, holding back monster tides with blazing magic and overwhelming force. Others abused their power, turning chaos into opportunity. Most died within their first battle.
There was no training.
No preparation.
No second chances.
The world had been rewritten overnight.
Twenty years later, the world did not end.
It adapted.
Two decades after the first dungeons appeared, humanity no longer looked to the sky in fear. Dungeons still dotted the landscape, spiraling gateways of distorted space, but they were no longer symbols of extinction. They were infrastructure.
They were managed.
Cities rebuilt around dungeon zones instead of fleeing from them. Reinforced walls, evacuation routes, and suppression towers became as common as streetlights. Where panic once ruled, protocol followed.
Humanity learned.
Awakeners were no longer anomalies. They were categorized, trained, and ranked.
Classes were established. Ranging from F to S, they were classified according to their abilities to conquer dungeons.
At the same time, each dungeon was graded depending on their difficulty.
Each monster was documented, and each raid regulated.
What had once been chaos soon became a system.
The greatest turning point however came with the discovery of magic stones, a material that came when defeating a monster from the dungeons. Crystallized cores harvested from monsters, magic stones became the backbone of the new world.
Power plants replaced coal with dungeon cores. Entire cities ran on monster energy. Weapons, vehicles, communication networks and many more were rebuilt around mana-based technology.
Swords hummed with enchantments.
Firearms fired mana-charged rounds.
Even household appliances ran on stabilized cores.
The dungeon era did not just change how humanity fought, but changed how humanity lived as well.
Schools also trained awakeners from adolescence Guilds replaced mercenary bands, operating under global accords. Dungeon clearance became an industry, a dangerous but profitable business.
Children born after the disaster never knew a world without dungeons. To them, the dungeons were landmarks. Magic stones were utilities, with awakeners being professionals, not legends.
This was the new normal.
Blake then woke up from his daydream.
His office was still lit when it should have been dark.
The clock on the wall ticket past 11:47 p.m., its sound loud in the otherwise empty floor. Rows of desks sat abandoned, monitors black with chairs pushed in like no one had ever worked there at all.
Blake, however, was still at his desk. His fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment before finally stopping. He leaned back, exhaling slowly, the kind of breath that came from habit rather than belief.
Overtime again.
He reached for the can beside his monitor and took a short sip of his energy drink. It barely tasted like anything anymore. He swallowed it anyway and rubbed his eyes, the exhaustion settling deep into his bones.
This was his life now.
A stable job.
A predictable routine.
And an F-Class rating that never changed.
Blake stood and walked to the window.
Outside, the city stretched endlessly. Mana-powered lights illuminating reinforced buildings, transport rails glowing faintly with enchantments. Dungeons were either sealed or guarded in the distance, their presence normalized, regulated.
A holographic billboard flickered to life across the street.
REMEMBERANCE GUILD RECRUITMENT DRIVE
Honor the Fallen, Protect the Living.
Awakeners of All Classes Welcome.
The image shifted to armored Awakeners standing before a dungeon gate, confident and unafraid. For most people with abilities, ads like that were a wake-up call. A reminder that the dungeons still needed clearing. That power came with responsibility.
For Blake, it was something else.
A reminder of an old dream, one he'd been forced to abandon the day his evaluation came back F-Class. No growth potential. No combat value. No place in the front lines.
He looked away from the window.
Some people were born to fight monsters, while others learned to live beside them.
Blake, like many others, bore a mark on the back of his neck.
A small, intricate symbol etched into his skin the moment he awakened. Proof that the system had acknowledged him. Proof that he was no longer ordinary. When he first realized what the mark meant, he'd laughed.
Laughed like an idiot in the middle of his apartment, heart pounding, hands shaking as he checked his reflection again and again. Awakener. Chosen. Special. And for the first time in his life, he felt like luck had finally turned his way.
But the higher the excitement climbed, the longer the fall became.
With a trembling breath, Blake called out to the system.
"Status."
The familiar translucent window bloomed into view. He didn't look at it right away. He closed his eyes, counting down in his head.
Three…
Two…
One…
He hoped, prayed that something, anything, had changed since last time.
Then he looked.
There it was.
Name: Blake Wilson
Title: None
Rank: F
Level: 1
Class: Mage
Attributes:
STR 6 | AGI 7 | END 6 | INT 0 | WIL 12
Free Points: 0
Skills (Active):
None
Skills (Passive):
None
Among the neatly aligned numbers, one stood out like a flaw carved into his soul.
INT: 0
Not low.
Not below average.
Zero.
The meaning hit him all at once.
No magic potential.
No skill processing.
No growth through learning.
Blake swallowed hard, fingers curling into fists. The mark on his neck still burned faintly, mocking him. There was proof of his awakening without the power to back it up. The lottery ticket had been real, but so was the loss.
To become a mage, there was a simple first step.
You had to feel the mana.
Not control it.
Not shape it.
Just feel it. Like warmth under the skin, like a current that moved through the air. That first sensation was the gateway. Without it, nothing else followed.
Blake felt nothing.
No pulse in his veins.
No flow in the space around him.
No response no matter how many times he tried.
He pressed his fingers in the veins of his wrist during training sessions, mimicked breathing techniques, memorized every instruction given to him. He waited for the moment everyone described. That spark, the resonance.
It never came.
While others took the first steps into a world unlike anything before it, Blake was left standing at the starting line, watching their backs grow smaller with each passing day. He spent years imagining what could have been.
Different choices.
Different numbers.
A different status window.
Eventually, imagination turned into routine. Now, he worked a job he'd gone to school for. A stable position. Respectable. Exactly what he'd once said he wanted before the world changed.
And yet, not once had he felt proud of himself for earning it. Because every time he looked at his reflection, every time he passed a dungeon gate guarded by awakeners half his age, he knew the truth.
This wasn't the life he'd chosen.
It was the one left over.
Blake went and locked up the office behind him, the click of the door echoing down the empty hallway. He left a few unfinished tasks on his desk. Nothing urgent, nothing anyone would complain about. After all, the morning shift could handle it.
They always did.
The night air was cool as he made his way to the station, blending into the steady flow of commuters heading home. The train arrived on time, doors sliding open with a soft chime, and Blake stepped inside.
He took a seat by the window. As the train pulled away, the city blurred into motion. Mana-lit streets, glowing rails, distant dungeon suppression towers standing silent against the skyline.
Then something streaked past the window.
Blake's eyes followed it instinctively.
Two awakeners were racing across the rooftops, leaping effortlessly from building to building. Their feet barely touched the ground as they ran alongside the train, coats snapping in the wind. Neither gained an inch on the other, both matching the train's speed with ease.
Blake sighed.
He turned away from the window.
Inside the train, a small crowd had gathered near the center carriage. An awakener stood there, smiling as he raised his hand. Sparks of mana flared to life, blossoming into tiny bursts of light, miniature fireworks that popped softly in the air.
Children laughed.
Adults smiled, some pulling out their phones to record.
A harmless display.
A reminder of how normal this all had become.
Blake watched for a moment, then looked down at his reflection in the darkened glass. The fireworks continued behind him, painting the carriage in shifting colors. He didn't feel resentment.
Just distance.
Blake stepped off the train the moment it reached his stop. The doors slid shut behind him, the carriage pulling away as if nothing had happened. He stood there for a second longer than necessary, then turned toward the exit.
He always had mixed feelings whenever he saw people using their abilities.
It wasn't jealousy. He never wished for them to lose their powers or suffer the same emptiness he had felt. If anything, he was glad they'd been chosen. Glad someone got to experience that world.
He just wished he could stand beside them.
He called it a pipedream. Something childish, something long past its expiration date. Still, it never hurts to dream. Not really.
The walk to his apartment was quiet.
The building was old, its mana reinforcement long outdated, so Blake took the stairs instead of the elevator. He passed familiar doors, each one belonging to someone he barely knew, climbing higher until he reached his floor.
His apartment.
Blake unlocked the door and stepped inside.
He instinctively turned the lights on, noticing something out of the ordinary.
On the kitchen table sat a small gift box, neatly wrapped. Beside it lay a folded letter, placed deliberately, as if someone wanted to be sure he saw it.
Blake set his bag down and slipped out of his work clothes, folding them out of habit before setting them aside. Only after did he return to the kitchen table, eyes drawn back to the letter.
He picked it up and unfolded it carefully.
The handwriting was already a giveaway from who it was.
It was from his older sister.
She was the only one who still visited him. Always quietly, always without telling the rest of the family. They met in borrowed moments, brief dinners, short conversations that never lingered too long.
Blake wasn't the only one in his family who had awakened.
His younger brother had.
His younger sister had too.
Both of them were talented. Promising.
When Blake's evaluation came back, when the system labeled him useless, his place in the family disappeared just as quietly. No shouting. No dramatic confrontation.
All the expectations they had from him were withdrawn. The countless calls he had just to greet his younger siblings for their birthday are always unanswered. A door that never fully closed, but never opened again either.
Only his older sister remained.
She had always been kind like that.
She helped when she could, never asking for anything in return. But Blake had never told her how tight things truly were. He couldn't. Depending on her would mean accepting a kind of failure he wasn't ready to admit.
He unfolded the letter fully and began to read. She wrote that the gift was something she'd saved up for over time. That she hoped it would help him finally enjoy life a little more. That he deserved that much, at least.
Blake's grip tightened around the paper.
He stared at the neatly wrapped box on the table. Whatever was inside, it had cost her more than she was willing to admit.
He let out a slow sigh.
"Idiot," he muttered under his breath. Not at her, but at himself. Whatever was inside the box, it was too much. There was no way she could afford to spend her savings on him. He already decided that he'd sell it back, return the money if he could. That was the responsible thing to do.
At least, that was the plan.
He lifted the lid out of curiosity. Nestled inside the velvet lining was a simple ring. Dark metal, faintly warm to the touch, with a dull red gem set into its surface. Nothing flashy. Nothing extravagant.
Just… heavy.
Blake picked it up.
The moment his fingers closed around it, a translucent window flickered into existence.
ITEM INFORMATION
Name: Goblin Mage's Precious
Type: Ring
Grade: E
Effect:
Unlock Spell: Fireball, INT +1
Blake stared.
He read it once.
Then again.
His breath caught in his throat. Fireball barely registered. It was a beginner spell, something he didn't have, but the second line…
INT +1
Blake's thoughts spiraled out of control.
That single increase, just one point, had changed everything. A number so small, so insignificant on any ranking chart, yet powerful enough to rewrite the limits that had defined his entire life.
But the ring wasn't just an item.
It was his sister's savings.
The same sister who had never turned her back on him. Who had shown up quietly, again and again, when everyone else had decided he wasn't worth the effort.
The weight of it pressed down on his chest.
That ring was worth millions. A low-grade artifact, but even the weakest items that altered base stats were priceless. How many years had she waited? How many sacrifices had she made just to afford this?
His fingers tightened around the band.
Greed flared in his chest.
Not for the money, but for the possibility. For the chance that the dream he'd abandoned, buried under paperwork and late nights wasn't dead after all.
Blake forced himself to breathe.
"I won't betray her," he said aloud, as if speaking the words might make them real. "No matter what."
But even so…
He needed to know.
If he didn't try, if he turned away now, this question would haunt him for the rest of his life. WIth careful hands, he slid the ring onto his finger.
The metal felt warm.
Almost expectant.
"Status," Blake said.
The familiar window appeared before his eyes.
INT: 0
Blake stared.
The number didn't change.
The bonus was there, but crossed out, grayed and denied.
"What…?" His voice cracked. "No–no, that's not how this works."
A new line of text materialized beneath the stat.
[System Notice]
You must gain at least one attribute point through natural growth before receiving additional bonuses from external sources.
Blake's breath hitched.
"...You've got to be kidding me."
The ring hadn't failed.
He had.
The system wasn't rejecting the item, it was rejecting him. A raw, strangled sound tore out of his throat as he shouted, frustration finally boiling over. The words echoed off the walls of the small apartment.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"
A moment later, a muffled voice shouted back through the wall.
"Shut the hell up!"
Blake froze, then ran a hand through his hair, chest heaving.
The door had opened.
And the system had slammed it shut again.