Deep within the mountains, a narrow fissure pierced the rock face barely wide enough for a grown human to squeeze through. Yet beyond that modest opening stretched an immense cavern, vast enough to swallow entire villages. Stalactites hung like silent sentinels from the distant ceiling, and the air carried the cool, mineral weight of untouched stone
At the center of this emptiness rested a single black egg
Its shell gleamed with an oily sheen, faint shimmers of violet and indigo flickering across the surface like distant stars caught in obsidian. Nothing else occupied the cavern. The egg simply waited
Inside, awareness returned.
Kevin stirred, surrounded by warm fluid that pressed gently against every inch of him. He flexed instinctively, confirming the curved walls that confined him. Still in the egg. Still waiting to be born.
Memories surfaced in fragments another life, another world. A warehouse job that paid decently and demanded little effort. Late shifts, predictable routines. Then one stormy night he had chosen to leave rather than stay trapped indoors. Rain hammered the pavement as he sprinted to his car. Thunder cracked overhead, lightning bleaching the sky white.
He made it inside, started the engine, and drove. Until a fallen tree blocked the narrow road ahead massive, immovable. He glanced in the rearview mirror. Headlights approached fast. The driver behind him laid on the horn.
Kevin frowned. "Does he not see the tree?"
He eased the car backward, hoping the other driver would understand and reverse. The space stayed stubbornly occupied.
Another honk. Another futile attempt to back up.
Kevin's patience frayed. He hated storms; the enclosed feeling of being pinned down by weather and now by idiocy made his chest tighten.
He twisted to check his blind spot. The headlights surged forward.
CRASH.
The impact slammed him into the steering wheel. No airbag deployed his ancient car had none to give. Pain exploded across his forehead. Blood streamed into his eyes, hot and coppery. In the mirror he glimpsed a long gash splitting his skin.
The other vehicle sat motionless behind him.
Rage overrode caution. Kevin shoved the door open and staggered into the downpour. Each step sent the world tilting. He shouted toward the blinding headlights.
"Do you not see the fucking tree? Move your piece-of-shit car so I can back up and we can both go home!"
No response. No door opened. The engine simply revved.
The car reversed sharply, tires spinning on wet asphalt, then whipped around and vanished into the storm.
Kevin stood frozen, blood and rain mingling on his face. "There's no way tha
Lightning split the darkness. A deafening crack. The tree beside the road shuddered, roots tearing free, trunk tilting.
He wanted to run. His legs refused.
The massive trunk toppled.
SPLAT.
Darkness swallowed him.
When awareness returned, he floated in endless void. A presence regarded him vast, calm, absolute.
The One Above All spoke without words.
Fate had claimed his old life so a new one could begin. A world governed not by levels or systems, but by Titles. Each Title embodied a domain, a concept, a fundamental power. They carried innate abilities far beyond ordinary skills.
A Title of Genius granted accelerated comprehension, amplified memory, pattern recognition in spells, combat, traps. Other Titles shaped reality itself.
This universe teemed with dragons, elves, humans, and countless other races.
Then came the promise Kevin had longed to hear in his previous existence.
"I will grant you four Titles. Most beings possess only one or two. With four, you will have the freedom you always craved."
The memory faded. Kevin smiled inwardly.
The voice had warned him: the Titles would awaken only after birth.
The egg had grown stifling. Fluid pressed too tightly against his scales. He kicked.
A hairline fracture spiderwebbed across the shell.
He kicked harder. The crack widened. Another strike. A hole opened large enough for clawed arms to reach through.
He gripped the edges and pulled.
Shell shattered outward. He stepped free, fragments crunching beneath small taloned feet.
The cavern greeted him in absolute silence. Obsidian walls rose smooth and reflective, catching what little ambient light existed and refracting it into deep, liquid black. The stone looked carved from midnight diamonds.
Then pain arrived.
Mana flooded him raw, unstoppable, a tidal wave crashing through every fiber of his being. His body drank it greedily even as it tore him apart.
His leg bone snapped.
He crumpled, gasping. The rest followed in rapid succession: ribs, spine, wings, skull. Agony obliterated thought.
A window appeared in his vision.
{Titles gained}
Void God
Lord of Space and Time
Dragon King
Primordial Dragon
The restructuring continued. For someone who had never fought, never bled beyond that final night, the torment felt eternal.
A scream tore from his throat high, draconic, echoing off the walls.
His strength failed. He collapsed onto cold stone.
When consciousness returned, the faint daylight that once slipped through the entrance had vanished. Night cloaked the mountains outside. Yet the cavern remained perfectly visible. His new eyes pierced the darkness effortlessly.
Strength thrummed beneath his scales. The mana inside him felt clean, replenished like cool water after exhaustive thirst. The Titles pulsed quietly, alive within him.
Curiosity overrode caution.
He closed his eyes and reached for the mana. Instinct guided him; he didn't question how he knew. A thin thread of power flowed toward his foreclaw. Space mana answered first.
When he opened his eyes, the claw had changed. No longer simple black scales now a swirling galaxy spiraled across it, stars drifting lazily through nebulae.
Excitement surged.
He needed to leave eventually. The entrance beckoned.
He took one careful step.
The ground erupted.
Force hurled him backward. His back and wings slammed against the far wall. Stone cracked beneath the impact.
"Ouch," he muttered. The word emerged as a low, resonant rumble.
He stared at the smoking crater his claw had left.
"It seems I can't control my mana yet. I'll have to wait until I learn more. Let's hope no one else is near this cave."
He limped toward the narrow exit and peered out.
A sheer cliff dropped away beneath him hundreds of feet of empty air.
"Well, there goes that plan."
He turned back into the cavern.
A roar shook the mountain.
Not his.
The sound rattled through his bones.
Kevin froze.
He bolted deeper into the cavern on unsteady legs, heart hammering. Thanks to his Primordial Dragon Title, he sensed the mana signature drawing nearer.
"There's no way a dragon that loud could fit through that hole it must be huge," he thought.
He was wrong.
A woman stepped through the narrow fissure with effortless grace.
"You finally hatched, my son."