The sky above the Black Wastes hung gray. Broken stone pillars and nameless tombstones littered the dirt. A metallic scent filled the air. This was the Abyss of Ruins. Five hundred years ago, it served as the center of the magic civilization. Now, it was a graveyard.
Lin Chen drove a rusted iron shovel into the hard dirt. The impact vibrated up his forearms. He tossed a shovelful of black soil over a freshly dug pit, burying the remains of a shattered skeleton. He wiped his forehead with a coarse sleeve. The fabric scratched against his skin.
He woke up in this body exactly three days ago.
Before the transition, he lived in a modern city of concrete and glass. A speeding truck ended his life there. He opened his eyes in this world, only to find himself coughing up dark blood on a cold stone floor. He inherited the memories. The original owner of this body was the illegitimate son of the Lin Family, a prestigious magic lineage in the Holy Empire.
The boy possessed a shattered mana core. In a world where magic dictated status, a shattered core meant a magic affinity of zero. The family council stripped him of his name. They handed him a gray cloak, an oil lantern, and an official title: Ruin Guardian.
It sounded noble on paper. In reality, he was a gravekeeper. They exiled him to the Abyss of Ruins to wait for death.
Monsters roamed the mist here. Ancient curses seeped into the groundwater. A normal person wouldn't last a week. The original Lin Chen died of a sudden mana poisoning on his second night. Then, the transmigrator took over.
Lin Chen threw the shovel aside. It clanked against a cracked stone slab. He picked up his oil lantern. The yellow flame flickered behind dirty glass, casting long, wavering shadows across the graves. He pulled his gray cloak tighter around his shoulders. The wind carried the chill of early winter.
His daily task required him to patrol the boundary lines of Sector 4. The Magic Association paid a meager sum of copper coins for this job, just enough to buy stale bread from the supply caravan that came once a month.
His boots crunched on dry bones and dead weeds. He walked past statues of forgotten Archmages. Their faces were weathered away by centuries of acid rain.
He stopped.
Twenty yards ahead stood a half-collapsed mausoleum. The heavy stone door lay in pieces on the ground. The edges of the broken stone pointed outward. Something had broken it from the inside.
Lin Chen lowered the lantern. He stepped closer. Deep claw marks marred the stone. The edges of the marks were still smoking. A faint smell of sulfur reached his nose.
He didn't run. Running in the Black Wastes usually triggered a predator's hunting instinct. He slipped his right hand into his boot and pulled out an iron dagger. The blade was dull, but the point was sharp.
He stepped inside the mausoleum. The air grew significantly colder. Dust floated in the beam of his lantern light. In the center of the circular room sat a stone sarcophagus. The heavy lid was pushed halfway off.
Lin Chen approached quietly. He held his breath. He looked inside.
No corpse. No monster. Just a thick layer of gray ashes.
He lowered his guard slightly. He leaned in to inspect the ashes. A corner of yellowed parchment stuck out from the soot.
He reached out. His fingers brushed the parchment. It felt like dry human skin. He pulled it free. Faint blue lines of magic ink formed incomplete patterns on the surface. The ink pulsed with a very weak, rhythmic light.
A low-tier spell fragment.
A sharp, stabbing pain spiked behind his eyes.
A mechanical, genderless voice echoed directly inside his skull.
[Host contact with ancient magic fragment detected.]
[Skill Fusion System activating.]
[Scanning physiological status... Mana Core shattered. Adapting system rules.]
[Activation complete.]
Lin Chen froze. His fingers tightened around the parchment. The dagger slipped from his left hand and hit the stone floor with a sharp clink.
The golden finger. It arrived late, but it arrived.
A semi-transparent blue screen projected in the air, right in his line of sight.
[Host: Lin Chen]
[Mana Core: Shattered (Physical mana storage impossible)]
[Current Spells:
1. Spark (Tier 0 - Basic Element)
2. Spirit Vision (Tier 0 - Fragmented / Unlearned)]
[Fusion Slots Available: 1]
Lin Chen stared at the glowing text. He processed the information rapidly.
The original owner spent ten years trying to learn magic. Because of the shattered core, the only spell he managed to retain was "Spark". It required almost zero mana. It could light a candle or a dry twig. It had zero combat value.
He looked down at the parchment in his hand. The blue lines represented "Spirit Vision". It was a basic utility spell used by low-level apprentices to detect mana remnants. But this scroll was torn. Fragmented. Learning it directly would likely cause magic blowback.
He focused his attention on the system screen. He mentally selected the 'Fusion' option.
[Select primary skill.]
Lin Chen chose 'Spark'.
[Select secondary material.]
He chose 'Spirit Vision (Fragmented)'.
[Do you want to fuse 'Spark' and 'Spirit Vision (Fragmented)'? Warning: Fusing broken spells carries a high risk of mutation.]
He didn't hesitate. "Yes."
The parchment in his hand instantly turned to fine ash. It slipped through his fingers and joined the soot in the sarcophagus.
The blue screen distorted. The text scrambled into unreadable symbols before reforming into a loading bar.
[Fusing...]
[Detecting conflicting elemental properties. Forcing integration.]
[Bypassing shattered mana core. Binding new spell to optical nerves.]
[Fusion successful.]
[Mutation triggered.]
Heat surged into his eyes.
Lin Chen dropped the lantern. He slammed his hands over his face. It felt like someone poured boiling acid directly onto his eyeballs. The pain was absolute. He staggered backward, his back hitting the cold stone wall of the mausoleum. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. He didn't scream.
He slid down the wall to his knees. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. Sweat soaked his shirt in seconds.
The burning sensation faded after twenty seconds, leaving a strange, cool numbness in its wake.
He slowly lowered his hands. He opened his eyes.
The world changed.
The dim, yellow-lit mausoleum was no longer just a physical space. He saw faint gray lines of energy flowing through the air, leaking from the cracks in the walls. He looked down at his own hands. A faint, pale green aura clung to his skin.
The system screen popped up again.
[New Skill Acquired: Ghostfire Gaze (Tier 1 - Mutated)]
[Description: Ignites the target's soul essence with nether flames through visual contact. Ignores physical defense. Draws energy directly from ambient mana in the environment instead of the host's core.]
Lin Chen read the description twice.
He possessed a shattered core. He couldn't store mana. This system mutated the spell to bypass his fatal flaw entirely. It used his eyes as the catalyst and the environment as the fuel.
A low, guttural growl vibrated through the stone floor.
Lin Chen snapped his head toward the entrance.
Outside the mausoleum, the gray mist parted. A creature stepped over the broken stone door.
It walked on four elongated legs. Its skin was rotting away, exposing black muscle fibers and patches of white bone. A Ghoul Hound. A common low-level mutated beast in the Black Wastes. It hunted by scent, tracking the living. It had smelled his fresh sweat and blood.
The hound locked its empty, oozing eye sockets on Lin Chen. Thick drool dripped from its exposed jaws, hissing and smoking as it hit the stone floor. Its claws scraped against the ground as it lowered its stance to pounce.
A normal magic apprentice would need three seconds to chant a defensive spell. A normal swordsman would need heavy armor to survive the first bite.
Lin Chen didn't step back. He didn't pick up his iron dagger.
He stood up. He looked directly at the beast.
He focused his will on the new connection behind his eyes. He drew upon the cold, numbing energy resting in his optic nerves.
"Burn."
A pale green flame erupted out of thin air, directly inside the hound's skull.
The beast didn't even have time to leap. The ghostfire consumed its brain and soul essence in a fraction of a second. The green light flared brightly through its empty eye sockets.
The hound's body stiffened. Its legs gave out. It collapsed heavily onto the stone floor, sliding forward a few inches before stopping dead at Lin Chen's boots. A wisp of green smoke drifted up from its skull and vanished into the cold air.
Dead. One look, and a beast that usually required a full squad of armed guards to kill was instantly dead.
Lin Chen stared at the carcass. His heart hammered against his ribs. The adrenaline rushed through his veins. He blinked. A single drop of dark blood rolled from the corner of his left eye and trailed down his cheek. He wiped it away with his thumb.
The skill was powerful. But his mortal body still bore a physical toll for channeling it.
He looked at the system screen hovering quietly in his vision.
He could fuse spells. He could evolve them. He didn't need a functioning mana core. He just needed skills. He needed fragments. He needed the remnants of the dead.
The Abyss of Ruins was the largest graveyard on the Aether Continent. For thousands of miles, there were nothing but ancient tombs, dead Archmages, and forgotten magic.
To the rest of the world, this was a hellish prison.
To Lin Chen, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
He picked up his oil lantern from the floor. The glass was cracked, but the flame still burned. He retrieved his iron dagger and slid it back into his boot.
He stepped over the dead Ghoul Hound. He walked out of the mausoleum and back into the biting wind of the Black Wastes. He raised the lantern, letting the light push back the encroaching mist.
He needed to find more graves.