The Plaza of Ascension smelled like sweat, incense, and desperation.
Nas stood at the back of the line , number 2,847 out of 3,000, and watched the parade of hope and disappointment play out under the flickering holobanners. The Monolith dominated the center of the square, a thirty-foot slab of obsidian that hummed with frequencies the human ear wasn't meant to process. Every few minutes, another twenty-year-old would press their palm to its surface, and the System would spit out their worth in cold numbers.
Most got Ds. A few Cs. The crowd only cheered for B-rank and above.
"Bradley Chen. S-Rank Potential. Mana Affinity: 94. Strength: 47. Agility: 51."
The holoscreen above the Monolith blazed gold. The crowd erupted. Nas didn't bother looking at the muscled figure soaking in the adulation—he'd seen Brad's face plastered on recruitment posters for the last six months. The Golden Son. The Empire's Next Hero. The guy who'd made Nas's life a precise form of hell since middle school.
"That's what a real Awakening looks like," someone muttered behind him. "Not like the trash they're gonna scrape off the bottom."
Nas didn't turn around. He'd learned that lesson years ago. Reacting gave them power. Silence gave him time.
The line shuffled forward.
Two hours later, the sun had shifted, and Nas's number finally flashed on the queue display.
He walked toward the Monolith. The crowd had thinned; most of the spectators had left after Brad's performance, but a few hundred remained. Bored bureaucrats. Parents clinging to hope. A camera crew from the Empire News Network, probably hoping for a sob story to pad out their evening segment.
The officiator, a woman with silver hair and the dead eyes of someone who'd done this ten thousand times, gestured impatiently.
"Palm on the stone. Don't move until the reading completes."
Nas placed his hand on the Monolith.
The surface was cold. Not cold like metal, cold like absence. Like something was pulling heat out of him, cataloging it, filing it away in some cosmic ledger.
Three seconds passed.
The holoscreen flickered.
[SYSTEM AWAKENING COMPLETE]
Name: Nas Starlight
Rank: F
Mana Affinity: 1
Strength: 2
Agility: 2
Endurance: 3
Perception: 4
Luck: 1
Assessment: BELOW THRESHOLD. CIVILIAN CLASSIFICATION RECOMMENDED.
The silence that followed was worse than laughter.
"Holy shit, a one in Mana?" Someone in the crowd wheezed. "I didn't know that was possible."
"F-Rank. They still make those?"
"Guess the bloodline really did die with his parents."
Nas pulled his hand back. His face stayed neutral. Twenty years of practice.
The officiator marked something on her tablet without meeting his eyes. "Civilian processing is in Building C. Report within 48 hours to receive your work assignment."
Nas slowly walked back to his seat, every step weighing more than the last.
"Hey, Starlight!"
Brad's voice cut through the murmurs. He was walking back toward the Monolith, flanked by his usual entourage. Two A-Ranks and a B who laughed at everything he said. His gold-trimmed Awakening robe caught the light like he'd paid someone to choreograph it.
"Heard your numbers. Gotta say, I'm impressed." Brad stopped three feet away, grinning. "Didn't know the System could count that low. Must've had to dig into the archives for your assessment."
His entourage laughed on cue.
Nas looked at Brad. Then passed him. His eyes had started to itch, a faint burning behind his corneas that he'd been ignoring for the last hour.
"Nothing to say?" Brad leaned in. "Come on. Give the cameras something. Tell them how you're gonna work hard and prove everyone wrong. That's usually how your type copes."
The itch intensified. Nas blinked.
And his vision cracked.
It wasn't painful. It was more like a screen glitching. Reality stuttering sideways for half a second before snapping back into place. But when it stabilized, everything looked different.
Brad was still standing there, still smiling his golden-boy smile. But now there was text floating above his head. A golden interface that almost blinded Nas.
[APPRAISAL: Bradley Chen]
HP: 371/371
Strength: ***
Mana: ***
Agility: ***
Passive:
*********: ****************************
*********: ****************************
Binding: ******************************
Lore: *********************************|
[Current Quest]: No quest
What's this?
The system worked by providing an interface for each of its 'players' to modify their stats, buy items, and understand their quests. However, the first rule everyone was taught in school was that you could only see your own user interface and Nas seemed to be exempt from it.
What the hell? Am I really seeing his system interface?
A sharp pain in Nas' head made him hunch over, holding his head with a contorted face.
"Awwww, poor baby! Crying already?" Barked Bradley.
Nas looked back up but didn't see the screen anymore. He tried to focus his attention on him again, staring him down like a hawk with no avail.
"Why are you looking at me like that? You trying to start a fight?" Bradley was shaken by Nas's behavior; it felt out of the ordinary even for him. "Let's leave this vermin. We won't be crossing paths anymore."
Bradley turned around and walked down the aisle, followed by his dogs and a few cameramen. A woman in his group took a bit more time than the rest to move on. Looking at him while squinting her eyes.
"Are you coming? Or do you want to team up with that nobody?" Shouted Bradley a few meters away.
"Yeah, yeah… I'm coming…" She smiled at Nas before also turning around and joining the pack.
Nas stayed for the rest of the ceremony. Heroes were made, and dreams shattered.
He felt a terrifying sense of defeat, not just because of the rank, but because the world felt broken. He had prepared for a low score, but to be labeled "Below Threshold" felt like a cruel joke played by a bored deity.
The walk back home was even worse than the ceremony. His legs were heavy and felt as if everyone he crossed knew what a failure he was. The old lady from the bakery came out running when she saw him from afar.
"Nas! Young man! Sooooo, what di..." Her face faltered.
Mrs. Gable, who had known Nas since he was a toddler stealing flour-dusted scraps from her cooling racks, froze mid-sentence. She didn't need to see a readout. The slump of his shoulders and the hollow, haunted look in his eyes told a story as old as the Monolith itself. The excitement drained from her weathered features, replaced by a pity that felt heavier than any insult Bradley Chen could hurl.
"Oh, Nas," she whispered, her hand fluttering to her mouth. "Oh, my dear boy."
"It's fine, Mrs. Gable," Nas said, his voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well. He didn't stop walking. He couldn't. If he stopped, he'd collapse, and he didn't want to give the pavement the satisfaction.
"Wait!" she called out, reaching into her apron and pulling out a small loaf of rye, still warm enough to fog the air. She thrust it toward him. "Eat this. You need your strength, regardless of what that… that hunk of rock says."
Nas took the bread. He didn't feel hungry, but the warmth against his palm was the first bit of kindness he'd felt since the world had branded him a civilian. He nodded his thanks, unable to find his voice, and turned the corner toward the Slums of Sector 4.
The "Starlight" apartment was a misnomer. There was no light here. It was a cramped, two-room unit held together by stubbornness and peeling wallpaper. When he pushed the door open, the smell of antiseptic and boiled cabbage hit him. The scent of a household barely treading water.
His mother, Zora, was standing by the small kitchenette. She was only forty-five, but the lines around her eyes made her look sixty. She was stirring a thin broth, her movements mechanical. She didn't turn around when he entered.
"I heard," she said quietly.
Nas stood in the doorway. "The news moves fast."
"It's all they're talking about on the local frequencies. The Golden Son and… the boy who broke the bottom of the scale." She finally turned, her face a mask of forced composure. She didn't look disappointed; she looked terrified. "It doesn't matter, Nas. We'll find a way. The factory is hiring sorters. It's steady work. It's safe."
"Safe doesn't pay for Arthur's stabilizers, Mom."
They both looked toward the corner of the room, where a curtain was drawn back to reveal a small cot. Arthur, barely ten years old, lay there, his skin a translucent grey. He was suffering from Mana-Wasting Disease. A condition that required expensive magical infusions to keep his internal organs from calcifying.
"We still have the insurance from Ray," Zora said, her voice trembling.
"Ray is gone, Mom! He's been 'Missing in Action' for three years. The Empire stopped the payments six months ago. That's why I needed this. That's why I needed at least a C." Nas slammed his fist against the doorframe. The physical pain was a relief. "A '1' in Mana? A civilian work assignment won't even cover the rent, let alone the medicine."
Zora moved toward him, wrapping her thin arms around his chest. She held him tight, her body shaking. "We'll survive. We always do."
That night, Nas lay on his thin mat on the floor. He didn't sleep. Through the thin walls, he heard the sound he dreaded most, the muffled, rhythmic sobbing of his mother. She thought she was being quiet, but the silence of the slums was absolute. She was crying for Arthur, for her lost eldest son, Ray, and for Nas, who had just been handed a life sentence of poverty.
He stared at his hands in the dark.
Why did I see it? He wondered. Brad's interface. The HP. The stats. The 'Lore'.
He focused, squinting his eyes just like he had at the Plaza. He tried to summon that bug again. For an hour, nothing happened.
He decided to take another look at his own stats.
A translucent red screen shimmered into existence in the dark room.
[NAS STARLIGHT]
Class: Unknown
Rank: F
Mana Affinity: 1
Strength: 2
Agility: 2
Endurance: 3
Perception: 4
Luck: 1
Unique trait: Unknown
Skills: Unknown
Passive: Unknown
Lore: Nas was a…
Nas sat up abruptly. This wasn't the standard interface. The standard was blue or gold, not red. It had a "Unique Trait". Those were reserved for S-Ranks and Heroes. More importantly, his class, skills, and passive abilities were all unknown.
The Monolith must have glitched or something. This doesn't make any sense…
He looked at the door. Building C. 48 hours to report for civilian processing. Once he signed those papers, his mana would be "sealed" for safety, and he'd spend the rest of his life in a factory or a mine.
There was one other option. The one the teachers told them was a death sentence for anyone below a C-Rank.
The Tutorial Spire.
Every year, the System opened a localized instance for the newly Awakened. It was a trial by fire. If you survived, you got a massive boost to your starting stats and a chance to re-evaluate your rank. If you failed… you didn't come back. The mortality rate for F-ranks was 99%.
"One percent," Nas whispered to the dark. "Better than zero."
The morning air was biting as Nas stepped out. He hadn't told his mother. He'd left a note saying he was going to the processing center early to beat the lines. It was a lie, but it was a merciful one.
He walked past the grand, shimmering gates of the A-Rank academies, where students in silk robes were being ushered into luxury transports. He kept going, deeper into the industrial zone, until he reached a rusted, soot-stained courtyard surrounded by barbed wire.
This was the F-Rank Teleportation Gate.
Unlike the Monolith in the center of the city, this gate was a jagged, unstable-looking ring of scrap metal and dim energy. There were no cameras here. No cheering crowds. Just a bored guard smoking a cigarette that smelled like burning rubber.
Nas stopped. There were only five other people there.
A middle-aged man with a prosthetic leg and a look of absolute nihilism. A young girl, maybe eighteen, whose hands were shaking so hard she had to tuck them into her armpits. Two twins, a boy and a girl, dressed in rags, holding rusted kitchen knives as if they were legendary swords. And a hulking man who looked like he'd just escaped a labor camp, his eyes red-rimmed and desperate.
"Six of you today?" The guard spat on the ground. "More than usual. Usually, the F-ranks have enough sense to just go find a bridge to jump off of. It's quicker."
"Just open the gate," the hulking man said, his voice raspy. "I've got nothing left to lose. The bank took the house. My kids are practically on the street. I either come back with a Mana Core, or I don't come back."
The girl whimpered but didn't leave the line.
Nas looked at his companions. The "Dregs." The "Below Thresholds." These were the people the Empire didn't want to see.
The guard flicked his cigarette butt away and pressed a button on a grimy console. The energy inside the ring began to hum. A low, discordant thrum that made Nas's teeth ache. The air around the gate began to distort, sucking in the dust and grime of the courtyard.
"Listen up," the guard shouted over the noise. "You get thirty days in the zone. Time moves differently in there, so it'll only be three hours out here. If you aren't back by the time the gate resets, you're ghost meat. Good luck, you'll need it."
Nobody answered.
The middle-aged man stepped forward first. He didn't hesitate. He walked into the shimmering void and vanished without a sound. Then the twins, holding hands, their knuckles white. The girl followed, sobbing quietly, then the hulking man.
Nas stood alone before the flickering portal.
He thought of Arthur's grey skin. He thought of his mother's tears. He thought of Bradley Chen's golden smile and the way the world bowed to those who already had everything.
He didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted to stop being a ghost.
Nas stepped forward.
The cold he had felt at the Monolith returned, but this time it wasn't just pulling heat. It was pulling him. His vision fractured. The rusted courtyard, the bored guard, and the grey sky of the slums shattered like a dropped mirror.
[INITIATING TUTORIAL…] [PLAYER: Nas Starlight] [WARNING: Survival Probability: 0.87%] [Overriding standard parameters…]
As the world turned into a kaleidoscope of screaming data and white light, Nas felt a sudden, sharp clarity. The numbers weren't just labels. They were the code of the universe.
And for the first time in his life, he felt like he knew how to rewrite them.
The light swallowed him whole. The teleportation began.