The city of Velaris never slept. Its towering skyscrapers gleamed with neon lights, but in the shadows of its bustling core, there existed a place forgotten by time—the Slum District, where the world's trash and its people were dumped together.
Among the rubble of a fallen empire lived a boy—Rayan.
He was seventeen. Thin, bruised, and ignored by the world, he wandered the streets every day looking for scraps of food or anything to trade. He had no family, no friends, and no power. In a world where power determined your worth, Rayan was less than dirt.
People awakened their Life Core at the age of 12. They were given ranks—F to SSS. Rayan awakened nothing. The system rejected him. "Incompatible," they said. "Defective," they laughed.
But he never gave up.
---
One rainy night, while escaping a gang of street thugs, Rayan ran into the ruins of the Old Clock Tower. The structure had been abandoned for over a century—no one dared enter. They said it was cursed. But for Rayan, anywhere away from pain was better than facing it.
Lightning cracked the sky as he stumbled through the collapsed doorway. The air inside was heavy, as if time itself had stopped. Dust floated unnaturally. The gears of the massive clock, long broken, were suspended mid-turn.
And then… he saw it.
A glowing crystal shard embedded in the heart of the tower's base. It pulsed like a heartbeat—slow, ancient, and powerful.
His body moved on its own, drawn to it.
As his fingers touched the crystal, the world exploded into silence.
---
🌀 [SYSTEM INITIATED]
> Welcome, Host.
Synchronizing soul with Time Fragment...
Compatibility: 99.9999%
System Binding Complete.
You are now linked to the Chrono Core System.
Beginning Temporal Awakening...
---
Rayan screamed. A sharp pain stabbed his head like a thousand needles. Visions poured into his mind—stars collapsing, timelines unraveling, gods of time waging war across eternity.
And then, silence again.
He collapsed on the cold floor.
A soft chime echoed in his ears.
---
🔔 [DING!] New Skill Unlocked: Time Pause (Lv. 1)
🔓 Mission 1: Freeze Time for 3 seconds. Reward: +10 Chrono Points
🌀 Current Rank: F- (Time Potential Awakening: 1%)
---
When he opened his eyes again, the gears above had moved slightly. For the first time in centuries... time had ticked forward.
Rayan stood up slowly. The rain had stopped. The outside world was frozen in place.
He whispered to himself, voice shaking with awe, "What… what have I become?"
A smile formed on his bruised face—small, but real.
From that night on, the boy the world had discarded… would become the one to control it.