The air in the First God's Sanctuary was thick with the scent of moss and blood. Kael's eyes fluttered open, his vision swimming as a jagged cliff loomed above him, bathed in the eerie glow of a crimson moon. His body ached, not from injury, but from the shock of a soul being crammed into a vessel that wasn't his own. One moment, he'd been sprawled on his couch, binge-reading Super Gene on his phone, cursing Han Sen's latest face-slapping victory. Now, he was… here.
"Where the hell am I?" he muttered, his voice strange—sharper, with a crystalline timbre. He glanced at his hands, expecting calloused fingers from years of gaming. Instead, they were pale, almost translucent, shimmering faintly like polished quartz. A memory not his own surged forward: Kael, chief artificer of the Crystal Spire, last of the Crystallizer artificers.
"Crystallizer?" Kael's heart raced. He'd read enough of Super Gene to know what that meant. The Crystallizers were an ancient, near-extinct race, masters of technology and geno arts, whose legacy haunted the Sanctuaries. Han Sen's black crystal armor, that overpowered cheat item, was tied to them. "No way… I'm one of those guys?"
A guttural roar snapped him out of his thoughts. A beast the size of a small car barreled through the underbrush—a copper-toothed beast, its bronze scales glinting under the moonlight. Kael's new body reacted before his mind could catch up. He rolled to the side, his movements unnaturally fluid, and drew a dagger from his belt. The blade hummed, forged from a primitive beast soul, its edge pulsing with faint energy.
The beast lunged, jaws wide. Kael ducked, slashing upward with precision he didn't know he had. The dagger sliced through the beast's neck, and it collapsed with a thud, green blood pooling on the ground.
"Killed Copper-Toothed Beast. Obtained 1 geno point."
The robotic voice echoed in his mind, cold and mechanical, just like in the novel. Kael exhaled, his gamer instincts kicking in. "Okay, I know the drill. Kill beasts, eat flesh, get geno points. But I'm not here to grind like some noob."
He knelt beside the corpse, slicing off a chunk of meat. It smelled like burnt rubber, but he forced it down, grimacing as his body absorbed the energy. Another memory flickered—not his, but Kael's. He was no ordinary Crystallizer. He'd been tasked with forging a relic to save his people, a project called the Obsidian Core. His meta-knowledge screamed: that had to be the black crystal armor, the artifact Han Sen would wield centuries later.
"Great," Kael muttered, wiping blood from his dagger. "I'm the guy who builds the ultimate cheat code. No pressure."
His thoughts were interrupted by a glint in the beast's corpse. Nestled in its flesh was a tiny black crystal, no larger than a marble, pulsing with a faint, otherworldly light. Kael's Crystallizer instincts roared to life. This was no ordinary beast soul—it was a fragment of something ancient, something tied to the Sanctuaries' origins.
He reached for it, but a sharp voice cut through the silence. "That's far enough, artificer."
Kael spun, dagger raised. A figure emerged from the shadows—a human, clad in patchwork beast soul armor, a spear crackling with mutant energy in his hand. His eyes gleamed with greed, fixed on the crystal. "Hand it over. The Blood Legion has no use for Crystallizer relics, but we'll take that shiny rock."
Kael's mind raced. The Blood Legion—fanatics who hunted Crystallizers for their tech, believing it gave them an edge in the Sanctuary. He didn't have Han Sen's plot armor, but he had something better: half-remembered spoilers from Super Gene. The Blood Legion were small fry compared to the real threats, like Qin Xiu or the Geno Hall Leader. But right now, this guy was trouble.
Kael smirked, channeling every ounce of Han Sen's swagger. "You want this crystal? Come and get it, spear boy."
The warrior snarled, thrusting his spear. Kael activated his Crystallizer ability, Crystal Resonance, on instinct. The ground hummed, and the spear vibrated wildly, cracking in the warrior's hands. Shards flew, and the man stumbled back, eyes wide.
"What kind of geno art is that?" he stammered.
Kael twirled his dagger, stepping forward. "The kind that says you picked the wrong fight." He didn't know how he was doing this—Crystallizer muscle memory was carrying him—but he wasn't complaining.
The warrior roared, summoning a beast soul shield, a glowing turtle shell. Kael's meta-knowledge kicked in: primitive beast souls were tough but had flaws. He focused, and the Library's voice—no, not the Library, his Crystallizer senses—whispered a weakness: the shield's energy core was unstable under high-frequency vibrations.
Kael clapped his hands, sending a pulse of Crystal Resonance through the air. The shield shattered, and the warrior staggered, defenseless. One swift strike from Kael's dagger sent him sprawling, unconscious but alive.
"Not bad for a first fight," Kael said, panting. He pocketed the black crystal, its warmth seeping into his palm. His Crystallizer memories urged him to return to the Crystal Spire, a hidden fortress in the First Sanctuary where his people were crafting the Obsidian Core. But his meta-knowledge warned him: the Spire was under siege, and time was running out.
He glanced at the crimson moon, a plan forming. "If I'm Han Sen's predecessor, I've got to set the stage. This crystal's the key, and I'm not letting some Blood Legion goons ruin it." He recalled a vague spoiler about Han Jingzhi, Han Sen's great-grandfather, and a Crystallizer named Kong Fei. Was he Kong Fei? Or someone else entirely?
Kael shook his head. "One step at a time. First, survive. Second, forge the armor. Third… figure out how not to die when Qin Xiu or some super creature shows up."
As he trekked toward the Spire, the black crystal pulsed in his pocket, whispering secrets of the Sanctuaries. Kael grinned. "Han Sen, you owe me big time."