Super Gene System - Chapter 1: A Soul of Aurum and Iron
The last thing he remembered was the scent of ozone and the deafening shriek of tearing metal. The world of Eryndor, a planet sheathed in neon and chrome, had dissolved into a violent, spinning kaleidoscope. His hovercar, a beat-up second-hand model he'd barely managed to afford, had blown a quantum manifold right over the bustling skylanes of Neonspire. The emergency lights had strobed crimson, his data-pad—illuminated with the latest fan-translated chapter of Super Gene—had flown from his grasp, and then… nothing.
A profound, aching cold was his first sensation. Not the dry, climate-controlled chill of his studio apartment, but a deep, damp cold that seeped through leather and into bone. The second sensation was smell. Rich, wet earth. Decaying vegetation. The coppery tang of blood and something else, something alien and vaguely electric. It was nothing like the recycled air, synth-oil, and street food smells of home.
He forced his eyes open. The sight that greeted him was so utterly foreign that his mind, still clinging to the memory of falling through a sky of holographic advertisements, simply refused to process it.
He was lying on his back in a shallow, ice-cold creek. The water was clear, but it shimmered with a faint, internal bioluminescence, casting dancing, ethereal lights on the mossy stones beneath him. Above, the sky was not black, nor blue, but a swirling, opalescent dome of pearl and lavender, with no sun or stars to be seen, only a diffuse, sourceless light. Jagged, dark rock formations clawed at that strange sky, and the air hummed with the chirps and clicks of unseen life.
Panic, sharp and primal, lanced through him. He sat up, water sluicing from his patched leather armor. His body felt wrong. Lighter, leaner, buzzing with a nervous energy that was both unfamiliar and intrinsic. He looked at his hands. They were calloused, the knuckles scraped and bruised, the fingers longer and more deft than his own had been. These were the hands of a laborer, a fighter. Not his.
Transmigration.
The word, a staple of the web novels he devoured on Eryndor's Nexus-Web, echoed in his skull with terrifying weight. It wasn't just a trope. It was real. He scrambled to the creek bank, his movements awkward in the unfamiliar body, and caught his reflection in a still pool of the glowing water.
A young face, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, stared back. It was sharp-featured, with intense dark eyes beneath a messy fringe of black hair. There was a stubborn set to the jaw, a resilience etched into the expression that spoke of a hard life. It was a face he knew intimately, not from a mirror, but from the countless fan-art depictions on the Super Gene forums.
"Han Sen…" he whispered, and the voice that left his lips was younger, rougher than his own. "I'm… Han Sen."
The confirmation sent a dizzying wave of nausea and exhilaration through him. He was Han Sen. The Han Sen from the novel. The underdog protagonist from Super Gene, the story that had consumed his every free moment on Eryndor. He was in God's Sanctuary, the brutal, wondrous, and deadly training ground where humans shed their technological crutches and evolved the old way: by hunting, killing, and consuming the essence of otherworldly creatures.
A flicker of light in his peripheral vision made him start. He focused, and a translucent, blue-tinted HUD materialized before his eyes, seamlessly integrated into his perception.
[Name: Han Sen Status: Not Evolved
Lifespan: 200.1 years
Geno Points Required for Evolution: 100
Geno Points Gained: 79 Beast Souls Gained: None]
He read the display again and again, each line hammering home the reality of his situation. The lifespan was staggering—on Eryndor, a hundred years was a good run. But the geno points… he was so close. 79 out of 100. The original Han Sen had grinded for months to get this far, eating countless low-level creatures for meager, diminishing returns.
A scuttling sound from the creek broke his reverie. Instinctively, he dropped into a crouch, his new body's muscle memory taking over. His hand went to the hilt of a dagger sheathed at his hip. It was a poor thing, the blade chipped and nicked, the leather wrapping on the hilt worn smooth and stained with sweat.
The source of the sound was a creature the size of a dinner plate: a black beetle with a crab-like, obsidian shell and six sharp, clicking claws. It moved with a jerky, mechanical gait through the shallow water.
"A black beetle," he breathed, a fanboy's grin spreading across his new face. "Chapter one fodder."
His mind, the mind of an Super Gene superfan, instantly supplied the data: Poor eyesight. Excellent hearing. Weakness at the joints of the claws. Low chance of beast soul. Flesh provides 0 to 10 geno points, but returns diminish rapidly with repeated consumption.
This was the grind that had defined the early chapters of the novel. A soul-crushing, monotonous, and often humiliating struggle for scraps of power. The original Han Sen had endured it through sheer, dogged stubbornness.
The new Han Sen, however, had a brain stuffed with meta-knowledge and a burning impatience born from a lifetime of taking the slow path on Eryndor. He wasn't going to spend months here if he could help it.
He moved with a caution that felt both learned and innate, placing his feet carefully on the rocky shore to avoid any sound. The beetle, sensing nothing, continued its mindless foraging. In a movement that was startlingly fluid, he lunged. One hand slammed down on the beetle's carapace, pinning it to the creek bed. The other hand, gripping the cheap dagger, flashed six times in quick succession, precisely severing each claw at its thinnest joint.
The creature twitched and fell still.
A monotone, almost disinterested voice spoke directly into his mind.
[Black beetle killed. No beast soul gained. Eat the flesh to gain 0-10 geno points.]
He grimaced. No beast soul. Of course. The odds were astronomically low for common creatures like this. Following the procedure he'd read about a hundred times, he picked up one of the severed claws and sucked the surprisingly tender, white meat from within. It was rubbery and bland, with a faintly metallic aftertaste that made his Eryndor-refined palate rebel.
[Black beetle flesh eaten. Zero geno points gained.]
He spat into the creek. "Seventy-nine points," he muttered to himself, the sound of his voice a comfort in the alien wilderness. "You've maxed out the gains from these things, haven't you? Stuck on the plateau." He knew the plot. He knew the original Han Sen had to find a stronger creature, a copper-toothed beast, and that the ensuing fight was a brutal, near-fatal affair that served as the story's first real trial.
He spent the next hour in a frustrating loop, hunting three more beetles with efficient, practiced ease. Each kill was clean. Each consumption yielded the same result: zero points, no beast soul. The monotony was a stark contrast to the thrilling fantasy he'd immersed himself in on his data-pad. This was reality: cold, wet, hungry, and disappointing.
He was about to give up and venture further into the rocky valley in search of tougher game when a new glint in the water caught his eye. It was different from the dull obsidian of the common beetles. This was a deep, rich, reflective gold.
He froze, his breath catching in his throat.
Crawling from behind a large, moss-covered stone was another beetle. But this one was twice the size, its shell a perfect, unblemished sphere of what looked like polished aurum—the most precious decorative metal on Eryndor. Its eyes were not black beads, but multifaceted crystals that seemed to hold swirling galaxies within them. It moved with a heavier, more deliberate grace.
"No way…" he whispered, his heart beginning to hammer against his ribs. "A sacred-blood variant… but this early? In the starting zone?"
This was a creature from the mid-to-late chapters of the novel, an elite being that provided powerful beast souls and massive geno point bonuses. Its appearance here, now, was an anomaly. A plot deviation. A chance.
His fan-theory mind raced. Did my transmigration cause a ripple? A butterfly effect? Or is this just insane, dumb luck?
It didn't matter. This was the opportunity he needed. He pushed all thoughts of Eryndor and meta-narrative from his mind. He was just a hunter now. And this was the ultimate prey.
He knew its basic anatomy would be the same, but its senses would be sharper, its defenses greater. The "rely on hearing" rule likely still applied. He became a statue, barely daring to blink, as the magnificent golden creature ambled through the bioluminescent creek, its glorious shell scattering the faint light into dazzling prisms.
Time stretched. A drop of cold water fell from a rock ledge above and landed on his neck. He didn't flinch. His muscles began to burn with the effort of remaining perfectly still. The sacred-blood beetle paused, its crystal eyes seeming to scan the area. Had it heard his heart? Smelled his fear?
Just as he thought he would have to move, it continued on, coming within arm's reach of the bank where he was hidden.
This was it.
He exploded from his crouch. There was no finesse this time, only pure, desperate power. He threw his entire weight onto the creature's shell, his dagger already moving. He didn't target the claws. He remembered an obscure piece of lore from a deep-forum dive: sacred-blood arthropods sometimes had a weak spot, a single, paler sclerite on the underside where the armor was thinnest.
The beetle was incredibly strong, bucking and twisting with terrifying force, its golden claws snapping at the air mere inches from his face. He held on, legs clamped around its body, one arm pinning its head down as he stabbed blindly at its belly with the dagger. The cheap blade screeched against the golden armor, sparking, barely making a dent.
No, no, no! he thought, panic rising. He was going to fail. This wasn't a novel; this was life and death.
With a final, guttural roar that tore from a place he didn't know existed within him, he put every ounce of his strength into one last, desperate thrust. The dagger, stressed to its limit, snapped with a sickening crack. But the reinforced tip punched through, finding the soft spot.
The beetle gave one last, violent shudder and then fell still. Golden, shimmering ichor, smelling of ozone and spices, welled up around the broken blade.
For a moment, there was only the sound of his own ragged breathing. Then, a voice echoed in his mind. But it was not the monotone, dismissive voice from before. This voice was deep, resonant, and carried the weight of absolute authority.
[Sacred-blood black beetle killed. Beast soul of sacred-blood black beetle gained. Eat the flesh to gain 0-10 geno points.]
Elation, pure and undiluted, flooded him. He'd done it! He'd actually—
The thought died as the world disappeared in a blaze of golden light. It was not an external light, but an internal one, erupting from the very core of his being. His HUD flickered wildly, the blue interface dissolving into chaotic static before reforming, pixel by pixel, into something new.
The text was no longer plain blue. It was a vibrant, pulsating gold, etched with subtle, intricate patterns that reminded him of Eryndorian circuitry.
[SUPER GENE SYSTEM - ACTIVATED Welcome,
User: Han Sen Core Protocol Engaged: 100%
Drop Rate Beast Soul Acquisition Probability: Locked at 100%
Geno Point Harvesting: Locked at Maximum Yield
System Integration: 5%... 27%... 89%... Complete
Current Beast Soul Added: Sacred-Blood Black Beetle (Armor-Type)
Geno Points Gained: +10 (Maximum Yield Achieved)
Total Geno Points: 89]
Han Sen could only stare, his mind utterly