.Alvian gritted his teeth, the dust of the training grounds coating around his tongue.
Alvian was seventeen years old.
In Siji village, being seventeen means one thing: the Awakening of Aether (Cultivation). The other boys at his age sat with their eyes closed, palms upturned. himmering lights danced around their fingertips.
This was Aether, the shimmering, life-giving energy that powered their world.It was the only path to becoming an Enhancer, a warrior, someone who mattered.
For Alvian, it was a path that was seal.
But, seals could be broken.
He was as Aether-less.
His father's words was a constant, heavy weight in his mind.A single, absolute rule, delivered not with anger, but with a sorrowful gravity that scared Alvian more than any shouting ever could.
"Never touch Aether."
"Never awaken it."
"Never."
There were two things they never spoke of in their small, quiet home.
Aether, and his mother.
Somehow, Alvian knew they were connected.
"Look, the freak is watching us again!"
Kael, his face grin and his fists already glowing with a blue light, moved towards him. He was the biggest and strongest of the boys, and the first to channel his Aether.
"Jealous that you can't even feel a spark, anomaly?" Kael sneered, shoving Alvian's shoulder. "My dad said your father is just a coward who ran from the war. Guess being useless runs in the family."
Alvian's clenched his fists.
He was supposed to endure it.
To turn away.
To run.
But the word 'coward' hit him hard.
His father was quiet, sad, strangely fearful but he was never a coward.
"Shut your mouth, Kael"
Kael laughed ugly sound that drew the attention of the other boys. "Or what? You'll cry to your cowardly daddy?"
That was it.
The dam of restraint inside Alvian broke.
He didn't think.
He just acted.
GRAAAH! He yelled as he launched forward, throwing a furious punch.
He felt a satisfying jolt as his fist hit Kael's jaw.
Silence...
Then, a blue light flared around Kael's body. Vvvvvvv-FWOOSH!
"You little piece of trash!" Kael roared, his eyes filled with blue flames. A low fssshhh crackled from his eyes.
He didn't even throw a better punch.
He just threw his arm, Aether flowing through his muscles.
It felt like he was hit by Mike Tyson.
The punch sent Alvian rolling backward into the dirt. Scrabble, crunch.
He felt pain in his ribs. AH!
He tried to scramble up, but Kael was already on him, with a knee pinning his chest to the ground.
Kael is Aether-enhanced so he was impossible to duel against.
"You want to fight?" Kael spat, his face inches from Alvian's. Pth. "This is the difference between an Enhancer and a freak like you!"
He punched Alvian's stomach.
Alvian gasped, "Huuuugh-kkk!" his vision swarming with black spots.
The other boys were just laughing and mocking. A cacophony of sneering "Heh's" and cruel laughter filled the air.
Shoved into the mud, defeated and utterly powerless, Alvian finally did what he should have done in the first place.
He ran.
His heart raced as he sprinted, laughter ringing out behind him. He continued until the laughter diminished, then he paused, panting in the chilly, quiet forest, the aroma of pine and moist soil anchoring him.
A gentle chitter caught his notice.
It was Flicker, a tiny fox-like being with dusk-colored fur and three quivering tails, bumped his hand with a damp nose—his sole companion in a world that overlooked him.
"I'm fine," Alvian murmured, petting its warm head. However, he was not. The void within was immense and resonant. He desired might—Aether, energy, whatever it took. He wished for the laughter to cease.
His father, a man with perpetually hunched shoulders, had imparted one command: Always avoid Aether. Do not stir it. Absolutely not.
The command was absolute, a mournful seriousness Alvian never dared defy. His mother—a ghost in a blurred photograph, the permanent void in his father's eyes—was a silence even deeper than the one surrounding Aether. Flicker's insistent tug on his pants drew him from familiar trails, deeper into the forest's heart. Soon, known trees warped into gnarled, moss-draped titans, ancients that felt older than the village itself. A clearing opened, unnaturally lit by an eerie green luminescence. At its center stood a forgotten shrine, a simple stone plinth choked by thick vines. Its surface was carved with glyphs so ancient they seemed to hum with a forgotten power. An irresistible pull seized Alvian. He reached out, a trembling hand tracing the twisting, alien shapes. The symbols writhed at the edge of his sight. The air grew heavy, crackling with a palpable charge. His fingertips grazed the cold stone. His world dissolved into nothing.
[SYSTEM BOOTING… 10%... 35%... 60%...]
[CRITICAL ANOMALY DETECTED IN HOST'S SOUL-MATRIX!]
[SOUL IS FRAGMENTED AND SEALED! ATTEMPTING BYPASS!]
[BYPASS FAILED! INITIATING FORCED ACTIVATION!]
[GOD-TIER SYSTEM SIGNATURE IDENTIFIED… ATTEMPTING INITIALIZATION!]
The air in was front revealing a dimensional rift. Flicker yelped in terror as the rift's gravitational pull latched onto Alvian, yanking him off his feet and into the swirling chaos.
Miles away, a fortified watchtower scarred the kingdom's edge. Inside, before a massive scrying orb, stood two figures in deep red robes. The orb's placid, swirling Aether had vanished, replaced by a furious boil of violent, crimson alarms.
"Report!" the senior agent commanded, his voice sharp and cold as glacial ice.
"Commander Valerius! A God-Tier System Anomaly just registered! Location… Sector Gamma-7, near the remote village of Siji. The energy signature is… unstable. It's tearing a hole in the dimensional fabric!" the junior agent stammered, his face pale.
Commander Valerius's eyes narrowed into slits. "A God-Tier System… activating in the hands of some backwater child? Impossible. The last one to awaken a system of that magnitude was the Architect, and his rise led to the Calamity." His voice dropped, laced with a venomous hatred. "Scramble the Void Reapers. I want that anomaly contained and the host secured. If they resist, eliminate them. The Crimson Order was founded to prevent another such catastrophe. We will not allow another Architect to rise."
Back in Siji village, Alvian's father was splitting firewood when he froze, the axe falling from his numb fingers. He felt it—a surge of Aether so potent, so achingly familiar, that it stole the breath from his lungs. It was her Aether. Her legacy. A wave of pure terror washed over him. He looked toward the ancient woods, his face a mask of anguish.
'Selene, what have you done? Our boy… It's too soon. They will find him.'
"No," he whispered to the empty air, his voice cracking with a decade of buried fear. "Not him. Not already."
Alvian's mind shattered. He floated in an ocean of raw information, a tempest of brightness and noise. The discomfort had vanished, substituted by a deep feeling of disorientation. When his sight eventually focused, he found himself no longer in the woods.
He stood on a surface of radiant, crystalline illumination, marked with luminous blue patterns that throbbed like a gentle, silent heartbeat. Over him, the sky resembled a mosaic of changing pixels, transitioning between shades of dawn and dusk. In the distance, massive towers of pristine data ascended into the digital sky. It was an ideal, vacant, and frightening realm composed of code and illumination
'What is this place? A dream? Is this hell?'
A voice ignited directly within his soul, bypassing his ears entirely. It was ancient, resonant—the sound of turning galaxies and the silent hum of a perfectly calibrated machine.
[Welcome, Inheritor.]
"Who… Where am I?" Alvian stammered, his own voice sounding small and fragile in the vast, silent space.
[You are in The Crucible. A sanctuary. A training ground. A gift from an ancestor you never knew. The crude Aether of your world is but a pale reflection of the Primordial Essence that flows here.]
A single, brilliant particle detached itself from the pixelated sky. It descended to hover before Alvian's chest, a miniature star pulsing with every color imaginable, radiating pure, untainted power.
[Your potential was sealed. Your pathways, dormant. I have awakened them. I grant you this: a Prismatic Aether Core. The purest vessel. It will allow you to harness the Primordial Essence of this domain and forge your own path.]
The star of light surged forward, phasing through his tunic to merge with his chest. No pain, only a sense of absolute completion, a lost piece of his soul clicking into place. A warm, powerful current ignited his veins, searing open dormant channels of energy he never knew existed. The hollow void inside him caught fire. His vision of the digital world fractured, overlaid by a series of crisp, clear notifications flashing into existence.
[Ding! System Initialization Complete!]
[Prismatic Aether Core successfully integrated!]
[Host's potential unlocked!]
[Aether Affinity stat is now obsolete. All elements are available to the host.]
[Welcome to the Level 999 Sword Upgrade System!]
══『 Level 999 Sword Upgrade System 』══
┏━━━━━━━[ Host Profile ]━━━━━━━━━┓
➽ Name: Alvian
➽ Aether Core: Prismatic Aether Core [God-Tier] (Lv.1) <0.01%>
➽ Aether Rank: Rank 0 Mortal <0.01%>
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
┏━━━━━━[ Attributes ]━━━━━━┓
➽ Strength: [3]
➽ Speed: [4]
➽ Constitution: [3]
➽ Aether Affinity: [PRIMORDIAL]
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
┏━━━━━━[ Techniques ]━━━━━━┓
➽ Meditation Technique: NILL
➽ Combat Technique: NILL
➽ Weapon Bond: NILL
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
════════════════════════════
Alvian stared wide-eyed at the information that had appeared in his head. 'A system? Just like in the stories adventurers tell? But... this is real.'
The disembodied voice spoke again. [A system is but a tool. It requires a focus. Find your weapon, Inheritor. Begin your journey.]
Alvian looked around the crystalline plane.
In the infinite, perfect expanse. One piece of junk. His eyes fell on a single object lying a few feet away in the glowing floor.
It was a sword. Or, what was left of one. It was a short, rusted, with a hilt covered in decaying leather strips. It was an insult to the very idea of a weapon.
Hesitantly, he approached and crouched beside it. He grabbed the hilt firmly. The leather was dry and split, and the rust peeled off under his touch, yet the cold, firm weight of the steel beneath it was unmistakable. As his fingers completely wrapped around it, the system jolted awake again with a thunderous ring echoing in his mind.
[Ding!]
[Weapon Detected: [Rusted Blade]]
[Weapon Quality: Trash]
[System Bonding Protocol Initiated… Do you accept?]
[Y/N]
A choice. For the first time, he felt like he had one. With nothing else to lose, he focused his will on the glowing [Y].
[Affirmative. Bonding Protocol Commencing.]
[10%… 45%… 87%… 100%!]
A stream of energy flowed from his new Aether Core, down to his arm, and into the rusted sword.
He felt a mental link to the piece of metal. He could feel the sword's history—a dull, forgotten ache of neglect.
[Ding! Bond Complete!]
[The [Rusted Blade] is now the primary vessel for the Level 999 Sword Upgrade System.]
[All experience gained through combat and training will now be channeled into this vessel.]
[Your path begins now.]
--
A/N: Enjoyed the first chapter? Hit that 'Add to Library' and power it up with a few stones!
Thank You.