Morning sunlight filtered weakly through the dome, diluted by the city's ever-present haze. The air smelled faintly of ozone — a reminder of the massive storm that had passed two nights ago, cleansing the upper atmosphere of drifting cosmic dust.
Aiden stood at the edge of the school rooftop, eyes half-lidded against the light. His classmates were still arriving below, voices echoing up from the courtyard. He wasn't avoiding anyone. He just needed quiet — a place where the constant noise of the city fell away enough for him to listen.
When he focused, he could still hear it: a faint pulse beneath everything.It wasn't sound. It was a rhythm, like the deep breath of something vast and buried.It came from the ground.
At first, he'd assumed it was his imagination. But every time he practiced the Primordial Breathing Technique, the resonance deepened, syncing with his heartbeat until he couldn't tell where his own energy ended and the earth's began.
It's responding.
He didn't know how he knew that — only that it was true.Whatever lay beneath Base City 5 was alive in some way.And it recognized him.
Later that afternoon, Aiden and Darius walked home through the outer district markets. The streets were packed — merchants hawking gene supplements, students trading training manuals, vendors selling grilled beast meat skewers that hissed on contact with the cold air.
Darius was talking, as usual.Aiden was only half-listening.
"…and then the teacher said, if I don't improve my elemental theory, I can forget Aurora Martial University. Can you believe that?"
Aiden smiled faintly. "You failed last week's quiz, didn't you?"
Darius groaned. "That's not the point! You know how hard that class is? Half of it's just memorizing breathing flow equations that don't even work for people without affinities."
He paused, squinting at Aiden. "You're awfully calm these days, you know that? Like… scary calm. You used to flinch when someone mentioned the exams. Now it's like you're on autopilot."
"I've just been training," Aiden said simply.
Darius grinned. "If training makes you this zen, I might try it."
"You wouldn't last an hour."
"Fair."
They laughed, and for a moment, Aiden almost forgot what he carried inside him — the power doubling silently every day, the constant hum that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.
But the laughter died as a deep vibration passed under their feet.
The street lights flickered once. Somewhere in the distance, a low metallic rumble echoed, like something shifting deep beneath the ground. The people around them froze, startled, then shrugged it off as a tremor. Blue Star wasn't entirely stable — occasional minor quakes were normal.
Only Aiden didn't move.His breath hitched, eyes unfocused.He felt the pulse again — stronger this time, clearer.The same rhythm that matched his own.
He looked down the street, toward the city's central sector, where the Martial Association's tall spire stood like a blade through the skyline.Beneath that tower, he could feel it.Something was stirring.
Far below, in the sealed underground levels of the Martial Association, three technicians crowded around a holographic projection.
"Localized seismic scan just pinged again," one said, tracing the waveform. "Origin matches the District 12 energy pulse from last week."
Another frowned. "I thought that was atmospheric interference."
"It was. Until now."
The senior operator, a woman with sharp eyes and gray streaks in her hair, leaned in. "How deep?"
"Hard to say. Maybe two kilometers below surface. The old strata — beneath the city foundation."
She nodded slowly. "That's the ruin zone. Nothing's supposed to be active down there."
The projection flared as a new reading appeared — faint, but unmistakable.A secondary energy source. Not random. Not natural.
A rhythm.
"Ma'am," one of the techs said softly. "It's pulsing… like a heartbeat."
The woman's expression didn't change, but her hand hovered briefly over the emergency protocol key. Then she withdrew it.
"Don't file a report yet," she said. "Run a deeper scan. Use the old Alliance algorithms — the ones from before the Calamity. Let's see if the machine down there remembers us."
That night, Aiden trained again.
The lights in his room were off, his breathing steady and slow.The Primordial Breathing Technique had begun evolving on its own now — adapting, adjusting, aligning with the rhythm beneath the city.
Every inhale drew not just energy, but pattern.Every exhale released structure — refining, simplifying, strengthening.
The System kept pace quietly, its presence almost companionable now.
[Breathing Pattern: Synced — 100% Efficiency][External Frequency Detected — Matching Signature Found][Warning: Unknown resonance link established.]
Aiden opened his eyes.
The walls of his room faded, replaced by darkness. Not absence, but depth — the feeling of standing underwater with no sense of surface or floor.
Light shimmered faintly in the distance. Lines of geometric symbols glowed, forming massive circular patterns far below him. They looked like the city's underground layout, but wrong — older, alien.
At the center, a structure pulsed faintly, sending ripples of light outward. Each pulse matched his heartbeat exactly.
Aiden's breathing faltered. "What… is this?"
The System responded in its usual flat tone.
[Link established: Subterranean Core Node.][Object status: Dormant. Origin: Unknown. Estimated age: 60 years ± 5.]
Sixty years — around the time of the Great Calamity.
The ruins.
The scene shifted. For a moment, Aiden felt the texture of metal under his fingertips — cold, scarred, alive. Then, as quickly as it came, the vision collapsed.
He gasped, the air around him returning all at once. His room came back into focus, the faint glow of the dome lights seeping through the window.
Sweat clung to his skin. His pulse thundered.
That wasn't a dream. That was real.
The System remained silent now, as if waiting for him to act.
He stood, crossed to the window, and looked out at the city below.The spire of the Martial Association gleamed like a blade under the night lights. Beneath it, far under the foundations, he could feel that faint rhythm still echoing in time with his own.
Something in the ruins was linked to him.And it had just woken up.
Deep beneath the city, in the core chamber of the sealed ruin, an ancient machine stirred. Dust fell from rusted support beams.
A single light blinked to life — pale blue, then white.
An automated log file flickered onto an unseen screen, the language old but still functional.
[Reactivation Sequence: Partial][Source of energy: External signal][Identification: Human biological resonance detected][Designation: Compatible.]
The machine paused, then added one final line.
[Awaiting synchronization.]
At that same moment, Aiden's System pinged one last time.
[New Quest Generated.]
Title: The Signal BeneathObjective: Locate the source of the resonance.Warning: Energy field unclassified. Proceed with caution.
He stared at the glowing text, heartbeat still echoing faintly with that impossible rhythm.
For the first time since arriving in this world, the System wasn't leading him.It was following something else.
He exhaled slowly, the breath steady and deliberate, like the closing of a circle.
"So it begins."