Thirteenth floor, inside a high-rise apartment. The cramped studio room was dim and quiet.
A youth with a pale complexion sat on a worn-out chair.
"Finally," Nathan muttered, his long black hair cascading over his shoulders.
His deep blue eyes locked onto the ancient-looking book before him.
This was an Awakening Book he had bought after draining every penny he'd saved over the past five years.
***
Ten thousand years ago, the universe humanity once knew collided and merged with billions of others, giving rise to a mysterious new power called mana.
As mana spread across existence, humans slowly learned to harness it. In time, they even created a tool capable of forming mana cores—the Awakening Book.
Mana cores were divided into several grades: white, green, blue, and purple, with purple standing at the very peak.
These cores determined how quickly one could absorb and wield mana, as well as how much mana their body could contain. The higher the talent, the greater the gap between individuals.
"Even a white-grade awakening should be enough for me," Nathan thought. After all, there were people who couldn't even open their cores.
Countless others, just like him, had scraped together their life savings only to watch their hopes crumble. They worked themselves to the bone for a single chance to change their fate… yet still failed to awaken their cores.
Nathan grasped the black pendant hanging from his neck. "Please, lady luck… grant me your blessing. Let me be the luckiest man alive," he murmured.
Clenching the pendant for strength, he took a slow breath and placed his hand onto the Awakening Book.
Clearing his thoughts, Nathan steadied his breathing. He focused with all his might, feeling a mysterious energy seeping into him, merging with his very being as it poured out from the ancient book.
"Oh… refreshing…" Nathan could not help but let out a low moan. It felt as if invisible hands were massaging every inch of his body, melting away tension and filling him with warmth.
The energy slowly coursed through his limbs, his bones, his flesh, before gathering and swirling toward his heart.
"This is it…" Feeling the mana converge, Nathan sensed the faint outline of a core forming within his chest.
But the moment it began to take shape, a stabbing pain erupted.
"Argh…" He grimaced, sweat dripping down his forehead. "This is the final step…"
If he could endure until the end, the core would form. If he failed, the awakening would collapse, and his body would be deemed unfit to hold mana.
"Arghh!" Nathan clutched his heart and collapsed to the floor. "Hold… hold it, Nathan!"
Every second stretched into torture. The pain grew more savage, and more merciless.
It felt like countless blades were shredding his heart to pieces. "Ugh…" He rolled on the ground, clutching his chest as agony tore through him.
His breathing turned shallow. His consciousness wavered. Darkness began to creep in.
"No… no… I can take it…" He bit down on his tongue, desperate to stay awake. He could feel it. The core was taking shape, turning into a solid, marble-like bead within his heart.
He was close. Incredibly close.
But then, a faint leak opened.
"A crack…?" Nathan's blurred vision sharpened for a brief moment. Something was wrong. "No…"
Before he could react, the crack spread rapidly.
"Argh!" Nathan screamed as the pain spiked beyond anything he had ever felt. His breath weakened. "Failed…?"
His eyes stung. This was his one and only chance to change his fate. As an orphan with nothing, no background and no resources, this awakening was the sole opportunity he had hoped for.
"Am I destined to remain a nobody in this vast universe…?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
He stared blankly at the ceiling as tears slid down his cheeks. Pain, despair, and helplessness surged within his chest like a rising tide.
Yet he remained unaware that the pendant resting against his neck had begun to glow faintly, releasing a mysterious black light. The darkness spread quietly, enveloping his body as his consciousness slipped away.
A strange shadow-like energy seeped from the pendant, coiling around him like strands of a dark web. His body slowly lifted from the ground, suspended in the air as bizarre fluctuations rippled outward.
The eerie energy converged toward the cracked marble-like mana core in his heart, flowing into it gently like water soaking into dry earth.
Moments later, the shattered transparent core shuddered and released a faint radiance. The broken fragments quivered, then slowly drifted back into place, converging at the center. Piece by piece, the core began to repair itself.
Several minutes passed before the light finally dimmed. The mysterious energy dissipated as if it had never existed. Within Nathan's heart, the mana core faded to a calm glow once more, and around it, faint thunder-like patterns pulsed with a deep, ominous black light.
Several hours later, as the fading sunlight slipped past his window, Nathan's consciousness slowly resurfaced.
His eyelids fluttered. "Argh…"
The moment he tried to move, a mouthful of sour vomit burst out, splattering onto the floor.
Gasping weakly, he wiped his mouth with trembling fingers.
"Did I really fail…?" he murmured. "What am I supposed to do now? Wait… what is this feeling?"
As his thoughts drifted, he suddenly sensed something unusual.
A gentle, pure energy was floating freely around the room, like soft motes of light wandering aimlessly.
They felt strangely friendly to him, and some even gathered naturally into his body.
"Is this… mana?" he swallowed hard. "I can feel mana?"
"Why? Didn't I fail the awakening?"
He calmed his breath and focused inward. Deep within his heart, a white mana core floated quietly.
It pulsed softly, like a newborn child greedily absorbing the thin mana in the air.
"A core…? I really formed a core…?"
Nathan couldn't help but shout as he jumped up from the floor, completely forgetting his weakened state.
"Ouch…" He winced and clutched his waist, but the overwhelming joy in his chest refused to fade.
"But… why does my core have black, thunder-like patterns around it?" he muttered, frowning.
The strange markings wrapped around the core like dark veins, pulsing faintly as if alive.
Each throb felt like a heartbeat.
"These is where the cracks were, right?" he whispered.
The patterns perfectly resembled the fractured lines he remembered. Only now, instead of breaking apart, they held the core together.
"So the core healed because of that mysterious energy…?" The thought sent a chill down his spine.
"How did this even form…?"
He checked his body carefully, but found nothing out of place.
However… one thing was missing.
"My pendant?" His eyes widened. "Where is my pendant?"
He frantically searched his clothes and the floor, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Confusion piled up in his mind as he replayed everything he remembered.
"Did the pendant repair my core…?" he whispered.
It was the only explanation he could think of.
"Is that really what happened?"
That pendant had been with him since he first formed memories. He had always treasured it as his only link to his identity.
"Could my real identity be… unusual?"
The thought made his heart tremble, but he quickly slapped his own cheek.
"Get it together, Nathan… stop daydreaming."
If he truly possessed some hidden, extraordinary background, his core wouldn't be white.
"Talent-wise, I'm still at the bottom," he muttered. "But at least… I finally have a path to walk."
A faint smile tugged at his lips. Scenes flashed in his mind of hunting monsters, collecting cores, growing stronger step by step.
The life he had dreamed of for years suddenly felt just a little closer.
With a small shake of his head, Nathan forced himself back to reality. "There are still things to do."
Circulating his senses inward, he inspected his cores once more. Two energies pulsed within him, one pure white and the other an eerie, ink-black.
The white energy made sense; white-grade cores should contain white mana.
But the black one… this was something completely beyond his knowledge.
In all the history he had read, in all the records he had memorized, never once was there a mention of black-colored energy.
"This is abnormal," he thought, his brows furrowing. "Could it harm me? No… impossible. I'm certain this black energy was the one that repaired my cores."
He directed his focus toward the white energy first. At his call, it stirred and gathered around his right arm.
"So this is the power of mana?" Nathan murmured. The power surged faintly beneath his skin, and he felt that if he punched the wall right now, he could deal damage at the concrete.
White energy wrapped around his palm, its glow thin and translucent.
"If I could just learn a spell…" he whispered, staring at his hand. A single technique was enough; he could unleash this energy into something destructive.
Then he shifted his senses to the other presence.
The black energy writhed faintly within the thunder-like cracks of his white cores, as if alive.
"Let's try it," he said softly. He needed to know if this mysterious power was truly under his control.
He focused. Slowly, the black translucent energy seeped out from the cracks and gathered in his hand like a creeping shadow, replacing the white glow entirely.
"Wow… I can really control it?" he breathed out in disbelief. "But… why can't I feel anything?"
Compared to the white energy's strength, this black force felt hollow and silent, as if nothing was happening at all.
He stared at his palm as the black energy wrapped around it, its form faint.