The dust from the disintegrated boulder hadn't even settled before Lloren felt the shift in his reality. The world was no longer a collection of solid objects; it was a chaotic, beautiful orchestra of frequencies. The grass under his feet didn't just feel like blades of green; they hummed with a low-level life frequency. The wind wasn't just moving air; it was a rhythmic percussion hitting his skin.
"Lloren... your eyes," Lin whispered, her voice trembling.
Lloren looked into the reflection of a nearby puddle. His dark pupils were gone, replaced by shimmering silver rings that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He closed his eyes, trying to dampen the sensory overload. When he focused, he could hear the vibration of the village half a mile away—the clinking of blacksmith hammers, the chatter of merchants, and the heavy, arrogant footsteps of Elvis and his lackeys.
"I'm fine, Lin," Lloren said, though his voice sounded as if it were vibrating through a sheet of metal. "But we can't tell anyone. Not yet."
He knew the law of Oakhaven. Any child who awakened a 'Cursed Seed' or a power that couldn't be categorized was often taken away by the Imperial Inspectors to be 'studied'—a polite word for dissection. If the village knew he could turn solid matter into dust with a touch at age five, he would never see the sun again.
The Secret Training
The next six years were a blur of calculated silence and grueling internal labor. While Elvis spent his time showing off his B-Tier Gravity powers by lifting small rocks and bullying younger kids, Lloren became a ghost.
He moved his training to the Iron Graveyard, a desolate valley filled with the rusted remains of pre-Pulse machinery and failed experiments. It was a place where the air tasted of copper and the ground was too hard for crops. It was the perfect laboratory for a boy who could speak to atoms.
At age seven, Lloren discovered the first major hurdle of his power: Feedback. He had tried to vibrate a massive rusted gear from an old tank. He matched the frequency perfectly, but the kinetic energy had nowhere to go. It snapped back into his arm, shattering his radius and ulna instantly. He had laid in the dirt for hours, teeth clenched to keep from screaming, until the natural resonance of his body slowly knit the bones back together.
"Vibration isn't just about breaking," he muttered to himself months later, staring at his healed arm. "It's about direction."
He began to study the flow of energy. He realized that if he could oscillate his own cells at a specific frequency, he could become nearly invulnerable. He called this "Phase Shifting." If a sword swung at him, he could vibrate his body so fast that the blade would simply pass through the gaps between his atoms. It was exhausting, lasting only seconds, but it was a god-tier defense.
The Encounter in the Scrap
By the time Lloren turned eleven, he stood taller than most boys his age. His frame was lean, built not by heavy lifting, but by the constant internal tension of holding his power in check.
One afternoon, while he was practicing a new technique—"Acoustic Levitation"—he wasn't alone.
"So, this is where the little Dreg hides," a sneering voice echoed through the metal valley.
Elvis stood atop a pile of rusted beams, flanked by two other boys. Elvis had grown broader, his chest puffed out with the pride of a B-Tier user. Around his hands, the air warped and shimmered—the telltale sign of his Gravity power.
"I've been watching you, Lloren," Elvis said, leaping down. He landed heavily, the gravity around his boots cracking the dry earth. "You come here every day. You don't have a fruit. You don't have a glow. You're just a broken mistake. My father says people like you bring bad luck to the harvest."
Lloren didn't look up from the small metal bolt he was currently vibrating in the palm of his hand. The bolt was spinning so fast it looked like a blur of grey light.
"Leave, Elvis," Lloren said quietly. "This place is dangerous for you."
"Dangerous? For me?" Elvis laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "I am a Gravity User! I can increase the weight of your lungs until you can't breathe. I can crush you into a pancake before you can even shiver."
To prove his point, Elvis raised his hand. "Gravity Press!"
The air above Lloren suddenly felt like a lead blanket. The pressure was immense, meant to force him to his knees. The two lackeys laughed, waiting for the satisfyng thud of Lloren hitting the dirt.
But Lloren didn't move.
He didn't even strain. Internally, he shifted his body's frequency to match the downward pressure of the gravity wave. He wasn't resisting the force; he was letting it pass through him like water through a sieve.
"Is that all?" Lloren asked, finally looking up. His silver-ringed eyes flashed.
Elvis's face turned bright red. "What... why aren't you kneeling?!" He pushed harder, his veins bulging on his forehead. The ground around Lloren began to sink, forming a crater three feet deep. Yet Lloren stood on a pillar of earth that remained untouched, his feet perfectly level.
"Gravity is just a fundamental wave, Elvis," Lloren said, stepping forward. Each step sent a tiny ripple through the dirt, neutralizing the gravity field where his foot landed. "And waves can be cancelled."
Lloren reached out and flicked his finger against Elvis's shimmering gravity shield.
"Resonance Snap."
The sound was like a thunderclap in a small room. The gravity field didn't just break; it inverted. The sudden release of tension sent Elvis flying backward, tumbling over the scrap heaps until he crashed into a pile of hollow oil drums with a deafening clang.
The two lackeys stood frozen, their mouths agape. They looked at Lloren, then at the groaning Elvis, and then they ran.
Lloren sighed, the silver light in his eyes fading. He looked at his hand. He had used less than one percent of his output, and he had nearly broken the village's "prodigy." He felt no joy in it—only a deepening sense of isolation.
The Arrival of the Storm
That evening, a dark cloud appeared on the horizon. It wasn't a rain cloud. It was a fleet of black-sailed carriages pulled by mutated, six-legged beasts.
The Shadow Syndicate had arrived.
The village bells began to toll—a frantic, rhythmic clanging that Lloren felt in his teeth. He ran toward the village square, his heart sinking. He found the villagers huddled in the center, surrounded by men in charcoal-grey armor. These weren't common thugs; they were professional Fruit Hunters.
At the lead stood a man with a jagged scar running from his eye to his chin. He held a scepter made of bone, and a faint smell of ozone followed him. This was Garroch, a rumored A-Tier user of the Explosion Fruit.
"I'll make this simple," Garroch said, his voice carrying an unnatural edge. "This village sits on a ley-line of Aura. We know you've been harvesting. Hand over every A and B-Tier fruit in your storehouse, or I'll turn this entire valley into a crater."
The Village Chief, Elvis's father, stepped forward, trembling. "We... we only have one B-Tier fruit this year. My son consumed it. Please, we are just farmers!"
Garroch's eyes narrowed. He looked at Elvis, who was hiding behind his father, still bruised from the afternoon's encounter.
"A B-Tier, eh? What a waste on such a pathetic specimen," Garroch spat. He raised his hand, a small spark of orange light dancing on his fingertip. "If you have no fruits to give, then you have no value to the Syndicate."
He pointed his finger at the village storehouse, where the winter grain was kept.
"Wait!" Lin screamed, running forward.
Garroch paused, a cruel smile touching his lips. "Ah, a Life-Weaver. Rare. You'll fetch a high price at the capital's slave markets. Grab her."
As two mercenaries moved toward Lin, Lloren felt a vibration he had never felt before. It wasn't the sound of the world around him. It was a roar coming from his own soul. The earth beneath his feet began to hum—a low, growling frequency that made the mercenaries' armor rattle.
Lloren stepped out from the shadows of a nearby hut.
"Let her go," Lloren said.
The vibration was so intense that the words didn't just travel through the air; they shook the very bones of everyone in the square. Garroch turned, his smile fading. For the first time in years, the professional killer felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck.
"And who are you?" Garroch asked, his hand glowing brighter.
"I'm the one," Lloren said, his eyes turning into twin silver suns, "who is going to show you that even the smallest vibration can bring down a mountain."