Year 251, Origin Convergence Era.
It was close to midnight. There were only a few short minutes until the clock hit exactly 12 AM.
"Hello, students. My name is Principal Haris. You might already know me." The principal of Fortis-01 Academy slowly swept his gaze across the hundreds of students standing steadily inside the grand academy hall.
All of them wore highly serious expressions as they faced the principal.
Nobody dared to breathe loudly or talk. They were far too nervous to even think about anything other than what was definitely going to happen today.
Today was the destined day.
It was the very first day of the first month of the new year.
And on this exact day, the Origin Ascension Domain would officially open new servers across the entire world.
A brand new generation of players would be born today.
All kinds of new, world-shaking talents would undoubtedly emerge from this very place.
Ranging from the ages of sixteen to eighteen, every single eligible student of the academy was present here.
"I know everyone is nervous." Principal Haris gently adjusted his eyeglasses with his index finger as he spoke with a warm, reassuring smile.
"Today is the big day where everyone will officially undergo awakening as a player and enter the Origin Ascension Domain."
He paused for a moment and glanced around the quiet room, his gaze lingering specifically on the front rows of the hall.
There, several well-kept and high-status young individuals stood with completely calm, confident expressions.
They were the elite students of the academy. Those who had the absolute luxury of coming into direct contact with the transcendental power known as mana from a very early age.
They were the privileged sons and daughters of highly regarded families within Fortis City.
The principal continued his speech as he eyed them. "And today, among all of you, many will successfully awaken rare instances known as Origin Talents. Those who awaken Origin Talents will, without a doubt, have a massive head start compared to others."
"But an Origin Talent is not the only deciding factor. Your path to success also heavily depends on your innate compatibility with the mythical energy known as mana. The better your physical affinity with mana, the better you can utilize your awakened skills."
"There are many, many ways to become successful within the Origin Ascension Domain. Your path will absolutely not end simply because you lack an initial talent or a high affinity. The Origin Ascension Domain is filled with endless possibilities, and we humans have not even unveiled one percent of its true secrets."
"Make the academy and the Solaris Kingdom proud. Starting now, you will no longer be ordinary civilians. You will be Players."
With those final, heavy words, the principal concluded his speech. Immediately following that, a crisp, robotic voice rang clearly across the entire world.
[System: New servers of the Origin Ascension Domain will formally open in five minutes.]
[System: New players, please be prepared.]
Immediately, the tense students erupted into loud chatter. Some were deeply worried, some were visibly excited, and some felt entirely numb to it all.
Amidst the growing chaos, a single young man with messy jet-black hair and dark lines beneath his eyes stood completely silent.
"I am so done for," Caelus Kross muttered, standing there with a completely blank expression.
Compared to the excited others, he looked completely out of place.
He didn't seem excited, nervous, or happy about the grand situation at all.
Because he was deeply worried about something else entirely.
'Where the hell is my cheat?' Caelus screamed internally.
Caelus Kross was absolutely not from this world.
He was a traveler.
He had unexpectedly crossed over from another world almost five days ago.
As for exactly how he died in his previous life, he didn't even want to think about it.
But that was entirely beside the point.
Now that he had transmigrated here, he had swiftly learned everything he could about this bizarre world and its history over the past few days to familiarize himself. This was especially important since he possessed only highly hazy, fragmented memories of the previous host.
He only clearly remembered a few specific people and a few isolated incidents, which he firmly believed were things the previous host deeply hated.
And while going through the world's history, he had been patiently waiting for something else to happen.
His cheat.
As a transmigrator, it was practically an iron rule of the universe to receive some sort of cheat, yet for some strange reason, he seemed to possess none.
Did the universe stop handing out free cheats to fellow travelers nowadays?
Usually, this was the exact moment where the protagonist awakened his overpowered cheat, right before the actual system awakening began.
Yet there were only five short minutes left until the Origin Ascension Domain officially opened, and he still had not awakened a single thing.
'The world is such a cruel, unfair place,' Caelus lamented internally.
But he wasn't entirely discouraged yet.
Maybe he would naturally awaken some overpowered Origin Talent inside the game itself and become the chosen one of fate.
Coughing lightly at his own highly fantastical thoughts, he firmly cleared his mind.
Him becoming the chosen one of fate? Yeah, right.
Today was the big day, and he desperately needed to prepare himself mentally.
Because today was the exact day he would officially enter the game-like world.
When he had first woken up in this body, he was completely dumbfounded.
What did it mean that this entire world functioned exactly like an RPG game, and the powerful, ruling beings were literally called players?
At that moment, Caelus was truly caught between laughter and tears.
Precisely two hundred and fifty years ago, the original world underwent a fundamental, apocalyptic change. Natural resources were completely exhausted, ecosystems violently collapsed, and rampant pollution pushed humanity to the very brink of extinction. Survival itself became a brutal, daily struggle.
Then, absolutely everything changed.
The world awakened.
Reality violently collapsed and was magically reforged as the Origin Network descended from the cosmos, fully restoring the dying planet to its prime and completely erasing the deep scars of decay.
But the world did absolutely not return to normal.
Physical reality merged seamlessly with the Origin Network, forming the Origin Ascension Domain.
From that historic day onward, the world functioned exactly like a video game, and humanity formally became its players.
The old era of the ordinary world ended that exact day.
And the new Era of Players officially began.
At the exact same time, magical dungeons began to form and gather across the entire world. Out of those rifts, all sorts of fantastical, terrifying monsters emerged directly into reality as a result of the cosmic merge.
As of right now, this new world was called the Azure Origin Planet.
It was astronomically more vast than his old Earth, and its history matched surprisingly closely in many ways, except that this world had ended far faster than his Earth.
With the descent of the Origin Network, a transcendental energy commonly known as mana also emerged. It completely eliminated the modern need for gas or oil, and absolutely everything transitioned into highly advanced mana-infused technology.
After arriving in this new world, Caelus had only one singular thought driving him forward.
Conquer the Origin Ascension Domain!
Before transmigrating, he had been a highly dedicated full-time gamer. He was even a professional FPS player who had earned many prestigious titles and awards in his home country. However, right before going truly global, he quit professional gaming altogether to focus on college.
Shaking those old thoughts away, he focused entirely on the present.
As an avid gamer, this new world was a literal dream come true.
And more importantly, this game-like world wasn't just a waste of time. The stronger a person became inside the game, the physically stronger they would become out here in reality.
In this new world, high-level players ruled absolutely everything. They wielded terrifying, transcendental powers brought back directly from the Origin Ascension Domain. The top-tier beings could easily split entire mountains apart with a sword strike and soar through the skies faster than fighter jets from his old world.
How wonderful was that?
Suddenly, he was snapped out of his deep thoughts by a familiar voice calling out to him.
"Hey Caelus, Lena is running her mouth again."
Caelus turned slowly toward the speaker.
It was his only "friend" in this place, Albert.
Yes, surprisingly enough, he actually had a genuine friend in this ruthless world.
Although he possessed absolutely no clear memories of their shared past, during the few interactions they had shared since his arrival, he could firmly confirm that this guy was someone he could actually trust.
"Let me guess," Caelus said, his voice completely flat. "She is still using my trash E-Grade Mana Affinity for cheap laughs?"
Albert just sighed softly, tilting his head toward the front row of the elite students.
There stood Lena Ashborn.
She was the golden daughter of the highly influential Ashborn family. It just so happened that he currently lived with the Ashborns as a so-called ward.
He had no living parents in this world. They were said to have died heroically in a brutal war a few years back, and the Ashborn family "generously" took him in.
No, it would be far more accurate to say they took him in specifically to hoard every single cent of the massive benefits the child of the brave martyrs received from the Solaris Kingdom government.
His parents had died as absolute heroes, doing a great deed for the kingdom, and the monthly government pension was astronomical.
But the greedy Ashborn family swallowed absolutely all of it.
However, the previous Caelus was a complete fool. The Ashborns had presented a sickening, twisted argument. Since Lena held a genius A-Rank Affinity and was officially in the special class, they claimed they desperately needed to funnel all available resources, including the orphan's inheritance, directly into her training.
They thoroughly convinced the poor kid that his financial sacrifice was for the "greater good" of the noble family he was now a part of.
And the previous Caelus? That utter fool listened to the head of the Ashborn family to a T. He agreed to it readily, essentially thanking them for robbing him blind just because he was a massive simp who deeply admired Lena.
He bought her expensive lunches, carried her heavy bags, and happily ran errands like a lowly servant, all while entirely funding her luxurious lifestyle.
In short, he was her loyal lap dog who catered to her every single whim.
As Caelus watched coldly, one of Lena's snobby friends in the elite circle leaned in, casually glancing back at him with a mocking smirk.
"Hey Lena, look. Your loyal dog is staring at you again."
Lena didn't even bother turning her head. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the stage, her posture absolutely perfect and freezing cold. "So what?"
"How cruel," the friend giggled, though her voice was deliberately loud enough to carry over to him. "Doesn't he run all your errands for you in class? He happily buys your snacks and carries your equipment. Shouldn't you be a little kinder to him?"
Lena scoffed, a harsh sound sharp enough to cut glass.
"Kinder? Why should I ever waste my kindness on a defect?"
She finally turned around, her gaze sweeping over Caelus with the exact same indifference one would show a dead bug on the sidewalk.
"He has a pathetic E-Grade Mana Affinity. I am a genius A-Rank. We belong to entirely different worlds," Lena said, her voice dripping with intentional humiliation. "A dragon does not thank the ground it walks on. He should be endlessly grateful my family even lets him live under our roof."
Caelus watched this public display, his face entirely expressionless.
He was very familiar with this exact type of setting, and he quite honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Because of his predecessor's sheer stupidity, he had officially become the biggest laughingstock of the entire class.
Only Albert really stuck around through it all.
"What a cliché setting," Caelus clicked his tongue in annoyance.
It truly left a highly bad taste in his mouth.
But now that he had officially taken over this body, he wasn't just going to sit idly by and take it. This gross injustice wouldn't stand for a second longer. He would actively ensure every single wrong was aggressively corrected.
He would violently wring every single benefit he was owed right out of their greedy hands, with heavy interest.
And successfully receiving a high-grade talent in the Origin Ascension Domain was the absolute key to doing so.
"Hopefully that highly annoying woman isn't sorted into my server," Caelus mumbled to himself, his dark eyes turning cold.
Just then, the Origin Network chimed loudly once more.
[System: The time of awakening is formally here.]
[System: Servers have been officially activated.]
[System: The Mark of Origin will now awaken.]
[System: Players, please prepare for Origin Ascension.]