The world ended during a lecture on its beginning.
Professor Malcolm Tiber, a man whose voice could cure insomnia.
"The Akkadian Empire's collapse, you see, wasn't a singular event, but a confluence of socio-economic pressures and, as recent evidence suggests, abrupt climate change…"
Ethan Graves wasn't listening.
He was slouched in the back row, phone hidden under the desk, scrolling through memes.
A text from his sister, Emily, flashed on the screen.
Emily: Who was that girl last night?
Ethan: Just a friend.
Emily: Friends don't make those sounds.
Ethan: She's a talented friend.
Not like a passing truck, but a deep, resonant hum that vibrated up from the concrete floor, through the soles of his worn-out sneakers, and into his teeth.
The professor paused mid-sentence, his spectacles slipping down his nose.
"Earthquake?" someone whispered from the front row.
Then the hum became a shriek.
It was the sound of a thousand jet engines firing directly into his skull.
The air pressure in the room dropped so fast his ears popped violently.
A spiderweb of incandescent blue light fractured across the ceiling.
"What the—"
BOOM!
The world didn't just shake: it shattered.
The very concept of 'up' and 'down' became a meaningless suggestion.
The lecture hall, the students, Professor Tiber - all of it dissolved into a blinding, deafening cataract of white light and crystalline noise.
Ethan felt a force, not of impact, but of unraveling, as if every atom in his body was being pulled apart and re-stitched into something new.
The last thing he registered was the feeling of falling through a storm of broken glass, the wind screaming past him with the force of a hurricane.
Then, silence. And darkness.
Consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as a system reboot.
One moment, there was nothing. The next, sensory input flooded his brain.
The scent of damp earth and something vaguely like ozone and honeysuckle.
The warmth of two suns - one a brilliant gold, the other a soft, pale violet - on his face. The soft give of emerald-green moss beneath his fingertips.
Ethan's eyes snapped open.
He was lying in a small, impossibly serene clearing.
Towering trees with bark like polished obsidian spiraled toward the sky, their canopies a breathtaking network of glowing, crystalline leaves that pulsed with a gentle, inner light.
The air was clean, crisp, and so rich with oxygen it made him feel light-headed.
He shot to his feet, heart hammering against his ribs.
"Okay… okay…" he muttered, hands running over his body. He was fine. Same worn-out hoodie, same faded jeans. No sign of the apocalyptic light show.
"Hallucination? Did someone spike the campus coffee?" His voice sounded small and thin in the vast quiet.
Then, a soft, electronic chime echoed, seemingly inside his own head.
A translucent blue screen flickered into existence a foot in front of his face, its text stark and clinical.
[System Boot Complete. Welcome, Participant #42,777, to the Shardborne Expanse.]
Ethan stared, blinking. He reached out a trembling hand to touch the screen. His fingers passed right through it.
"What in the fresh hell is this?"
The screen updated, as if responding to his query.
[You have been transferred to a new reality. All previous laws of physics and society are now subordinate to the System.]
[Designated Sector: 666 - Stormreach City Perimeter.]
[Total Sector Participants: 100,000.]
[A 3-Day Protection Period for all new Participants is now active. You can't fight one of your kind. Direct monster aggression is pacified unless provoked.]
Ethan's burgeoning panic was being rapidly overridden by a sense of bewildered, cynical disbelief.
"Shardborne Expanse? Sector 666?" he snorted.
"Someone in management has a flair for the dramatic. Real subtle."
He read the last line again. Monster aggression.
His head snapped up, eyes scanning the idyllic treeline with newfound suspicion.
The beautiful, serene clearing suddenly felt like the lobby of a slaughterhouse.
The chime sounded again.
[Commencing Talent Awakening Protocol. Please remain calm.]
"A little late for that, don't you think?" Ethan muttered, his knuckles white.
In front of him, the blue screen dissolved into a swirling vortex of light.
It spun like a cosmic lottery wheel, flashing with incomprehensible symbols.
A new window opened to the side, a live feed of system-wide announcements scrolling by at a frantic pace.
[Participant #87,342 has awakened Common (F) Rank Talent: Superior Digestion.]
[Participant #11,201 has awakened Uncommon (D) Rank Talent: Can Hold Breath for 3 Minutes.]
[Participant #65,998 has awakened Common (F) Rank Talent: Slightly Warmer Hands.]
[Participant #91,004 has awakened Rare (C) Rank Talent: Minor Bladework Aptitude.]
A bitter, hysterical laugh escaped Ethan's lips.
"Superior Digestion? That poor bastard.
Hope he enjoys the local alien fruit."
It was a lottery, and it was clear most people were drawing the losing tickets.
These weren't superpowers: they were party tricks. Useless, pathetic jokes in the face of whatever this nightmare was.
The vortex of light in front of him began to slow, the hum intensifying.
It flickered through grey… green… blue… then, instead of stopping, it blazed into a blinding, heroic gold.
[Legendary (A) Rank Talent Detected… Bypassing…]
The golden light surged, shattering into a Mythic-level white so pure it hurt to look at.
[Mythic (S) Rank Talent Detected… Bypassing…]
Ethan's breath hitched.
The light intensified again, shifting into a color he had no name for a deep, shimmering resonance that felt ancient and impossibly powerful.
The very air around him seemed to kneel in its presence.
The world-feed, visible in his peripheral vision, exploded with a global announcement that seared itself across the sky for all 100,000 participants in Sector 666 to see.
[WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT: A TRANSCENDENT (SSS) RANK TALENT HAS BEEN BORN IN SECTOR 666.]
The vortex in front of Ethan solidified, bathing him in its otherworldly glow.
[Congratulations, Participant #42,777!]
[You have awakened Transcendent (SSS) Rank Talent: Maximum Evolution.]
Ethan stared, his mind struggling to catch up.
He'd seen the feed. Common, Uncommon, maybe a few Rare talents.
A single Legendary or Mythic would be a sector-defining event. But Transcendent? That sounded less like a talent and more like a typo.
He forced himself to read the description that scrolled into view, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
[Talent: Maximum Evolution]
[Rank: Transcendent (SSS)]
[Description: The user can perceive and manipulate the foundational essence of reality.
By expending a special energy, 'Primal Essence,' the user can force any item, skill, or concept to evolve to its next stage of power.]
[Special Trait — Critical Evolution: The first evolution performed on any unique target is a guaranteed Critical Evolution.
Critical Evolutions grant massively amplified effects and have a high probability of generating new, unique properties not present in the original.]
[Starting Resource Endowment: 100 Primal Essence.]
The last line hit him like a physical blow. 100 Primal Essence.
He instinctively knew what that meant.
He didn't know how, but the knowledge was just… there, a part of the System's package.
Primal Essence was the fuel for his talent. It was the rarest energy in the universe, earned only by killing powerful monsters, clearing dungeons, or discovering world-altering treasures.
And everyone else started with zero.
They had to scrape and claw for every drop.
They had to kill a monster just to earn their first point.
They were stuck with their pathetic, Common-rank talents.
But him? He was standing here, on day one, minute five, with a hundred shots in the chamber and a talent that could turn a stick into a god-slaying spear.
The protection period was a three-day tutorial.
For everyone else, it was a terrifying scramble to figure out the rules.
For him… it was a three-day head start in a race they didn't even know he was winning.
The magnitude of his advantage was staggering, almost nauseating.
It was the ultimate cheat code, handed to him by a cosmic accident.
The slacker who'd been half-asleep in history class five minutes ago was gone.
In his place was a man who suddenly understood the new rules with terrifying clarity.
This wasn't a game. People were going to die.
The ones with 'Slightly Warmer Hands' were probably already monster food.
Survival here wasn't about being good or noble. It was about being powerful.
Ethan took a deep, steadying breath, the rich, alien air filling his lungs.
The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but it was now overlaid with something else.
A sharp, predatory focus. An electrifying current of pure, unadulterated opportunity.
His eyes scanned the clearing again, but this time, he wasn't looking at the scenery.
He was looking for a tool. A rock. A fallen branch. Anything.
The system interface still hovered patiently in his vision.
He focused on it, a grim smile touching his lips for the first time in this new world.
"Alright, System," he said, his voice low and steady. "Let's find something to evolve."