The moment my palms made contact with the unpolished star-stone, the initial sensation was an absolute, bone-chilling cold. It felt as if a thousand microscopic needles were piercing through my skin, digging into the unsealed pathways of my arms to map the internal architecture of my soul.
Then, the anomaly reacted.
Deep within my chest, the heavy, dormant anchor that had been stabilized inside the dream forest violently woke up. A sudden spike of intense gravity exploded right behind my sternum, causing the blue mana circles beneath my boots to violently shudder. The soft blue light didn't turn iron-grey like Lysander's, nor did it fade into the dull green of a standard commoner talent. Instead, the light beneath my feet began to violently flicker, shifting rapidly between a blinding white and a deep, pitch-black violet.
A low, vibrating rumble echoed directly through the stone floor of the cathedral, causing several robed overseers to stumble backward in alarm.
The translucent public panels floating in the air above the altar began to distort, flashing broken lines of code before completely blanking out. The public altar couldn't broadcast my data; it was entirely short-circuiting under the pressure. But right in front of my eyes, a private window of clean, glowing light tore open, its text burning straight into my retinas.
STATUS INTERFACE — INITIALIZATION COMPLETED
Name: Astraeus
Affinity: Cosmic
Level: 1
Mana: 100 / 100
Vitality: 100 / 100
[ ATTRIBUTES ]
Strength: 25
Agility: 25
Endurance: 25
Wisdom: 30
[ PASSIVE CORE AFFINITIES ]
Sword Resonance (Level 1)
I stared at the floating text, the clean light reflecting off my wide eyes as a wave of absolute clarity locked into my brain.
It wasn't an illusion. The dream forest was a real physical intervention. The cosmic pool anomaly had fundamentally rewritten my blueprint, handing me an unranked Cosmic affinity. Because of the sheer magnitude of an EX-Rank awakening, my raw metrics didn't reflect a normal commoner baseline. My strength and agility had instantly initialized at twenty-five, providing the high physical foundation necessary for a sword user. My wisdom sat even higher at thirty, saturating my newly unsealed veins with a dense, magical focus. I was perfectly balanced—a magic swordsman starting from the absolute peak of Level 1 potential.
The clumsy weight that had plagued my greatsword practice made entire sense now; the system had officially optimized my core for a light blade, backed by raw cosmic intelligence.
"What... what is that?" an overseer choked out from the darkness of the stage, staring frantically at the completely jammed public monolith. "Get the regional director. The altar's sorting ledger just suffered a structural calculation failure!"
I slowly pulled my hands away from the cold star-stone monolith, the violent violet light beneath my boots instantly snapping back into the floor. The heavy, suffocating pressure in my chest dissipated, replaced by a smooth, deep current of raw cosmic force flowing effortlessly through my muscles. My body didn't feel unconditioned anymore. The lingering fatigue from the arena training vanished, replaced by an explosive, light agility.
I reached down to grab my transit token from the pedestal slot, intending to blend into the crowd and guide my boots straight toward the recruitment hall where Lysander was waiting. But before my fingers could even touch the metal, a heavy, metallic clatter echoed across the marble stage.
Four elite cathedral awakeners clad in heavy star-stone armor stepped seamlessly out of the shadows, their iron halberds crossing over the pedestal to completely block my exit. Behind them, the heavy velvet curtains of the northern stage parted, and a tall man in immaculate dark robes marched forward, his pale face tight with absolute panic as he stared at the completely jammed public monolith. It was the regional director. The countdown had officially hit zero, the global system was online, but before I could take a single step into the sandbox, the gates had already locked behind me.