By IMERPUS RELUR
--
The inkborn door vanished the moment Kai stepped through it.
He didn't fall this time.
He arrived.
Soft golden skies.
Mountains shaped like flowing brushstrokes.
Children with eyes made of parchment and wonder.
Everything in this world… felt like a memory written before birth.
---
A woman waited on a hill.
Her cloak was woven from old sketchpaper. Her voice echoed like the page turning itself.
> "You're finally home," she said.
> "Home?" Kai asked.
She nodded.
> "This is Realm 0.1 — the First Canvas.
Before systems. Before ink. Before fear."
> [REALM: 0.1 — AUTHOR'S CORE]
Alignment: Creator Origin
Role: Memory Anchor
Emotion Field: Pure
Kai's interface dimmed.
His powers… silenced.
> "Why can't I draw here?" he asked.
The woman smiled. "Because here, you don't need to."
She walked with him through a village of beings made of sketches—unfinished gods, quiet dreams, smiling inkbirds that once fluttered in his childhood mind.
> "This place was born the moment you imagined your first impossible thing," she said.
"It waited patiently while you forgot."
> "But… who are you?"
She turned, eyes shining with gold-ink tears.
> "I am the one you drew as your future teacher before you even held a pencil."
---
That night, under starlight that glowed like aged paper—
Kai slept without his system.
No sketches. No fights. No mirrors.
Just the hum of a world that never stopped believing in him.