The wind howled like a wounded machine, scraping across the skeletal remains of what was once a city. Towers of rusted metal pierced the horizon, their jagged edges silhouetted against the crimson haze of an artificial dusk. In the heart of this wasteland, buried beneath satellite husks and broken drone parts, Kai crouched in silence.
His fingers, bruised and wrapped in scavenged cloth, sifted through layers of dust and grime. Each movement was careful, precise—learned through years of surviving in the dead zones. He wasn't here to search for food. Not today. He was hunting something far more precious.
Tech fragments.
"Come on… just one decent chip," he muttered under his breath, voice low and ragged.
A soft click echoed beneath his hand. He froze.
Kai brushed aside debris to reveal a small black cube, partially embedded in the ground. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. Not blinking—pulsing. That wasn't normal.
He hesitated. In the Scrap Zones, anything that glowed usually meant danger—reactive nanotech, unstable cores, maybe even active surveillance.
But this didn't feel like any of that. It felt… still. Quiet.
And yet, his instincts screamed both danger and curiosity.
His hand hovered for a second longer.
Then he touched it.
[System Detected. Ascension Protocol initializing…]
Kai's breath caught in his throat. A light surged from the cube, shooting through his fingers and into his arm like liquid lightning. Pain erupted in his nerves, sharp and electric, but it wasn't entirely unbearable. It was… awakening.
His vision blurred. Numbers, codes, unfamiliar glyphs—data streamed across his eyes, not on a screen, but directly into his mind.
[User authentication… accepted.][Welcome, Subject 017: Kai Riven.][Ascension Protocol: Version 0.1.0 Activated.]
He staggered back, gasping. The cube disintegrated into particles of blue light and vanished into the air. Kai collapsed onto his back, staring up at the swirling smog above. The world tilted.
What the hell… was that?
He woke with a jolt, covered in cold sweat. It was night, but it was hard to tell in the perpetual dusk of Zone 17.
The makeshift shelter around him—a broken shuttle shell propped up by drone legs—was intact. No one had followed him. His heart slowed.
"Dream…? No…" he whispered.
A soft chime sounded in his ear.
[System Interface Online.]
A translucent blue panel floated in front of him.
>> Status Window
Name: Kai Riven
Age: 17
Origin: Urban Dead Zone – Scrap Sector 17
Level: 1
System Class: Undefined
Upgrade Points: 1
Core Synchronization: 4%
Protocol Status: Stable
"What the... this is real?" He reached out, and the interface responded to his gestures. Swiping, blinking—it wasn't a hallucination.
He pressed on "Upgrade Points," and four choices appeared:
Enhanced Reflexes
Perception Boost
Physical Augmentation (Minor)
System Scan(Locked)
Kai hesitated.
"Reflexes or Perception…"
A faint clicking reached his ears. Rats. Beneath the shuttle.
He blinked.
He hadn't heard that before.
"…That's new."
With shaking fingers, he tapped Perception Boost.
[Upgrade confirmed.][Sensory Range +12%. Auditory Precision +18%. Passive Awareness Unlocked.]
A rush of clarity filled his brain, like cold water splashing over burning skin. He could feel the wind differently now. Hear the gentle hum of decaying circuits in the walls. Even the air smelled more… metallic.
The next few hours passed in cautious experimentation. He walked the perimeter of his shelter, testing range and movement. His footsteps were lighter. His body responded faster, even without enhanced strength.
But the bigger change wasn't physical. It was in his mind.
He could predict movement. Patterns. Analyze danger before it arrived.
And that's when the message appeared:
[New Protocol Path Detected: "Survivalist Initiator"][To accept, locate and clear a System Cache in your zone.][Mission: Enter Sub-Zone Tunnel 3B and access the Level 0 Dungeon.][Time Limit: 24 hours.][Reward: Core Seed Fragment.]
Kai stared at the message for a full minute.
Dungeon?
Level 0?
He had heard rumors of old bunkers, simulation rooms, things built before the war—back when Earth was still organized, before the great network collapse. But they were just stories.
Now the stories were calling him in.
He stood.
For the first time in years, he wasn't just scavenging to survive.
He had a mission.
Sub-Zone Tunnel 3B was half-buried in rubble. The entrance looked like a collapsed sewage duct, overgrown with metallic vines and dust-covered roots from the industrial flora. But as he approached, the system activated again:
[System Gate Detected.][Clearing entrance path… standby.]
The rubble shuddered. Dust fell. Slowly, an arched opening unveiled itself—glowing faint blue along the edges, like veins of light.
Kai swallowed hard.
He stepped inside.
The air grew cold.
His perception enhancement buzzed constantly, picking up vibrations from the tunnel's strange architecture. The walls weren't brick or metal—they were something else. Smooth, semi-reflective, embedded with geometric patterns that shifted when he stared too long.
He descended into the dark.
Then a voice—neutral, synthetic—echoed in his mind:
[Welcome to Protocol Dungeon 0 – Initiation Layer.][Objectives: Survive. Adapt. Ascend.]
A deep rumble echoed. The floor rearranged itself. From the walls, shadows emerged.
No weapons. No training. No backup.
Just Kai…
…and the system inside him.