The bedroom faced the water and the water threw back a pale morning. Ethan Quinn stood with a box cutter and a crate big enough to park a mistake in. The stencil on the wood said OMNISYNC CAPSULE like a dare.
He cut straps, cracked the lid, and the smell of cold metal and new plastic climbed out. A sleek white cocoon revealed itself one inch at a time. He touched the shell with the back of his fingers - not reverent, just verifying. Solid. Quiet. Hungry.
Launch day. Three years from now, Divine Domain would spill into Seagate like a tide of bad dreams with good teeth. He had lived that once. He wasn't doing it blind again.
He rolled the rug, slid the desk, checked the upgraded outlet, and set the capsule's feet where the floor forgave them. Cables routed. Battery failover. Router priority. He opened the lid. Frost-blue LEDs traced the gasket like runway lights.
He keyed the capsule on. Systems booted in a clean ripple. He set the emergency timer and the door override, linked the callout to his phone, then stopped because more preparation would only be stalling.
"Connect," he said.
Cold air breathed over his face. He lay back. The lid lowered, the room narrowed to a silver crescent, then nothing.
A chime found him in the dark.
[Name registration successful. Please choose your initial class.]
Light unfolded around him in the Temple - a nave without roof or shadows. Six rings hovered, each labeled by a clean glyph and a word he already knew: Warrior. Assassin. Knight. Mage. Priest. Mechanic.
Assassin races. Knight tanks. Priest buys friends. Mechanic needs parts. Mage is a fuse. He stepped into the Warrior ring and felt it close around him like a decision.
"Warrior," he said.
[Initial class set: Warrior. Begin talent draw.]
A golden wheel rose and began to spin, runes skimming past like fish in light. Ethan remembered thinking in another life that one red spoke - SSS-tier - would be a miracle. The wheel answered him with ten.
They fell through him one by one, each impact a bell rung inside bone.
[You obtained the initial SSS talent: Tenfold Crit.][All attacks always crit; critical damage x10.]
[Unlockable SSS talents detected.][Lv20: Tenfold Attack Speed - Attack speed x10.][Lv30: Unlimited Firepower - -90% skill cooldown; no mana cost.][Lv40: Infinite Growth - +1 HP permanently per kill.][Lv50: Absolute Resistance - Reduce incoming damage by 99%; ignore prerequisites.][Lv60: Godslayer's Power - True damage; ignore defense.][Lv70: Forced Enslavement - Enslave wild creatures <= your level.][Lv80: Master of Fate - All uncertain outcomes favor you.][Lv90: Absolute Invincibility - All damage you take becomes 0 for 30 minutes; Cooldown: 1 day.][Lv100: Time Reversal - Rewind to any moment within the past 12 hours.]
He let the list finish writing itself. Balanced is for committees. The Temple doors unlatched without sound.
The world dissolved him politely and rebuilt him at the Resurrection Point of Starter Town. The air had that server-fresh bite, like pine and static. Newborns spawned nearby with the stunned look of people who had expected fireworks and got rules.
Ethan opened his panel.
[Character: Ethan Quinn][Class: Warrior | Level: 1][HP: 200/200 | MP: 100/100][Physical/Magical Attack: 10-12 | Defense: 14][STR 10 | INT 5 | CON 9 | AGI 7 | LUCK 0][Crit Rate: 100% (Talent: Tenfold Crit) | Crit Damage: 1000%][Skill: Blade Mastery Lv1 - +10% damage with blade weapons][Inventory: 2000 copper | Item: Starter Chest]
Luck zero. Fine. I brought my own. He moved to the edge of the plaza. Tutorial NPCs waved like tour guides no one tipped. He ignored them and opened the chest.
Gold light bloomed and folded into a weapon shard that hit his palm with the weight of a promise.
[You obtained a Growth Weapon: Dragon-Slaying Blade.][Unlock requirement: Devour 10 Black-Iron weapons.][Note: Growth weapons scale with user level; base quality cannot be raised by leveling.]
Ethan closed his fingers around the shard. A growth weapon at level one. He felt the urge to grin and didn't. Mileage beats fireworks. But it's going to cost.
The Temple waited as if to see whether he would second-guess himself. He looked back at the other rings out of professional habit. Assassin offered speed and paper armor with a smile. Knight promised insurance you paid for with time. Mage glittered with range and risky posture. Priest dangled leverage attached to other people's schedules. Mechanic whispered late-game and component hunger. Warrior did not promise anything it could not deliver. It only handed you the burden and asked if you could carry it.
He could.
On the cobbles of Starter Town, a few new players argued with a quest-giver about fairness, which is a topic NPCs are historically bad at. Someone bragged about an SS talent like they had discovered a new color. Ethan slid through that noise the way water finds the low places. The economy would light up in fifteen minutes and then prices would triple. He would be done and gone in ten.
A glance at market chat told him nothing useful. He took the obvious route: the blacksmith by the village gate.
He walked. No jump cuts, no fades - boots on packed dirt, the hum of the plaza falling behind, the frame of the gate ahead like an underline. The blacksmith's stall was nailed to the world with iron and boredom. An NPC with arms like bundled rebar looked up as Ethan approached.
"Looking to buy?" the man asked, voice like a hammer left in the rain.
"Black-iron weapons," Ethan said. "Any kind. Ten."
"Two hundred copper each." The blacksmith didn't blink. "Take or leave."
The number matched the life he remembered. Ethan counted coin into the man's ledger, every clink a little funeral for his starting cushion.
[Inventory updated: -2000 copper.]
The blacksmith stacked ten cheap blades on the counter like an insult: short swords, cleavers, a spear too short to be proud, things that wanted very badly to be weapons and had almost succeeded.
"Delivery?" the blacksmith said.
"I'll carry."
The blacksmith's sign was a rectangle of iron stamped with a hammer and a nail - literal, blunt, useful. Inside the stall, racks held the dream of being dangerous: blades that were almost sharp, wood that had agreed to be staves, headless spears. Ethan laid two palms on the counter to say he was ordinary, then left them there long enough for the NPC to finish his line. The price didn't budge because prices didn't, not here, not yet.
Two thousand copper was the entire starter cushion. He felt the subtraction hit his panel like a small cold wind and let it pass. Money after power is an amplifier. Money before power is makeup.
He took the bundle and found a quiet strip of shade against the town palisade where nobody was performing being helpful. He summoned the shard.
The Dragon-Slaying Blade didn't appear so much as decide to exist. A lean length of metal, plain as a lie that planned to become truth later. He set the bundle of black-iron on the ground and pressed the blade's edge to the first hilt.
[Activate Devour?]
"Activate."
The cheap sword folded like dough into the edge and vanished without a seam. Light ran down the blade's spine, faint and hungry.
[Devoured: 1/10.]
He fed it the second. The third. The blade drank each without complaint or show, as if politeness were the shortest path to victory.
By the sixth, sweat had found his back. By the ninth, the edge sang the smallest note, not audible so much as felt in the wrists.
He lifted the last black-iron weapon - a spear with pretensions - and angled it in.
"Dinner bell," he said.
[Devoured: 10/10. Unlocking...][Ding.][Dragon-Slaying Blade unlocked. Advancement begun.]
The metal in his hands tightened like a decision. The weight settled as if it had located its name. Runes - no, not runes; seams of light - breathed once along the fuller and went quiet.
Ethan checked his panel again.
[Weapon: Dragon-Slaying Blade (Growth)][State: Uncommon -> ??? (Advancing)]
He exhaled. The quiet corner held. The palisade ticked as the sun moved a hair. He rolled the blade in his grip, learning its balance, the edge a line so clean it felt like an apology waiting to be refused.
Blade Mastery hummed at the edge of attention like a practical suggestion: arms loose, shoulders quiet, cut with the hips, do not admire the swing. He obeyed it without thinking.
The devour didn't chew or spark. It accepted. Each time a blade vanished, the air grew the slightest degree cleaner, as if the world approved of less trash.
He kept his voice low. "Welcome to the job."
The system did not answer, which is the kind of respect he liked.
He slid the blade home under his belt and picked up the empty wrappings left by the devoured junk. No evidence. No show. The less the plaza knew, the easier the next hour would be.
He took one step toward the training yard - and stopped because light pricked the corner of his vision like a fish breaking the surface. A new prompt slid into being, patient as a clerk.
[Notice][Growth weapon detected at Level 1.][Recommended: Exercise caution. Public displays may attract attention.]
He smiled this time, quick and private. "Noted."
He faced the path out of town. First mobs lived past the fence line; he could already hear the grass hiss where code pretended to be wind. He kept the blade at an unimportant angle and walked. He would test on the smallest thing first. He would keep his numbers secret. He would let Tenfold Crit do the talking and let nothing else talk at all.
The palisade gate stood open like a question. Ethan answered it with a heel of his hand to the guardrail and a steady pace into the tall, bright grass.