Chapter 1: The Sound of a New World
The first thing he knew was pain. A searing, white-hot agony behind his eyes that felt like a brand pressed into his very soul. The second thing was the smell. It was a thick, primal cocktail of damp earth, rotting vegetation, and something else… something metallic and coppery that spoke of old blood and fresh danger.
He tried to open his eyes. Nothing. Only a profound, absolute darkness.
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. He pushed himself up, his hands scrabbling at the soft, mossy ground. His fingers traced the contours of his own face, finding his eyelids. They were open. He was blinking. Yet, the darkness remained total, unchanging.
Memories, fragmented and disorienting, slammed into him. A name: Leo. A life: a soldier, a career built on discipline and violence. A death: an explosion, shrapnel, the taste of sand and blood. And then… nothing. And now… this.
Where am I? What happened to my eyes?
A low, guttural growl rumbled through the stillness, so close the vibration seemed to travel up through the earth into his bones. It was the sound of a large predator, a sound that promised torn flesh and shattered bone. Instinct, honed by years in war zones, took over. Leo froze, every muscle locking, his breathing shallow and silent. He was blind, disoriented, and utterly vulnerable.
The growl came again, accompanied by the crunch of a heavy foot on fallen leaves. It was circling him. He could hear its breath, a wet, rasping sound that smelled of carrion. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat in the terrifying silence.
[Ding! Host's vital signs stabilized. Soul integration complete. Welcome to the World of Profound Ascension, Host Leo.]
A voice, flat and devoid of emotion, echoed directly inside his skull. It wasn't a sound he heard with his ears; it was a data stream implanted into his consciousness.
Who's there? He thought, his mind screaming.
[I am the Infinite Attribute System. My purpose is to assist your survival and evolution in this new world.]
The growl intensified. Leo could almost feel the heat of the creature's body now. Survival. The word cut through his panic. He was a soldier. He assessed, he adapted, he overcame.
System? What is this place? Why am I blind?
[Scanning Host's physical vessel… Scan complete. Vessel is afflicted with Congenital Ocular Necrosis. Optic nerves are dead and cannot be regenerated through conventional means of this world. Host possesses no affinity for Qi, the foundational energy of this world. Host is located in the heart of the Ashen Abyss Mountain Range, a Forbidden Zone categorized as 'Certain Death' by local human societies.]
The information was delivered with cold, brutal efficiency. Blind. No magic. Alone in the most dangerous place imaginable. It was a death sentence so absolute it was almost comical.
A new sound joined the predator's growl—a sharp clicking, like knives being scraped together. It was closer. Too close.
Options. Give me options! Leo demanded internally, his body coiled like a spring.
[Primary Function: Infinite Attribute Enhancement. Host can gain Experience Points (EXP) by defeating or killing living entities. EXP can be allocated to enhance physical and mental attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Perception, Intelligence. No upper limit exists.]
[New Quest: Survival. Kill the 'Fang-Toothed Grazer' approaching you. Reward: 50 EXP. Initiation Bonus: 100 EXP.]
A quest. A target. A reward. This was a language Leo understood. The fear didn't vanish, but it was compartmentalized, shoved into a box labeled 'deal with later.' Right now, there was a mission.
He was blind, but he wasn't helpless. His ears became his eyes. The crunch of leaves to his left, the wet snuffle directly ahead. The creature was cautious, unsure of this motionless, strange-smelling thing.
Leo slowly, imperceptibly, shifted his weight. His hands felt the ground around him, finding a rock about the size of his fist. It was a pitiful weapon, but it was something.
The clicking stopped. The creature had stopped moving. It was preparing to lunge.
He heard it. The infinitesimal compression of muscle, the intake of breath. In the absolute darkness, his world narrowed to a single point of sound.
Now.
Leo threw himself to the right, not away, but perpendicular to the sound. A rush of air and a foul stench passed by his left side. He heard the thud of a heavy body landing where he had just been.
He didn't wait. He pivoted on the ball of his foot, his arm lashing out not at where the sound had been, but where it would be. He put every ounce of his strength into the swing, the rock clenched in his fist.
THWACK.
The impact was solid, satisfying. It was met with a pained, surprised shriek. The sound told him everything. He'd hit its head, near the eye or snout. Not a killing blow, but a telling one.
The creature snarled, enraged. He heard it charge again, this time without caution, driven by pain and fury.
Leo dropped into a low crouch. He couldn't see the attack, so he had to make himself a smaller target. As the beast closed in, he focused on the sound of its paws hitting the ground, the direction of its rancid breath.
At the last possible second, he surged upward. Not to meet the charge, but to evade it, his body twisting in the air like a matador avoiding a bull. His free hand shot out, not to strike, but to feel. His fingers brushed against coarse, matted fur, a muscular flank.
He landed, rolled, and came up facing the new direction of the sound. The beast was skidding to a halt, confused by his evasion.
This was it. His moment. The beast was turned, its side exposed. Leo didn't have a knife. He didn't have Qi. He had his body, a rock, and a lifetime of training designed to kill efficiently.
He exploded forward in a silent sprint, covering the distance in three steps. He jumped, using his left hand to grab a handful of coarse fur for leverage, and swung the rock in his right hand with piston-like force, aiming for the base of the creature's skull where he knew the spine met the skull.
Once. Twice. A third time.
He felt the crunch of bone. The creature's enraged snarls turned into a wet, choking gurgle. Its legs buckled, and it collapsed to the ground, twitching violently before falling still.
Silence returned to the forest, broken only by Leo's ragged breaths.
[Quest Complete: Survival. Reward: 50 EXP distributed. Initiation Bonus: 100 EXP distributed. Total EXP: 150.]
[Level Up! Host is now Level 1. All attributes have received a minor boost. You have 150 unallocated EXP.]
A status screen, visible not to his eyes but to his mind, materialized in the darkness.
Name: Leo Level:1 Strength:11 (10) Dextery:13 (10) Vitality:12 (10) Perception:15 (10) [Heightened due to blindness] Intelligence:10 (10) Unallocated EXP:150
The numbers in parentheses were, he assumed, a baseline for a normal human. His soldier's body and his newly heightened senses were already accounted for.
He stood over his kill, blind, alone, and drenched in the blood of a monster he couldn't see. But he was alive. And he had a system.
He couldn't cultivate Qi. He couldn't perform magic. The path of this world was closed to him.
So he would make his own.
He would cultivate his body. His fists would be his weapons. His senses would be his guide. Every demon, every monster in this forbidden range was no longer a threat; they were experience points. They were fuel.
He allocated the EXP. Not evenly. He poured 100 points into Perception. The world around him exploded with sound. He could hear the rustle of a leaf a hundred meters away, the skittering of insects beneath the soil, the slow drip of sap from a tree. His darkness was no longer empty; it was a detailed map of sound.
The remaining 50 points went into Strength. Power thrummed through his limbs, a palpable energy that made him feel solid, real.
He knelt by the dead creature, his newly sensitive hands exploring its form. Fangs, thick hide, powerful limbs. A source of meat, of tools.
A slow, hard smile touched Leo's lips for the first time in this new world. It was not a smile of joy, but of grim determination.
The Ashen Abyss was a prison of certain death. For him, it was the perfect grinding zone.
He tilted his head, listening to the deep, terrifying calls of monsters echoing in the distance. Each one was a challenge. Each one was a stepping stone.
"Alright," he whispered, his voice a rough, unused thing. "Let's get to work."