Sophia had felt it all morning—a strange heaviness in the air, like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks. She'd dismissed it as stress, but now, tasting blood on the cold concrete of the gym's back alley, she wondered if some part of her had known this was coming.
The taste of blood filled Sophia's mouth as another kick connected with her ribs. She curled tighter on the concrete floor, trying to protect her vital organs while the loan sharks expressed their displeasure with her late payments. The broken streetlight above cast everything in harsh shadows.
"You know what pisses me off most, Martinez?" Marco's voice was conversational, almost friendly, as his boot found her kidney. "It's the disrespect. We had a deal."
This isn't how it was supposed to end.
Three against one. No way out. Sophia's heart hammered against her cracked ribs as she tried to make herself smaller, tried to find some angle that didn't leave her completely exposed. Marco was limping slightly—old injury, maybe—but it didn't matter when she could barely move.
"Look, I can give you the gym equipment as collateral," Sophia gasped. Her left side felt like broken glass grinding together with each breath. "The machines alone are worth—"
"Sophia." Marco's voice went flat. She could see anger building in his eyes—pupils dilated, jaw clenched. "You think we haven't looked? You're underwater on everything."
She tried to roll away, but the third man stepped closer, cutting off her escape route.
The gym represented everything she'd sacrificed. Sold her car for the down payment, liquidated her grandmother's jewelry for equipment. The refrigerator at home hadn't worked in weeks—couldn't afford the repair while pretending to Emma it was just "temporarily broken." Three days from eviction. She'd even called the school about free lunch programs yesterday, disguising it as "research for a client." The day-old bread she brought home and called "artisanal" fooled no one, but Emma never complained.
"Please. One more week. I've got investors interested—"
"Please what?" Marco grabbed her hair, pulling her head up. Coffee and desperation on his breath. "We already gave you two extensions. My uncle's asking questions about my judgment, and I got my own family to think about." His voice carried weight she recognized—someone else's expectations pressing down. "My sister... she reminds me of your Emma. Smart, trusting. That's why I didn't want this to go this way."
The third man kicked at broken equipment scattered near the gym's loading dock. "Told you she'd be trouble, Marco. Should've listened."
"Fifty grand borrowed. Seventy-five with interest. Three months overdue." Marco's reluctance was obvious now, but it didn't change the math. "Uncle Tony doesn't like waiting, and he doesn't care about my personal feelings."
Sophia's phone buzzed. Emma's daily text: Walking home from school! See you at home for homework help! 🌻
Forty minutes. In forty minutes, Emma would walk into an empty house and find out that her big sister—the only family she had left—had failed at the one thing that mattered. The memory hit her: Emma bursting through the gym's front door just yesterday, dandelions clutched in her small fist. "Sophie! I brought you sunshine flowers for good luck!" The thirteen-year-old had been so proud, arranging them in an old protein container while chattering about how the gym would help people "grow strong like her big sister." Emma's notes were still tucked in Sophia's gym bag—little drawings of flowers with "Have a good day, Sophie!" scrawled in purple crayon.
"I need time. My mom's medical bills keep piling up—"
"Your problems aren't our problems." Marco's patience was fraying despite his obvious reluctance. "You borrowed money, you pay money."
The third man stepped closer, and his smile was practiced cruelty. "Maybe we need a different approach."
"Don't." The word came out as a growl.
"Smart kid, your sister. Honor roll student who walks home alone every day because her big sister can't afford after-school care. Trusting little thing too. Probably wouldn't even run if strangers offered her a ride, especially if they knew her name." He leaned closer. "Kids that age, they understand motivation better than adults sometimes. Once they're in the system..." He shrugged. "Foster care's got a seventy percent failure rate. Trafficking, abuse, disappearances. Your Emma's pretty enough that she'd probably end up in the twenty percent that never makes it to eighteen."
The words hit like physical blows. Sophia tried to push herself up, desperation flaring through her exhaustion, but her left arm wouldn't support her weight. Pain shot through her ribs.
"Tomorrow morning. Eight AM." Marco's voice carried reluctant finality. "No more extensions. Uncle Tony's done being patient, and I can't protect you anymore."
That strange heaviness was getting stronger, pressing down like a physical weight. The broken streetlight flickered, and shadows seemed to move independently. Something was fundamentally wrong with the world.
The second kick was harder. Stars exploded across her vision, followed by gray tunneling. Her heartbeat became irregular, breathing shallow. She'd seen enough concussions at the gym to recognize the symptoms—floating sensation, metallic taste, the way reality seemed to tilt sideways.
But this felt different. Was this what dying was like? The heaviness wasn't just physical anymore—it felt like attention, like something vast and ancient focusing on this dirty alley, on her.
As consciousness slipped away, she could swear the darkness wasn't empty anymore.
It watched. Evaluated. Something vast and ancient turned its attention toward this dying woman in a filthy alley.
Blue light bloomed—not harsh, but warm and purposeful. It didn't hurt her failing eyes, and through the haze of dying, Sophia understood this wasn't medical trauma.
This was contact.
She felt examined. Measured. Invisible attention rifling through twenty-four years of memories, weighing every choice, every moment of strength or weakness.
Time became negotiable. Minutes stretched into hours, or compressed into heartbeats.
Then, meaning transmitted directly into her fading consciousness:
[CRITICAL LIFE SIGNS DETECTED] [SCANNING CANDIDATE...] [ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
[SUBJECT PROFILE: SOPHIA MARTINEZ] [AGE: 24 | PSYCHOLOGICAL RESILIENCE: EXCEPTIONAL | PROTECTIVE INSTINCTS: EXTREME | ADAPTABILITY: HIGH] [LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL: CONFIRMED | MORAL FLEXIBILITY: MODERATE | SURVIVAL DRIVE: MAXIMUM] [FAMILY BONDS: CRITICAL PRIORITY | DECISION-MAKING UNDER PRESSURE: SUPERIOR] [CANDIDATE APPROVED FOR EMERGENCY INTEGRATION]
The voice carried immense weight—not sound, but pure communication from something ancient beyond human comprehension.
[MORTAL, YOUR THREAD IN THIS REALITY IS SEVERED, BUT ANOTHER PATH OPENS BEFORE YOU.] [THE MYRIAD REALMS CALL TO THOSE WHO REFUSE TO YIELD, WHO FIGHT EVEN AS DEATH CLAIMS THEM.] [YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FROM MILLIONS FOR YOUR UNIQUE COMBINATION OF TRAITS.] [PROTECTOR. BUILDER. SURVIVOR. LEADER.]
A pause. Consideration that felt like eons compressed into milliseconds.
[THE MYRIAD REALMS REQUIRE BUILDERS, NOT DESTROYERS.] [PROTECTORS, NOT PREDATORS.]
The choice materialized in the space between dying heartbeats:
[ACCEPT INTEGRATION AND FIGHT FOR HER IN ANOTHER REALM?] [OR DIE HERE, LEAVING EMMA TO FACE THEM ALONE?]
Even dying, Sophia grasped the weight of it. Leave meant never watching Emma grow up, never knowing if she stayed safe. But staying meant death, and Emma would face those monsters alone.
She could still hear Elena Martinez's voice from before the coma took her away: "Mija, you have such a gift for helping people find their strength. Build something beautiful." In the hospital room, machines beeping around them, her mother had squeezed her hand and whispered, "Sometimes you can only choose which pain you can live with."
The decision was instant.
[INTEGRATION ACCEPTED]
Marco's voice faded into distance: "Shit, I think we killed her..."
[WELCOME TO THE INFINITE GAME, SOPHIA MARTINEZ.] [PREPARE FOR TRANSMIGRATION.]
The world dissolved into light.
Cold. Everything was cold and wrong.
Sophia's eyes snapped open to alien starlight, her body convulsing as lungs that should have been still desperately pulled in air that tasted of flowers and ozone. Above her, two moons hung in a purple sky.
"What the..." she breathed, the words dying in her throat.
Her heart was beating. That was wrong. Her ribs should be shattered, her skull cracked, but there was no pain. Just this floating, underwater feeling like—
"Sophie! Sophie, please wake up!"
Emma. Emma crying, Emma here, Emma—
"Em?" Sophia pushed herself up too fast, the world spinning. "Emma, what— how are you—" Her hands found her sister's face, real and warm. "Oh God, you're here. You're okay?"
"I'm okay, I'm okay," Emma sobbed, crashing into her arms. "But Sophie, I don't— I was walking home and there was light everywhere and voices and then I woke up here and you weren't moving and I thought—"
"I'm here." The words came out broken. "I'm here, I'm not— Emma, where are we?"
Because this wasn't the alley. This wasn't Earth. The grass under her knees was too soft, the air too clean, those moons—
"I don't know," Emma whispered against her shoulder. "Sophie, I'm scared."
"Yeah. Yeah, me too."
They held each other, and Sophia tried to make sense of anything. The last thing she remembered was Marco's boot connecting with her ribs, the taste of blood, that voice offering—
Words appeared in the air. Actual floating words, blue and impossible.
[INTEGRATION STATUS: COMPLETE] [FAMILY UNIT SUCCESSFULLY RELOCATED] [WELCOME TO THE MYRIAD REALMS]
"Jesus Christ," Sophia breathed.
Emma pulled back, staring at the text with huge eyes. "Sophie, are you seeing—?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm seeing it." Her voice sounded far away, even to herself.
"Are we... are we dead?"
"I don't— I don't think so." But what if they were? What if this was some kind of afterlife? "Does this feel like being dead to you?"
Emma looked around at the crystalline trees, the soft glow of flowers scattered through the grass, the impossible beauty of everything. "It's pretty for being dead."
A laugh bubbled up from Sophia's chest, high and slightly hysterical. "Yeah. It's really pretty."
More text appeared:
[BASIC ORIENTATION INITIATING] [CURRENT LOCATION: SAFE ZONE - TEMPORARY] [NIGHT CYCLE APPROACHING IN 6 HOURS]
"Six hours until night," Sophia read aloud. "And this is only temporary safety."
"What does that mean?" Emma asked, her voice still shaky.
"I think it means we need to figure out how to survive here." Sophia stood up slowly, helping Emma to her feet. "Let's... let's look around. See what we're dealing with."
They spent the next hour just trying to understand their surroundings. The grass was soft and purple-tinted. The trees were unlike anything on Earth—some looked like crystal, others seemed to shimmer and change color as they watched. Flowers glowed softly, and when Emma touched one accidentally, it pulsed brighter for a moment.
"Did you see that?" Emma asked, jerking her hand back.
"Yeah, I saw it." Sophia stared at the flower. "This place... it's not just alien. It's magical. Actually magical."
"The bad guys can't find us here," Emma said suddenly as they sat by a stream they'd found.
"No. They can't find us here." Sophia felt that familiar loosening in her chest. "Marco and his friends, the loan sharks... they're someone else's problem now."
"So we're safe. From them."
"From them, yeah. From..." Sophia gestured at the alien landscape around them. "From whatever else is here? I have no idea."
As the hours passed, more text began appearing with increasing frequency:
[INTEGRATION PERIOD ENDING] [TALENT ALLOCATION COMMENCING] [PREPARE FOR ABILITY ASSIGNMENT]
"Talent allocation?" Emma read aloud. "What does that mean?"
Before Sophia could answer, a much larger interface appeared—a spinning wheel divided into hundreds of sections, each showing different symbols and text.
[WELCOME TO TALENT ROULETTE] [EACH INDIVIDUAL RECEIVES ONE RANDOM TALENT] [TALENT DETERMINES YOUR ROLE IN THE MYRIAD REALMS] [RARITY LEVELS: TRASH, COMMON, UNCOMMON, RARE, EPIC, LEGENDARY, MYTHICAL...]
Emma's wheel spun first, the sections blurring past too fast to read. It slowed gradually, ticking past dozens of different abilities before settling on a section marked with green plant symbols.
[TALENT ACQUIRED: BOTANICAL MASTERY] [RARITY: UNCOMMON] [DESCRIPTION: Accelerated plant growth, enhanced agricultural yields, ability to cultivate magical flora. Connect with plant life to understand their needs and encourage beneficial mutations.]
Emma's face lit up with genuine excitement. "Plants! Sophie, this is perfect! Remember how I used to help Mom with her garden before... before she got sick? I always felt like I understood what the plants needed."
"That wasn't just intuition, Em," Sophia realized. "You probably had this talent all along, just dormant until the system awakened it."
Sophia's wheel was still slowing, the sections becoming clearer. She could make out titles like 'Iron Will,' 'Beast Tamer,' 'Arcane Scholar,' and then—
[TALENT ACQUIRED: INFINITE REALITY GACHA] [RARITY: ■■■■■■■ (BEYOND CLASSIFICATION)] [DESCRIPTION: Access to the Omniversal Summoning Pool. Sacrifice resources to summon items, beings, abilities, and concepts from any reality—fictional, real, or theoretical. No limitations on source material or possibility.]
A sub-panel immediately opened, revealing complexity that made Sophia's head spin:
[INFINITE REALITY GACHA ACTIVATED] [WELCOME BONUS: 10 BASIC TOKENS GRANTED] [CURRENT RESOURCE CONVERSION RATES:]
1 Basic Token = 10 Wood OR 5 Stone OR 1 Subject (Loyalty ≥50)1 Advanced Token = 100 Wood OR 50 Stone OR 25 Iron OR 5 Subjects (Loyalty ≥70)1 Premium Token = 1000 Wood OR 500 Stone OR 100 Iron OR 10 Gold OR 1 Rare Resource
[BASIC GACHA POOL - Cost: 1 Basic Token]
Trash: 40% (Broken items, expired goods, useless trinkets)Common: 35% (Basic tools, simple materials, ordinary items)Uncommon: 20% (Enhanced equipment, useful blueprints, minor magical items)Rare: 4% (Magical weapons, skilled specialists, valuable resources)Epic: 0.9% (Legendary artifacts, master craftsmen, supernatural abilities)Legendary: 0.1% (Reality-defining items, mythical heroes, divine blessings)Mythical: ???% (LOCKED - Territory Level Insufficient)
[ADVANCED GACHA POOL - LOCKED] [PREMIUM GACHA POOL - LOCKED] [SPECIALIZED POOLS - LOCKED]
[WARNING: SUMMONS DRAW FROM ALL POSSIBLE REALITIES] [ITEMS AND BEINGS RETAIN THEIR ORIGINAL NATURE AND LIMITATIONS]
[CURRENT TOKENS: 10 Basic]
Sophia stared at the impossibly complex interface, her mind struggling to process the implications. She could summon things from any reality? Fictional characters, mythical artifacts, even theoretical concepts?
"Emma, this isn't just incredible—this is terrifying. Look at this system. It's talking about summoning from 'any reality.' That could mean characters from books, movies, anime, even things that only exist in someone's imagination."
Emma's eyes went wide as she read over the interface. "Sophie, that rarity goes way beyond what other people's talents showed. Everyone else maxed out at Legendary, but yours has something called Mythical, and then those question marks..."
[DAILY GACHA SPINS AVAILABLE: 10 BASIC TOKENS] [TUTORIAL SPINS RECOMMENDED]
"Try it," Emma encouraged. "See what happens."
Sophia focused on the Basic Gacha option and mentally selected one token. A ornate chest appeared in her vision, decorated with swirling cosmic patterns. She activated it.
[BASIC GACHA RESULT] [RARITY: COMMON] [ITEM ACQUIRED: STURDY ROPE x20]
Twenty coils of strong rope materialized beside them.
"It actually works," Sophia breathed. She tried again:
[BASIC GACHA RESULT] [RARITY: UNCOMMON] [BUILDING BLUEPRINT ACQUIRED: BASIC WATCHTOWER] [MATERIALS REQUIRED: Wood x25, Stone x15] [EFFECT: +50% VISUAL RANGE, DEFENSIVE BONUS]
A rolled-up blueprint appeared, and when Sophia touched it, construction knowledge flowed into her mind.
[SYSTEM PANELS UNLOCKED]
Both sisters could now see their complete status information:
[SOPHIA MARTINEZ] [LEVEL: 1] [CLASS: UNASSIGNED] [STATS:] AGI: 11 STR: 14 END: 13 MAG: 7 INT: 12 LUCK: 8 [RESOURCES:] HP: 135/135 MANA: 35/35
[EMMA MARTINEZ] [LEVEL: 1] [CLASS: UNASSIGNED] [STATS:] AGI: 8 STR: 6 END: 7 MAG: 12 INT: 11 LUCK: 9 [RESOURCES:] HP: 65/65 MANA: 60/60
"Look at your mana, Em," Sophia said, studying the panels. "You have way more than me. And my strength is higher from all that gym work."
Emma was flexing her fingers, feeling the magical energy coursing through her. "I can sense how much energy each plant growth takes. Small ones barely cost anything, but bigger trees..." She concentrated on a nearby sapling, and [ACCELERATED GROWTH] appeared above her head as her mana dropped to 45/60.
The plant responded immediately, growing taller and sprouting new branches. Emma could feel its contentment through her botanical connection.
"It doesn't hurt them," she said with relief. "They like it. They want to grow."
With their new abilities partially tested, they spent the remaining hours of daylight exploring what their talents could really do.
Emma experimented with different plants around their clearing. She discovered she could sense the health of vegetation within about ten meters, feeling their needs like a gentle whisper in the back of her mind. Some plants craved more sunlight, others needed different soil conditions, and a few were actually mildly poisonous—information that appeared as subtle sensations when she touched them.
"It's like they're trying to tell me their stories," she said, carefully coaxing a wilted flower back to health. Her mana dropped steadily with each use: 45/60, then 30/60, then 15/60. "I can feel when I'm getting tired too. The magic has limits."
Meanwhile, Sophia continued testing her gacha system, using up her welcome tokens one by one:
[COMMON: Basic Fishing Net] [TRASH: Broken Compass] [UNCOMMON: Iron Hammer] [COMMON: Cooking Pot] [RARE: Enchanted Lantern - Provides Eternal Light] [COMMON: Healing Herbs x10]
The rare lantern was particularly impressive—a crystal orb that provided steady, warm light without any fuel source.
"Look at this," Sophia said, holding up the glowing orb. "We'll never need torches or campfires for light."
By the time the two alien moons began to rise, painting the sky in shades of purple and silver, both sisters had a basic understanding of their abilities and limitations. Emma's botanical mastery was powerful but required careful mana management. Sophia's gacha system was unpredictable but offered incredible variety—she'd already acquired tools and items that would take weeks to craft normally.
They found a small cave among the crystalline trees—not deep, but enough to shelter them from the alien night. As they settled in with their new supplies, listening to the strange sounds echoing across the landscape, both felt a mixture of exhaustion and excitement.
"I still can't believe this is real," Emma said quietly, looking at her hands where faint traces of botanical magic still tingled.
"Yeah," Sophia agreed, turning the enchanted lantern over in her hands. "A few hours ago I didn't even know magic existed. Now I can summon things from other worlds."
Emma curled up closer to her sister. "I'm scared, but... I'm also kind of amazed? Does that make sense?"
"Perfect sense." Sophia checked her interface one more time. New options had appeared throughout the day—Territory Management, Construction, even something called Lord Status that was still locked. "We'll figure out what it all means. One step at a time."
End Of Chapter 1