The air in the Grand Plaza crackled with a unique blend of suffocating anxiety and explosive hope. It was a familiar energy, one that permeated the city of Aethelburg every year on the first of June—Awakening Day. For the thousands of eighteen-year-olds gathered before the monolithic Nexus Stone, this day was the true beginning of their lives. It was the day that potential was quantified, destiny was assigned, and futures were irrevocably forged.
Kai stood amidst the throng, a knot of anticipation tightening in his stomach. He smoothed the front of his formal tunic, the crisp fabric doing little to calm his racing heart. To his right, his parents, Richard and Helena, maintained postures of rigid composure, their faces a carefully constructed mask of parental support. To his left stood Elara Vane, his fiancée, a vision of grace and ambition, her silver-blue eyes fixed on the obsidian monolith that dominated the plaza.
"Nervous, darling?" Elara's voice was a melodic whisper, yet it held a core of steel. Her hand found his, her fingers cool and firm.
"A little," Kai admitted, offering a smile he hoped didn't look as shaky as it felt. "It's just… everything changes today."
"It certainly does," Richard, his father, interjected, his gaze sweeping over the crowd with a proprietary air. "This is the day the Locke family legacy is secured. Your grandfather was a B-Rank Cryomancer, a distinguished Hunter. I have no doubt you'll make us proud, son."
The unspoken pressure was a physical weight. Proud was a synonym for powerful. In their world, a person's worth was measured in the letters assigned at their Awakening: F, E, D, C, B, A, and the legendary S-Ranks. An F-Rank might get you a slightly better memory for a desk job. A B-Rank, like his grandfather, meant you were part of the city's elite defense force. An A-Rank made you a noble. An S-Rank… an S-Rank was a living legend, a force of nature capable of shifting the balance of power on a national scale.
"He'll do more than make us proud, Richard," his mother, Helena, added, her eyes gleaming with a manicured ambition. She adjusted the collar of Kai's tunic. "The Vane family's Seer predicted a powerful match for their Elara. An A-Rank, at the very least. That is what we are expecting."
Kai glanced at Elara. Her family, the Vanes, were one of the city's founding pillars, her father a formidable A-Rank Grav-Knight. Their engagement was the culmination of his parents' lifelong social climbing—a union contingent on his own powerful Awakening. He loved Elara, or at least, he loved the beautiful, powerful future she represented. But he knew, deep down, that her affection was as conditional as his parents' pride.
The ceremony began. Names were called in alphabetical order. A booming voice would announce the name, the youth would step forward, place their hand on the cold, humming surface of the Nexus Stone, and wait for judgment.
"Aaron Finch: F-Rank. Talent: Enhanced Lung Capacity." A polite, pitying applause. The boy walked off stage, his dreams visibly deflated.
"Brenda Carlisle: C-Rank. Talent: Minor Pyrokinesis." A respectable cheer. Her family embraced her, their relief palpable. A comfortable life was now secured.
The hours crawled by. The tension mounted with every name. Then, it was her turn.
"Elara Vane."
A hush fell over the plaza. Elara ascended the steps with a practiced elegance, her posture radiating a confidence that bordered on arrogance. She placed her hand on the stone. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the obsidian monolith erupted in a brilliant, violet light, pulsing with raw power. Runes flared to life across its surface, climbing higher and higher.
"Rank… A!" the officiant roared, his voice filled with awe. "Talent: Gravity Well! An exceptional pull!"
The plaza exploded in a deafening ovation. The Vane family looked on with smug satisfaction. Elara turned from the stone, a triumphant smile gracing her lips as she met Kai's eyes. It wasn't a smile of shared joy, he realized with a sudden chill. It was a look of confirmation. She had held up her end of the bargain. Now it was his turn.
More names passed in a blur. His heart hammered against his ribs, each beat a countdown to his own judgment. Finally, the moment arrived.
"Kai Locke."
The walk to the stage felt a mile long. The thousands of eyes felt like physical weights pressing down on him. He could feel the expectant stares of his parents and the Vanes. He took a deep breath, placed his hand on the Nexus Stone, and poured all his hopes and dreams into that single point of contact.
The stone hummed. A faint, murky-grey light flickered deep within its core, sputtering like a dying candle. It was a stark, pathetic contrast to the violet supernova Elara had produced. The officiant squinted, leaning closer to the diagnostic panel. The runes on the stone failed to ignite. The air grew thick with a confused silence.
"What's happening?" someone whispered from the crowd.
The grey light inside the stone flickered one last time and then died completely. The officiant, a man with decades of experience, stared at his screen in disbelief. He tapped it, then cleared his throat, his expression a mixture of pity and confusion.
"Kai Locke," he announced, his voice stripped of its earlier enthusiasm. "Talent identified as… Luck."
A ripple of laughter spread through the plaza. Luck? It wasn't a combat talent, not a production talent, not even a minor cognitive enhancement. It was a concept, a joke.
"And the rank… the rank is…" The officiant trailed off, looking utterly bewildered. He addressed the panel again before turning back to the microphone. "The rank is Unknown."
The laughter died, replaced by a wave of derisive murmurs. "Unknown? What does that even mean?" "It means it's so low it can't be measured!" "It's a dud! A Rank-Zero Anomaly!"
Kai stood frozen, the blood draining from his face. A Rank-Zero Anomaly. A talent so worthless it broke the scale on the low end. He was a failure. A genetic dead end. He risked a glance at his parents. Their faces were pale, their expressions a horrifying mixture of shock and abject humiliation. Elara wasn't even looking at him anymore; she was staring straight ahead, her face an emotionless mask of ice.
He stumbled down the steps, the jeers and whispers of the crowd following him like a physical assault. He reached his family, but there were no comforting arms, no words of support. There was only a chasm of cold, silent disappointment.
It was Elara who broke the silence. She approached him, her A-Rank aura now feeling like a suffocating pressure. Her silver-blue eyes, which he once thought were so beautiful, were now devoid of any warmth.
"Kai Locke," she said, her voice formal and loud enough for those nearby to hear clearly. "Our engagement was predicated on the mutual strength of our families and our futures. The Vane family cannot, and will not, be associated with a… failure." She gracefully slipped the silver engagement ring from her finger and held it out. "I hereby dissolve our betrothal. I wish you well in whatever life a man of your… caliber… can find."
She didn't wait for him to take the ring, simply dropping it into his numb hand. She turned without a backward glance and walked toward her family, who immediately enveloped her, shielding her from the stain of his presence.
The walk home was a silent funeral march. His parents walked ten feet ahead of him, as if ashamed to be seen with their own son. The bustling streets of Aethelburg, once a symbol of opportunity, now felt like a hostile labyrinth.
When they reached their pristine, sterile home in the upper district, the final act of his old life played out. As he stepped inside, he saw them. Two suitcases, packed and waiting by the door. His suitcases.
"Father… Mother…?" he whispered, his voice cracking.
Richard turned to face him, his expression one of utter disgust. "We have sacrificed everything for our family's name, for our status. We provided you with the best education, the best resources, all with the expectation that you would elevate our position."
"Instead, you have brought us shame," Helena finished, her voice trembling with rage, not sorrow. "A Rank-Zero Anomaly. Do you have any idea what this does to us? The Vanes have already cut all ties. Our business partners will follow. We will be a laughingstock."
"But… I'm your son," Kai pleaded, a desperate, final appeal.
"No," Richard said, his voice cold as the grave. "Our son was supposed to be an A-Rank Awakener today. You are a stranger. A disgrace we can no longer afford to house." He pointed a trembling finger at the door. "There is ten thousand credits in the front pocket of that bag. It is the last thing you will ever receive from us. Do not contact us again."
The finality in his father's eyes was absolute. Kai stood there, speechless, as his mother opened the door. He picked up the bags, his movements robotic. As he stepped out onto the porch, the door clicked shut behind him. The sound was deafening, a definitive end to his entire world.
He was eighteen years old. He had been disowned, his engagement was broken, and his future was a barren wasteland. All in the span of a few hours.
He walked for what felt like an eternity, with no destination in mind. The city lights blurred through the tears he refused to let fall. Eventually, he found himself in a small, quiet park, the manicured gardens a stark contrast to the wreckage of his life. A light drizzle began to fall, plastering his hair to his forehead. He sank onto a cold, wet bench, the suitcases slumping to the ground beside him.
He was nothing. He had nothing. He had no one.
The despair was a physical entity, a crushing weight intent on extinguishing the last embers of his spirit. He closed his eyes, wishing the world would just fade to black.
And that's when a new light appeared.
It wasn't the city lights. It was a soft, golden glow, emanating directly in front of his face. His eyes snapped open. A holographic screen, woven from pure light and shimmering with cosmic energy, hovered in the air before him. It was an interface, sleek and impossibly advanced, visible only to him.
Words of elegant, golden script began to type themselves across the screen.
[Critically low life-signature detected...]
[Scanning for host compatibility... Perfect Match Found.]
[Subject has been abandoned by all worldly support systems.]
[Subject possesses the conceptual talent: LUCK.]
[Cosmic Favor Detected! Calibrating System...]
[Welcome, sole user, to the System of Absolute Providence!]
Kai stared, his grief-numbed mind struggling to process what he was seeing. A system? Like the ones in fantasy novels?
[This Gacha is bound by one inviolable rule...] [All drops are guaranteed SSS-Rank... or higher.]
His breath hitched. SSS-Rank? The highest, most legendary tier of power in existence? A rank so rare that only a handful of SSS-Rank Awakeners existed on the entire planet? And… or higher?
[As an inaugural gift, you have been awarded one (1) free pull.]
A large, ornate button appeared on the screen, pulsing with a gentle golden light. It simply read: [PULL].
Kai looked around. The park was empty. The rain was beginning to fall harder. He had no home to go to, no family, no future. He looked back at the button. What did he have to lose? He had already lost everything.
With a trembling finger, he reached out and pressed [PULL].
The screen exploded in a blinding supernova of light, a celestial choir echoing in the depths of his mind. A spinning wheel of constellations appeared, each one a symbol of unimaginable power. It spun faster and faster before landing on a radiant, sun-like crest.
[Congratulations! You have pulled SSS-Rank Inheritance!] ► [The Eyes of Akasha]: The All-Seeing Eyes of Truth.
Before he could even question what it meant, a searing pain lanced through his eyes. He cried out, clutching his head as the world dissolved into an incomprehensible flood of information. It felt like every secret of the universe was being forcibly downloaded into his brain. The pain lasted only a second, and then… clarity.
He opened his eyes, and the world was no longer the same.
He looked at the park bench and saw not just wood and metal, but its entire history—the tree it was carved from, the day it was installed, the faint heat signatures of everyone who had ever sat on it. He looked at a falling raindrop and saw its precise molecular composition, its velocity, and the exact spot it would land. He looked up at the night sky, and the city's light pollution no longer mattered. He saw the intricate dance of distant galaxies, the birth and death of stars, the fundamental laws of physics laid bare before him.
Then, his new sight focused on what mattered. Floating in his vision, visible only to him, were streams of pure data. He saw the winning numbers for tonight's Global Powerball lottery—a record-breaking 2.7 trillion credits jackpot—scrolling in a ticker above a newsstand across the street. He saw the stock market charts for the next six months, the meteoric rise of an unknown tech company, the collapse of a corporate giant.
He looked at his own reflection in a puddle. [Kai Locke. Human. Status: Disowned, Heartbroken. Potential: Limitless.]
A hysterical laugh escaped his lips. It was real. All of it.
The screen reappeared. [Inaugural Pull complete. The System is now fully active.]
He looked at the [PULL] button, which now displayed a cost. But he had no currency. A thought, born of newfound instinct from his all-seeing eyes, came to him. This system wasn't powered by monster cores or money. It was powered by Fate. By Luck. By grand shifts in his own destiny. And he had just been handed the key to the biggest shift imaginable.
He could pull again.
He focused, pouring the dregs of his despair, the agony of his betrayal, and the explosive hope of his newfound power into that single button. He pressed it.
The light this time was different. It wasn't just gold. It was a searing, reality-bending white, a light that felt like it was from the dawn of creation.
[A surge of cosmic favor has been detected from a pivotal life-altering event!] [Rank boosted beyond measure!] [Congratulations! You have pulled EX-Rank Authority!] ► [[The World is My Wallet]]: A conceptual authority that redefines ownership.
He didn't understand. There was a detailed description, but he didn't need to read it. He just knew.
He pulled the cheap, second-hand phone from his pocket. The screen was cracked. The banking app, linked to the account his parents had just cut him off from, was still open. The balance read $312.45.
He blinked. The number on the screen flickered. It blurred, the digits cycling at an impossible speed, before the code of the application itself seemed to unravel and rewrite itself. The numbers vanished, replaced by a single, elegant symbol: ∞.
The world hadn't given him money. It had given him ownership. The 2.7 trillion credit jackpot wasn't something he had to win. It was already his. The money in every bank, the assets of every corporation, the wealth of nations—it was all, fundamentally, his.
The rain continued to fall, but he no longer felt the cold. The boy who had been thrown away like trash just an hour ago now held the keys to the entire world in the palm of his hand.
He looked up, the Eyes of Akasha seeing the paths of fate stretching before him. He saw the paths of his parents, of Elara, of all those who had mocked him. And he saw his own path, a blinding golden road ascending into the heavens.
A slow smile spread across his face. It wasn't a smile of joy, or of relief.
It was a smile of absolute providence.
"Let's begin," he whispered to the rain-slicked night.