Two sets of memories kept colliding inside Aaron's mind, making him feel like his brain was going to burst.
In one of these sets of memories, Aaron followed the life of a man on a planet called Earth and watched his journey from a child to a young man, and finally to a fully-grown adult.
Although this man's life was relatively ordinary, he was still quite happy. Unfortunately, his life came to an abrupt end when he happened to encounter a traffic accident and died at the side of the road.
Compared to the simplicity of these memories, the second set of memories was many times more complicated.
This time, Aaron followed the life of a scavenger in a post-apocalyptic world and witnessed the strength of superhumans known as Ascendants and rampaging monsters. This scavenger roamed in the wilderness, hoping that he could find anything of value and ensure he had something to eat.
Unlike Earth, this was a dark, cruel world, and the identity of a low-level scavenger only made his life even harder.
Aaron saw the scavenger wander in the wilderness many times, until his luck finally ran out, and he happened to stumble upon a strange temple. The memories ended with the scavenger entering the temple and his vision going dark.
Time passed, and the two sets of memories kept replaying in Aaron's mind over and over, like a broken record.
"Who am I? The ordinary Aaron living on Earth, or the scavenger?", he questioned his identity, as he found himself gradually losing his self in the memories.
That was, until he suddenly realized something.
"No! I'm Aaron! Both the Aaron of Earth and Aaron the scavenger are me!"
The moment he realized this, the pain that troubled Aaron instantly subsided, and his vision became clear.
It was dark, but he could see the cracked, mottled walls around him, the ruins on the ground, and the moss growing on the ceiling.
There was a pair of broken stone statues, each standing on opposite sides of the room, staring down at him with empty eyes as small spiders were weaving their web in their pupils.
Aaron had just awakened the memories of his past life, but he could still vividly remember his present life.
Immediately, he matched this strange sight with the temple that he had seen before falling into a coma.
Reminding himself to keep calm, he tried to ignore the eeriness of this place and turned his attention to the only source of light inside the room.
This light was faint and flickered from time to time, but it provided a strange sense of security to Aaron, relieving his originally tense nerves.
After a brief hesitation, Aaron moved forward with caution and stepped closer to the light, wanting to see if he could discover any clues about this place.
Tap... Tap... Tap...
His footsteps broke the silence, but the rhythmic sound only served to make the temple's eeriness even more apparent.
Aaron sensed a pair of eyes gazing at his back, but when he turned his head and looked behind him, he only saw the broken statues.
As his eyes met theirs, he had the illusion that these statues were alive and observing him, but this feeling quickly disappeared.
Shaking his head and hoping that he was mistaken, Aaron forced himself to calm down and continued his steps, stopping only when he was two meters away from the light.
But once he did, the previous conscious efforts to not panic and remain calm proved to be ineffective, as a shocked expression flashed across his face.
It was only when he came this close that Aaron discovered that the source of light he had been seeing all this time was not a lamp, a torch, or a candle, but a glowing black crystal.
This crystal was lying on top of the palm of a human corpse, whose back pressed against the temple's mottled wall.
Based on its condition, Aaron judged that this corpse should have been dead for quite some time, at least for a couple of years.
However, it was not this corpse that surprised him. Having lived in this world for many years, he had seen more corpses than he could count with both hands and had almost become one a few times.
Instead, the thing that drew his attention was the glowing black crystal. Aaron recognized what this object was.
"Aether Shard...", he whispered in a low voice, and his tone betrayed his inner excitement.
Aether Shards were something that he had only heard of but never seen before, much less been this close to one.
Aaron didn't know their exact function, but he had heard other scavengers say that it was a material that could help people awaken their Class, becoming Ascendants in the process.
The value of such a magical item could be imagined. Perhaps only nobles or powerful Ascendants had access to them.
Yet now, such a precious item was placed right in front of him.
After a brief hesitation and making sure that there was no danger, Aaron leaned forward and, ignoring his inner disgust, reached out for the Aether Shard.
However, his movements seemed to have activated some kind of hidden, secret mechanism.
The moment his fingers touched the black crystal, thousands of tiny patterns appeared on the corpse's skin and flashed with a dark light.
Seemingly in response, the glowing Aether Shard suddenly shook, before transforming into an eerie black mist. The mist squirmed in the air, and then, as if it had found its target, it entered Aaron's body through the pores of his right hand.
Before Aaron could react, a string of messages flashed in front of his eyes.
[Class awakening has been detected...]
[Searching database for matching Class... Error! Error!]
[Trying again... Attempting to find a match.... Match found!]
[Detected Unique Class: Soulweaver...]
[Class Awakening will begin in 3...2...1...0!]
The moment the number "0" appeared, a soul-tearing pain assaulted Aaron's mind, many times more tense than when he awakened his memories.
Fortunately, just when he was about to scream on top of his lungs, his vision darkened, and his body went limp before he lost consciousness.