Fifty years ago, the Reality Fracture tore through the fabric of space across the entire planet, merging parallel timelines with Earth and creating what humanity now called Fracture Zones.
These dimensional pockets existed in a state of perpetual instability, filled with dimensional materials that possessed properties impossible in normal physics and dimensional creatures whose biology defied conventional understanding.
The Fracture Zones appeared seemingly at random across the globe, some as small as a single room, others spanning hundreds of kilometers.
Within these zones, the laws of physics bent in unpredictable ways. Gravity might flow sideways, time could dilate or compress, and matter itself took on properties that scientists struggled to categorize.
The dimensional creatures that inhabited these zones were equally strange, their bodies composed of materials that existed partially in other dimensions, making them incredibly difficult to damage with conventional weapons.
Humanity's survival hinged on the discovery of Resonance, a phenomenon where certain individuals could attune their bodies to dimensional frequencies, allowing them to interact with and manipulate dimensional materials.
Those who awakened Resonance abilities could enter Fracture Zones, harvest dimensional materials, and craft them into weapons and artifacts that could combat the dimensional creatures.
Over the past five decades, human civilization had restructured itself entirely around Resonance and the dimensional economy it enabled.
Today, most major cities maintained specialized academies to train Resonance users, teaching them both combat techniques and crafting theory.
The materials harvested from Fracture Zones could be forged into dimensional weapons like guns that fired condensed dimensional energy, swords that could cut through space itself, or artifacts like bracelets that summoned armor directly onto the wearer's body.
The strength of one's Resonance determined how effectively they could utilize these items and how deep into dangerous Fracture Zones they could venture.
Lin Yue's head rested against his desk, his breathing slow and steady despite the instructor's droning lecture about dimensional material classification.
His face was notably pale, almost bloodless, with dark circles under his closed eyes that spoke of either sleepless nights or something more concerning.
At eighteen years old, he should have been in the prime of youth, but instead he looked like someone recovering from a prolonged illness.
"Lin Yue!" The instructor's voice cut through the classroom like a whip.
Lin Yue's eyes snapped open, and he straightened in his seat with a slight wince.
Around him, several classmates snickered quietly, though most simply ignored him, their attention focused on their own notes or whispered conversations.
The instructor, a middle-aged woman named Chen Wei with her hair pulled into a severe bun, glared at him from the front of the room.
"This is the fourth time this week you've fallen asleep in my class," Chen Wei said, her tone carrying both irritation and something that might have been concern. "If you're not interested in crafting theory, perhaps you should reconsider your chosen specialization."
"I apologize, Instructor Chen," Lin Yue said, keeping his voice level. "It won't happen again."
Chen Wei studied him for a moment, her eyes lingering on his pale complexion, before she shook her head and returned to her lecture. "As I was saying, dimensional ores are classified by their resonance frequency. Copper-grade materials vibrate at frequencies between 100 and 500 hertz, which makes them suitable for basic equipment construction. Steel-grade materials range from 500 to 2000 hertz and can be used for intermediate crafting..."
Lin Yue did his best to focus on the lesson, but his mind kept drifting. The constant exhaustion wasn't from lack of sleep, though he certainly wasn't sleeping well these days.
The fatigue came from something else entirely, something he couldn't explain to anyone without sounding insane.
For the past three months, ever since he'd started his secret experiments, he'd been steadily draining his own blood in small amounts, and the cumulative effect was beginning to show.
The bell rang, signaling the end of class. Students began gathering their belongings and filing out of the room in small groups.
Lin Yue took his time packing his single notebook, moving slowly to conserve energy. As he stood, a wave of dizziness washed over him, and he gripped the edge of his desk until it passed.
"Yo, Lin Yue, you look like you're about to drop dead," a voice called out from behind him. Lin Yue turned to see Zhang Wei, one of the more outspoken students in his year, grinning at him with mock concern. "Maybe you should skip the practical exam tomorrow. Wouldn't want you embarrassing yourself in front of the whole year."
"I'll be fine," Lin Yue replied without inflection.
"Sure you will," Zhang Wei said, his grin widening. "I heard your Resonance reading is barely at 15 units. That's weaker than most first-years. My little sister awakened at 18, and she's only fourteen." He paused, then added with exaggerated sympathy, "But hey, at least you tried, right? Not everyone can be a Resonator."
Lin Yue didn't respond.
He'd heard similar comments countless times over the past year.
When he'd first awakened his Resonance at seventeen, later than most of his peers, the reading had been disappointing but not catastrophic at 22 units.
However, over the following months, his Resonance strength had mysteriously declined rather than grown, dropping to its current level of 15 units.
The instructors had no explanation for it, and medical examinations had found nothing wrong with him.
What they didn't know was that Lin Yue suspected the decline was connected to his experiments, but he had no way to prove it or explain the connection without revealing what he'd been doing.
Zhang Wei, having gotten no reaction, shrugged and left with his friends. Lin Yue waited until the classroom had mostly emptied before making his way to the door.
His next class was practical combat training, which he attended more out of obligation than any real hope of improvement.
With his current Resonance level, he could barely maintain cohesion with basic dimensional equipment, let alone use it effectively in combat.
The hallway outside buzzed with student chatter and the occasional flash of dimensional energy as someone showed off a new technique or artifact.
Tiancheng Resonance Academy was one of the premier training institutions in the eastern region, attracting students from across three provinces.
The campus itself was built partially within a stabilized Fracture Zone, allowing students to safely practice dimensional techniques without risking civilian areas.
Lin Yue made his way down the corridor, keeping to the side to avoid the clusters of students.
His status as the weakest Resonator in his year had effectively made him invisible to most of his classmates.
A few still acknowledged him out of politeness or residual friendship from their first year together, but most had written him off as a failure who would likely drop out before graduation.
He didn't particularly care about their opinions. The truth was, Lin Yue had long since stopped measuring his worth by his official Resonance rating.
He had discovered something that none of his classmates knew about, something that might change everything if he could figure out how to properly utilize it.
The question was whether he could unlock its full potential before his declining Resonance forced him out of the academy entirely.
The practical combat training ground was located in the academy's outdoor facility, a large arena surrounded by dimensional barriers that could withstand significant energy discharge.
As Lin Yue approached, he could already hear the sounds of combat, the sharp crack of dimensional weapons discharging and the duller thuds of physical impacts.
He pushed through the entrance and joined the other students who were preparing for their training session.
The instructor for combat class was a man named Liu Gang, a former military Resonator who had served in the Dimensional Defense Force before retiring to teaching.
Liu Gang stood at the center of the arena, his arms crossed, watching several students spar with practice weapons.
"Lin Yue," Liu Gang called out as soon as he spotted him. "You're late. Drop and give me fifty push-ups."
Lin Yue complied without argument, lowering himself to the ground and beginning the punishment.
His arms trembled on the twentieth push-up, not from lack of strength but from the persistent weakness that had plagued him since he'd started his experiments.
He pushed through the remaining thirty, his breathing labored by the time he finished.
"Pathetic," someone muttered nearby, though Lin Yue didn't bother to see who.
Liu Gang walked over and looked down at him with an unreadable expression. "Lin Yue, you need to see the medical office. Your physical condition has deteriorated significantly over the past few months. This isn't normal, even for a low-level Resonator."
"I'm fine, Instructor Liu," Lin Yue said, climbing to his feet. "Just been training hard."
"Training should make you stronger, not weaker," Liu Gang replied. He studied Lin Yue's face for another moment, then shook his head. "Get your practice weapon and join Group C for basic drills."
Group C was the weakest group in the class, composed of students who struggled with combat applications of Resonance.
Lin Yue had been moved to this group three months ago, around the same time his Resonance had started declining.
He collected a practice sword from the equipment rack, a simple dimensional weapon that required minimal Resonance to maintain, and joined the other five students in Group C at the far corner of the arena.
Their drill for the day was basic strike patterns against stationary targets.
The dimensional practice sword in Lin Yue's hand felt heavier than it should, his Resonance too weak to properly reduce its effective weight.
Each swing required more physical effort than it would for someone with normal Resonance levels.
By the time the drill ended twenty minutes later, his arms ached and his breath came in ragged gasps.
The rest of the class passed in similar fashion, with Lin Yue struggling through exercises that his classmates completed with ease.
By the time Liu Gang dismissed them, Lin Yue felt completely drained. He returned his practice weapon to the equipment rack and headed toward the changing rooms, moving slowly to conserve what little energy he had left.
As he walked, his thoughts returned to the object hidden in his dormitory room, the item that had started all of this.
His grandmother had passed away six months ago, and while sorting through her belongings, Lin Yue had discovered something that shouldn't have existed, something that contradicted everything humanity knew about dimensional materials and Resonance.
It was a book, or more accurately, a manual of some kind, but the writing inside shifted and changed depending on how long he looked at it.
The first time he'd opened it, the pages had been filled with incomprehensible symbols that hurt his eyes to examine. But after staring at them for several hours, the symbols had suddenly resolved into clear instructions written in modern Chinese.
The manual claimed to teach a method of crafting that existed before the Reality Fracture, a technique from one of the merged timelines that had overlapped with Earth fifty years ago.
According to the text, this ancient method required no Resonance at all. Instead, it demanded blood, specifically the crafter's own blood, used as a medium to bind dimensional materials into functional forms.
Lin Yue had been skeptical at first, but desperation had driven him to attempt the first exercise in the manual.
Following the instructions precisely, he had pricked his finger and allowed a single drop of blood to fall onto a small piece of copper-grade dimensional ore.
The ore had absorbed the blood instantly, and for a brief moment, Lin Yue had felt something shift inside his body. His Resonance had dropped slightly, from 22 units to 21, but he'd also felt something else, a subtle strengthening of his physical body that the academy's measuring equipment couldn't detect.
Over the following months, he'd repeated the process dozens of times, each crafting session costing him blood and a small portion of his Resonance, but each time leaving him with tangible improvements.
His raw physical strength had increased noticeably, though his declining Resonance masked this fact from everyone around him.
More importantly, the manual had revealed that each successful crafting unlocked new recipes, more complex items that promised greater benefits.
The problem was that his blood loss was accumulating faster than his body could fully recover, even with the physical improvements from crafting.
He'd been trying to balance the rate of experimentation with his body's recovery capability, but clearly he'd miscalculated.
The persistent paleness and fatigue were symptoms of borderline anemia, and if he continued at this rate, he would seriously damage his health.
Yet stopping wasn't really an option. Tomorrow's practical exam would determine whether he could continue as a crafting specialization student or be forced to transfer to a support role like dimensional material processing or artifact maintenance.
If he failed the exam, his chances of becoming a true Resonator would effectively end.
His only hope was that the benefits from his secret crafting sessions would be enough to compensate for his weakened Resonance.
Lin Yue changed out of his training clothes and made his way back to the dormitory building.
The academy's dormitories were standard four-person rooms, but Lin Yue's roommates had all requested transfers after his Resonance started declining, leaving him with the room to himself. The isolation suited him fine, giving him privacy for his experiments.
Once inside his room, Lin Yue locked the door and pulled a small wooden box from under his bed.
Inside the box was his grandmother's manual, several pieces of dimensional materials he'd collected, and a small knife he used for bloodletting.
He also kept a medical first-aid kit and iron supplements to help manage the blood loss.
He opened the manual to the page he'd been studying for the past week. The recipe displayed was for a basic dimensional storage pouch, a common item that could hold far more than its physical size suggested.
According to the manual, crafting this item would require three drops of blood and a piece of steel-grade dimensional silk, which he'd purchased from the academy's supply store using most of his savings.
The recipe promised that successful completion would not only grant him a useful item but also permanently increase his dimensional perception by a small amount.
This improvement might not show up on Resonance measurements, but it would make handling dimensional materials easier and more intuitive, exactly what he needed for tomorrow's practical exam.
Lin Yue took out the dimensional silk and spread it on his desk.
The material shimmered with an internal light, its surface reflecting colors that didn't quite exist in normal spectrum.
He picked up the knife and sterilized it carefully with alcohol, then held his left hand over the silk.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed the knife's edge against his fingertip and drew it across in a quick, practiced motion.
Blood welled up immediately, and he squeezed his finger to encourage the flow. The first drop fell onto the dimensional silk and was absorbed instantly. The second drop followed, then the third.
As the third drop made contact, Lin Yue felt the familiar sensation of something draining from his core.
His Resonance dropped another fraction of a point, from 15 units to approximately 14.7.
Simultaneously, heat spread through his chest and head, a tingling sensation that indicated the crafting process had begun.
The dimensional silk began to fold itself, the material moving without any external force as the blood guided its transformation. Lin Yue watched carefully, making sure not to disturb the process.
According to the manual, any interference during this stage would cause the crafting to fail and waste both the materials and his blood.
The folding continued for nearly five minutes, the silk twisting and compressing into an increasingly complex configuration.
Finally, with a soft pulse of dimensional energy, the process completed.
Where there had been a square of silk lay a small pouch roughly the size of his palm, its surface smooth and slightly warm to the touch.
Lin Yue picked up the pouch and examined it carefully.
The crafting interface that only he could see, a side effect of using his grandmother's manual, displayed the item's properties in text visible only to him:
[Basic Dimensional Storage Pouch]
[Capacity: 1 cubic meter]
[Durability: 500/500]
[Special Property: Contents preserved in temporal stasis]
It had worked.
Lin Yue felt a surge of satisfaction despite his exhaustion.
More importantly, he could already sense the promised improvement to his dimensional perception.
The materials around his room, even the ambient dimensional energy in the air, felt clearer and more distinct than they had before.
He quickly bandaged his finger and returned the materials to the box under his bed.
The dizziness was worse now, the accumulated blood loss finally catching up to him. He needed to eat and rest before tomorrow's exam.
Standing carefully to avoid triggering another dizzy spell, Lin Yue grabbed his wallet and headed out to find dinner.
As he walked through the dormitory hallway, he considered his situation objectively.
His official Resonance was now below 15 units, placing him firmly in the category of "potential dropout."
However, his actual combat capability, enhanced by months of secret crafting, was significantly higher than his Resonance level suggested.
Tomorrow's practical exam would test both crafting ability and basic combat skills. If he could perform well enough to surprise the examiners, he might be able to stay in the program despite his declining Resonance.
It was a gamble, and the odds weren't particularly favorable.
But Lin Yue had stopped worrying about odds three months ago when he'd first opened his grandmother's impossible manual and discovered that everything humanity thought they knew about dimensional crafting might be fundamentally incomplete.
Tomorrow would reveal whether his bet had been worth the cost.