Chapter 1: Null
The last thing Cheng Qianmo remembered was the searing light of a broken covenant, the betrayed roar of a dying god—his godhood—stripped away not by a worthy opponent, but by a shifting rule. A cheat. The pinnacle of Genesis snatched from his grasp on a divine technicality.
The pain was not of flesh, but of concept: the unraveling of mastery, the dissolution of a thousand perfected skills, the ultimate regret of a victory stolen at the finish line.
Then, oblivion.
And then, a desk.
The smell of chalk dust and industrial cleaner. The muffled sound of someone coughing. A shaft of afternoon sun, too bright, too real, cutting across a scarred wooden surface etched with generations of bored initials.
Rocky—a name that surfaced from the void, simple and solid—jerked upright, a gasp strangling in a throat that felt too young. His hands, pale and unfamiliar, gripped the edge of the desk. A torrent of memories, not his own yet completely his, flooded his mind. A lifetime spent mastering every sword swing, every spell matrix, every subtle economy of a hundred different professions. The crisp, analytical joy of perfect execution. The title: God of All Professions.
And then, another layer, seeping up from a deeper, colder place. A resonance not of light and skill, but of silence and endings. An instinct for the space between breaths, the finality of stillness, the authority over what comes after. It wasn't a memory of a person, but an echo of a principle: Death, not as an end, but as a tool. A sovereign's chill.
They swirled—the brilliant, sunlit mastery and the silent, grave-born authority—and fused with a terrible, silent click.
He wasn't just Cheng Qianmo. He was something more. Something that had touched the apex and grasped the void beneath it. He was Rocky, a synthesis wrapped in the skin of a student named Yun Chen.
"Hey. Earth to Yun Chen. You alive over there?" a voice hissed from his left.
Rocky's eyes—new, old, borrowed—flicked sideways. A lanky boy with glasses, sweating through his cheap shirt. Fear and excitement warring in his eyes. "You zoned out hard when the Principal started talking. This is it, man. The big day."
The words were noise, but the tension in the room was a palpable thing. Thirty teenagers, all rigid in their seats, facing forward. Rocky followed their gaze.
At the front of the classroom, Principal Vance, a woman usually defined by cardigans and spreadsheets, stood transformed. Her posture was militarily straight, her eyes scanning them with a new, grim assessment. Behind her, the whiteboard was gone. In its place, shimmering in the air like a heat haze, was a holographic schematic.
Rocky's breath hitched.
It was a skill tree. A very familiar, beautifully rendered Warrior Archetype Skill Tree from Genesis. But this wasn't on a monitor. It hung in the air, radiating a soft, blue light that painted the awestruck faces of his classmates.
World fusion. Event: The Assimilation. Probability: 99.9%.
The conclusion slammed into his reforged mind with the force of a divine decree. Genesis hadn't just arrived. It had overwritten reality's source code. The game was now the world.
And he… he had been thrown back to the starting line.
A cold, analytical calm descended, smothering the last embers of disorienting panic. It was the pre-raid focus of a top-tier commander and the detached curiosity of a scholar examining a fascinating corpse. His mind, a fusion of apex intelligence and grim instinct, began cross-referencing at lightning speed. The date on the wall-clock was wrong—it was Rebirth Day. The air hummed with a faint, new energy he could feel in his teeth—ambient mana. The scared, excited whispers were exactly as he remembered from the game's global chat on launch day.
"—will commence in precisely five minutes," Principal Vance's voice cut through, sharper than he'd ever heard it. "The System Interface will manifest individually. You will be presented with a choice of foundational classes based on your innate aptitudes and latent potential. This is not a game replay. This is not a drill. The monsters will spawn within hours. The rules are now the rules of life and death. Choose. Wisely."
A frantic, hopeful buzz filled the room. "My dad was a level 80 Berserker, I have to get Warrior!" "I'm praying for Mage, I've got the logic scores for it…" "Healer's safe, always in demand…"
Rocky tuned it out. He was running internal diagnostics. Body: Baseline human, no enhancements. No mana channels yet awakened. No class affiliations. A blank slate. A Level 1 entity in a world where the tutorial just became mandatory.
But his consciousness… that was a different matter. Etched into the fabric of his soul, he could feel them. Two legacies, dormant but thrumming with immense, contradictory power.
[God of All Professions - Legacy]
A corona of potential, a library of perfected forms.
[Sovereign of the Silent Gate - Legacy]
A deep, cold well of negation and command.
A slow, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. It held no youthful joy, only the cold, surgical recognition of an overwhelming tactical advantage. He had the complete strategy guide for a world that hadn't even printed its manual. And he had a key to a door no one else knew existed.
"Places, everyone!" Vance barked. "Sit straight. Clear your minds. The System sees more than your test scores. It sees your soul."
The class fell into a trembling silence. Rocky was the only relaxed figure in a sea of rigid postures. He leaned back in his chair, the cheap plastic creaking, and watched.
Faint, shimmering rectangles of light, like panes of azure glass, materialized in the air before each student. Personal Status Screens. Character Creation. The great equalizer and divider of the new world.
Gasps and small cries erupted as his classmates saw their futures written in light. "Oh my god, I got Archer! And a Rare variant!" "Cleric… it's just a basic Cleric…"
His own screen popped into existence directly before his eyes. It was different. Denser. The light wasn't blue, but a shifting amalgam of gold and deepest violet. Text scrolled in a frantic, almost desperate cascade.
Welcome, Entity.
World Synchronization Complete.
Scanning Soul Signature…
ERROR: Signature Anomaly.
Rescanning…
Multiple High-Tier Legacy Imprints Detected.
Contradiction Detected: [Apotheosis] // [Annihilation].
Resolving…
The screen flickered violently, the colors strobing. To his left, the boy with glasses was weeping with joy at his \[Apprentice Elementalist\] class. To his right, a girl was scowling at her \[Novice Pugilist\] offer.
Rocky's screen stabilized. The text that appeared was opulent, bordered in intricate, glowing gold filigree.
[Analysis Complete. Suggested Foundational Classes Based on Legacy Echoes:]
— Archmage Primordial (Mythic-Rare)
— Divine Paladin Exemplar (Mythic-Rare)
— Voidwalker Assassin (Legendary)
— Celestial Summoner (Legendary)
… and 12 other elite-tier options.
Any single one was a ticket to royalty in this nascent world. A guaranteed path to power, respect, and survival. The expected, logical choice for a soul with such "potential." The path of least resistance back to the top.
He remembered the searing betrayal at the pinnacle. The rules shifting under his feet because a higher authority decided he was too close to winning. Those entities—the Administrators, the Gods of the System—they had built these classes. They were the rails on their track, leading to stations they controlled. To choose one was to enter their beautifully designed cage and willingly lock the door behind him.
No.
A deep, quiet certainty, colder than the grave and brighter than a forging star, settled in his chest. He would not walk a path they had laid. He would not be a character in their story. He had the knowledge to break the game, and the innate authority to wield the finality they feared. But first, he had to reject the board entirely.
With a thought as calm and final as a judge's gavel, he dismissed the glittering, mythical list.
The screen blanked for a second. Then, a single, stark input field appeared. No decoration. No suggested text. Just a plain, almost accusatory line.
[Select a Class: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ ]
A cursor blinked, patient and empty.
In that space, he did not type "Warrior." He did not input "Necromancer." He did not choose from the menu of glorious, pre-approved destinies.
With a focus drawn from two lifetimes of absolute, unwavering intent—the perfectionist's will and the reaper's resolve—he input a single, defiant word:
[None.]
He selected it.
A visible shockwave of distorted light rippled out from his console. The screen didn't just go black; it seemed to suck the light from the air around it for a millisecond before dying completely.
Across the room, the din of celebration and lament rose. "I'm a Scout!" "Ugh, Merchant? Really?"
The click of Principal Vance's heels on linoleum approached, crisp and authoritative. She stopped directly behind his chair, her shadow falling over his dark desk. "Is there a malfunction, Yun Chen?" Her voice was tight. "Your selection should be instantaneous. Do not dally."
Rocky turned his head just enough to meet her eyes over his shoulder. His expression was a placid, depthless lake. "It's done."
"Done? What did you choose?" She leaned forward, peering at where his screen had been.
As if on cue, the screen flickered back on. It displayed, in large, stark, system-standard font:
CLASS SELECTION CONFIRMED.
CLASS: [NONE]
A beat of absolute silence.
"What…" Principal Vance breathed, her professional composure cracking like thin ice. "What is this? A system error? You chose… nothing?" Her voice rose, sharp and disbelieving, cutting through the classroom chatter. "Yun Chen, explain yourself!"
Heads swiveled. The whispers died, replaced by stares of pure, uncomprehending shock.
"He picked 'None'?" someone muttered, the words sounding absurd.
A snicker cut the air, then another. "Did his brain freeze?" "He just… he just threw it all away!" "What a loser! Even a basic class is better than that!"
The mockery swelled, a wave of derisive laughter and pitying shakes of the head. The prodigy student, the one with the top marks, the quiet overachiever, had just committed social and strategic suicide in front of everyone. In a world where class was destiny, he had chosen oblivion.
Rocky ignored them all. The noise was irrelevant static, the chirping of birds unaware of the coming storm. His entire being was locked on a new line of text that had appeared at the bottom of his now-blank screen. The font was so dark it seemed to be made of condensed void, letters that drank the light.
Condition Met.
Legacy Contradiction Synthesized.
Hidden Title Unlocked: [JOBLESS].
Anomalous Pathway Activated.
The System is watching.
Then, a second message, this one in burning crimson text that scrawled itself like a wound across his vision:
WARNING: Pathway [JOBLESS] is incompatible with standard system protocols.
All class-based skills, advancements, and questlines are LOCKED.
You forge your own path. You bear your own consequences.
Welcome, Rocky. Try not to break reality too much.
The laughter of his classmates faded into a distant, meaningless hum. A faint, genuine smile—the first of this new, stolen life—touched his lips. It was a hunter's smile, thin and sharp.
The cage door had just clanged shut behind everyone else. They were scrambling for the best spots inside.
He had never stepped through.
He was outside. He was null. He was an error in their perfect code.
And he was free.
[End of Chapter 1]