The year was 2046, but to Elian Vance, the air always tasted like nostalgia and recycled ozone.
He sat on the edge of the rooftop of his apartment complex—a towering, brutalist hive of steel and smart-glass overlooking the sprawl of Neo-Seattle. Twenty years. He had spent twenty years in this second life, dragging the ghost of his past self behind him like a persistent shadow.
Elian took a sip of synthetic coffee, the taste metallic and overly sweet. In his first life, back in the early 2020s, coffee had been bitter, earthy. Real. Everything in 2046 felt like a simulation of a life he used to know. Cars didn't roar anymore; they hummed with the sterile whine of magnetic levitation. The sky wasn't just blue; it was a canvas for augmented reality advertisements that floated in the clouds, selling everything from neural-link upgrades to colony tickets for Mars.
He wasn't supposed to be here. He remembered dying. He remembered the screech of tires, the blinding light, and then… waking up as a crying infant in a hospital room that looked more like a server farm.
"Twenty years of waiting," Elian muttered to himself, his legs dangling over the ledge, a thousand feet above the mag-lev tracks. "And I still don't know why."
He was twenty years old physically, but his mind was an amalgam of two eras. He had navigated this futuristic society with the cynicism of a man who had seen the world fall apart once before—socially, if not apocalyptically. The world of 2046 was fragile. The economy was a bloated beast kept alive by AI algorithms. The divide between the 'Augmented'—wealthy elites with neural chips—and the 'Baselines' was a canyon that grew wider every day.
Elian checked his wrist-com. 11:58 PM.
Something felt wrong tonight. The air was too heavy. The usual hum of the city, a sound he had grown accustomed to, seemed to be vibrating at a different frequency. It wasn't sound; it was pressure.
Bzzt.
The holographic billboard across the street, usually displaying a smiling model selling 'Eternal Youth' skin grafts, flickered. The model's face distorted, stretching into pixelated noise.
Then, the streetlights died.
Not just on his block. Elian watched as the darkness rolled across the city like a tidal wave. Sector 4 went black. Then Sector 5. The mag-lev trains froze mid-air, their emergency biases engaging with a groan of stressed metal. The constant drone of the city silenced, leaving only the wind whipping past his ears.
"EMP?" Elian stood up, his instincts—honed by a lifetime of paranoia—screaming at him.
But it wasn't an EMP. His wrist-com was still glowing, but the numbers on the clock had stopped.
11:59:59
The second hand hovered, refusing to tick over.
Then, the sky cracked.
It didn't break like glass; it tore like fabric. A jagged line of violet light ripped through the atmosphere, stretching from horizon to horizon. There was no sound of thunder, no explosion. Just a sudden, overwhelming sense of presence.
It was as if a billion eyes had suddenly opened in the void and focused their gaze on Earth.
Elian looked up, shielding his eyes against the impossible light. High above, through the tear in reality, he saw… structures. Colossal floating islands, inverted mountains, and gears the size of continents turning slowly in a nebula of gold and azure.
A voice resonated. It didn't come from the sky; it bypassed his ears and vibrated directly against his skull. It was a voice that sounded like grinding stones and celestial choirs.
[Initialization Complete.]
[Connection to the Omniverse Established.]
[The Tutorial Phase has been skipped. Calculating difficulty…]
[Difficulty set to: Inferno.]
Elian gripped the railing. "A system?" He whispered, the gamer terminology from his past life surfacing instantly. "No way."
[Planetary Integration in progress. Terraforming imminent. The Laws of Physics have been updated to Version 10.4 (Magic/Mana enabled).]
[Scanning inhabitants…]
[Population: 9.8 Billion.]
[Calculating Potential…]
A massive shockwave of blue energy swept across the globe. It passed through the buildings, through the ground, and through Elian. He gasped, falling to his knees as a burning sensation flooded his veins. It felt like someone had replaced his blood with liquid mercury.
Below him, in the streets, chaos erupted. Screams began to pierce the silence. People were collapsing, clutching their heads. Others were staring at their hands, which glowed with faint, erratic lights.
[Awakening Protocol Initiated.]
[Only 0.1% of the population possesses the Karmic Density required for a Profession.]
[You are being judged.]
The world turned white. Elian felt his consciousness being pulled, stretched, and examined. He saw flashes of his life—his death in the 2020s, his rebirth, his twenty years of quiet observation in this hyper-tech dystopia. He saw his boredom, his yearning for something real, his hidden arrogance.
The voice returned, colder this time. More specific.
[Subject: Elian Vance.]
[Anomaly Detected. Two Soul Signatures found in one vessel.]
[Soul Fusion Rate: 100%.]
[Calculated Aptitude: Infinite.]
[Analyzing Compatibility…]
[Warrior? … Rejected.]
[Mage? … Rejected.]
[Rogue? … Rejected.]
[Administrator? … Access Denied.]
[Searching for Hidden Parameters…]
Elian gritted his teeth, the pain in his head blinding. Give me something, he thought, forcing his will against the pressure. If this is a game, I'm not playing as an NPC.
[Unique Trait Detected: The Outsider's Perspective.]
[Profession Found.]
[Congratulations, Elian Vance. You are one of the Awakened.]
The white light faded, snapping back into reality. Elian gasped for air, sweat dripping onto the concrete roof. The world looked… different. Sharper.
A translucent blue window, crisp and high-definition, floated in his vision. It wasn't AR. It was real.
[Name: Elian Vance]
[Race: Human (Earth-2046 Variant)]
[Level: 1 (0/100 EXP)]
[Class: Skill Master (Grade: ???)]
[Stats:]
Strength: 10
Agility: 12
Intelligence: 18
Endurance: 10
Vitality: 10
Luck: 25
[Profession Traits:]
[Sovereign of the Self (Passive)]: You are the master of your own power. You possess complete immunity to damage, recoil, or negative status effects caused by your own skills.
[Ascension Protocol (Active/Passive)]: Every 10 Levels, you may select one Random Skill in your possession. This skill will be permanently consumed and converted into an [Ultimate Finisher]. Warning: This process is irreversible.
[Talent:]
[Mana Bypass (Rank: EX)]: You may activate any skill in your possession without paying its Mana cost.
Cooldown: 1 Minute. (Decreases/adds charges every 10 levels).
Restriction: The same skill cannot be used via Mana Bypass more than once every 5 minutes.
Special Effect: Skills used via Mana Bypass ignore their standard Cooldown timers.
Elian stared at the screen, his heart hammering against his ribs. The details were insane. Immunity to self-damage? Converting skills to finishers? And that talent… Mana Bypass. Free skills that ignored cooldowns?
He stood up, looking out over the city. The billboards were gone. In their place, massive pillars of light were descending from the rifts in the sky, slamming into the earth. The geometry of the city was shifting. A skyscraper in the distance groaned and twisted, morphing into a spire of obsidian stone. Roots the size of subway trains burst from the asphalt below.
The Game hadn't just descended. It was overwriting reality.
"One in a thousand," Elian whispered, a grin slowly spreading across his face—a genuine, predatory grin that hadn't been there for twenty years. "And no trash professions… just trash players."
He looked at his hands. He didn't have any skills yet. He was a blank slate with a god-tier potential.
[System Notice: The First Wave begins in 10 minutes.]
[Objective: Survive.]
Elian walked to the edge of the roof. The fire escape was rusted, but he didn't look at it. He looked at the chaos below, where a creature—something that looked like a cross between a wolf and a nightmare—was clawing its way out of a dimensional tear in the middle of the intersection. It sniffed the air, its eyes glowing with intelligent malice. It wasn't a mindless beast; it was scouting.
"Let's play," Elian said.
This was no longer the sterile, predictable world of 2046. The rules had changed, and for the first time in two lives, Elian held the rulebook.