Fifteen years.
That was the magic number. In the Upper Sectors, fifteen was a celebration. It meant parties and gifts wrapped in silk.
In the Shallows, fifteen was an audit.
It was the age of "adulthood." It did not mean freedom. It meant you were finally old enough to owe the world money. It meant the Oxygen Tax now applied to you fully. You were no longer a dependent. You were a debtor.
Angga remembered his birthday two weeks ago. There was no cake. There was no party. There was only the Registration Hall.
It was a cold, white building in Sector 1. The floor was marble. The air smelled expensive. It smelled filtered, sterile, and had a hint of lemon. It made Angga dizzy. He was used to the smell of wet rust, stale algae, and the metallic tang of recycled breath.
He stood in line with a thousand other kids from the slums. They all wore grey tunics. They all looked at the floor. They were not here to be celebrated. They were here to be processed.
On the raised platform at the front of the room, the Highborns went first.
Angga watched a boy named Silas step onto the dais. Silas was the son of a Trade Baron. His skin was clean. His hands were soft. He had never held a tool in his life. He looked like he had never missed a meal or a breath.
Silas's father stood by the control panel. He swiped a black credit card. The screen flashed a number that could have bought Angga's entire neighborhood.
[PAYMENT ACCEPTED: 20,000,000,000 aels]
The machine hummed. It was a beautiful, melodious sound. A mechanical arm descended. The holographic menu bloomed in the air. It was a buffet of power.
[SELECT CLASS:]
[Warrior] [Mage] [Archer] [Rogue] [Cleric] [Lancer] [Tamer] [Bard]
Silas didn't hesitate. He pressed [Warrior].
It seemed like a simple choice. But Angga knew the math. A Golden Prasasti [Warrior] was not the same as an Iron Prasasti [Warrior].
Light exploded in the room. A Golden Prasasti formed on the boy's neck. It shone like a miniature sun.
[CLASS ASSIGNED: Warrior (Tier 1)]
[EVOLUTION CAP: Tier 10 (MYTHIC)]
The crowd of nobles cheered. Silas smiled. He had just purchased the right to become a god.
In the Shallows, you didn't pray for power. You financed it. The Prasasti was the receipt. No one knew exactly how the System worked, but everyone knew the multipliers.
At the top were the Golden users like Silas. They paid twenty billion aels. In exchange, they gained Experience 40 times faster than a Black Prasasti user. They leveled up in a day what took others a year.
Below them were the Silvers. They paid fifty million aels. They were the Lords and Arch-Mages. They were capped at Tier 8. They gained power 20 times faster than the baseline.
Then came the Bronze. For a million aels, you could be a local hero. You could reach Tier 6. You could be a Guild Captain. They grew 10 times faster.
At the bottom of the paying customers were the Irons. It cost fifty thousand aels. That was a lifetime of savings for a normal family. They were the grunts. They were capped at Tier 3. They grew 5 times faster.
And then, there was the rest of the world. The people who couldn't afford the entry fee. The baseline. The crawlers.
"Next," the technician said. His voice was bored.
The Highborns had left the room. They did not want to watch the cattle get branded.
When Angga stepped up, the machine did not hum. It ground its gears. It sounded like a dying engine. The technician did not look at him. He just hit a button.
Angga had zero aels. So he got the State Mandate.
The Black Prasasti.
The needle pierced Angga's neck. It felt cold and indifferent. It did not offer him a sword. It did not offer him magic. It did not care about his dreams.
The System offered him a menu of labor.
[AVAILABLE CLASSES: Miner, Sweeper, Algae Farmer, Dredger]
Angga stared at the holographic text. He did not feel sad. He felt trapped.
Miner meant dying in a cave collapse at twenty. The tunnels under the ocean were unstable. If the water didn't drown you, the pressure sickness would kill you.
Sweeper meant cleaning the reactor cores. It paid well for three years. Then your hair fell out. Then you coughed blood. Then you died.
Algae Farmer meant... becoming his mother.
He thought of Sari.
His mother worked the Vats in Sector 9. She scrubbed filters twelve hours a day. Her hands were permanently stained green from the chlorophyll. Her lungs were full of spores.
She coughed at night. It was a wet, rattling sound. Every cough was a coin dropping into a debt jar. Every gasp cost credits to fix.
He remembered what she told him the night before, gripping his hand with her green-stained fingers.
Don't be a hero, Angga, she had whispered. Heroes die poor. Be invisible. Survive.
Angga looked at the menu again.
Dredger.
It was the coward's choice. It was the safe choice. He had been hauling scrap since he was six years old; his back was already shaped for the weight. In the Shallows, a Dredger was just a Porter with a different name. They walked in the shadows of the heroes, carrying the loot and scavenging the wet, bloody remains that the Highborns left behind.
Angga pressed the button.
[SELECTION CONFIRMED]
The needle injected the ink. It burned. The Black Prasasti formed on his neck. It was jagged and ugly.
[CLASS ASSIGNED: Dredger (Tier 1)]
[EVOLUTION CAP: Tier 1 (LOCKED)]
He walked out of the hall that day with a heavy heart. He was official. He was a bottom-feeder. He was a battery that leaked its energy into the void, destined to serve the Gold and Silver tiers until his spine snapped or his lungs gave out.
That was the plan, until it wasn't.