Chapter 1: The Mid-Cycle Hunt
"Stay down on the ground where you belong."
A heavy boot landed on my chest and sent me crashing heavily into the dirt.
I hit the ground hard and coughed up blood from the sudden pain, realizing this transmigration stuff really sucked.
Tae-Hyung stood over me with a mocking smile since he had perfect golden hair as expected from a seraph bloodline. It exuded an elegant aura as his prestigious guild family focuses on perfection above everything else.
I pushed myself up and brushed the dirt out of my messy red hair since I was entirely used to taking hits from the other students. Taking beatings was the daily routine for this body, and I was really good at it especially when I possessed the only unawakened extra in the entire academy.
"I told you to stay down," Tae-Hyung sneered while looking into my blue eyes like I was a piece of worthless trash. Honestly, having red hair and blue eyes in a Korean academy novel just made me a literal walking target.
A few students gathered around us just to laugh and point fingers.
According to the novel I read, it had been two hundred years since monsters nearly destroyed the world, forcing humanity to survive through awakened bloodlines. They gained the powers of Dragons, Demons, and Angels, making awakeners the absolute new nobility of the world.
Then there was me, an extra named Jin who was completely unawakened and born with empty veins. To the awakeners around me, people like me were just dead weight holding everyone back from clearing the gates.
Tae-Hyung raised his boot to kick again but stopped when a voice yelled for him to back away from across the courtyard.
Instructor Baek walked through the crowd, making Tae-Hyung step back respectfully and bow his head. Baek ignored the seraph completely and stared at me with heavy disappointment.
"Get up," Baek sighed as I stood up and dusted my dirty uniform. "Listen up, today is the Mid-Cycle Hunt which will serve as your final test."
The entire courtyard went completely silent at the sudden announcement.
"If you fail today you are expelled and sent straight to the outer slums," Baek continued loudly.
I clenched my fists because the slums were an absolute death sentence where you just worked the mana factories until you died.
"Enter the Whisperwoods and hunt a beast to harvest its core before sunset. Move."
The courtyard erupted into chaos as a boy yelled for Tae-Hyung to join them since they needed his seraph attack power.
"Of course," Tae-Hyung smiled confidently like the rich second-generation trash he was.
I watched them group up knowing nobody would ask me to join since an unawakened extra was basically just monster bait. My expression stayed flat as I walked to the armory and received nothing but a chipped hunting knife.
♢♢♢♢
The Whisperwoods sat directly behind the academy walls where fifty students waited at the edge of the dark trees.
"Use your bloodlines," Baek yelled before blowing a whistle to signal us to begin.
The students rushed in while activating their glowing halos and scales, leaving me to enter the forest all alone.
I stared at the dirt while walking so I wouldn't miss any footprints. Finding a weak scavenger lizard was basically my only ticket out of this mess and staying in the academy, so I wandered quietly for over an hour until a set of three-toed prints finally showed up near a rotten log.
Those were definitely lizard tracks. I eagerly stepped forward to follow them but my foot met empty air as the entire forest floor just caved in right under my boots.
A hidden sinkhole swallowed me whole. Tree roots scratched my arms and face on the way down before I tumbled out of a steep dirt chute and slammed onto solid rock.
I let out a painful groan and blinked a few times to clear my blurry vision. There was a weird red glow flashing off in the distance, so I ignored my screaming ribs and pushed myself up to see massive stone pillars stretching into the darkness. I knew for a fact this ruin wasn't mentioned in the original novel at all.
I grabbed my cheap knife and hobbled toward that glowing light since staying still was a bad idea. It didn't take long to find a shattered black altar sitting right in the middle of the cavern.
A severed arm rested on top of it that was the size of a tree trunk and covered in black scales. Claws dug into the stone while the red light leaked directly from the scales, making me freeze because it looked like a dead ancient god.
I took a cautious step closer, but when my shoe scraped the stone the black scales flared blindly.
A terrifying pressure hit my brain as a voice demanded flesh.
I dropped my knife and clutched my head just as the voice labeled me an empty vessel.
The massive arm suddenly dissolved into red mist and shot directly into my chest with an impact that threw me against a pillar.
Boiling pain erupted in my veins, causing me to scream and thrash wildly on the stone.
A familiar blue screen snapped into my vision right as the pain reached its peak.
[Ancient Fiend Bloodline detected.]
[Host status: Unawakened. No conflicting bloodlines.]
[Assimilation successful.]
The boiling heat vanished instantly, letting me stop screaming as I panted heavily on the floor.
A massive surge of power flowed through my body as I lifted my arms to watch black scales push through my skin before fading into normal flesh.
I read the next blue screen that appeared in front of me.
[New Talent: Devour.]
[Devour: Extract, steal, and permanently merge the bloodlines of the slain.]
I sat up with a cold smile forming on my face as I clenched my fist.
The main character could have his perfect plot, because I wasn't an unawakened extra anymore.