Chapter 1: The Weight of Absolute Zero
The rain in the slums of Vaeloria didn't fall; it spat. It was a cold, acidic drizzle that carried the stench of sulfur from the inner city's Alchemy Guild and the metallic tang of dried blood from the Slum Arenas.
In the heart of this misery, an eighteen-year-old boy was rhythmically slamming a rusted iron pickaxe into a vein of low-grade Star-Iron.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
His name was Kael. His hands were a tapestry of burst blisters and callous ridges, bleeding freely down the wooden shaft of the pickaxe. His muscles screamed, his lungs burned, and his vision blurred from sheer exhaustion. Yet, he didn't stop. He couldn't afford to.
In the continent of Aethelgard, a person's worth was quantified by a single, absolute metric: Rank.
From the moment a child turned ten, the Mana Cores in their hearts would awaken, assigning them to the hierarchy of life. There were 12 distinct Ranks in this world, each divided into three sub-ranks: Early, Mid, and Peak.
Rank 1: Novice. Rank 2: Acolyte. Rank 3: Adept... all the way up to the legendary realms that only existed in myths. To be a Rank 1 Novice meant you were a recognized citizen. To be a Rank 2 Acolyte meant you could join a guild and live comfortably.
Kael was neither. Kael was an anomaly.
When he touched the Awakening Stone eight years ago, the crystal didn't glow. It didn't hum. It remained completely, devastatingly inert. The Overseer had looked at him with a mixture of pity and disgust, stamping his papers with a mark that would define his entire existence.
Rank 0: Unawakened Mortal.
In a world where even the stray dogs in the upper districts possessed faint traces of mana, being Rank 0 meant Kael was less than garbage. He was biologically incapable of absorbing mana. No spells. No body reinforcement. No future.
"Hey, Zero!" A harsh voice echoed through the damp cavern.
Kael paused, lowering his pickaxe. He wiped the toxic rainwater and sweat from his eyes. Standing at the entrance of the mining tunnel was Brunt, a Mid-Rank 1 Novice overseer. Brunt was massive, his muscles naturally bolstered by the passive mana flowing through his veins.
"Quota's due, Zero," Brunt sneered, kicking a pile of loose rocks. "Fifty pounds of Star-Iron. If you're short by even an ounce, you don't get your nutrient paste tonight. And tomorrow, I'm throwing you into the outer perimeter where the Shadow-Rats breed."
Kael didn't speak. He simply pointed to the rusted cart beside him, filled to the brim with chipped, glowing blue rocks.
Brunt's eyes narrowed. He walked over, his heavy boots echoing, and inspected the cart. It was well over sixty pounds. The overseer clicked his tongue in annoyance, disappointed that he couldn't punish the boy.
"You work like a beast, I'll give you that," Brunt muttered, tossing a small, hard, vacuum-sealed gray block into the mud at Kael's feet. "Eat up, Zero. You're going to need it to survive the winter."
Brunt laughed as he walked away, leaving Kael alone in the freezing dark.
Kael slowly bent down, his joints popping, and picked up the ration block from the mud. He wiped the dirt off on his ragged shirt. His face remained completely expressionless. No anger, no tears. He had shed all of those years ago. In this dark, unforgiving world, emotions without the power to back them up were just a faster way to die.
He sat against the cold cavern wall and took a bite of the tasteless, chalky paste.
Why do I keep trying? he thought, looking at his broken, bleeding hands. I do a thousand push-ups a day. I swing a sword until my palms bleed. I study the free combat manuals discarded by the nobles. But a Mid-Rank 1 child could kill me with a single punch.
Hard work, he had realized, was a lie told by the talented to keep the untalented obedient. Without a Mana Core, human physical limits were painfully low.
Suddenly, a massive tremor shook the cavern.
The ground beneath Kael fractured. A deafening roar, like the tearing of metal, echoed from the depths of the mine. The ceiling above him began to collapse.
A spatial fracture! Kael's pupils shrank. These were random tears in reality that dumped high-level monsters into random locations. They were supposed to be rare, but one was opening right underneath him.
Before he could even stand, a massive chunk of the ceiling fell, pinning his left leg to the ground.
"Argh!" Kael gritted his teeth, the pain flaring white-hot through his nervous system.
From the glowing purple rift in the ground, a creature crawled out. It was a Rank 3 Adept-level beast—a Void Crawler. It looked like a mantis made of obsidian and nightmare, its scythe-like arms dripping with corrosive acid.
The beast locked its multi-faceted eyes on Kael. To a Rank 3 beast, Kael didn't even register as a threat. He was just a small piece of meat.
The creature lunged, its scythe raised to decapitate him.
Is this it? Kael thought, his heart pounding against his ribs. Eighteen years of suffering, crawling through the mud, swallowing my pride every single day... just to die in a dark hole?
No.
Something inside Kael snapped. The extreme darkness of his life, the endless suppression, the sheer injustice of the heavens—it ignited a fiery, unyielding rage in his soul. He didn't have mana. He didn't have talent. But he had a will forged in absolute hell.
With a roar that tore his throat, Kael grabbed his rusted pickaxe with both hands and swung it with every ounce of his pathetic, mortal strength directly at the beast's descending eye.
CRACK!
The rusted iron shattered against the beast's hardened shell. The impact sent Kael flying backward, dislocating his arms. He hit the wall hard, coughing up a mouthful of black blood. He was dying. His organs were ruptured.
The Void Crawler shrieked in annoyance, closing in for the final kill.
As Kael's vision faded to black, as the cold embrace of death finally reached out for him, a mechanical, ethereal voice rang out—not in the cavern, but directly inside his mind.
[Ding!]
[Host has met the hidden criteria: Unyielding Willpower in the face of Absolute Despair.]
[Host's Mana Core Status: 0%. (Perfect Vessel Detected).]
[Initiating Soul-Binding Protocol...]
Time seemed to freeze. The falling rocks, the lunging beast, the droplets of Kael's blood in the air—everything stopped.
A blinding golden screen materialized in front of Kael's dimming eyes.
[System Initialization Complete.]
[Welcome, Kael. You have awakened the: Zero to Ultimate God System.]
[Current Rank: 0.]
[First Quest Issued: Survive. Reward: Rebirth.]
Kael coughed up another mouthful of blood, a weak, bloody grin forming on his face as his eyes stared at the glowing blue text.
So... the heavens finally blinked.
Would you like me to outline the 12 Ranks and their specific names, or would you prefer we dive straight into Chapter 2, where Kael claims his first kill and begins his slow, brutal climb to power?