Seven years.
That's how long Aurel Gray had clawed through life—alone, frail, and unwanted. When the world changed and the underground caves appeared, so did hope. But hope, he quickly learned, came at a price.
These caves—twisting labyrinths that stretched deep beneath the Earth, some even brushing the core—were laced with a new energy: mana. And with mana came The Chosen Ones—humans granted supernatural powers to explore these abyssal domains.
For the rest? Only sickness. Madness. Death.
His mother, a simple woman who lived near one of the older caves, had fallen ill. Mana poisoning devoured her from the inside out—veins rupturing, organs failing, her body rejecting the very air she breathed. She wasn't chosen. So the world discarded her.
His father followed soon after, not through death but through despair. The man who once called him "son" vanished, chasing a reunion beyond the veil.
And Aurel was left behind. A frail body. A shattered heart. A cursed fate.
But he didn't break.
He worked—day and night. Menial jobs. Labor. Pain. All to earn enough to buy the elixir said to cleanse the body and raise one's chance of being chosen.
And finally, after years of blood and sweat, the moment came.
"I'm sorry, Mom. Dad. Your son was a nobody… But today, I change everything."
He drank the elixir.
And then it happened.
[ YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN. ]