Toby stepped through the massive golden gate and what lay beyond almost made him forget how to breathe.
The endless gray void was gone. In its place stood a vast, radiant world that stretched farther than his eyes could comprehend.
The first thing he noticed was the sky—or rather, the absence of a real one. Overhead shimmered a dome of shifting colors, like liquid starlight trapped behind glass.
Gold, violet, and blue hues rippled through it slowly, casting a surreal glow across the entire realm.
Before him stood the Origin School.
It wasn't a building.
A colossal city-sized structure forged entirely from gold-veined stone, celestial marble, and unknown shimmering metals.
Towering spires reached into the sky like spears trying to pierce the firmament. Its central edifice—wider than a stadium, taller than any skyscraper—rested atop a series of layered platforms, each one lined with glowing runes and floating terraces.
Massive stone bridges arched through the air, connecting suspended halls and floating islands covered in golden-leafed trees and crystalline lakes.
In the distance, he could see what looked like an endless staircase winding up a floating mountain, with bookshelves stretching up its sides like a spiral library of the gods.
The entire structure pulsed faintly with life—light moving through its walls like blood through veins.
Toby stood at the edge of a polished obsidian walkway that led up toward the main entrance.
Massive doors, dozens of meters high, sat closed but brimming with power. Carvings of every known lifeform—humans, elves, beasts, machines, dragons—were etched into its surface, unified by a single banner above them:
[Origin School – All Paths Begin Here]
Toby couldn't move.
His legs were frozen, but not out of fear, but sheer disbelief. His mouth hung open slightly, and for the first time in years, he felt something rising in his chest—
Wonder.
"This… this is mine?" he whispered. His voice came out small, swallowed by the scale of the realm around him.
He had so many questions but he quickly suppressed them and slowly started walking to the main entrance.
He arrived at the main entrance and slowly raised his hand to touch the massive golden door, and the very intricate carvings on it.
Even as someone who has always wished to reincarnate, this was still too much for him for him.
As he walked to the main entrance, he had wanted to dismiss everything around him as nothing more than a dream, but he could no longer do that when his fingers touched the door.
He would had been freaking out by now if it wasn't for his years of experience of taking shit from the jerk called his boss.
But even though he was now in an extremely unfamiliar, yet familiar situation, he was still sporting a bright smile on his face.
The fact that he has become the Headmaster of such a majestic institution, called the Origin School, gives him a kind of feeling he can't explain.
The thought of what he's going to find behind the massive golden door in front of him, was also highly tempting.
"Here goes something," Toby sighed heavily, and pushed the door open.
As the golden doors parted with a low, harmonious hum, Toby took a step forward and the sight before him stole the breath from his lungs once more.
Inside wasn't a simple hall or corridor. It was like an entire world within walls.
He stepped into a vast, circular atrium the size of a city plaza. The marble beneath his feet shimmered with a mirrored sheen, reflecting not just light—but fragments of potential futures flickering faintly across its surface.
High above, the ceiling arched like a dome of glass, but instead of sky, it displayed ever-shifting constellations—not stars, but symbols, diagrams, and equations in endless rotation.
Floating platforms drifted gently through the air, layered with bookshelves, meditation cushions, and alchemical tools suspended by invisible forces.
Some slowly spun. Others shifted from place to place, as though the school rearranged itself based on unseen logic.
Toby noticed the information about everything was flowing into his head, making it easy for him to quickly what is what, and their uses.
He looked at his left, and he saw a massive spiral tower that pulsed with soft white light. Runes crawled across its walls like living text. At its base, an archway read:
[Library of All Realms]
Books floated in and out of its interior, shelves shifting autonomously like they were alive.
Some tomes hovered mid-air, sealed behind transparent barriers. Others opened and flipped pages on their own—glowing.
On the opposite side stood rows of crystal training halls, their walls translucent, showing meditation chambers, combat dummies, elemental arenas, and gravity-forged obstacle fields inside.
Each hall was infused with a different hue—red for martial arts, green for elemental cultivation, blue for soul techniques, and violet for law comprehension.
At the center of everything, directly under the celestial dome, was a pool—but not of water.
A vast basin of ever-shifting liquid light glowed with unimaginable density. Golden ripples danced across its surface, but beneath that shimmered the hues of every energy imaginable—spirit qi, mana, dark essence, chaos mist, astral force, life energy, even strands of what Toby could only guess was time.
....
Toby took a deep breath, steadying his emotions.
Now that he has seen everything, it's time to understand everything and what he's supposed to do.
Even though this place is so majestic and awe striking, the fact that it's completely empty, save for him, doesn't sit right with him.
"System, are you there?"
[Yes, host. How may I help?]
"I need you explain everything to me and what I need to do."
[Host, just like I said before, you have become the Headmaster of the Origin School. It's an institution connected to every single known and unknown dimensions.]
[As you can see, host. The institution is empty and you must start gathering students. You currently have a slot open and a new slot will be unlocked each month.]
[When you're ready to start recruiting your first student, you will shown five different worlds, across different dimensions, and you can choose which world you want. After that, the golden gate will open in a random part of that world. The fated student will see the gate and be allowed access through it.]
Toby closed his eyes briefly, processing everything that the system had said.
According to the system, he will have to take students. That much he could already guess from the whole settings.
But he was curious about the gate and the type of worlds he will be choosing from. But what he was more curious about was himself.
Yes, himself. He suddenly found himself in a setting that screams absolute power, but he's still the weak bum from Earth.
He's the Headmaster of an interdimesional academy called the Origin School, but he doesn't have the strength that should belong to someone in his position.
From the web novels he used to read, the MCs are always extremely powerful after reincarnation.
... Actually, now that he thought about it, his system is called the Ascension System. Is it possible that?....
He had this incredulous thought and decided to check something.
"System, bring up my status screen."
He has no idea if he has one but if he does, then it will definitely be displayed.
The next moment, a blue screen was displayed in front of him.
[Name: Toby Erickson]
[Title: Headmaster of the Origin School]
[Realm: Core (Stage 1 of the Absolute Path)]
[Combat Power: 0.3 (non-combatant tier)]
[Cultivation Speed: Extremely Low]
---
Authority:
[Administrator Access Granted]
>[Full Control over Origin School Infrastructure]
>[Library Permissions: All Levels]
>[Genesis Pool Access: Unlimited]
>[Selection Gate Control: World Selection Only]
[Knowledge Sync: Passive Link to Student Progress And erfect Comprehension of all Accessed Content)]
---
[Abilities]
>[Knowledge Relay (Passive): Gain perfect understanding of any knowledge read or partially comprehended by a registered student.]
>[Library Mapping (Passive): Automatically detects the ideal books and paths for each new student based on their potential.]
---
[Student Information]
>[Total Students: 0]
>[Open Student Slots: 1/1 (One student may be selected each month via the Selection Gate)]
___
[Active Facilities]
>[Central Atrium]
>[Library of All Realms]
>[Genesis Pool]
>[Training Chambers (Locked)]
>[Reality Anchor (Locked)]
>[Dimensional Hall (Locked)]