The world vanished.
One second, Kaelen was in the quiet sanctuary of the university library, the air thick with the comforting smell of aging paper.
The next, the scent was gone, replaced by a harsh, metallic tang, like rust and ozone after a lightning strike. An impossibly cold wind slammed into him, cutting right through his sweater and shocking him to the bone. He stumbled on loose grit, reaching for a table that was no longer there.
He blinked, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were seeing. The towering shelves of books were gone. He was standing on a vast plain of grey, ashy dirt.
Above him, a bruised-purple sky festered, lit by two pale, unblinking moons that looked like skulls. The ground was a graveyard of a long-forgotten war: broken shields, splintered spear shafts, and rusted blades littered the landscape, with the white of bone peeking through the dust.
In the far distance, the black, skeletal silhouette of a colossal ruined fortress clawed at the sky.
Before the first wave of screaming panic could take hold, a sound chimed in his head. It wasn't a sound his ears heard, but one that resonated directly in his consciousness—a clean, synthetic ding!
A translucent blue screen, glowing with a soft, inner light, flickered into existence before his face.
[Universal Initialization Complete. Welcome, Lord.]
Lord? What the hell?
His heart hammered against his ribs. Another screen popped into view, looking like a character sheet from a video game.
[STATUS]
Name: Kaelen
Title: Lord of the Ashen Fields
Level: 1
HP (Health Points): 80/80
SP (Stamina Points): 120/120
EP (Ether Points): 150/150
[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength (STR): 7
Agility (AGI): 8
Endurance (END): 8
Intelligence (INT): 15
Spirit (SPI): 15
[TALENT]
Echoes of the Progenitor (Rank: SSS, Dormant)
[SKILLS]
None
Kaelen stared, a cold dread seeping into him. His physical stats were garbage.
A 7 in Strength? He'd probably lose a fight to a stiff breeze.His only decent numbers were his Intelligence and Spirit. Big deal. He couldn't out-think a monster that was trying to eat him.
And the final line was the most damning of all: [SKILLS]: None. He was weak, unskilled, and utterly alone.
Just then, a third screen materialized, a chaotic stream of text scrolling by at an impossible speed.
[World Chat Activated]
User-774B3: "WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?? WHERE AM I?"
User-C91A2: "Is this real? I was just on the toilet..."
User-E345F: "Did anyone else get this 'System' thing? It says I'm a 'Lord'?"
User-A1B8C: "I'm in a forest! It's beautiful but I'm freaking out! My name is Jen, is anyone in a forest too??"
User-B7A5E: "Holy crap! I just got a 'Talent'! It's called [Minor Firestarter], Rank D! I can make a little flame on my fingertip! THIS IS INSANE!"
The chat was the sound of billions of people losing their minds all at once. For a single, fleeting moment, Kaelen felt a strange sense of solidarity. He wasn't alone in this madness.
Then, the System delivered a final, personal message that shattered that feeling into a million pieces.
[Assessing Territory... Assessment Complete.]
[Territory: The Ashen Fields]
[Territory Quality: Cursed (Extremely Dangerous, Barren)]
[Resources: Negligible]
[Recommendation: Pray.]
His blood turned to ice. Cursed. The word echoed in his head. Not 'Poor'. Not 'Bad'. Cursed.
He read the chat messages about green forests and lucky D-Rank talents, and it all felt like a vicious slap in the face. The System, this cold, impartial god, had looked at his new home and its only recommendation was to pray. He had been given a death sentence.
Just as his knees felt weak enough to buckle, a brilliant, golden light flooded his vision, so bright it forced him to squint. It felt warm, a stark contrast to the freezing wind, and it seemed to emanate from deep within his own chest.
[Your soul resonates with the desolate echoes of this land!]
[Unique Talent [Echoes of the Progenitor] has been awakened!]
[Description: What is dead may never die, but rise again, harder and stronger. The past is your clay.]
On his status panel, the greyed-out (Dormant) tag next to his talent vanished, the letters SSS now glowing with a faint, golden light. SSS-Rank. The absolute pinnacle
.
A tiny, hysterical spark of hope flickered to life in the pit of his stomach. An SSS-Rank talent had to be his ticket out.
His hands shaking slightly, he navigated the clean interface, finding a [Build] menu. He opened it, desperate to see what his god-tier talent allowed him to do.
A short list of options appeared. Most of them were greyed out. Only one was available.
[Wooden Hut - Level 1]
Cost: 50 Wood, 10 Stone.
He stared at the words, and the tiny spark of hope was extinguished as if doused by a bucket of icy water.
He looked around. There wasn't a single living tree in sight, only the petrified, skeletal trunks of long-dead husks that looked as hard as rock.
The System had given him a god-tier talent and was going to let him die of exposure because he couldn't build a damn shed.
A new timer appeared in the corner of his eye, a final, grim countdown.
[Newbie Protection Barrier Active. Duration: 6 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes]
Seven days. He had seven days until the shimmering, almost invisible dome of his starting area—a small circle centered on a slightly more intact ruin the System designated as his [Lord's Hall]—would fall. Seven days until the horrors of a Cursed land, the things whose faint, inhuman screeches were now carried on the wind, could get to him.
The twin moons began their slow arc across the sky. The temperature plummeted. His thin sweater was useless against the cold, and he wrapped his arms around himself, shivering uncontrollably.
A primal, gnawing sensation started in his stomach, and his throat felt as dry and raw as the ashen dust beneath his feet. His pathetic 8 Endurance meant the physical strain was hitting him hard and fast. Dizziness began to cloud the edges of his vision.
The SSS-Rank talent was a cosmic joke.
He had to find something. He began to search the rubble within his safe zone, stumbling through the ruins of his Lord's Hall. He tripped over a loose rock and fell hard, his hands and knees scraping against grit and bone fragments.
He pushed himself up, hissing in pain, and found himself lying next to a skeleton. It was a soldier, slumped against a broken wall for centuries, its bony fingers still curled around the hilt of a rusted sword. An equally rusted metal canteen was clipped to its hip.
Hope, fierce and desperate, flared in Kaelen's chest.
He scrambled over, his fingers fumbling as he unclipped the canteen. It felt light. Way too light. With a surge of dread, he twisted the cap. It was stuck fast with rust. He gritted his teeth, his weak arms straining, and with a final, agonizing turn, it came free with a screech of tortured metal.
He tipped it to his mouth. A little puff of stale air and a cloud of fine grey dust billowed out.
Bone dry.
He dropped it and just sat there, the fight going out of him. He started to laugh, a crazy, hollow, breathless sound that the wind snatched away. He, Lord Kaelen, with his SSS-Rank talent, was going to die of thirst on day one. Perfect.
He sat there for who knows how long, shivering, his mind a numb buzz of failure. His hand, acting on its own, found the discarded canteen again. He picked it up, just to have something to hold. He ran his thumb over the dents and cracks in the metal.
He thought about the soldier who carried it. Was he afraid at the end? What was his last drink like?
Suddenly, a strange warmth tingled in his thumb, a faint but distinct sensation that flowed from his skin into the cold metal.
And then, that beautiful, synthetic, life-saving chime.
[System Alert: Unique Talent [Echoes of the Progenitor] has been triggered!]
[Resonating with 'Echo of the Last Drink'...]
[The memory of pure, clean water lingers within this vessel.]
Kaelen's eyes shot open. He stared at the blue screen, then at the canteen in his hand. It felt… heavier. Distinctly heavier. With a shaking hand, he lifted it.
Slosh.
The sound was faint, a gentle whisper of liquid against metal, but it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
Disbelieving, he brought it to his lips. Cool, clean water, the most divine thing he had ever tasted, flowed into his mouth. It was only a few mouthfuls, but it was life itself.
His mind, the mind of a historian trained to find patterns, kicked into overdrive. An echo. A memory. It hit him like a ton of bricks. His talent didn't create water. It didn't pull it from the air. It recalled it from the object's past.
He jumped to his feet and scrambled over to another skeleton he'd seen. This one had a desiccated leather pouch still strapped to its belt. Inside was something that looked like a moldy rock but might have once been bread.
He grabbed it, focusing his intent, willing that same strange warmth from his hand into the object.
[System Alert: Resonating with 'Echo of the Soldier's Ration'...]
[The memory of sustenance has been restored.]
[You have obtained [Iron Ration Bar] x1. ]
[Warning: Bland but filling. Will revert to its desolate state in 1 hour.]
[Cooldown: This Echo can be drawn upon again in 23 hours, 58 minutes.]
A cooldown. A limitation. That was crucial information. He couldn't just spam it to create an endless buffet. But it was enough. It was a lifeline.
He took a bite of the bar. It tasted like cardboard and sawdust, but right now, it was a feast fit for a king.
He wasn't going to die. Not today.
Relief washed over him, so strong he felt dizzy. He got to his feet and looked out at the battlefield. It wasn't a graveyard anymore. It was a treasure trove. Every broken weapon, every piece of old armor, every pile of bones held a memory.