The sky over Neo-Tian Academy had once been blue, but now it flickered with the silver glow of starcruisers leaving orbit. The Graduation Arena pulsed with holographic banners and crystal drones, each announcing the names of students chosen by prestigious sects across the galaxy. Cheers echoed through the stadium with every name called.
Kael Saran's wasn't one of them.
He stood alone on the upper terrace of the academy, where the wind was sharper and the crowd's roar felt distant. His uniform was wrinkled, sleeves a little too short for his frame, and his boots scuffed from years of running errands and dodging fights. The wind tugged at his collar like a silent reminder: move, or be forgotten.
It was already happening.
Every other student had been evaluated, their cultivation potential quantified by Federation scans and Spiritual Aptitude matrices. Their Spirit Roots were labeled: gold, crimson, obsidian, azure. Each color brought a different sect offer. A different future.
Kael's test results had been blank. Not weak—blank. No root. No resonance. No light. Just silence.
The Federation's technology didn't recognize him.
"Still pretending you belong here?"
The voice snapped through the air, crisp and biting. Zera Valen, top-ranked graduate and daughter of one of Earth's integration officers, stood at the top of the terrace stairs. Her silver eyes shimmered like twin moons, reflecting a brilliance Kael could never match. She didn't smirk like usual. Instead, she tilted her head, studying him as if trying to solve a puzzle.
"You know they've already erased your name from the rankings," she said. "You're not even a footnote anymore."
Kael didn't answer. He watched the last of the sect ships disappear into the sky. For a moment, it looked like a falling star in reverse—pulling away from the world instead of crashing down on it.
"Maintenance teams get decent pay," Zera offered, more dry than mocking. "Maybe you'll get assigned to clean the outer labs. That's still inside Federation walls."
"I don't need your pity," Kael said.
"I wasn't offering it."
Zera stepped closer, lowering her voice.
"You're not normal. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean no scanner can detect you. Nothing pings when you move through spirit fields. Even the Sentient Arrays in the dorms can't track your presence unless you speak out loud. That shouldn't be possible."
Kael looked at her then, something unreadable in his gaze.
"Maybe I was never meant to be part of this system."
Zera's expression shifted for a moment, the corners of her mouth tightening. She turned without another word and descended the stairs, her boots tapping against stone with practiced confidence.
Kael waited until her figure disappeared, then slipped down the opposite side of the terrace, into the restricted corridors that led beneath the academy's central tower.
The lower levels were forbidden, sealed off decades ago when Earth agreed to the Federation's terms and converted its ancient cultivation traditions to standardized cosmic systems. Everything that didn't fit their model had been deemed obsolete.
But Kael had always felt something pulling him here.
He passed through layers of rusted gates and flickering light barriers. Each one should have stopped him. They didn't. Either they didn't recognize him as a threat—or they didn't recognize him at all.
The final chamber was circular, carved from stone blacker than void. At its center hovered a seed.
Not a metaphor. A real seed.
It was the size of a closed fist, its surface pulsing with faint light. Lines of gold traced strange constellations across its shell. It hovered silently, casting no shadow.
Kael stepped closer, his breath catching.
He didn't know why, but it felt… familiar.
The moment his hand touched the air around it, something ancient stirred.
There was no sound. No explosion of power. Just a presence.
And then, a voice, not heard, but known.
"You are late."
Kael fell to his knees. His chest burned. Not from injury, but from memory. A surge of visions struck him—planets torn in half, stars collapsing, a being screaming through the void as its body was shattered and sealed within a thousand fragments.
The last of those fragments… had just woken up.
"I'm not a cultivator," Kael whispered, barely able to breathe.
"No," the voice replied, calm and immense. "You are something far more dangerous."
The seed spun once. A spark of light bloomed from its core and drifted into Kael's chest, vanishing beneath his skin.
And then… silence.
When he woke, hours later, the seed was gone. So was the chamber's glow.
But his body was different.
Not stronger. Not faster. Still the same weak limbs and dull eyes.
Yet behind his vision, there was a shimmer. Symbols hovered just beyond sight, moving only when he looked away. He felt the weight of something vast pressing gently against his mind.
A presence waiting. Watching.
Above ground, on the highest orbital platform of Earth's capital sector, a transmission flickered in the chamber of an alien noble. A signal had registered—an anomaly in the planetary resonance grid. A light that shouldn't exist.
"She found him," the woman said quietly. Her skin shimmered like polished amethyst. Her eyes were older than Earth's history.
She stood.
"Send my ship. I'm going to Earth."