The DGC debriefing was a blur of fluorescent lights, bad coffee, and clipped, bureaucratic questions.
Michael gave them a version of the truth.
He'd been trying to help. He got lucky. The Hunter arrived just in time.
He left out the part about the blue screens, the magic potion, and the voice in his head calling him a "Scion."
They classified him as a civilian casualty, gave him a trauma blanket that felt suspiciously like a cheap airline throw, a pamphlet titled "So You've Witnessed a Dimensional Anomaly...", and sent him home in a DGC cruiser.
The silence in the car was heavier than any armor.
When he walked through the door of their small Brooklyn apartment, his father was waiting.
Marcus didn't yell. He didn't rage.
He just looked at Michael, and the exhaustion in his eyes was a physical weight.
"I saw the news," Marcus said, his voice quiet. "Times Square. A Class-3 Gate."
"I'm fine, Dad," Michael said, unable to meet his gaze.
"Are you?" Marcus took a step closer, his eyes scanning Michael from head to toe, the old instincts of an S-Rank Hunter flaring to life. "No scratches? No mana burns? They said a civilian was engaged with an Alpha."
"The Hunter got there in time. I just... distracted it."
Marcus's jaw tightened. "Distracting an Alpha Gutterfang is what gets people killed, Michael. It's what got..."
He stopped, but the name hung unspoken in the air between them.
Elara.
His mother.
"Don't," Michael said, his voice sharp. "Just don't."
He brushed past his father and locked himself in his room, the weight of the secret he now carried pressing down on him.
He collapsed onto his bed, his heart still a frantic drum against his ribs.
"System," he whispered, feeling like a complete and utter idiot.
As if on cue, the blue screen flickered to life in his vision.
[COMMAND: STATUS]
A new window appeared, filled with data that made his stomach clench.
STATUS
Name: Michael
Level: 1
Rank: Unranked (Civilian)
Title: Last Scion
HP (Health Points): 100/100
EP (Energy Points): 15/15
STATS:
Strength: 7
Agility: 9
Stamina: 8
Intelligence: 14
Sense: 11
Mana: 0
[Note: You currently possess all the magical potential of a wet sock.]
He was laughably weak. A "0" in Mana. He was a baseline human in a world of superhumans. At least his Intelligence was 14. Small victories.
Except for the screen in his face.
He mentally navigated the interface, feeling his way through it like a dark room.
[Skills] was next.
It was a vast, complex tree of branching abilities, all of it grayed out. Locked. It looked like the skill tree of a game he hadn't even bought yet.
At the very top, a single node pulsed with a faint light.
[Michaelro-Arcana: Bloodline Trait (Passive)]
Description: The ability to interface with and command the System. All other abilities stem from this root. Higher functions are currently sealed.
Sealed. Just like his father's past. Just like his mother's fate.
He navigated to [Quests].
The "Survive" quest was marked as complete. Below it was a new entry.
[MAIN QUEST: THE EVER-GATE'S ECHO]
Description: Your mother, Elara, was lost during the catastrophic failure of the 'Ever-Gate' fifteen years ago.
The System holds fragmented data related to the incident.
Uncover the truth of what happened and find the echo she left behind.
Objective 1: Reach D-Rank.
Objective 2: ???
Objective 3: ???
Rewards: Closure (Potentially), ???, 1x Consolation Prize
Find her.
The words struck him with the force of a physical blow. For years, she had been a ghost, a forbidden topic, a source of pain he wasn't allowed to touch.
Now, a machine was telling him to find her.
His hands were shaking.
He explored the last menu, a tab labeled with a strange, intricate symbol.
[LEGACY ARCHIVE]
He tried to open it.
[ACCESS DENIED. USER RANK INSUFFICIENT.]
[WARNING: CORRUPTED DATA PACKET DETECTED. ATTEMPTING TO ISOLATE...]
[...ISOLATION FAILED. EXECUTING SUB-ROUTINE...]
A new voice echoed in his mind. It wasn't the cold, robotic text of the System. This one was warm, ancient, and tinged with an odd, weary amusement.
"Well now, someone's finally rattling the celestial doorknob after all this time. And a child, no less. The last of Elara's line. How wonderfully tragic."
A new window popped up, this one with an ornate, golden border. In the center was a stylized icon of a key and a sword.
"Who are you?" Michael thought, his mind racing.
"Think of me as the universe's most overqualified IT support," the voice replied. "I am a fragment. A warden. The caretaker of this Archive. The System is the engine, but I am the ghost in its machine."
"The System... what is it?"
"It is the Michaelro-Arcana Interface. A tool of immense power left behind by your maternal ancestors.
It rewrites the user's reality... Levels, skills, quests... these are just simplified translations your modern mind can process without getting a nosebleed."
"The quest... it says I need to reach D-Rank. How?"
"By doing what Hunters do, of course," the Warden's voice hummed.
"You must hunt.
You must absorb Raw Mana from monsters slain within a Gate.
You must temper your soul in combat and forge a Mana Core.
Only then will the System fully integrate and unlock your true potential."
Michael's heart sank. The one thing his father would never allow.
"There is a safer way to begin," the Warden offered. "A training ground.
A place where the System can create simulations.
It will not grant you Raw Mana, but it will teach you how to fight.
Time within the Simulation Chamber is... malleable. An hour in the real world can be a day inside."
[SIMULATION CHAMBER UNLOCKED]
[ENTER?]
Michael didn't hesitate. He needed answers. He needed to understand.
He focused on 'ENTER'.
The world dissolved.
His bedroom vanished, replaced by a vast, white, empty grid that stretched to an infinite horizon. It looked like the world's most boring video game level.
[ENTERING SIMULATION 1-1: BASIC COMBAT TUTORIAL]
[ENEMY: LV. 1 SIM-SLIME]
A blob of shimmering, gelatinous code coalesced in front of him. It jiggled pathetically.
"Your first opponent," the Warden said. "Try not to be too embarrassed when it defeats you."
Michael scoffed and charged.
He promptly tripped over his own feet and landed face-first in the gelatinous creature. It jiggled triumphantly over his head. Defeat by absorption. Mortifying.
He spent what felt like hours in the simulation.
He died a dozen virtual deaths, each one painless but deeply humiliating.
The Warden offered helpful commentary like, "Fascinating. I've never seen anyone lose to its 'menacing wobble' attack before."
Finally, after learning to dodge its slow lunges and stab its jiggly core, he won.
[SIM-SLIME DEFEATED. 1 EXP GAINED.]
The Warden's voice chimed in, dripping with artificial sympathy. "A whole point. Don't spend it all in one place."
He leveled up. His stats increased by a minuscule amount. But it was progress.
He pushed on, fighting virtual Gutterfangs, giant rats, things he'd only seen on the news. He learned to use a virtual sword, a simple F-Rank weapon the System provided.
He was getting better. Faster. Stronger.
He knew what he had to do.
He had to enter a Gate.
He had to hunt.
He had to defy his father and walk the same path that had swallowed his mother whole.
It was insane. It was suicide.
As he stared at the ceiling, lost in the terrifying gravity of his new reality, a new notification pinged silently on his HUD, glowing with an urgent red border.
[URGENT QUEST: A WILD GATE APPEARS!]
[THREAT LEVEL: F (As in, 'Fairly Harmless,' probably. No guarantees.)]
[LOCATION: ABANDONED CITY HALL SUBWAY STATION. 2.3 MILES FROM CURRENT POSITION.]
[TIME UNTIL COLLAPSE: 58:34... and counting.]