Arin sat on a stone bench near the edge of the plaza.
His node was still glowing faintly under his boots.
Most of the others had left already.
The kids with A and B Talents were being led off by instructors in long coats.
A few parents had come to cheer.
One girl was even crying, her arms around her mother, holding a gold badge.
Everyone clapped for her.
No one looked at Arin.
He sat there with his hands in his lap, watching the lights fade from the Spirit Tree above.
Cradle Spark.
F-Rank.
He looked down at his hands.
Slim.
Unscarred.
He wasn't used to this body yet.
Not the shape of it.
Not the feeling of light bones and underfed muscle.
It wasn't weak just unfamiliar.
Like wearing a jacket made for someone else.
He leaned back against the bench.
Someone walked by and tossed a half-eaten roll of bread into a bin beside him.
Arin's stomach growled, but he didn't move.
He wasn't hungry enough for trash.
Yet.
He stood slowly and walked out of the plaza.
No one stopped him.
No one even noticed.
The streets were full now.
Dust blew through the cracks in the walls.
Smoke drifted from pipes hanging low across the alleyways.
The city was alive but not in a good way.
People moved fast.
Heads down.
Hands full of gear or crates or old food.
Blackthorn District.
The name came to him like a whisper.
He remembered now.
This body's memories were clearer today. Blackthorn was one of the Outer Rings.
Close enough to see the city's center, far enough to never reach it.
This district didn't have clean air. It didn't have real walls.
The guards here were half-trained and underpaid.
If monsters broke through, Blackthorn would be the first to fall and the last to be helped.
And nobody cared.
Arin walked past a market stall.
A woman shouted at a boy for touching a fruit without paying.
She slapped his hand.
He didn't say anything.
Just walked away.
A group of young men stood near a fence, wearing matching vests and gold-trimmed sleeves.
Their voices were loud, cocky.
He heard one of them bragging about his Lightning Edge Talent.
Said he was going to get recruited by a mid-tier guild by the end of the month.
They glanced at Arin but didn't say anything.
He didn't wear the right clothes.
Didn't have the badge.
Didn't shine.
He kept walking.
The road sloped down, leading to a line of long, flat buildings.
Old shelters from the first wave of attacks, thirty years ago.
Now used as dorms for students too poor to live inside the main tower.
That included Arin.
He walked to the third door on the left.
His name was carved into the wood.
Not neatly.
Just scratched in.
ARIN.
He opened the door.
Inside, it was cold and dim.
One bed.
One metal box.
One cracked mirror.
No sink, no stove, no heat.
A plastic basin in the corner with half a bar of soap.
Arin closed the door behind him and sat on the bed.
It creaked.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, fingers locked together.
The memories were sharper now.
This body had grown up alone.
The mother had died early sickness, maybe.
No clear details.
The father was a fighter.
Not a soldier, not a general.
Just a man who fought.
They called him Korran.
Korran the Last Wall.
That name was everywhere, once.
News feeds.
Posters.
Holograms.
Then it vanished.
No one talked about him anymore.
No statues.
No mentions in the official Talent records.
He had been erased.
But some kids still whispered.
"He went crazy. Couldn't control his power."
"He didn't use real Spirit energy. Just brute force."
"They said he punched a Tier 4 beast to death. Then passed out for a week."
"A joke. A broken Talent pretending to be a warrior."
Arin closed his eyes.
He didn't know the full truth yet.
But he remembered the way his father looked in the body's memories.
Tall. Thick arms. Calm voice.
No ornaments. No glow. Just presence.
And fists.
Always fists.
The world had changed.
Talents now were refined. Measured. Ranked.
A child who awakened an elemental type was treated like royalty.
Those who awakened Physical Mutation types?
Well. They were Arin.
He stood again.
His limbs still felt loose.
Like wires that hadn't been tightened.
He took off the uniform and looked at himself in the mirror.
Thin shoulders. Long fingers. Faded bruises on the ribs.
A scar along the hipbone. Faint. Old.
He touched it.
Another memory surfaced.
Running.
Screaming.
Hiding in a drainpipe while a beast passed overhead, claws scraping the stone.
He was ten.
His father didn't make it back that day.
No one came looking.
Arin let his hand fall.
This wasn't his life.
But it was now.
He opened the metal box beside the bed.
Inside one worn tunic, two energy bars, a cracked ID badge, and a thick bracelet made of metal wires.
He lifted the bracelet.
The name was etched on the inside.
Korran.
He stared at it.
Put it on.
It fit.
Then someone knocked on the door.
Three slow hits.
Not loud.
Arin opened it.
An old man stood there, hunched slightly, with a rag in one hand and a patch over one eye.
His jacket was gray.
Janitor's uniform.
"You the new Cradle?" the man said.
Arin blinked. "What?"
"Cradle Spark. That's you, right?"
"…Yeah."
The man nodded. "Name's Rusk. I clean the north hall."
Arin said nothing.
Rusk looked him over. "You got any plans?"
"Not yet."
"You will. They'll send you to Combat Basics in the morning."
"I thought F-ranks didn't go."
"They don't," Rusk said. "But you're an exception. They need someone for suppression practice."
Arin exhaled. "Meaning I'm the dummy."
Rusk shrugged. "Everyone starts somewhere."
"Did you come here to encourage me?"
"No," Rusk said. "I came to say this don't flinch. Even when they laugh. Even when they hit. You flinch, they own you."
Arin stared at him.
"Also," Rusk added, "eat something. You look like a kicked twig."
He turned to leave.
Then paused.
"Your father ever teach you anything?"
Arin hesitated. "Not really."
Rusk nodded. "Then you'll learn from the pain."
He walked off.
Arin closed the door again.
This world was cruel.
No one handed you power.
No one handed you respect.
And the only people who remembered your name were the ones waiting to mock it.
Cradle Spark.
Useless.
But Arin had felt it.
That pulse.
That shift under his ribs when the screen flashed.
He didn't know what it meant.
But he knew what it wasn't.
It wasn't weak.
And it wasn't done growing.