The steel doors of the Central Awakening Hall hissed open, and Leon Vale stepped into a cathedral of crushed dreams.
Holographic displays floated above a sea of seventeen-year-olds, each one cycling through faces that had received their verdicts earlier that morning. S-Rank. A-Rank. The golden children who would become humanity's sword and shield against the monsters that crawled from Eclipse Zones. Leon's throat tightened as he watched their triumphant faces dissolve into the next batch of results.
"Batch 847, proceed to Chamber Three," a synthesized voice announced.
Leon's hands trembled as he joined the line. Around him, the chatter was electric with anticipation and terror in equal measure. Everyone knew the statistics. Seventy percent received E or F-Ranks—barely enough power to work manual labor in the outer districts. Twenty-five percent landed somewhere in the middle, destined for military grunt work or corporate security. The remaining five percent? They were the ones who changed the world.
Or ruled it.
"Hey, isn't that Leon Vale?" A voice cut through his thoughts. "Heard his dad used to be a C-Rank before his core got shattered. Wonder if the son inherited anything useful."
Leon didn't turn around. He'd learned years ago that acknowledging mockery only fed it.
The Awakening Chamber loomed ahead—a perfect circle of obsidian and chrome, inscribed with geometric patterns that pulsed with a faint blue luminescence. At its center stood the Assessment Pillar, a crystalline spire that reached toward the domed ceiling like an accusing finger.
One by one, his batch-mates approached. The pillar flared different colors—green for plant-types, red for flame, electric blue for lightning. Ranks appeared on the massive display overhead in merciless clarity.
D-Rank. E-Rank. C-Rank—that one drew envious whispers.
Then it was his turn.
Leon's legs felt like lead as he crossed the threshold. The chamber's walls shimmered, and suddenly he was alone in a pocket of manufactured reality. His breath echoed in his ears.
"Place your hand on the pillar," the AI instructed.
The crystal was cold beneath his palm. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then warmth spread up his arm, becoming heat, becoming fire that raced through his veins and converged at his chest. His Genetic Core—that fundamental spark that made humans more than human—ignited for the first time.
The pillar's light dimmed.
Then it flickered.
Then it died completely.
No.
The alarm shattered the silence—a harsh, mechanical wail that Leon had heard in his nightmares. The chamber's walls flickered back to transparency, and suddenly five thousand faces were staring at him. The massive display overhead blazed with his results in letters that seemed to burn themselves into his retinas:
LEON VALE
RANK: F
CORE TYPE: SHADOW (EMPTY)
ENERGY CAPACITY: 12/1000
COMBAT POTENTIAL: NEGLIGIBLE
The whispers started immediately, rolling through the hall like a wave.
"F-Rank?"
"Empty Core? That's not even a real ability."
"Might as well be Unawakened."
Leon stood frozen, his hand still pressed against the pillar. Empty Shadow Core. The cosmic joke of the century. Shadow abilities were already rare, considered niche at best. But an empty one? That meant his core existed only in the most technical sense—a hollow vessel that couldn't even gather enough ambient energy to fill a thimble.
Twelve points out of a thousand. A rounding error. A statistical impossibility that managed to be even more useless than not awakening at all.
"Well, well." The voice dripped with smug satisfaction. "Looks like Vale's legacy ends here."
Damian Horne strode through the crowd like it was a red carpet. His auburn hair caught the light, and his B-Rank badge gleamed on his collar—a small sun that declared his Flame Core to anyone with eyes. His entourage trailed behind him, equally polished, equally predatory.
"An F-Rank with an Empty Core," Damian continued, loud enough for the entire sector to hear. "I almost feel bad for you, Vale. Almost. At least when you're scrubbing floors at the energy plant, you can tell people your dad was somebody once."
Laughter rippled through the crowd. Not cruel laughter—that would have been easier to bear. This was the casual, thoughtless kind that came from people who simply didn't see him as worth considering.
Leon met Damian's eyes. He wanted to say something cutting, something that would wipe that smirk off his face. But the words died in his throat because Damian was right. An F-Rank with an Empty Core wasn't someone who would change the world.
They were someone the world forgot.
"Move along, candidate," the AI prompted. "You are blocking the queue."
Leon walked. Each step felt like wading through deep water. The crowd parted around him—not out of respect, but because proximity to failure was contagious. He caught sight of his reflection in one of the chrome pillars. Same dark hair. Same unremarkable face. Same lean build that came from too many skipped meals rather than training.
Completely, utterly ordinary.
The news tickers floating near the exits barely registered as he passed. Something about the Crimson Moon reaching its zenith in three days. Monster activity spiking near Eclipse Zones. Another vampire sighting on the eastern continent. The usual background radiation of a world that had moved on without him.
Outside, Neo-Veridia sprawled beneath an overcast sky. The upper districts' gleaming spires seemed to mock him, their heights reserved for those with the power to reach them. Leon's district—Lower Seven—was visible in the distance, a gray sprawl pressed against the massive defensive wall that kept the monsters out.
The maglev ride home was a blur. His datapad buzzed with messages he didn't read. By the time he reached his building, the sun had begun its descent, painting the concrete in shades of rust and shadow.
The apartment door opened before he could reach for the handle.
"Leon!"
His twin sisters hit him like a synchronized missile strike. Lily grabbed his left arm, Maya his right, both talking at once in a rapid-fire stream of questions he couldn't hope to answer.
"Did you get a good rank?"
"Are you going to be a hero?"
"Mom made your favorite dinner!"
"We watched the livestream but the connection cut out—"
"Girls, give your brother some space." His mother appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. The lines around her eyes deepened as she studied his face. She knew. Mothers always knew.
His father sat at the kitchen table, his mechanical hand clicking softly as he flexed the fingers—a constant reminder of the dungeon break that had shattered more than just his Genetic Core. He looked up, and Leon saw the hope in his eyes desperately fighting against the resignation creeping in around the edges.
Leon opened his mouth. Closed it. How did you tell them that all their sacrifices had been for nothing?
"F-Rank," he finally said. "Empty Shadow Core."
The silence was worse than any mockery at the hall.
Then his father stood. He crossed the small kitchen in three strides and pulled Leon into a crushing hug.
"You awakened," he said, his voice rough. "That's what matters."
His mother joined them, and then the twins, until Leon was surrounded by warmth and the smell of cheap detergent and home-cooked food. He felt something crack inside his chest—not his core, but something deeper and more fundamental.
"We're proud of you," his mother whispered.
Later, after dinner, Leon found Lily and Maya at his door. They shuffled their feet, glancing at each other with the conspiratorial look that meant trouble.
"We have something for you," Maya said.
Lily held out their piggy bank—a ceramic cat that had watched over their shared room for as long as Leon could remember. She cracked it open. Credits spilled across his bed in a pitiful cascade.
"It's 847 credits," Lily said solemnly. "We counted."
"That's enough for a low-grade energy crystal at the market," Maya added. "The lady at the stall said they help people with small cores gather energy faster."
Leon stared at the credits—at least a year's worth of birthday money, saved coins from running errands, every small treasure they'd accumulated. 847 credits wouldn't buy him power. It wouldn't change his rank. It would barely buy a crystal the size of his thumbnail.
But they had given him everything they had.
"Thank you," he managed.
That night, Leon lay awake, staring at the ceiling of the room he'd slept in for seventeen years. Through the thin walls, he could hear the city's heartbeat—the hum of maglev trains, the distant wail of monster alert sirens, the sharp bark of patrol drones.
Somewhere out there, people like Damian Horne were already planning their ascent to greatness. They had the power, the resources, the future laid out before them like a golden road.
And Leon? Leon had 847 credits, an Empty Core, and a responsibility he couldn't possibly fulfill.
He thought about his sisters' faces when they'd given him their life savings. About his mother's tired smile. About his father's mechanical hand and the stories he used to tell about fighting in Eclipse Zones before the accident.
Something hardened in Leon's chest—not his core, but something more primal. More necessary.
I'll find a way.
Outside his window, the moon began to take on the faintest tinge of red.
Three days until the Crimson Moon. Three days until everything changed.
He just didn't know it yet.