I awoke with a violent gasp.
"Haa… haa… haa…"
Air tore into my lungs like fire, scorching every nerve ending. My chest heaved violently; muscles twitched, spasmed, as though invisible hands pulled at every fiber of me. My heart thrashed wildly, unsure if it was even supposed to beat in this strange, suffocating reality.
My fingers clawed at the cold, soft soil beneath me. I curled forward, trembling uncontrollably. Every nerve in my body screamed that something was wrong. For a long, torturous minute, I wasn't even sure I existed.
Then I whispered it, my voice fragile, foreign:
"I… I'm alive."
The words felt heavy, alien, wrong.
"I'm… actually alive."
And then, like an avalanche, the memories came crashing down.
I glanced to my side. There it was—a corpse, massive and lethal, unmistakable. A saber-toothed panther, fur matted, teeth still gleaming like ivory daggers, lay lifeless beside me. Its chest no longer rose and fell. The sight confirmed the horrible truth: the original owner of this body—the Derick McCall I now inhabited—was long gone. Hundreds of years, perhaps. And yet, somehow, inexplicably, I had been reborn in his flesh, inheriting not just his body, but shards of his memories.
Derick had been fragile from birth. Not weak in spirit, no—but his body had betrayed him from the start. While other children of his age grew strong, vigorous, and resilient, he remained slight, frail, painfully lacking in stamina. In a world reshaped after the cataclysm known as Ascension, where latent powers had awakened in humanity, every survivor now possessed strength unimaginable to ordinary humans of the past.
Adults could bend steel pipes bare-handed. Children, by sixteen, could rival the strongest warriors of old. But Derick? At fifteen, on the cusp of full maturity, he could not even dent a steel rod. He was mocked, pitied, called trash by peers and strangers alike.
His mother—loving, determined, resolute—was his only shield. She had nurtured him, whispered dreams of greatness even when the world laughed. She had been the fifty-ninth mistress of Donald McCall, the Ascendant Transformer patriarch. In that house, a woman's status was tied to the success of her children. Donald had promised that any concubine whose offspring awakened the same path or class as him would be elevated to wife. Most thought it impossible, but two had achieved it. His mother had pinned all hope on Derick.
And he had failed.
---
Desperation drove him. A relentless need to prove himself, to show the world—and his mother—that he was not trash.
He had stepped onto the Pathway to Ascension, entering a trial brutal beyond imagining. Teleported into the Ascension Realm, he faced fire, void, and thunder, designed to refine or shatter. Flames roared inside him, burning flesh while reshaping it. The void clawed at his consciousness, trying to tear him apart. Time and again, he fell, collapsing to the cold, unyielding ground, until finally, the world permitted him to awaken.
He woke on a polished platform inside a grand, silent castle. Hovering before him, a glowing screen radiated the cold authority of the Ascension system:
> [Ascension Complete]
[Full Status]
Race: Human
Name: Derick McCall
Status: Ordinary
Class: Summoner
Summon: Book of Memories
Book of Memories Abilities: Allows user to view the memories of their past life.
Elements: None
Requirements for Evolution: Kill and consume.
Ascension Permit: Granted
---
Returning home, trembling with fragile hope, he met fury.
"How dare you!" his mother screamed, eyes ablaze, scorching him more fiercely than any trial. "A piece of trash comes to my house to announce this… pitiful class? A book to see memories? Trash! Worthless! Get out!"
Derick wept. He had been broken—not by fire, void, or steel—but by the only person who had ever truly believed in him. He left the house, the only pillar of his life crumbling beneath the weight of failure.
---
Driven by despair, he made a fatal decision.
He returned to the Ascension Realm, determined to prove himself. To show his mother, his peers, and the merciless world that he was not trash.
He hunted the green-fanged snakes of the grassy plains—a low-rank beast, no match for even a weak Ascendant. But fate twisted cruelly.
Amidst swaying grass, he saw it: a saber-toothed panther locked in brutal combat with a green-fanged snake of aberrant rank. Shock coursed through him; no one had seen a snake of such strength. The panther moved with lethal grace, claws flashing, fangs dripping green venom.
Then it noticed him.
Derick barely reacted. The panther lunged. In desperation, he summoned his Book of Memories, hoping it would shield him. The claw shredded the book, tearing pages and bindings, still it came. He ducked—the tip grazed his hair, ripping strands from his scalp.
Momentum threw him across the field. Grass cut his skin. The panther pounced, claws slicing through the air, tearing his stomach open.
Pain—warm, red, endless—flooded him. He gasped, blood filling his mouth, vision fading. He died there, beneath the lethal gaze of a creature he had underestimated.
---
And that is where I came in.
I opened my eyes as Derick McCall. Memories surged within me: failures, heartbreak, rage, hope. They filtered through my consciousness, reshaping his story. I felt shame lingering, frustration burning, and a raw desire to survive—not just for myself, but to defy the label the world had placed on him.
I sat for what felt like hours, distinguishing between his memories and my own thoughts. Hunger, exhaustion, pain—they were real. My body ached in ways I had never known. Every muscle screamed with echoes of Derick's last moments. Every nerve blazed with the sting of failure.
I touched my torn, scarred stomach. My fingers recoiled at the ragged skin. I survived. Somehow, against fate, against death, I had survived.
The plains stretched endlessly, indifferent to my suffering. Grass swayed in the wind. The air smelled of blood and decay. And yet, in death's shadow, there was life.
---
I remembered the screen:
> [Ascension Complete]
[Class: Summoner]
[Book of Memories]
It seemed pathetic—a class so weak it had brought Derick only shame. Yet, for the first time, I glimpsed its potential. Memories were more than recollections—they were lessons, maps, strategies, guides, woven into a living tapestry of past and future.
I could see the path ahead.
Trash isn't defined by others. Trash is what you allow yourself to be.
I would not be trash. Not Derick McCall. Not Favour Etim. Not anyone.
I summoned my status screen again. What I saw shocked me:
> [Race: Human]
[Status: Ordinary]
[Class: Copy]
[Elements: None]
[Class Description:] Able to copy the classes of others. Can store up to three classes.
[Class Flaw:] Can copy only one Summoner, one Transformer, and one Armourer. If another from these is copied, the previous is overwritten.
[Requirements for Evolution:] Kill and Consume
[Ascension Permit:] Granted
{GENESIS RESTRAINED}
[Ordinary Realm]
---
I tested the body. My muscles were no longer weak—not just Derick's, but filtered through my will. Every movement reminded me of the past but whispered of the future.
The sun dipped low, casting elongated shadows across the plains. Snakes, wolves, and birds moved in the distance, but I sensed something greater, more dangerous.
A faint rumble shook the ground. A green-fanged snake—another aberrant—stirred, eyes glowing faintly. I clenched my fists, feeling the hum of power within Derick's body. Another beast approached, drawn to the body of the slain saber-toothed panther.
I would not die disgracefully again.
I would not be weak.
I would not be trash.
In that moment, the plains felt infinite. The horizon stretched, promising danger and opportunity. The cruel, indifferent world awaited my next move.