The sun of 3088 did not rise; it bled.
It crawled over the jagged horizon of the Gansu highlands like a bruised eye opening upon a graveyard. In the ancient scrolls—the ones the High-Bloods kept locked in the silver vaults of the Arcologies—the year 2025 was whispered as the "Year of the Great Sundering." First came the Solar Scourge, a fire from the heavens that peeled the atmosphere away like burnt skin. Then came the Great Deluge, a wall of water that drowned the sins of nine billion people.
Now, a millennium later, humanity was a rounding error. Less than one percent remained, clinging to a world that had forgotten the taste of rain that didn't sting and wind that didn't bite.
Han Jia-Hao stood on the precipice of the Loess Plateau, his boots—held together by strips of cured lizard hide—skidding on the yellow dust. He was fifteen today. In the "Old World," fifteen meant the start of youth. In the ruins of the Middle Kingdom, fifteen meant you were old enough to carry a plow, old enough to marry, and certainly old enough to die.
"Jia-Hao! Aiyo, you heartless boy! Get down from there before the wind takes you!"
The voice was raspy, thick with the "Silt-Cough" that eventually turned everyone's lungs into bags of grey ash. Jia-Hao turned to see his grandfather, Old Man Han, limping up the trail. The old man's face was a map of tragedy, his skin the color of parched earth, mapped with the scars of a hundred ultraviolet burns.
"Grandfather, look," Jia-Hao said, his voice quiet but steady. He pointed toward the horizon.
Rising from the dust like a needle of cold arrogance was the Dragon's Tooth Arcology. It was a Zone C fortress—a three-kilometer spire of white carbon-fiber and self-healing glass. Inside, the "High-Bloods" lived in a perpetual spring, eating real rice and drinking water that didn't taste of copper. Outside, in the shadow of that needle, Jia-Hao's village, Xi-An Base 4, huddled like a collection of mud-wasp nests.
"Don't look at it," the old man spat, though he had to lean on his cane to catch his breath. "That spire is built on the bones of our ancestors. They chose the machine. We chose the soil. And now, they watch us from the clouds as if we are ants."
Jia-Hao felt a familiar, bitter heat in his chest. "Why, Grandfather? We share the same blood. We speak the same tongue. Why do they have the 'Great Harmony' inside, while we have only the dust?"
The old man sighed, his eyes clouded with cataracts. "Because, boy, the Mandate of Heaven was lost in the fire of 2025. When the 9 Billion fell, the world broke. Now, there is no order. Only the Spire, the Soil, and the Scavenger."
As the sun reached its zenith, a strange sensation washed over Jia-Hao. It wasn't the heat. It was a vibration, a low-frequency hum that seemed to rise from the very tectonic plates beneath his feet. His heart began to hammer—thump-thump, thump-thump—syncing with the vibration of the earth.
"Ah… my head…" Jia-Hao gasped, clutching his temples.
"Jia-Hao? What is it? The Sun-Sickness?"
Suddenly, the world fractured.
In the center of Jia-Hao's vision, a single point of golden light ignited. It didn't feel like a hallucination; it felt like a memory being forced back into his brain. The light unfurled like a silk scroll, shimmering with characters that pulsed with a regal, terrifying authority.
[...BOOTING...][HEAVENLY MANDATE PROTOCOL: INITIALIZING][HOST DETECTED: HAN JIA-HAO][PURITY OF LINEAGE: 99.8%]
"What is this?" Jia-Hao whispered, his voice trembling. He saw the characters, but they weren't just words—they were intent. He felt the weight of history, the sorrow of a thousand years of chaos, and a sudden, sharp hunger for order.
[The World is shattered. The Great Reset has failed to cleanse the spirit.][The 3088 Mandate is issued to the Son of the Soil.][Current Status: Mortal (Level 1)]
"Grandfather, do you see it?" Jia-Hao asked, his eyes wide.
Old Man Han reached out, his hand passing right through the golden scroll in the air. "See what? There is only dust and the Spire, boy. You are hallucinating. Come, we must go back. The Iron-Wolf tribe was spotted near the northern ridge. If they see us on the heights…"
[ALERT: THREAT DETECTED][IRON-WOLF SCOUTS: 3 UNITS][DISTANCE: 400 METERS]
Jia-Hao's head snapped toward the north. He didn't see them yet, but he felt them. The System didn't just show him words; it enhanced his senses. The smell of low-grade gasoline, the rhythmic thud of motorized "Scav-Bikes," the metallic tang of rusted weapons—it all rushed into his mind with surgical clarity.
"They're already here," Jia-Hao said.
From behind the ridge, three motorized bikes roared into view. They were horrific machines, welded together from the scrap of the 21st century, coughing black smoke that fouled the thin air. The riders were "Zone A" Nomads—men who had traded their humanity for survival, clad in cured human skin and armor made of tires.
"Run!" Old Man Han screamed, grabbing Jia-Hao's arm. "To the dry well! Hide!"
But Jia-Hao didn't move. His feet felt rooted to the plateau. The golden light in his eyes flickered, and a new window appeared—smaller, simpler.
[PILLAR FOUNDATION: SURVIVAL][Current Rank: Level 1 (Frail)][Passive Ability: 'Wind-Reader' — Analyzing Terrain...]
The world transformed. To Jia-Hao's eyes, the crumbling highway overpass they stood near wasn't just rubble. He saw "Structural Weak Points" highlighted in a faint, pulsing red. He saw the "Optimal Path" for a retreat, and more importantly, he saw the "Momentum Vectors" of the three bikes.
"Grandfather, go. Hide in the ravine," Jia-Hao said. His voice had changed. The cracking, uncertain tone of a fifteen-year-old was gone, replaced by a resonant, icy calm.
"Are you mad? They will kill you!"
"They will try," Jia-Hao replied.
He reached down and picked up a piece of discarded rebar, nearly five feet long and caked in a century of oxidation. To anyone else, it was junk. To Jia-Hao, a small tag appeared over the metal.
[ITEM: OXIDIZED IRON ROD][COMPATIBILITY: MARTIAL PILLAR (LEVEL 1)]
The lead Nomad, a giant of a man with a jagged machete welded to his prosthetic arm, saw the lone boy standing on the bridge. He let out a wolf-like howl, revving his engine until it screamed.
"Look at this little rabbit!" the Nomad roared, his voice muffled by a gas mask. "He thinks he's a wall! I'll grind your bones to flavor my soup!"
The bike accelerated, a ton of steel and hate barrelling toward Jia-Hao at sixty miles per hour.
[MARTIAL REFINEMENT: SENSORY SYNC STARTING...]
Time didn't stop, but it became thick.
Jia-Hao watched the rotation of the bike's front tire. He saw the way the rider leaned to the left to compensate for the wind. He saw the exact moment the rider tightened his grip on the machete.
Left step. Pivot. Strike.
It was as if an invisible hand was guiding his muscles. As the bike roared past, Jia-Hao didn't jump away; he danced. He spun on his heel, the rusted rebar whistling through the air. He didn't hit the rider. He jammed the rod directly into the spinning spokes of the front wheel.
The physics were unforgiving.
The metal groaned, the wheel locked, and the entire bike flipped forward with violent force. The Nomad was launched like a stone from a catapult, screaming as he disappeared over the side of the bridge and into the hundred-foot drop of the ravine.
[MARTIAL PILLAR: EXPERIENCE GAINED][10/100 TO LEVEL UP]
The other two Nomads skidded to a halt, their boots kicking up plumes of yellow dust. They stared at the empty space where their leader had been, then at the thin boy holding a piece of rebar.
"You… you little brat!" the second Nomad hissed, pulling a chain weighted with jagged bolts. "I'll peel the skin off your face while you're still awake!"
Jia-Hao felt a surge of coldness. He looked at the two men. In the past, he would have begged for mercy. He would have offered them his food, his sister, his life—just to make the pain stop. But the Mandate was buzzing in his ears. It wasn't just a system; it was a philosophy.
A Sovereign does not beg. A Sovereign decides.
[NEW PILLAR DETECTED: ACADEMIC (LOGIC REFINEMENT)][Analyzing Enemy Psychology: Fear detected. Overcompensation detected.]
"You have ten seconds to leave this plateau," Jia-Hao said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried across the wind, hitting the Nomads like a physical blow. "If you stay, you become part of the dust."
"Kill him!" the one with the chain roared, charging on foot.
Jia-Hao didn't wait. He moved forward, his bare feet silent on the asphalt. The chain swung in a wide, lethal arc. Jia-Hao didn't retreat; he entered the "Dead Zone" of the weapon—the space between the wielder and the swinging weight.
He struck.
The rebar rod jabbed into the Nomad's throat with the precision of a needle.
Gurgle.
The man fell, clutching his neck, his eyes bulging.
[MARTIAL PILLAR: 40/100 EXPERIENCE][ACADEMIC PILLAR: 20/100 EXPERIENCE]
The third Nomad, seeing his two companions neutralized in seconds, didn't even try to fight. He scrambled back onto his bike, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped the handlebars. He kicked the engine over and roared away, disappearing back over the ridge in a cloud of cowardice.
Jia-Hao stood alone on the bridge. The wind began to pick up, tugging at his hair. He looked at the fallen Nomad, who was still gasping for air on the ground. He felt a flicker of something—pity? No. It was Music (Emotional Refinement).
[PILLAR UNLOCKED: MUSIC (EMOTIONAL REFINEMENT)][Level 1: The First Resonance][Understanding the 'Note of Chaos'.]
He realized then that the world was out of tune. The Nomads were a discordant scream. The High-Bloods were a silent, cold vacuum. And his people? They were a low, mournful hum of suffering.
"Jia-Hao?"
Old Man Han emerged from behind a rusted car carcass, his eyes wide with a terror that was slowly turning into awe. He looked at the fallen raider, then at his grandson. "What… what are you? You didn't move like a boy. You moved like a… like a spirit."
Jia-Hao looked at his hands. They were shaking now, the adrenaline fading, but the golden screen remained. It was no longer a flicker. It was a permanent part of his reality.
[QUEST COMPLETE: DEFEND THE PLATEAU][REWARD: LEVEL UP!][CURRENT STATUS: LEVEL 2 (ASPIRANT)][All Pillars: +1 Refinement][New Feature Unlocked: THE MERITOCRATIC MAP]
A translucent map of Greater China shimmered in the air. Most of it was grey—"Terra Incognita." But a small dot in the center, representing Xi-An, glowed with a faint, hopeful white.
"Grandfather," Jia-Hao said, turning to the old man. "The High-Bloods think the Mandate is a piece of technology. The Nomads think it is strength. They are both wrong."
He looked at the Dragon's Tooth Spire.
"The Mandate is the people. And I am going to bring them home."
Old Man Han fell to his knees. It wasn't the Sun-Stroke. It was the weight of a thousand years of prophecy finally coming true. "The Lad of the Soil… the Unifier… the legends were true."
Jia-Hao didn't feel like a legend. He felt like a boy who had just taken his first step on a mountain that had no peak.
"Don't kneel, Grandfather," Jia-Hao said, reaching out to pull the old man up. "In the New Mandate, we don't kneel to men. We only strive for the Harmony."
As they walked back toward the village, the System chimed one last time for the day.
[Next Objective: Unify Xi-An Base 4. Establish the 'Agrarian Core'.][Warning: The High-Bloods are now aware of a 'System Variance' in Zone B.]
Jia-Hao smiled. It was a thin, dangerous smile.
"Let them watch," he whispered. "I have infinite levels to climb. And I am starting from the very bottom."
The era of survival was over. The era of Conquest had begun. One level, one pillar, one life at a time.