"Where the hell am I?"
The words scraped against his throat, dry and unused.
Atlas blinked, the gritty darkness of the room slowly sharpening into focus. He was sitting on a cot covered in rough, grey wool that chafed his skin. The air was thick, smelling of mildew, sulfur, and the metallic tang of old blood.
He touched the wall beside him. Cold, damp stone. Solid. Unyielding.
It wasn't a dream. The damp chill seeping into his bones was too real. The oppressive weight of the atmosphere was too heavy.
He knew this place. He had spent thousands of hours staring at it through a monitor.
It was a novice cell in the Third Sanctuary—the grim fortress-city governed by The Third Human Academy. It was the meat grinder where the Kingdom sent its unwanted children to die or, if they were lucky, become expendable battle mages.
'Am I really in Elysium?'
The thought hit Atlas like a physical blow, a cold knot tightening in his gut.
In his past life, he hadn't just played the game; he had broken it. He had spent ten years mapping the dark corners of the world, grinding his account past the legendary 9th Circle—the realm of Grand Monarchs—and ascending into a cosmic tier that defied the game's logic. He had earned a title that was just a string of raw, glitched code: #$@&%*.
But the moment the servers had shut down, a catastrophic surge had fried his rig. Darkness had swallowed him whole.
And now, he was here.
Atlas forced his breathing to slow, a tactic learned from years of high-stakes raids. Panic was a luxury, and he had never been able to afford luxuries. He was an orphan; he knew how to survive.
'Wait.'
He looked down at his hands.
They weren't his.
They were pale, thin, and scarred—someone else's hands.
He stumbled toward a polished bronze shield hanging on the wall, using it as a mirror. The face staring back was younger, sharper, with hollowed-out cheeks and eyes that held the desperate, haunted look of a survivor. The skin was waxy and unnaturally cold.
He pressed a finger against the reflection. This wasn't possession in the traditional sense; he wasn't sharing space. The previous owner of this vessel had burned out, their soul extinguished, leaving an empty shell for him to inhabit.
Suddenly, a mechanical vibration hummed at the base of his skull—not a sound, but a resonance in the bone.
[ System Activation: Legacy Account Detected... ]
[ Synchronization: 100% ]
The air in the cell seemed to bend. A heavy, industrial thrum filled the silence as a translucent blue pane slammed into existence before his eyes, hovering in the gloom.
Name: Atlas
Race: Human
Title: #$@&%* (Error: Rank Exceeds Reality)
Identity: Novice (Third Human Academy)
Mana Level: Circle 1 (Tier 3)
Physique: Mortal Body (Critical Weakness)
Artifacts: [LOCKED]
Spells: [LOCKED]
Atlas scanned the glowing lines. It was a surreal mix of nostalgia and horror. It was his UI, the very interface he had stared at for a decade, but now it was overlaying a grim reality.
"System," he whispered, testing the word. "It's really you."
His eyes were drawn to the gibberish in the Title bar. He knew exactly what it represented—a power level that the physics of this mortal plane couldn't comprehend.
He tried to focus on it, to recall the sensation of that ultimate power.
CRACK.
A migraine exploded through his skull like a white-hot spike. His vision blurred, his stomach seizing violently. It felt as if his brain was being crushed by the weight of a dying star.
[ Warning: Reality cannot sustain the concept of the Host's true Title. ]
[ Warning: Cease thinking immediately to prevent brain death. ]
"Understood," Atlas gasped, leaning heavily against the cold stone wall as the nausea receded. "The hardware can't run the software. I'm too weak."
[ You adapt quickly, Host. ]
The System's voice wasn't robotic. It was calm, detached, and grim—like a veteran commander briefing a soldier on a suicide mission.
[ In this reality, derived from the source code of Elysium, you are the only Player. ]
Atlas steadied himself. [The only Player].
"Then... what about my Vault?" he asked, his voice cracking. "My inventory. The World-Breaker gear. The stockpiles. Is it here?"
[ Affirmative. The Vault is intact. ]
A savage grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. If he had his gear, the monster hordes outside these walls were already dead meat. He was a fully armed god walking among insects.
"Open it."
[ Access Denied. ]
[ Safety Protocol Active: This is not a simulation. High-tier artifacts will vaporize a host of this physiological level. ]
[ Protocol: Inventory unlocks incrementally. Reach the next level to access Tier 1 gear. ]
The grin died instantly.
"You're kidding me." He slid down the wall, sitting in the dust. "It's level-gated. I'm sitting on a mountain of gold, and I can't even spend a single copper."
He knew the map. He knew where the hidden Aether Nodes were buried, and which ruins held legendary loot. But right now, none of that mattered. He was a Circle 1 weakling in a world where distances were measured in territories, not miles.
The Twelve Sanctuaries were just tiny specks of light in a universe of crushing darkness. Even an 8th Circle would take months to march across the continent.
He needed power. Now.
"System," Atlas said, his voice hardening. "Is there a Welcome Gift?"
[ It has been waiting for you. ]
The air in the center of the cell distorted. Space seemed to tear open, and heavy, iron-bound metal materialized from the void. The chest slammed onto the stone floor with a boom that shook dust from the ceiling beams.
"Open."
The lid groaned on ancient hinges, falling open to reveal a blinding, crimson light.
[ Item: Heart of the Dragon (Tier 9) ]
[ Type: Consumable / Evolution Catalyst ]
"Tier 9..." Atlas breathed.
In this world, items were graded Tier 1 to 9. A Tier 9 artifact wasn't just rare; it was a nuclear deterrent, a world-ending weapon.
He reached into the chest. His fingers brushed against something hot. The heart sat there—a fist-sized lump of obsidian and cooling magma, pulsating like a living organ trapped in stone. It didn't look like an alchemical pill; it looked like a chunk of a volcano that had learned to beat.
Just standing near it, the ambient mana made the hair on his arms stand up. He was on the verge of passing out from the sheer density of the energy radiating from it.
Normally, installing something like this would require a team of High Mages and a suppression ward strong enough to hold back a tidal wave.
[ Warning: Survival rate for current physique is 0.01%. ]
"Do I have a choice?" Atlas muttered, staring at the beating heart. "The exams are in three days. If I fail, I'm dead meat anyway."
He reached out. The heat blistered his fingertips instantly, the smell of singed flesh filling the small room.
[ Do you wish to integrate the Dragon Heart? ]
"Yes."
The heart vanished from the box and reappeared inside his chest, phasing directly through skin and bone to fuse with his own ribcage.
Atlas gasped. A cool, refreshing sensation flooded his veins... for exactly one second.
Then, the fire hit.
It didn't feel like "cleansing." It felt like he had swallowed a live grenade.
A scream tore from his throat, choking off as his lungs seized. He collapsed to the floor, clawing uselessly at the stone. His skin began to crack like dry clay under a kiln's heat, glowing with internal magma as the dragon's blood incinerated his mortal weakness.
'Endure,' he thought, his vision turning a solid, bloody red. 'Burn it all away!!.'