The neon signs of Jiang City bled into the smog-filled sky, casting a sickly violet hue over the thousands of students gathered in the Grand Plaza. Today was the Awakening—the day the Great System assigned everyone their destiny.
In this world, your Class was your soul. An S-Rank meant you lived in the Floating Gardens, eating mana-rich delicacies. An F-Rank? It meant you were fuel for the city's furnace.
"Han Feng, get up there. Don't waste the High Official's time," a teacher hissed from the sidelines. Mr. Zhao, who had always ignored Han Feng for being a 'poor scholarship student,' now looked at him as if he were a stain on the school's perfect record.
Han Feng walked onto the obsidian stage. The coldness of the stone seeped through his worn-out sneakers. High above, in the VIP glass booths, the city's council watched like gods. Beside them sat Lu Chen, the class president who had awakened the [Flame Sovereign] class just minutes ago. Lu Chen wasn't even looking at the stage; he was busy letting a beautiful girl from the healer class admire his glowing red aura.
Han Feng placed his hand on the Awakening Stone.
Cold. That was the first thing he felt. Not the heat of fire or the spark of lightning. Just a dead, hollow coldness.
The stone flickered. A dim, grey mist gathered at its base, sluggish and weak.
[Class: Scavenger] [Rank: F (Bottom Tier)] [Attributes: Strength 5, Agility 6, Mana 1]
The silence was short-lived. It started as a snicker from the front row and swelled into a roar of mockery that shook the plaza.
"A Scavenger? That's not a hero, that's a janitor!" "The system actually gave him a class for picking up trash. How fitting for a rat from the slums."
Mr. Zhao's face turned sour. "Next! Han Feng, leave the stage immediately. You are clogging the queue for real talent."
Han Feng didn't argue. He didn't cry. His father had died in the dungeons, and his mother's lungs were rotting from working in the mana-shards factory. He didn't have the luxury of a mental breakdown.
As he descended the stairs, Lu Chen's voice drifted down from the VIP balcony, amplified by a wind spell so the whole school could hear. "Hey, Scavenger! If you find any good scraps in the dumpster tonight, make sure to leave them for my dog. He likes chewing on bones."
The crowd erupted again. Han Feng kept walking, his heart thumping like a war drum in his chest. Keep laughing, he thought, his jaw aching from how hard he was clenching it. Just keep laughing.
He bypassed the post-awakening party and headed straight for the city's Northern Gate. Beyond the gate lay the Grey Zone—a wasteland where the military dumped the corpses of monsters that were too low-level or too damaged to be worth processing.
The air here was thick with the stench of rot and ozone. Scavenging was illegal for unlicensed citizens, but the guards didn't care about a kid in a school uniform.
"Looking for dinner, rat?" one guard joked, leaning on his spear. "Watch out, the Shadow Rats might scavenge you first."
Han Feng ignored him and stepped into the fog. He reached a pile of discarded 'Steel-Hided Boars.' Their hides had been stripped, and their meat was sour. They were useless to the city.
He knelt by a carcass, his hands trembling. He had to find something—anything—to sell so he could buy his mother's medicine.
As his fingers brushed the cold, stiff hide of a boar, a sound like a blade being unsheathed rang in his ears.
[Ding! Soul-Link Established.] [Condition Met: The 'Lowest One' has touched the 'Discarded Ones'.] [God-Tier Extraction System Initializing...]
Han Feng froze. The world around him seemed to lose its color. A transparent blue screen floated in his vision, pulsing with a golden light that was nothing like the dim grey of his awakening.
[Current Target: Mutated Steel-Hided Boar (Remnants)] [Extraction Success Rate: 100%] [Note: As a 'Scavenger', the world sees trash. As a 'God-Tier Extractor', you see divinity.]
"Extract," Han Feng whispered, his voice cracking.
[Extracting...] [You have gained: +2 Strength (Permanent)] [You have gained: Passive Skill - 'Steel Skin' (Fragment)]
A surge of raw, violent energy slammed into Han Feng's body. It felt like his bones were being reinforced with molten lead. His skin shivered, turning a shade tougher, his muscles tightening with newfound power.
He looked at his hands. The small cuts from years of manual labor had vanished. He felt... dangerous.
He looked at the endless miles of the Grey Zone—the mountains of corpses stretching into the horizon. To everyone else, this was a graveyard of filth. To him, it was a gold mine that reached the heavens.
"Lu Chen, Mr. Zhao... everyone," Han Feng looked back at the glowing lights of the city. A dark, predatory smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "The 'Janitor' is about to clean up this entire world."