*Book of Mythos: The Right Way of The Testing Hall of Starfall Academy was carved from white marble and old fear. Ten thousand seats rose in a perfect circle around one platform. The air always smelled like sweat, ozone, and ink.
Today, three hundred new students stood on that platform. One by one, they placed their hands on the Awakening Crystal. One by one, the world told them what they were allowed to be.
"Name: Selene Vorr. Age: fourteen. Skill: Frost Bloom. Rank: C plus."
Applause followed.
"Name: Garrick Hale. Age: fifteen. Skill: Ironhide. Rank: B minus."
Nods. Respect.
"Name: Dren Vash. Age: sixteen. Skill: Thunder Emperor. Rank: C."
A murmur. A future noble.
Then it was his turn.
"Name: Kael Veyrin. Age: fourteen. Skill: Copy. Rank: F."
The hall did not go quiet. It exploded.
Laughter rolled through the students like a wave. Some of it was nervous. Most of it was cruel.
*Student:* "Copy? That's the janitor skill."
*Student:* "F-Rank? He can copy the color of a wall."
*Student:* "He can copy a sneeze. Maybe."
F-Rank was the Academy's polite word for Trash. For useless. For dead weight.
At the high table, the Proctor did not look up. Elder Ren had signed away a thousand futures. He would not waste time on one more.
*Elder Ren:* "Demonstrate."
Kael stepped into the circle.
He was fourteen in this body. He was not fourteen in his head.
Three weeks ago he died on Earth, 2025. A truck, rain, no time to brake. He woke up here with every comic, novel, anime, manhwa, game, movie, and powerscaling breakdown he'd ever consumed still intact in his head. Transmigration. No tutorial. No cheat menu. Just memory.
He thought of every forum post he'd ever read. If your system is Copy, you do not copy the punch. You copy the physics engine. Do not copy Goku. Copy the training. Do not copy Superman. Copy the solar reactor.
He also remembered the last thing the Book of Mythos whispered to him as he crossed over: _Your old world is data now._
He raised his hand and targeted Elder Ren's staff. Flame Spear, B-Rank. A basic combat spell every proctor carried.
He tried to copy it.
Nothing happened except a pathetic spark in his palm that fizzled and died like a wet match.
*Elder Ren:* "F-Rank confirmed. Next."
The crowd laughed again.
They missed it.
The Book of Mythos did not appear. It returned.
It had always been there, behind his eyes, in the space where a soul should be. Black cover. No title. Pages that looked like void.
It opened on its own, and words burned themselves into his mind in pale light.
_Rule One: You can copy anything you can fully understand._
_Rule Two: Rank is what the world can measure. You are not measurable._
_Rule Three: Imagination is a blueprint._
*Kael:* _internal_ "F-Rank isn't my ceiling. It's their detection limit."
He smiled. Just once. Just enough.
*The Problem With Bloodlines*
Starfall ran on bloodlines. That was the law.
Dragon Bloodline gave you scales and fire. Phoenix gave you rebirth. Thunder Emperor gave you lightning in your veins. If you were not born with one, you were a mortal. Mortals became knights. Knights died for bloodlines.
Every scroll in the Academy said the same thing: Bloodline cannot be copied. It is soul. It is fate. It is ancestry. Non-transferable data.
Kael had read two hundred webnovels that said otherwise. He had watched Flash take the Speed Force. He had watched Sentry rewrite his own molecules. He had watched Goku copy a technique after seeing it once.
He found a book called Bloodline Theory One Hundred One in the basement archives at midnight. The book was dust and arrogance.
He opened the Book of Mythos in his mind.
He asked it a question without words: What is a bloodline?
The answer came back immediate.
_Analysis: Bloodline equals Legal Document written in DNA. Structure equals Permission Set. Permission: You may use Fire. Permission: You may fly. Permission: You are stronger than baseline. Conclusion: Document can be forged._
And with that, his skill changed. Copy became Copy Concept. The limit was no longer physical. He had to fully understand the target. Imagination counted as partial understanding.
A bloodline was not magic. It was paperwork. And the Book of Mythos was a counterfeit office with no rules.
*The Wrong Way*
He was fourteen. He had god-level knowledge and teenage impulse control. That was a dangerous mix.
His first test was Superman.
He imagined it all. The yellow sun. The Kryptonian cells. The invulnerability. The flight. The heat vision. The freeze breath. The strength to move mountains. All of it, pulled from memory.
He told the Book to copy it, one hundred percent.
The backlash hit him like a truck.
He woke up on the cold stone floor. Blood from his nose. Bones felt like they were trying to crawl out of his skin.
For ten minutes he was stronger. He lifted a stone desk with one finger. Then his body started shutting down. Human lungs choked on solar energy. Human bones cracked under Kryptonian density.
*Kael:* "Don't copy the character sheet. Copy the patch notes."
He coughed, wiped his mouth, and wrote in the Book with will instead of ink.
_Wrong Way: Copy the result. You get the system crash too._
_Right Way: Copy the mechanism. Ignore the lore._
_Copy the engine, not the car._
*The Right Way*
He started surgical. He stopped thinking like a fan and started thinking like an engineer.
First, he copied Solar Energy Absorption, but set the efficiency to human-compatible with a non-lethal cap. It worked. Warmth settled in his chest instead of fire.
Second, he copied Neural Signal Acceleration, capped so it would not fry his brain. The reference was the Speed Force concept. It worked. The world felt slower.
Third, he copied Cellular Regeneration at three times human baseline. The reference was Wolverine. It worked. Small cuts closed in seconds.
Fourth, he copied Reinforced Bone Lattice with normal weight. The reference was Superman's structural integrity. It worked. He could take a fall that should break legs.
In one night, he gave himself lungs that could hold air for eight minutes. Eyes that could see in near-dark. Reflexes three tenths of a second faster than a normal fourteen-year-old. Bones that would not shatter under three tons of pressure. A metabolism that burned energy like a furnace.
No wings. No laser eyes. No arrogance. No memory bleed.
*Kael:* _internal_ "I'm not a superhero. I'm the engineering manual every superhero uses."
That was when he hit the wall.
He could copy traits forever. But traits were pieces. He needed a core. A bloodline that let him keep copying without breaking. A bloodline that let him copy faster, safer, deeper.
*The Rule He Broke*
Midnight. Basement. Alone. The only sound was his breath.
The Book of Mythos turned its own page.
_Rule Two: Bloodline is just information._
_Rule Three: Imagination is understanding you haven't touched yet._
*Kael:* _internal_ "If information can be forged, and imagination counts as understanding…"
Then he did not need to copy Superman. He did not need to copy a Dragon.
He could copy the idea of a bloodline that made copying perfect.
He wrote it in his mind.
Copy the Bloodline named Mythos, Unwritten King.
Effect One: All copies are one tenth of one percent more complete than the original.
Effect Two: No Memory Bleed. No Incompatibility.
Effect Three: Imagination is a valid source.
Effect Four: Concepts are valid targets.
Source: Imagination.
The Book replied. Target does not exist. Forge from nothing? Yes or No.
Footsteps echoed on the stairs. Heavy. Measured.
*Night Warden:* "Who's here after curfew?"
The Academy's enforcer. A-Rank. A man who had killed three heretics last year.
*Kael:* "Yes."
He put his palm on the page.
The copy began.
It did not hurt. It edited.
He felt his soul get a new table of contents. Inefficiencies deleted. Pathways optimized. His blood became a library. His nerves became code. His imagination became law.
When it ended, the Book had a new line at the very top, above Rule One.
_Rule Four: If you can imagine it, reality must make room. Reality will try to kill you for that._
The door opened.
The Night Warden saw a fourteen-year-old boy. Black eyes. No shadow on the floor. The torchlight bent around him instead of touching him.
*Night Warden:* "State your rank."
*Kael:* "The Academy says F."
He raised his hand. He did not cast a spell. He did not move.
He copied the concept of darkness in the room, one tenth of one percent darker than it should be.
The Warden's torch went out. Not extinguished. Not blown out. Erased. The concept of light failed in a three-meter sphere.
*Kael:* "My rank is Unwritten."
The Night Warden drew his sword. The sound of steel was the only light left.
*Night Warden:* "Heretic."
*Kael:* "If you can understand it, you can copy it. If you can copy it, you can be better than it."
He did not move. He did not need to.
Because the first rule of the Right Way was already active.
*Kael:* _internal_ "From Superman to Sentry. From Ki to Chakra. From Nen to Haki. From the Speed Force to the concept of Infinity. I understand. Therefore, I can copy."
The Night Warden took one step back.
For the first time in his career, he did not know what he was looking at.