The Awakening Crystal was supposed to be warm.
That was what the instructors at the Grand Academy always said. 'When the System recognizes your soul, you will feel the warmth of your destiny.'
"Arthur Pendelton. Step up to the Awakening Altar."
The headmaster's voice echoed across the vast hall—cold, emotionless, final.
The noise died instantly. Thousands of students held their breath.
Arthur stepped forward.
He placed his bruised, unwashed hand against the massive, radiant stone.
He didn't feel warmth.
He felt a jagged, freezing hook bury itself directly into his brain.
Buzz—
His fingers locked to the stone. The brilliant white light of the crystal began to stutter, flickering violently like a dying fluorescent bulb.
The light changed.
Not gold. Not red. Not anything glorious.
A dim, sickly gray spread across the crystal like rot.
Even the air seemed to grow colder.
Then, it cracked.
Just a microscopic fracture deep within the stone, but Arthur heard it snap like a gunshot in his mind.
A fracture in the Crystal. A fracture in his soul.
A translucent screen materialized violently in front of his eyes. It was vibrating.
[Name: Arthur Pendelton]
[Class Awakened: Nec—]
The text tore itself apart, scrambling into lines of chaotic, red code before forcibly rewriting itself.
[Class Awakened: Necromancer (F-Rank Potential)]
Silence.
Then—
Laughter exploded.
"A Necromancer? You've got to be kidding me!"
"F-Rank trash!"
"He'll collapse after summoning one skeleton!"
"Even a cook is more useful!"
Arthur said nothing.
He had endured eighteen years of starvation in Sector 4; the mockery of privileged teenagers was nothing but white noise.
But his eyes were locked onto the blue screen hovering in his vision.
Everyone else only saw the public notification.
They didn't see the second, blood-red window pulsing aggressively in the corner of his eye.
[ERROR.]
[Anomaly detected in host's soul sequence.]
[Forcing secondary integration...]
A sharp, blinding spike of pain drove through Arthur's skull. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming, tasting copper.
[Hidden Talent Awakened: Absol—]
Flicker.
[Hidden Talent Awakened: Assimilation Protocol]
Flicker.
[Hidden Talent Awakened: Absolute Synthesis (SSS-Rank)]
The text finally stabilized, glowing with a deep, unsettling purple hue.
Arthur stared at it. Absolute Synthesis?
Usually, Talents came with immediate, detailed instructions. Arthur felt nothing. He mentally commanded the system to expand the description.
[Talent: Absolute Synthesis]
[Description: Fuse two entities to c—]
The text hitched, glitching wildly for a fraction of a second before settling back.
[Description: Consume. Replace. Evolve.]
[Mana Cost: 0.]
[Warning: Physical and psychological degradation imminent upon excessive use. Proceed at your own risk.]
Arthur's breath caught in his throat.
Consume? Replace?
That wasn't a spell. That was a parasite.
"Trash will always be trash," a lazy, arrogant voice cut through his thoughts.
Arthur looked up. At the front of the crowd, Oliver—the heir of the Silver-Blood Guild—stepped forward with a smirk. His golden badge gleamed under the light, his A-Rank [Holy Knight] aura pressing down on the space around him.
"Don't even think about applying to my guild," Oliver sneered. "We don't collect garbage."
Arthur felt the familiar, burning ember of rage ignite in his chest. The urge to react. To say something. To break Oliver's perfect, arrogant jaw.
But before he could move, the purple screen in his vision pulsed.
[Target 1 Identified: A-Rank Holy Knight (Human)]
[Target 2 Required for Synthesis.]
Arthur froze.
His heart hammered against his ribs. The System hadn't identified Oliver as a threat, or a peer.
It had identified him as raw material.
A horrifying, icy calm suddenly washed over Arthur, instantly extinguishing his rage.
Why am I not angry anymore? Arthur wondered, looking at Oliver's smug face. I should be furious. But he just looks like... meat.
Arthur blinked, a cold chill running down his spine.
That thought... wasn't mine.
[Notice: Empathy Suppression Active. Corruption Level: 1%.]
He let the moment pass. Slowly... completely.
He removed his hand from the crystal and turned away.
No anger. No excuses. No acknowledgment.
He walked past Oliver as if he didn't exist.
The smirk on Oliver's face froze. A vein pulsed on his temple.
But Arthur was already gone.
The noise of the hall faded behind him as he stepped into the cold, gray rain of the city.
He had 20 Mana points. A trash-tier Class. And a glitch in his soul that wanted to eat the world.
He didn't waste another second.
By the time the academy behind him turned into a distant silhouette, Arthur was already heading toward the Beginner's Graveyard.
He needed to find something dead. Quickly.
Before the System decided to test its limits on something alive.
His eyes lingered on an innocent, blue-haired boy walking alone in the rain ahead of him.
[Target Identified. Assimilation viable.]
Arthur gritted his teeth, aggressively burying the twisted urge deep down. He wasn't a monster. Not yet.
He needed to find something dead.
...
The graveyard was silent.
Cold mist drifted between crooked tombstones. The ground was damp, uneven, filled with death long forgotten.
Arthur stepped behind a broken grave marker and raised his hand.
"Arise."
Two magic circles flared to life.
[Mana: -10]
[Mana: -10]
The soil shifted.
Cracked bones clawed their way out.
Two skeletons emerged—fragile, incomplete, barely standing. Their limbs trembled, their forms unstable.
Weak. Pathetic. Level 1 trash mobs.
Arthur watched them quietly. Then spoke.
"System. Use Absolute Synthesis."
[Ding!]
[Target confirmed.]
[Commencing Synthesis...]
Dark purple light erupted.
It wrapped around the skeletons, compressing them, crushing them together.
Bones cracked. Shifted. Reformed.
But it wasn't smooth.
The purple lightning hissed, violently fighting the ambient mana. The two skeletons shrieked—a horrifying, unnatural sound of grinding bone. The fusion was unstable. The System was resisting the anomaly.
A sharp spike of pain drilled into the back of Arthur's skull. He gritted his teeth, his pitch-black eyes flaring as he forced his willpower down onto the chaotic storm.
"Fuse," Arthur commanded, his voice cold and absolute.
The air trembled.
Then—
Silence.
The light shattered.
Something stood there.
Not two skeletons. One.
Tall. Massive.
Its bones were pitch-black, dense like forged steel. A heavy bone blade rested in its hand, and blue flames burned deep within its hollow eyes.
[Synthesis Successful!]
[You have created: Level 5 — Elite Iron-Bone Knight]
The creature dropped to one knee. The ground trembled.
Arthur stared at it, wiping a thin drop of sweat from his brow.
For a brief moment... even he was surprised.
Then his expression returned to calm.
"…Good."
But before he could move—
The ground shook. Violently.
Cracks spread across the earth. A guttural roar tore through the mist.
Something massive burst from below.
A towering Ghoul—over three meters tall—its body twisted, its claws massive, its eyes locked directly onto Arthur.
[Level 8 Elite Boss: Corpse-Eater Ghoul]
The air turned heavy. Dangerous.
The Elite Knight shifted slightly. Waiting.
Arthur didn't move. Didn't step back. Didn't hesitate.
He simply raised his hand...
And pointed.
"Kill it."
The System didn't respond immediately.
For a brief, terrifying moment... it hesitated.