Think about it. The universities, the military, those old noble houses - it doesn't matter who they are. If anyone with real weight behind them finds out a nobody from the western sector is sitting on a Private World overflowing with spiritual resources, we're dead. My leveling speed is basically a neon sign for trouble. They won't just ask for help; they'll try to recruit us, chain us, or just wipe us out to take what's ours. "They'd tear us apart just to see how the gears turn," I muttered.
So we fly under the radar, Aurora said, her voice dropping to a whisper. I nodded. We stay quiet, we grind in secret, and we drip-feed the spiritual herbs into the market - just enough to live well, but never enough to make someone wonder where it's coming from. We have three years until that barrier drops. By then, we won't be easy targets. Randolf watched me, a slow, heavy nod of approval settling on his features. It was the first time in years I'd seen a real smile break through his weary expression. "Wise as expected of my son," he said softly.
While the Aldrics were busy celebrating their first steps on a tiny, forgotten island, the rest of the multiverse didn't stop for them. It was a vast, chaotic machine, stretching far beyond their limited imagination. Way past the Beginner Worlds - beyond distances you could measure with light or time - lay a realm defined only by the weight of its own existence: the Sayan World.
In the Sayan World, power reached heights of Level 10,000, and it wasn't something you could hide. You could see a person's worth in the color of their hair - a brutal, biological honesty. The commoners and workers, the Level 3,000 crowd, sported shocks of bright yellow. Those who climbed to the purple-haired ranks were the feared lords and commanders. If you saw someone with hair as red as blood, you ran, because those were the elites who could level a city on a whim. But the white-haired? They were the ghosts of the world, fewer than a hundred legends who had touched the ceiling of existence. "Power isn't something you hide here," the wind seemed to whisper.
High above the world, in a city carved from clouds and ancient stone, a man with hair as white as a dying star stood at the precipice of a floating platform. He looked down at the sprawling landscape beneath him, eyes cold and distant. "So small," he breathed, his voice lost to the thinning air. For a being of his stature, the concerns of the lower tiers were nothing more than dust in the wind.
The city was a behemoth, a tangled web of spires and sky-high bridges tethered to the heavens by ancient formation pillars. From up here, the 'real' world - the forests and rivers below - seemed like a faded memory, small and inconsequential against the vastness of the sky.
They called him the Dragon Lord, a name that carried the weight of a Level 9,510 ranking on the Heavenly List. For centuries, he had cultivated his Storm Dragon soul, filling his private world with beasts he had personally subdued. 'Level 9,510,' he thought, glancing at his hands, 'and yet the world still feels small.'
He was a god among men, feared by nations and respected by the council, but at this exact moment, he was thoroughly annoyed. 'Is there never any peace?' he muttered. He just wanted a moment of silence, but the racket from the streets below was making his eye twitch.
'The Dragon Lord is recruiting!' a recruiter bellowed, his voice echoing through the market district. A skinny man in patched armor leaped up from a food stall, his eyes wide with desperate hope. 'This is it!' he shouted. 'My ticket to glory! I'm leaving this dirt behind!'
A purple-haired combat specialist sneered at the dreamer. 'You? The Lord wants warriors, not trash who can't even fly straight.' When the scrawny man insisted he could fly, the specialist just laughed. 'Peasant, there is a difference between soaring and struggling to stay upright.'
The Dragon Lord ignored the bickering; his eyes were fixed on the horizon. A streak of fire was carving a path through the upper atmosphere, turning the blue sky into a boiling orange ocean. 'The sky is bleeding,' he whispered. A Majestic Red Burning Phoenix was descending, its wingspan stretching half a mile across the heavens.
The Phoenix hovered, its wingspan an incinerating shadow that cracked the very stone beneath the Dragon Lord's feet. Below, the people fled in terror, but the Lord didn't flinch. His white hair whipped in the thermal wake as he met the creature's gaze. 'So,' he said as the beast opened its beak, 'you finally showed up.'
"Dragon Lord!" the creature shrieked, a sound like grinding glass that rattled the floating city's very foundations. "My master sends a message! The Northern Territories are no longer yours to claim! Withdraw your forces immediately, or witness the end of - "
"Tsk." The Dragon Lord spat to the side, his gaze drifting as if he were counting clouds. He looked profoundly bored by the spectacle. *I've heard this speech a thousand times,* he thought. "Tell your master to crawl out of his hole and face me himself. I don't negotiate with pets."
The Phoenix's feathers ignited into a blinding white glare, turning the sky into a furnace. "You arrogant worm!" it screamed, its voice cracking under the weight of its fury. "You think your petty status protects you? My master will turn your world to ash! Your rank, your private little world - all of it will burn! You have - "
"If he wants a fight," the Dragon Lord cut in, his voice dropping to a low, quiet tone that carried further than any shout. "I'm right here." He didn't move a muscle. He didn't reach for a weapon. He simply existed, and the world began to buckle under the weight of that existence.
Then his aura surged - a silent, invisible tide that crushed the air out of the lungs of every living thing for millions of miles. Then came the pulse. A shockwave of pure Level 9,510 power erupted from his body, shattering every cloud and scrubbing the sky clean of the Phoenix's orange haze. In a heartbeat, the atmosphere went still and terrifyingly clear.
The Phoenix stumbled in mid-air, its majestic wings folding like wet paper. The fire that had threatened to consume the world flickered and died down to a dull ember. It wasn't just outmatched; it was paralyzed with a primal fear. It realized, too late, that it was nothing more than a moth playing near a sun.
And then, between one heartbeat and the next, a man appeared. He was standing on top of the Phoenix's head, balanced as if on a mountain peak. No armor, no dramatics, just a calm, empty-eyed presence. He hadn't arrived; he had simply replaced the space where air used to be, defying every law of motion and magic.
The Dragon Lord's aura retracted, a silent nod of respect to an equal. A faint, predator's smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "That's better," he murmured. "Now that you've stopped hiding behind your bird, let's make the trade." The newcomer remained a statue, his silence more deafening than the Phoenix's earlier screams.
In the streets below, millions watched in a state of primal shock. Most had never seen an expert move with such impossible grace. People fell to their knees, their bodies literally too heavy to hold up under the psychic pressure. The two men simply locked eyes across the burning sky, ignoring the world they had just brought to a standstill.
Somewhere, tucked away on a quiet island within a Beginner World, a family of four sat on sugar-white sand, snacking on glowing berries and bickering over attribute points like it was a Sunday board game. The multiverse had never been known for its fairness - it was a cold, indifferent machine. But for the first time across two lifetimes, Ran Aldric felt the scales actually tipping. 'Finally,' he thought, 'a hand I can actually play.'
The Aldrics stayed up well past midnight, huddled around the same scarred kitchen table where Randolf had sat in despair just hours earlier. But the atmosphere had shifted. The hushed, tiptoeing worry of the last few years was gone, replaced by the sharp, electric hum of a heist in the making. 'We aren't just surviving anymore,' Ran told them. 'We're planning.'
Ran didn't just suggest rules; he etched them into the air. 'The Private World doesn't exist to anyone but us,' he said, his voice dropping an octave. 'Not to friends, not to coworkers, not to the neighbors. If we look different, we shrug. If we have money, Dad got a bonus. If they see something they shouldn't, they're mistaken.' Mia shifted in her chair, her chin resting on her hands. 'What if they catch us vanishing?' she asked. Ran was firm: 'Curtains drawn. Doors bolted. We only cross over from inside this house. Period.'
This was a game of optics. If Randolf stopped showing up to his carpentry job or Mia ditched school, the world would start asking questions they weren't ready to answer. Ran knew they had to be ghosts in plain sight. 'We have to move slow to move fast,' he realized. They needed to exploit the Private World without letting the real world notice a single ripple in the pond.
They built their lives around a new, rigid clock. Mornings were for the facade: school, carpentry, and housework. But noon was the pivot. They would regroup, bolt the doors, and vanish for five hours of progress. They had to be out before dusk, though; Ran had seen enough to know that when the island's canopy turned black, the real predators came out to play. 'We aren't ready for the dark,' he warned. 'Not yet.'
Evenings were for the slow, careful bleed of resources into the city. 'Small amounts,' Ran repeated, as if drilling it into their DNA. 'We don't dump a cart of spiritual grass and tank the market. We sell a few blades at a time, different shops, different days. We stay invisible.' One by one, his family nodded, the weight of the secret finally feeling more like a shield than a burden.
The strategy was simple: blend into the background, stay off the radar, and let the power brew in the shadows. That night, the air in the apartment shifted. For the first time in what felt like forever, they didn't just collapse into bed; they rested with the kind of restless anticipation that makes you want to chase the sunrise.
When morning finally broke, golden light spilled through the thin fabric of Unit 14's curtains, dancing across the kitchen tile. Aurora was already humming over the stove, the comforting, nutty scent of rice porridge filling every corner of the small home. Randolf sat by the door, the rhythmic tug of his bootlaces the only sound besides Mia's muffled grunts of frustration as she fought a losing battle with her hair in the bathroom mirror.
Ran stepped out of his room, his school bag hanging loosely from one shoulder. He wasn't wearing his usual 'everything is fine' mask. Instead, a genuine grin split his face, reaching his eyes and softening the hard edges of his features. 'Mom, Dad, I'm heading out! Catch you guys later!'
Aurora paused, ladle mid-air, just to drink in the sight of him. It had been years since she'd seen that specific spark in his eyes. She beamed back, her smile wide and radiant. 'Be careful, honey,' she cautioned, her voice softening with a mother's instinct. 'Try not to draw any eyes.' Ran just gave a knowing smirk. 'I've got it, Mom. Trust me.'
He shared a quick, silent look with his father - a man-to-man nod that spoke volumes - before stepping out into the crisp morning air. His stride was light, fueled by a secret he'd unearthed long after the rest of the house had gone quiet. He'd spent an extra hour in the Private World, poring over the Complete Beginner Knowledge Book, and what he found had flipped the script entirely.
That Basic Orb? The one the whole stadium had mocked? It wasn't actually his martial innate soul. It was a vessel - a cosmic delivery system. Every Lord across the multiverse started with one, but it wasn't the prize; it was the key. Its only purpose was to tether a soul to the Private World. 'Let them laugh,' he thought. They didn't realize they were looking at the wrapper, not the gift.
His real soul, the one he was born with, was still tucked away inside that grey shell, waiting for the right moment to hatch. He just needed to hit the right level and perform the ritual to crack the seal. It could be a beast, a weapon, or something even the books hadn't named yet. The world thought he was a joke, but the punchline was going to be legendary.
The realization hit Ran with a strange sense of relief: Mia was in the exact same boat. Even though her official Awakening Ceremony was still a year away, the moment she stepped into the Private World and registered as a Subordinate, the System flagged her as 'pre-Awakened.' She carried a martial innate soul just like his, a dormant power sealed and waiting for the right spark. "We're actually in this together," he realized. The Private World wasn't just a shortcut; it was a sanctuary where their true selves could emerge years before the school's rigid traditions allowed.
As Ran navigated the cramped, winding alleys of the western sector, the pieces finally clicked into place. "So that's why the level-up was such a dud," he muttered. In this world, reaching Level 5 was supposed to be a milestone that unlocked an active skill, yet Ran had received nothing but a prompt and silence. It made sense now - the Orb wasn't his real soul; it was just a placeholder, a shell with no gifts to give while his true essence remained under lock and key.
Instead of frustration, a surge of excitement bubbled up within him. The knowledge book had been clear: souls summoned within the Private World were often vastly superior to those awakened through standard rituals. The concentrated spiritual energy of the island acted as a high-pressure catalyst, nurturing the soul long before it ever broke the surface. "Let it grow; let it get stronger than any of them," he thought. Whatever was gestating inside his Orb had been gorging on an entire island's worth of mana since the very second he first touched the Crystal.
Ran took a deep breath, pushing the thrill of his hidden potential to the back of his mind. He couldn't afford to be a target yet. "Just an average kid with an average grade," he reminded himself. He had a role to play: the invisible student with the most basic Orb in the class. By the time he reached the gates of Aetheria High, the school was already a chaotic hive of activity.
The main courtyard had been scrubbed clean and transformed into a high-stakes marketplace. Rows of vibrant stalls lined the walkway, dripping with holographic banners and the polished logos of elite military branches and universities. Recruiters in sharp, tailored suits moved through the crowd with predatory grace, their tablets glowing as they scanned the students like commodities. The meat market was officially open, and every student was being appraised for their worth.
It was the University Selection Fair, the annual ritual of sorting the winners from the losers. For those lucky enough to possess Rare-type souls, the world was their oyster - full scholarships, luxury housing, and a direct line to prestige. Even the kids with decent Normal-type combat souls could walk away with a solid internship. "The golden tickets go to the chosen, and the rest of us get the scraps," Ran thought bitterly, watching the scouts ignore anyone who didn't radiate high-tier potential. For a student with a Basic Orb, the fair wasn't an opportunity; it was a reminder of their invisibility.
Ran moved through the courtyard, bag heavy on his shoulder and hands buried deep in his pockets. He ignored the vibrant stalls and the persistent chirping of recruiters, keeping his gaze low. He was a master of blending in now - just another kid with a 'dud' soul, coasting through his final week because there was nowhere else to be. 'Just a few more days,' he thought, 'then I am ghosting this place for real.' Nobody spared him a second glance, which was exactly how he wanted it.
Suddenly, the quiet was shattered. 'Ran! There you are!' Two figures shoulder-barged their way through the crowd to flank him - Ken and Leo. Ken caught him with a light punch to the arm, grinning like he had won the lottery. 'Where have you been, man? We have been blowing up your communicator all morning about that security guard internship. You ghosting us now, or what?'
'My communicator died,' Ran lied, the words coming out practiced and smooth. Their family tech was a relic; it died more often than it worked, so nobody questioned it. Ken didn't miss a beat. 'Well, get it fixed. The City Guard is doing a group deal for grads with attack souls. The pay is trash, but the perks are decent - you get full access to the training grounds after hours. Leo and I are signing up.' Leo nudged Ran with an elbow. 'Come on, man. Three is a team. Even with your Orb, you are Level 1. That is all you need to get in the door.'
Ran felt a small warmth in his chest - gratitude, maybe - that they still wanted him around. They knew his soul was dead weight in a fight, but they did not care. 'I will think about it,' Ran said, shifting the subject. 'What else did I miss? Why is everyone acting weird?' Leo's face hardened. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial murmur. 'You haven't heard about Victor Alfonso? Check out the far side of the courtyard.'
Ran followed Leo's gaze. A thick knot of students had formed, but they were keeping a respectful distance from the boy at the center. Victor Alfonso was impossible to miss - tall, polished, and wearing a look of effortless superiority that usually cost a lot of money to maintain. He didn't just walk; he occupied space. His family wasn't just rich; they were the kind of wealthy that came from owning the literal supply chains of the city. 'He really does own the air he breathes, doesn't he?' Ran thought bitterly.
Everyone remembered Victor's Awakening two days ago. A Poison Worm. It was an attack soul, sure, but a weak one that spat thin acid. People had snickered about it behind his back, safe from the Alfonso influence. But today, the laughter was dead. The atmosphere around Victor felt heavy, almost toxic. He wasn't the Level 1 rookie everyone expected. He was radiating the sharp, unmistakable pressure of a Level 5. 'Level five?' Ran whispered, his stomach dropping. 'That is not even possible in two days.'
"How did he level up that fast?" Ran asked, though the answer already tasted like ash in his mouth. Leo crossed his arms, his face a mask of irritation. "Money, Ran. His family hired a Party - professional dungeon runners, Level 30-plus heavy hitters. They dragged Victor into an E-rank hole and did all the heavy lifting while he just stood there, soaking up the XP like a sponge. Must be nice, right?"
"That's actually legal?" Ran muttered, shaking his head. Ken gave a dry shrug, his expression blank but his eyes sharp. "Legal? Sure. But it's expensive as hell. A carry like that runs tens of thousands of silver. It's the kind of shortcut only the elite can buy." Leo added under his breath, "And Victor's family could buy ten of them without even blinking."
Ran shifted his gaze to the center of the courtyard. Victor stood there, basking in the attention of a crowd that was half-sycophant, half-terrified. On his upturned palm sat his martial soul - a slimy, purple worm that pulsed with a sickening rhythm, dripping a faint green sludge. 'What a waste of power,' Ran thought, watching the creature coil lazily as it left a glistening trail on Victor's skin.
With a smirk, Victor pointed his palm toward a nearby trash bin. "Watch this," he whispered. The worm uncoiled, spitting a stream of vibrant green acid. The sharp hiss of melting metal filled the air, leaving a jagged, smoking hole in the side of the bin. The crowd erupted into cheers, but the sound felt hollow. Victor's grin was wide and predatory, the look of a boy who knew he could break things without consequence.
"He's been at it all morning," Leo said, his voice tight with suppressed anger. "Acid on everything - walls, benches, you name it. He dissolved some kid's backpack strap earlier just because he felt like it." Ran looked around, searching for a teacher, but saw none. "No one's stopping him?" Ken let out a short, bitter laugh. "The school gets more money from Victor's father than the Mayor's office. The teachers? They've suddenly got very important business in the other building."
Victor scanned the crowd, his eyes lingering on the Level 1s and 2s with the casual indifference one might show toward a piece of furniture. "Level 5 in two days," he announced, his voice carrying across the yard. "And that's the slow part. My father's got a D-rank run booked for next week. I'll hit Level 10 before any of you trash even figure out which end of a sword to hold." A few people laughed nervously, the sound dying quickly. Ran didn't wait to hear more; he simply turned away.
He'd hit Level 5 too, but his progress wasn't a gift - it was a grind. He had scraped his way there, one timber at a time and one stone block after another, building a life with nothing but his family and his own two hands. There was no elite party to shield him, no high-level carry, and certainly no wealthy father to buy his way to the top. 'Built, not bought,' he thought, feeling the ache in his shoulders that no shortcut could ever provide.
He stayed silent. He didn't need to justify his presence or explain the dirt etched into his skin. The time for conversation would come soon enough, but for now, the weight of his stare said everything that needed to be said.