The channel did not calm down after the last wave of messages.
If anything, it became worse.
Arguments layered over arguments, scrolling faster than most could read, as thousands of "lords" tried to make sense of the same core problem: no one understood the system, but everyone was affected by it.
Leon kept watching, half-reading, half-filtering, as the chat oscillated between panic, denial, and speculative theories that grew more unhinged by the minute.
Then the interface changed again.
A single system line appeared, cutting through the noise with mechanical precision.
[Generating Lord talent]
The effect was immediate. Even through the chaotic chat, a subtle shift occurred. Messages slowed for a fraction of a second, as if the entire channel collectively registered the importance of the notification.
Leon's attention narrowed.
"Right… talents."
It was the first real structural rule they had seen since arriving here. Everything else had been confusion, displacement, and fragmented communication.
The shack around him remained unchanged—wind slipping through wooden gaps, sand drifting in small streams across the floor—but the atmosphere inside it felt temporarily sealed off from that instability.
Leon adjusted his posture on the wooden frame. It creaked under him, a dry protest that felt increasingly familiar. His eyes stayed fixed on the translucent interface.
Somewhere in the chat, messages still poured in.
[Lord 8,210: this has to be luck-based]
[Lord 912: anyone else thinking this is gacha?]
[Lord 3,441: if I get F rank I'm ending it]
[Lord 77: please be S grade please be S grade]
Leon exhaled through his nose.
"It's definitely luck-based."
The thought was not comforting. It was simply the most logical assumption available. No skill, no control, no negotiation. Only outcome.
A second notification appeared.
[Lord talent generated]
The chat briefly froze again, then exploded.
Leon did not move.
For a moment, nothing happened in his vision. Then the system interface updated again, as if intentionally building delay into the reveal.
[Lord talent SSS grade: City of knowledge]
Leon stared at the text.
"…SSS?"
The word came out lower than expected, almost flat, as if his brain had not fully accepted it yet. Then the implication caught up.
His body reacted before his thoughts fully stabilized. He pushed off the wooden frame and stood too quickly. The plank beneath him groaned sharply in protest, and his balance shifted forward.
The next moment, his foot went straight through the weakened floorboard.
There was no dramatic collapse, only a sudden absence of support.
Leon dropped half a step down into hot sand.
The sensation was immediate and disorienting. Heat, granular instability, and dryness replaced the wooden surface under him. He froze mid-motion, one leg partially submerged.
"…Why is there so much sand everywhere?"
He pulled his foot back up carefully, brushing grains away with slow, distracted motions. The shack floor was clearly not a solid floor in the conventional sense—more like thin wooden coverage over an unstable ground layer.
He frowned.
Outside, wind continued to pass through the structure in irregular bursts, carrying more sand into the interior. It accumulated in corners, along edges, even between plank seams.
None of it made sense in a stable habitation context.
Before he could continue analyzing the environment, the system interrupted again.
[Generating Cultivation talent]
Leon stopped.
The shift in focus was immediate. Whatever curiosity he had about the shack's structural integrity was forcibly deprioritized by the next stage of allocation.
"Right."
He stepped back onto more stable footing, ignoring the faint grinding of sand beneath the wood.
His gaze locked on the interface.
"Cultivation-type systems usually determine baseline progression. If the first was control, this one is probably power scaling."
He paused.
Then added, quieter:
"Which means this one matters more for survival."
A few seconds passed. The chat was still visible in peripheral attention, but even there, people were beginning to split into groups—those celebrating their first result, those terrified of it, and those still waiting.
Leon did not engage.
His focus remained fixed.
[Cultivation talent generated]
The delay before the reveal felt shorter this time.
[Cultivation talent F grade: Defective five elements mixed spiritual roots]
The reaction was not immediate speech. It was stillness.
Leon stared at the line for several seconds, unmoving.
Then he blinked once.
"…F grade."
He read it again, slower.
The contrast was too clean to ignore. One extreme to the other. No gradient. No moderation.
A quiet breath left his nose.
"Well… I'll be damned."
His tone carried no real surprise anymore. More recognition than shock.
He leaned slightly back against the wooden wall, feeling it shift under his weight.
"So that's how it's going to be."
A brief pause.
"The goddess of luck is either absent or malicious."
He exhaled.
The chat, however, did not share his restraint.
[Lord 4,011: S LORD TALENT???]
[Lord 6,290: I got C rank wtf]
[Lord 88: I got two F WHAT DOES THIS MEAN]
[Lord 1,002: is S grade the highest??]
[Lord 9,777: bro I think we're cooked]
Leon glanced at it.
Comparisons were already forming. Stratification was happening in real time. People were sorting themselves into hierarchies based on three lines of text.
He spoke quietly, mostly to himself.
"Of course they are."
That was the natural outcome. Any system that introduces graded capability will immediately produce comparison behavior.
He pushed off the wall slightly.
"SSS and F in the same roll set…"
A new notification appeared before he could continue the thought.
[Generating Life talent]
Leon stopped again. This one felt different.
He glanced at the chat again. It was still chaotic, but now threads were forming around speculation.
[Lord 73: maybe life talent is like health or regeneration]
[Lord 3: or lifespan?]
[Lord 5,920: I just want something not useless]
[Lord 11: if this is also RNG I'm quitting mentally]
A beat.
"If it's low grade, it might not matter at all. If it's high grade…"
He did not finish the sentence.
The system continued.
[Life talent generated]
Leon's posture tightened almost imperceptibly.
He did not speak. Did not move.
The shack creaked again as wind passed through it, sand drifting in small arcs along the floor. Outside, the environment remained indifferent to internal uncertainty.
Inside, the interface waited.
A final line began to form.
[Life talent…