Zeph woke up on something that shouldn't exist.
Perfect white. Not the white of painted walls or fresh snow, but the absence of everything else. A non-color that hurt his eyes to look at directly, stretching infinitely in all directions without horizon or boundary.
He sat up slowly, his body moving with an ease that felt wrong. The aches and pains that had been his constant companions for three years—the protest of joints stressed by rapid growth, the burning in muscles pushed beyond their limits—were gone.
'Holy shit, that actually worked.'
The realization hit him like a cold slap. He'd literally bet his life on rumors and half-remembered conversations overheard from awakened scavengers. The idea that extreme stress or near-death experiences could trigger early system integration wasn't exactly scientific fact.
It was more like... ruin legend. Wishful thinking from desperate kids counting down to their sixteenth birthday.
But he'd been out of options. Buster and Chen weren't planning to rough him up and let him go. Three years in the ruins had taught him to recognize killing intent, and both of them had been radiating it like heat from a forge.
They'd have carved him up slowly, enjoying every scream, paying him back for years of humiliation and stolen loot.
'At least my first time at gambling paid off for something. Hopefully never again.'
He stood up, expecting the usual symphony of creaking joints and protesting muscles. Instead, his body moved like silk. Stronger, faster, more coordinated than it had any right to be.
This was the awakening bonus. Even at level zero, even without a class or skills, system integration enhanced the human body by roughly fifty percent across the board. Better reflexes, improved healing, enhanced durability.
It was the difference between surviving in the ruins and thriving in them.
'Interface,' he thought, the word carrying the weight of three years of anticipation.
The status window materialized before him, glowing softly against the infinite white.
```
[STATUS WINDOW]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: [Zephyr]
Age: [16]
Level: [0]
Class: [None]
Title: [None]
▼ ATTRIBUTES [Average Human = 5]
Strength: [4]
Agility: [9]
Vitality: [3]
Intelligence: [3]
Wisdom: [3]
Charisma: [5]
▼ RESOURCES
HP: [100]
MP: [10]
SP: [10] (Stamina)
Skill Points: [0]
▼ PROGRESSION
Current EXP: [0]
Next Level: [100]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
```
Zeph studied the numbers with the analytical eye of someone who'd spent years optimizing character builds. The picture they painted was exactly what he'd expected.
He was definitely a glass cannon in the making. High agility, everything else average or below average.
His Strength was actually below human baseline, which explained why he'd always relied on speed and technique over raw power.
The Vitality score made him wince. Three meant he was fragile as hell, probably had shit for stamina and healing. Intelligence and Wisdom were similarly mediocre; not bad at all for his age, but nothing special either.
But that Agility...
Nine was exceptional for a level zero character. Most people started with fives across the board, maybe a six or seven in their natural talent area. Nine suggested he had genuine gift for speed and coordination.
'Perfect for a hit-and-run build.'
His combat philosophy crystallized as he stared at the numbers. Attack was the best form of defense, especially when you were too fragile to tank hits. Get in fast, hit hard, get out before the enemy could retaliate.
Or better yet, kill them before they knew you were there.
The ruins had taught him that hesitation was death. Every second you spent in a fair fight was another chance for something to go wrong. Better to stack the deck so heavily in your favor that victory was inevitable before the first blow was struck.
Glass cannon it was.
'Alright,' he thought, mentally preparing himself for whatever fresh hell the tutorial dungeon would throw at him. 'Time to see what passes for a fair fight in System standards. Initiate dun—'
The words died in his throat as new text appeared above his status window.
[Secondary Core Detected]
[Primordial Architect – ACTIVE]
Zeph stared at the message, his mind going completely blank.
'What the actual fuck?'
Secondary core? That wasn't... that couldn't be right. Everyone knew the basics of system integration. One person, one system, one core. It was as fundamental as breathing.
But there it was, hanging in the air like a digital impossibility.
And that name... Primordial Architect.
The memory hit him like lightning. The wheel, the face, the card that had killed him in his previous life. The sensation of breathing starlight and the image of glowing lungs burned into his retinas.
His hands started shaking.
'It followed me here.'
Whatever power had killed his old self, whatever cosmic force had dragged his soul across dimensions and stuffed it into a dying child's body, it was still with him.
Still part of him.
The pieces clicked together in Zeph's mind with the satisfying precision of a perfect combo execution.
'It waited for me to get mana.'
Of course it had. The Primordial Architect card, whatever cosmic force it represented, needed a compatible system to interface with. His baseline human body couldn't have handled whatever power it contained.
But now? Now he had MP. Ten measly points, but it was enough. The System had opened the door, and his reincarnation cheat was finally ready to activate.
'Primordial Architect interface,' he thought, trying to keep his mental voice steady.
Nothing happened.
He frowned. Maybe it needed different activation words? 'Primordial System'? 'Architect menu'?
Still nothing.
'Wait...'
He closed his eyes and focused, not on words but on intention. The memory of the card's image, those glowing lungs, burned bright in his mind. He reached for that sensation, that feeling of breathing in starlight and exhaling possibility.
'Show me the cheat system.'
Light bloomed behind his eyelids, and when he opened them, a new interface hung in the air beside his regular status window.
'Holy shit, it actually works!'
This was it. This was the moment every isekai protagonist dreamed of—discovering their unique cheat ability that would let them dominate their new world. The power that separated main characters from background NPCs.
The interface was surprisingly simple:
_____
[PRIMORDIAL ARCHITECT]
Host: Zephyr.
Level: 1.
PP: 6. [Primordial Points]
_____
Zeph stared at the sparse display, feeling a flicker of disappointment. That was it? No flashy abilities, no overpowered skills, no reality-breaking techniques?
Just... six points of something called PP? PP?!
'What kind of budget cheat system is this?'
But even as the thought formed, his eyes widened. The number had changed.
PP: 7.
He held his breath, watching the counter. It stayed at seven.
Then he took a deliberate, deep breath.
PP: 8.
'No fucking way.'
Another breath.
PP: 9.
His heart started racing as the implications hit him. Each breath generated a Primordial Point. Every single inhalation was creating some form of currency or energy that his cheat system could use.
'But what do they do?'
As if responding to his thoughts, a new window materialized beside the first.
_____
[PRIMORDIAL POINTS SYSTEM]
PP are the fundamental currency of creation and enhancement. They can be utilized to:
• Upgrade any System-recognized aspect (Skills, Techniques, Runes, etc.)
• Function as a direct replacement for Skill Points
• Purchase unique Primordial abilities unavailable through normal System progression
Current PP Generation Rate: 1 PP per conscious breath
Rate can be improved through meditation, special techniques, and level advancement
Note: PP cannot be detected by System analysis. This resource is invisible to all scanning methods.
_____
The text hung in the air for exactly ten seconds before fading away.
Zeph stood frozen, his mind struggling to process what he'd just read.
Then he started laughing.
Not a chuckle or a snort of amusement. Full-throated, manic laughter that echoed through the infinite white space like the sound of someone's sanity finally snapping.
'One breath equals one skill point,' he gasped between fits of hysteria. 'Every fucking breath!'
The mathematics were insane. A normal person breathed roughly fifteen times per minute without even thinking about it. That was 900 skill points per hour just from existing. Over 21,000 per day.
While other people bled and died in dungeons for a few hundred skill points, he could generate the same amount by taking a nap.
'And it's invisible to scanning!'
He doubled over, clutching his sides as another wave of laughter overtook him. The System couldn't detect his PP generation. Nobody would ever know how he was advancing so quickly.
As far as the world was concerned, he'd just be an unusually talented awakened with impossibly good luck.
But he'd know the truth.
While humanity crawled through their progression systems one painful step at a time, he'd be breathing his way to godhood.
'I'm going to break this entire world,' he wheezed, tears streaming down his face.
The tutorial dungeon was waiting. His first real test as an awakened human, the proving ground where he'd earn his initial rewards and skills.
But now it felt less like a challenge and more like a warm-up.
After all, what was the point of playing fair when you could just breathe your problems away?