The morning sunlight filtered through smog and stray particles of still-active dimensional rift energy, bathing the streets of New Denver in a washed-out amber. The world had been like this for twenty years now — ever since the first Gates ripped open the sky and monsters came pouring out like Earth was some kind of prize on a cosmic game show.
It was just a Tuesday.
Will Stone jogged down the concrete path beside the dorms, rolling his shoulders and pushing off with disciplined form. His pace was steady, like he could keep going forever, except when he stumbled over something much smaller and barkier than his sleep-deprived brain had anticipated.
"Fang, really?" Will said, deadpan. "We talked about this last week."
The mutt just stared up at him, tail wagging, as if surprised he had ever been told something in his life. He was a medium black-and-brown dog with undersized paws, too-bright eyes, and the loyalty of someone who'd never actually understood that he wasn't supposed to sleep on public benches or lick cafeteria tables.
Will crouched, rubbing Fang behind the ears—careful, mindful, genuinely fond. "How do you manage to escape three locked gates and an electronic collar?" he muttered.
Fang whined. Will caved immediately and let him jump into a hug.
That was Will. Always joking, but with too much heart.
The halls of the academy were louder than usual. Final exams for the year were coming up, and students were showing off skills they would literally use to avoid dying in public in the near future. Will heard the faint hum of mana from the hall to the right, and the clang of training swords to the left.
He passed it all and slipped into his seat. Maya Leon — fiery red hair, sharper wit — slid in behind him before he even had time to breathe.
"What's up, future farmer? Didn't think you'd make it on time for Combat Simulation and Class Theory," she said, sliding her pencil case open.
Will didn't flinch. "You keep calling me a farmer, but I am athletically gifted and very coordinated. Plus, manual labor isn't so bad when you've got a calm routine. The peaceful life, Maya…"
"You do know the peaceful life ended twenty years ago, right?" she said, arching an eyebrow. "Or were you asleep for the first three Gates in Colorado?"
Will shot her a half-smile. "I was five."
"Excuses."
They were still bantering when the professor came in. Mr. Vasquez was a Spearman — one of the highest-ranked in the school — with over 40 confirmed kills and several S-rank Gate clears in his military days.
He clapped once. The class fell silent instantly. "Good morning, class. Today, we're going over the structure of the leveling system, stat gains, and why training matters even more than Awakening, especially if you want to live past eighteen."
Will perked up.
"So, you all know the basics," Vasquez began, pulling up a holograph. "When an Awakened individual levels up, they gain 3 points to all stats, and 5 bonus points to their primary class stat. Mages gain more intelligence, Fighters gain strength, Rogues get Dexterity, and so on."
The slides flicked — showing a progression chart.
Level 1 → Level 2
+3 All Attributes
+5 Primary Stat
"And yes," Vasquez continued, "your skill experience grows with your level. So hitting a higher level doesn't just give you raw numbers — it gives you comprehension. You think faster. Your abilities respond better. And you unlock more skill tiers. That's how you go from 'Sharp Shot' to 'Piercing Bolt' and from 'Flame Burst' to 'Meteor Rain.'"
Will leaned forward in his chair. A small spark of something lit inside him.
Maya noticed. She smirked. "Back to pretending you're interested in combat, huh?"
"I'm just… exploring," Will said quietly.
"Yeah. Like a tourist in a minefield."
Everyone at school was preparing for real fights. Some had already Awakened and had low-level class ranks. A few had even dipped into Gates with supervision and come back swinging.
Will though? He hadn't awakened, hadn't leveled, and despite all his strength and endurance from training, he was still just a regular human.
A regular human in a world full of things that could rip regular humans in half like crepe paper.
Will wasn't scared. But he was restless. He wanted something — purpose, power, protection — but didn't know where it would come from.
And then, during lunch, fate decided to punch him right in the jaw.
The emergency alarm rang across the academy — this wasn't a drill.
"Dimensional breach!" someone shouted. "Near District C — residential block!"
Will and Maya locked eyes. It was their street.
Their street — where Fang lived. Where their neighbors' kids lived. Where Will had grown up.
Without thinking, he bolted.
Will sprinted across the courtyard and into the street before anyone could stop him. Nobody questioned it — people ran a lot, in this world. Toward danger or away from it. The only wrong move was standing still.
Maya caught up moments later, panting. "Will, we don't even know if it's serious—"
A crack split the sky like lightning. When Will looked up, what he saw wasn't a storm cloud.
It was a Gate.
Hovering above the street where he lived, a tear in reality had opened like a wound in the air — tendrils of purple-black smoke spiraling down as the earth beneath it began to shift, move, and break. People screamed. Cars skidded. Mana pressure built like a sudden spike in atmospheric weight.
Will froze in place for the briefest moment. Not from fear.
From rage.
This wasn't a dungeon in the middle of nowhere. This was home.
And then, from across the street — he heard barking.
Fang.
Will couldn't hear anything else after that. His vision tunneled, and adrenaline punched through him like a bullet.
He ran.
Fang wasn't trapped, not yet — but he was barking his lungs out beside a collapsing support beam at the edge of a building disintegration zone. Will skidded to a halt on pavement that was already fracturing.
He didn't think — there was no time.
He lunged, scooped Fang up under one arm — and that's when he felt it.
A sharp crack overhead.
He didn't have time to fully turn his head. The edge of a collapsed wall came down like the fist of a god — and Will shoved Fang clear just as the world went black.
There was the sound of crunching bone. His bone.
Then silence.
There was no light at the end of the tunnel.
No warm embrace of the afterlife.
Just… absence.
Then something else. A flicker.
A pulse of something that wasn't pain, but felt like the force that made pain possible.
A voice? A signal? It didn't speak — it pulsed through him.
System Detected
Initiating Awakening Sequence…
Host Life Signs: Offline
Emergency Protocol Active: Resurrection
Then a shock — like lightning through marrow.
Processing…
Inevitable Death Confirmed
Resurrection Triggered
ALL ATTRIBUTES +100%
Then something opened behind his eyes.
A window.
Will gasped, violently, back into consciousness.
He was lying on broken concrete. His body — which had been crushed seconds ago — felt whole. Warm. Breathing.
He blinked as the floating window before him stabilized.
——————
[ SYSTEM AWAKENED ]
User: Will Stone
Level: 1
Class: UNASSIGNED
Status: RESURRECTED
Health: 100%
Stamina: 100%
Mana: 0%
ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 10 → 20
Endurance: 10 → 20
Dexterity: 10 → 20
Speed: 10 → 20
Perception: 10 → 20
Intelligence: 10 → 20
Charisma: 10 → 20
> Resurrection Bonus Applied: +100% all stats
> Future Damage Threshold Scaling Active
> Injury-based Adaptation Enabled
> Growth Potential: EX+
——————
Will stared.
He should have been afraid — but instead he felt something blooming inside him. Excitement? No. Recognition. Something like this was supposed to feel foreign.
But instead?
It felt like finally waking up.
He sat up. His clothes were torn. Blood was dried and cracked across his skin. And everything was silent but for the distant hum of the Gate.
He stood.
Slowly. Then easily.
His body responded like it knew how — like it had done this for years. His new muscles coiled with twice the power they had before.
"…I was dead," he said quietly.
Fang barked, tail down, anxious and confused.
Will knelt and hugged him close. "You're okay. I'm okay. We're okay," he whispered — not sure if he believed it yet.
"WILL!"
Maya's voice cut through the fading static in his mind. She sprinted across the fractured ground, eyes wide with panic and relief and utter disbelief when she saw him standing there — with the dog in his arms.
"Will— are you— you were crushed, I saw it— your skull—" She couldn't finish.
Will opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
Then he said the only thing that felt real:
"I guess… I got back up."
Sirens screamed in the distance. EMTs and low-tier Gate Response Units were closing in. The dimensional tear was unstable but small — it hadn't fully ruptured into a monster breach. They'd seal it soon.
Will looked back up at the sky.
He'd died. He'd come back. He had a System. One that adapted — one that grew.
One that made him stronger because he got hurt.
He didn't know what class he would choose yet.
But he knew two things for sure:
He was going to train — not stop until he understood what this power wanted from him.
No one was ever dying near him again.
He scratched Fang behind the ears with a smirk.
"Well, boy," he murmured, "looks like we're not taking the 'peaceful farmer' route anymore."
Will walked back toward the emergency responders, Fang at his side, Maya behind him trying to catch her breath and make sense of the impossible.
But Will knew:
It was only going to get more impossible from here.
He was no longer just Will Stone.
He was the one who died — and came back stronger.