The night air was cool against the stone railing of the balcony, carrying the faint scent of damp grass from the gardens below. High above the estate, the moon hung in a sky so dark it looked like a deep lake—still, endless, indifferent.
On the balcony sat a white-haired boy whose hair caught the moonlight like strands of silver. He was tall for his age—about six feet (1.83 m)—with a lean, lightly defined build that suggested training more than natural bulk. His face was striking in a way that wasn't gentle, more like something carved: clean lines, pale skin, and eyes that stayed alert even when his expression didn't change.
He looked sixteen.
His name was Nexus Valemont.
Sixteen years ago, he had died in another life—another world—and somehow, he had been born here.
This world had nothing to do with what he remembered.
They said it was hundreds of times larger, and Nexus believed it. Not because he'd traveled it, but because every map he'd ever seen looked like a cruel joke—continents stacked like mountains, seas that took months to cross by ship, skies where storms could swallow cities. And beyond geography, there were things here that simply hadn't existed in his old life. Real power. Real monsters. Real people capable of bending reality with a thought and surviving battles that would turn armies into dust.
In this world, children awakened when they turned fifteen.
That was the rule. Not a tradition or superstition—an actual, measurable event. The body changed. The core opened. They gained abilities: elemental affinities, reinforced flesh, heightened senses, manifested weapons, strange talents that didn't fit into any category.
And for those who awakened… there was more.
Mana stones—crystals mined from dungeons, rifts, and monster nests—could be absorbed to strengthen the core. Rank was earned and refined through real accumulation. People grew stronger the same way a blade grew sharper: through repeated tempering.
But not everyone awakened.
A small portion reached fifteen and felt nothing. No spark. No change. No door opening inside their body.
Those people were unlucky.
But rarer still—so rare it was almost a myth—were the people who couldn't awaken and couldn't absorb mana at all.
People whose bodies rejected power completely, as if the world itself had marked them as useless.
Nexus was one of them.
He had found out a year ago.
The memory didn't come with dramatic music. It was dry.
A testing hall. A cold crystal. A bored instructor who'd already seen hundreds of teenagers that week. Another man with a clipboard. A faint hum in the air as the mana detection arrays activated.
And then, nothing.
Nexus stood there for minutes, the crystal in his palm, until the instructor finally cleared his throat and said, almost impatiently, "Enough."
The man with the clipboard looked at him like Nexus was a bureaucratic problem.
No awakening.
No absorption.
A double failure.
In any normal family, it would've been a tragedy.
In Nexus's family, it was humiliation.
Because Nexus wasn't the son of some random farmer or low-rank merchant.
He was the son of a man whose name made people straighten their backs without realizing it.
Aurelius Valemont.
His father was a Supreme Rank awakened—a living powerhouse, a pillar of the world's political and military balance. The kind of man who could walk into a city and change its behavior without saying a word.
And because of that, Nexus was expected to become a star.
Not because anyone loved him too much.
But because that was what the world demanded from the blood of that house.
Because in a house like that, a son wasn't just a son. A son was continuity. A weapon being forged. A symbol.
And Nexus had been born without shine.
From the balcony, he could hear voices inside the mansion—distant, but clear enough to understand. The house was enormous, but sound traveled strangely through places built from expensive stone and polished wood.
He didn't even need to listen.
He already knew what they said when they thought he wasn't nearby.
Trash.
Waste.
Shame.
His siblings didn't even try to be subtle.
He had four brothers and three sisters, and none of them treated him like family. Cruelty wasn't always loud—it didn't need to be. Sometimes it was just a look shared between them, a laugh that cut when he entered the room, a servant "forgetting" to announce dinner until everyone had already finished.
Sometimes it was direct.
Sometimes it was worse because it was casual.
Nexus let his breath out slowly through his nose and kept his eyes on the moon, refusing to turn his face toward the mansion behind him.
Tonight, at least, the balcony was quiet.
Then the sliding door opened.
Footsteps.
Not heavy. Not aggressive. Careful enough for Nexus to hear.
He didn't move.
A woman's voice spoke behind him, gentle—but not pitying.
"You'll catch cold sitting out here."
Nexus finally turned his head.
There was Selene Valemont.
One of his father's wives.
She wasn't his mother—his mother had died when he was two—but one of the four other women who had married his father.
She held a shawl in her hands.
Her expression was complicated.
Not exactly warm. But not cruel either.
"Are they still talking?" she asked quietly.
Nexus's eyes flicked toward the inside for a moment, then returned to her.
"They always are."
She hesitated, then stepped forward and draped the shawl over his shoulders. The fabric was expensive, warm, and carried a faint floral scent.
"You should sleep," she said. "Tomorrow is your first day."
Nexus stood, the shawl settling into place.
"I will."
Her gaze stayed on him too long, like she was searching for something in his face.
"You don't have to prove anything to them," she said.
Nexus didn't answer right away.
Because if he answered honestly, he would say: I do. In this world, if I don't prove it, I'm nothing.
Instead, he said, "I'll be fine."
She nodded like she didn't believe him, but couldn't force him to say more.
"Good night, Nexus."
"Good night."
The door closed.
Silence returned.
Nexus stared at the moon for a few more seconds, then turned and went inside.
His room was clean and large, but it didn't feel lived-in. Not because he didn't live there—because nothing in it felt like it truly belonged to him. Even the furniture gave the impression it had been placed there purely for appearances.
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
Tomorrow, he would begin his first year at the academy.
It wasn't an exclusive institution for the awakened—it was a real school, massive, organized like a small world. There were required subjects, the same for everyone, but what defined a student's future were the extra courses: combat and physical training, of course… but also administration, logistics, tactics, resource control, and support roles that almost no one respected until they needed them.
The academy sold the idea of merit. Nexus had seen enough to know merit was only part of the equation.
And he wasn't looking forward to it.
Still, he lay down, pulled the blanket over himself, and stared at the ceiling.
No dramatic vow.
No speech.
Just the quiet acceptance that he would wake up and endure one more day.
He closed his eyes.
And then—
A sound.
Not from the hallway.
Not from outside.
The sound came from nowhere and everywhere at once, like a bell ringing inside his skull.
A sharp, vibrating ding.
Nexus's eyes snapped open.
His body moved before his thoughts did. He sat up fast, the blanket slipping away, his heart racing.
"What…?"
A faint glow hovered in the air, directly in front of him.
A screen.
It wasn't a reflection. Not a trick of light. It was a floating interface, perfectly aligned, letters crisp as if they'd been printed onto glass.
Nexus froze for half a second, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were seeing.
Then text appeared.
[Ding!]
[Host detected]
[Initializing: Multiple Lives System…]
Nexus stared.
His throat went dry.
He swung his legs out of bed and stood, approaching slowly, as if the screen could bite him.
The glow didn't change. He waited.
New lines appeared.
[System initialized]
[Unlocking functions…]
A list formed below.
[Functions
— Assume Life: Available
— Inventory: Empty
— Shop: Locked
— ???: Locked
— World Log: None]
Nexus blinked hard.
The screen didn't disappear.
He carefully reached out and touched the air where "Assume Life" was written.
His finger met resistance—like pressing against a thin sheet of warm glass.
The interface reacted instantly.
The option lit up.
Nexus's mouth fell slightly open.
"…After all this time," he murmured, his voice rough. "I finally get a cheat?"
The words sounded ridiculous the moment they left his mouth.
But his pulse said otherwise.
The screen changed.
[Assume Life]
[You may enter a random fictional world and assume the protagonist's life from the moment of birth]
[All power and all abilities acquired during that life will be integrated into your original body upon return]
[Items in your inventory will also be available]
For a moment, he couldn't breathe.
The text continued, line by line, as if the system was feeding information at a pace meant for humans.
[To travel to another world, you must accumulate that world's energy]
[Energy accumulates naturally over time]
[Upon entering a new world, you will receive three skill options from a previous life and may choose one as your starting advantage]
[Upon leaving a world, that world's time will be paused until your return]
Nexus got stuck on the last line.
Time paused.
He didn't think about what it meant philosophically.
He thought about what it meant in practice.
No time wasted.
No consequences for leaving.
No lost progress.
His hands clenched without him realizing.
He read it again. Slower.
One life.
Integrated power.
Then another life.
Carry one ability.
Repeat.
Stack.
Climb.
A path upward.
A way out of nothing.
Nexus swallowed.
His voice came out quieter.
"Is this real?"
[Confirmed]
His eyes narrowed.
"Can you hear me?"
[Host input detected. The system responds to the host's commands and questions]
Nexus let out a short, disbelieving laugh—more air escaping than humor.
"Alright. Fine. Show me where the catch is."
[No falsehood detected. System parameters are fixed.]
"That's not an answer."
A pause.
Then:
[Warning: The host currently has zero awakened abilities and zero mana absorption capacity]
[The system is the host's only path to growth]
[Recommendation: Initiate the first world immediately]
Nexus looked at the warning, then at the word recommendation.
"So you're not forcing me," he said.
[Correct]
[The system's sole mission is to assist]
[The host is free to make any decision they desire]
Nexus inhaled and stared at the interface again, searching for any detail he'd missed.
The list of functions sat there like a promise and a threat.
His jaw tightened.
Fine.
He could work with this.
He looked at "Assume Life" again, like a door left ajar in a prison wall.
His heart pounded so hard his chest felt tight.
He wasn't thinking about a revenge speech.
He wasn't imagining crushing the ones who despised him with power.
He wasn't building some grand monologue about identity.
He was only thinking about the simple, brutal fact:
In this world, the weak got trampled.
And he was weaker than weak.
If this system was real…
Then it was the first real chance he'd ever been given.
Nexus lifted his hand again, his finger hovering over the option.
Then he stopped.
Not out of fear.
But out of anticipation.
This was where the change in his life began.
And he wasn't going to waste that opportunity.
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