"Breaking news. We have news about the Fourth Elder of Genius Era Academy."
"He has successfully broken through to a higher rank. He has now become the academy's fourth strongest powerhouse."
"With one more top expert in the academy, the safety of the students and humanity has gone up a lot."
"To celebrate the Fourth Elder's breakthrough, Genius Era Academy has decided to hold a grand banquet."
"Many strong and important people have already been invited to the event…"
A sharp sound suddenly pulled Aren out of his blank state.
"What the—?"
He quickly sat up and looked around.
His face was full of confusion.
"Where am I?" he muttered, shocked, as he looked at the bed under him.
He turned his head and looked around the room again. "This… this isn't my room."
The room was small, around 27 square meters. There was a bed, a one-seat sofa near the window, and a small study table beside the bed.
But while he was still trying to understand where he was, a sudden pain hit his head.
"Ah…!"
He grabbed his head with both hands. It felt like his brain was being torn apart.
The pain was so bad that he could barely think.
Then, little by little, it started to calm down.
As the pain became weaker, a lot of strange memories started rushing into his mind.
Aren gasped.
A few moments later, the pain finally stopped.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Then he focused on those new memories that were now settling inside his head.
The more he understood, the more shocked he became.
His eyes widened.
He had transmigrated.
And not just that.
He had come to a completely different world.
From the memories he got, he learned that this was the year 1042 on the world calendar, and this world had changed a lot.
Back on Earth, he had just been a normal high school boy. He did not have big duties on his shoulders. Even though he had no parents, he still managed to live by doing part-time jobs. Life was not easy, but at least he did not have to worry every day about losing his life.
Now everything was different. He was in a place that felt completely strange to him, and for a moment, he did not even know where to begin.
So first, he decided to carefully go through the memories of this new body. He needed to understand what kind of world he had come to and what situation he was in.
One memory after another flashed in his mind, almost like pictures changing one by one. As he looked through them, he slowly started to understand his new reality.
He had transmigrated into a world that looked a lot like Earth.
Its culture and history were very close to the Earth he knew, but the technology here was much more advanced, and people lived better lives overall.
But this planet had not followed the same path as Earth.
A very huge event had happened hundreds of thousands of years ago, and because of that, the whole world changed direction. From then on, this ancient planet developed in a very different way.
Aren only understood all this because of the memories left inside his mind.
Since that world-shaking event, many things on this planet had become different.
Strange supernatural things started to appear, and spirit energy slowly spread through the air. Over the next few hundred years, that change pushed the whole world onto a completely new path.
Eventually, spirit energy became rich in the world, and many strange things started to appear.
While thinking about all this, he suddenly remembered something important.
Today was a very big day for him.
Today, he would get the chance to awaken his Dimension Origin Gate and begin the path of a dimension explorer.
The moment that thought came to his mind, he felt excited again. He quickly got ready for the awakening ceremony and left his room.
Aren walked toward the big square platform inside the school hall and joined the line just as the ceremony was about to start. The platform was built in an open area, with stairs leading up to it. Down below, all the students stood in line and waited for their turn.
He was standing somewhere in the middle of a crowd of more than two thousand people, all waiting for their chance to awaken.
A few minutes later, a group of people came onto the platform and sat down on the chairs prepared there.
Just by looking at the way they dressed and carried themselves, anyone could tell they were important people.
"Alright, no more wasting time. Let's start the ceremony," a teacher who looked to be over forty said from the platform. Even without a microphone, his voice spread clearly through the whole hall.
"I won't make it sound nice. In this ceremony, the ones who open their gate will rise above many others. The ones who fail will stay ordinary and be forgotten. In times like these, the first step matters a lot. So give it your best and open your gate."
In this world, awakening means opening a special dimensional gate. Once that gate opens, a person can enter other worlds, explore them, and earn points. Those points can be traded for resources through the Will of Dimension Origin.
This power is above normal human understanding. It works like a bridge, connecting their own world to other worlds and realms.
The world someone explores can be a real, existing world. Or it can be a special realm created by the Will itself. But either way, explorers can still get benefits from it.
People who enter these worlds are called explorers. The better they do during exploration, the more points they earn. Sometimes, instead of points, they can directly get treasures or other useful items from that world.
Aren had not awakened yet, so he did not know much about explorers or the awakening process. He only knew a little.
In this world, Aren was an orphan. His parents died on a mission when he was still very young, leaving him alone. They had also been explorers, so because of that, there was still a good chance that Aren would also open his own Dimension Origin Gate.
Now Aren was seventeen years old, and his chance had finally come.
In this world, some people awakened naturally on their own. But for those who could not, the empire gave them one official chance. They could go through a special awakening process meant to bring out their talent and hidden potential.
If they still failed even after that, then for most people, that was the end of the road. Unless they had strong connections or a powerful person backing them, they would not get another chance.
Awakening was not something simple. It depended on many things, like natural talent, hidden potential, bloodline, understanding, luck, and sometimes even special supernatural traits.
Even though both his parents were explorers, Aren still could not awaken on his own. So this forced awakening was his only chance. And also his last one.
If he failed, life would get hard for him. He would stay an ordinary person, with low status and not many choices in the future.
"Now go through the process and do your best. Endure as much as you can. If you can hold on longer and push your limits, your chance of success will be much higher."
The teacher's voice pulled Aren out of his thoughts.
There were many things that could affect a forced awakening. If someone had a bit of money, they could use a spiritual potion to boost their endurance and willpower for a short time. There were also special items, artifacts, treasures, and other resources that could help with awakening. But for Aren, those things were out of reach. He had no way to get any of them.
He looked on as a boy named Han Zhao walked onto the stage. The boy's face was full of worry.
"Here, drink this," the teacher said, handing him the potion needed for the forced awakening.
This kind of potion was very expensive, but the empire gave every person one free chance. So this first potion was provided at no cost. But there was one important catch. The potion only worked once. After that, even if someone drank it again and again, it would do nothing.
Han Zhao nodded, took the potion, and drank it. Then he closed his eyes.
Right now, Han Zhao felt completely different.
As soon as he drank the potion, a strange but strong energy spread through his whole body. His arms and legs tingled. His chest felt warm. Even his senses became a little sharper. On top of that, he could feel something deep inside his mind, like a faraway gate had connected to him with a thin thread. The energy inside him and the hidden potential of his body seemed to react to each other. It made him feel full, steady, and complete.