My name's Lucen Noctis — light and darkness in one.
Fitting, isn't it? My life's pretty much the same.
By day, I'm a shard collector. I sit in front of a red rift, trading fragments of power for a few crumpled bills. It's one of the lowest jobs left in this changed world — the kind nobody dreams about, just endures.
A Hundred years ago, something called the Gaia System rewrote the rules of reality.
A game-like interface appeared, giving humans the power to grow stronger by killing the things that crawled through the rifts. People called it evolution. I call it survival with a price tag.
Now, Essence is currency. Strength is measured in numbers.
And those of us too weak to fight? We scrape up what's left behind.
Even among collectors, I'm at the bottom. I buy scraps — shards too small or unstable for guild teams to bother with. Solo divers come to me when they want cash instead of Essence. It's not glamorous, but it helps support my mother.
A commotion rippled through the square.
"I got a red shard!" someone shouted.
I looked up from my station. A solo diver stood in the middle of the crowd, clutching a satchel like it was a holy relic. A red shard was rare enough to turn heads — I wasn't the only one watching.
Then the whispers started.
"Too small, probably not worth much."
"He says it's from a Count-class monster?"
"He wants cash, not Essence."
That last part caught my ear. I grabbed my pouch and pushed through the crowd.
"Good afternoon, sir. I heard you're selling for cash?" I asked.
The man gave me a once-over, unimpressed. "Kid, this is a shard, not scrap."
"Maybe," I said, "but I've got cash, and no one else here's offering."
He hesitated, then opened his satchel. Inside was a red shard, about two by one centimeters — smaller than usual, but it pulsed with a deep inner glow. Most red shards are about twice that size, but color mattered more than size.
"How much?" I asked.
"Twenty thousand Ques."
Not bad. Red shards usually went for about five hundred Essence — roughly twenty-five thousand ques — so he wasn't overselling.
"Throw in the other shards you've got, and I'll take them all," I said.
He frowned, but dumped a few green and blue scraps on the table. I paid him the full amount and took the lot. It wasn't a huge profit, but I wasn't after cash. I was after a complete card.
Back at my stall, I pulled out a skill deck — a thin plate that stabilized shards for fusion — and began piecing the fragments together.
Green to the edges. Blue along the lines.
Finally, I set the red shard into the center slot.
The deck pulsed. Green. Blue. Red. Then everything flared white.
When the light faded, a card floated above the plate. The surrounding collectors leaned in, waiting for the reveal. I picked it up and read the text etched across its surface:
[Flashbind] — Blinds enemies and immobilizes them for 10 seconds.
The air buzzed. Unranked, but powerful — comparable to a Unique. Two effects in one.
From the cards that came with the Gaia System, colors meant everything:
Green (Common): basic movements — Slash, Thrust, Guard.
Blue (Rare): enhances ability — Acceleration, Reinforce.
Red (Unique): creates phenomena — two effects or area skills.
Gold (Legendary): full-body empowerment — elemental control, stat multipliers.
Black (Mythic): the impossible — things like time or causality.
Flashbind might've been crafted, but it was solid work. My supervisor weighed it on the Essence scale — 3,200 Essence. I'd earn ten percent, after fees.
Sixteen thousand ques.
Not bad for a day's work. Usually, I earned two thousand from common cards.
When the clock hit six, I packed up and headed for the hospital.
The scent of dust and rust clung to my clothes — the smell of rift work.
Mom would smile anyway. She always did.
And maybe, just maybe, the next card I forge will cover a month of our expenses.