Nameless let his gaze wander across the ridges, the wind tugging at the grass in restless strands. He spoke low, half to himself, half to the silence that never answered.
So this is how it begins… equal ground. Not equal fate.
His eyes narrowed, tracing the broken lines of the horizon.
The system was written this way for a reason. You don't crush the strong by forcing them down, nor do you slaughter the weak by throwing them to heights they can't endure. You start them level — scattered, far, alone. From there… let them climb, or fall. That's the law.
He breathed once, sharp against the hush.
Any other way would be worse than a bug. Leveling by dragging down the strong is nothing but tyranny. Leveling by exalting the weak is mercy that kills. This… this is the only balance. No shortcuts.
Nameless lowered his gaze to the soil beneath his feet, as if the game itself might yield its design in the cracks and furrows.
Of course… not everything starts equal. There's the Wheel.
He let the word hang in the air, dry with memory.
A single draw at birth, a talent inherited — common, uncommon, rare, legendary. One gift, no rerolls. A stroke of fortune to spice the beginning.
The thought drew a faint smile.
But that's all it ever was — spice. Even the most gilded pull won't carry you through the long play. A legendary edge at level one is still nothing against the grind of years. The weak who think luck will crown them kings… they'll learn. And the strong who curse a poor hand… well, the climb will make them stronger still.
His voice thinned into the dusk, part murmur, part decree.
The Wheel doesn't cheat the world. It just reminds you there's no such thing as fairness — only distance, and what you do with it.
Nameless let the silence stretch, the dusk pressing like a weight.
He had spoken enough about shortcuts — about refusing them, about walking the path as written.
But his own character? That had been set in stone long before tonight. Alpha of the alpha, beta of the beta — he was already here when the world was nothing but broken maps and error logs.
And by some miracle of chance — or perhaps just a quiet nudge from the code — his so-called "random" talent had turned out to be exactly what he wanted.
A lucky roll, frozen years ago, waiting for this night.
Coincidence? Maybe. But no one was foolish enough to believe it.
Fairness. That was always the question, wasn't it? How to level a field without flattening it. Too much balance, and you strangle the strong before they can stand. Too little, and the weak never rise, just corpses in someone else's climb.
That's why I built it in two tracks. Horizontal, vertical. Numbers for the grinders, degrees for the ones who actually change. Anyone can claw their way up levels — brute force, patience, repetition. But the grades… those don't measure what you have. They measure what you are.
He smirked, the thought trailing.
A peasant could reach level 500 if he bleeds long enough. But to step from the third degree to the fourth? That takes something the code can't fake.
He let the grin fade, the dusk pressing around him.
Equal chances, unequal ends. Everyone spawns scattered, everyone spins the same talent wheel. But where they finish? That's not my problem. This isn't a nursery. It's a crucible.
His voice cut low, almost lost to the wind.
Let the strong climb without chains. Let the weak survive without guarantees. The rest is arithmetic.
Nameless's eyes caught a scatter of roofs far across the fields, smoke rising faint against the dusk. He let the sight linger, then muttered under his breath:
Not from this distance. Doesn't trigger.
The words drifted into the hush. He smiled thinly, as if amused at his own restraint.
His advantage had never been one for spectacle. No blade that swung truer, no eye that pierced farther. His chosen gift was quieter, but heavier than all the rest.
Knowledge.
Here, more than anywhere, it was the only true weapon. To know what others didn't. To read the system before it revealed itself, to bend its laws before anyone else knew they could break.
Steel dulls. Armor shatters. Talent burns out. But knowledge compounds. It turns failure into warning, distance into map, silence into answer.
And when the flood arrived — three million blind pioneers — he would already be moving with eyes open.
That was the only advantage that endured.