The air inside the High Sanctum of Eldrion crackled with magic.
Twelve archmages stood in a perfect circle, their robes embroidered with silver sigils, surrounding a glowing arcane glyph carved into the stone floor. The chanting was steady, like a rhythmic heartbeat of power pulsing through the chamber. Onlookers watched from behind crystalline barriers—nobles, generals, priests—all with the same hope in their eyes.
Their kingdom was on the brink of collapse. Demons surged from rifts in the east. The Spellknight legions were spread thin, and the Mageocracy's rule faced uprisings from those who feared magic had grown too arrogant. Only one gambit remained:
Summon a Hero.
"Phase shift complete. Leyline convergence holding," said Archmage Varyn, voice brittle with age but strong with command. "Proceed to dimensional binding."
A younger mage in the circle nodded and touched the inner ring. A blue fire surged up from the glyph, forming a spiraling cone of mana that reached toward the domed ceiling.
From within the swirl, reality twisted.
A flash of silver. A burst of static.
And then—something went wrong.
The light turned red. The circle sparked. Screams echoed. A wave of unstable mana rippled outward like a blast wave, shattering part of the crystalline shield. Varyn's wards held, but barely.
The cone collapsed inward—and dumped a figure onto the floor, smoking slightly.
Everything went still.
The figure groaned.
He was... different.
No armor. No sword. No magic aura.
Just a young man with short black hair, a battered hoodie, and jeans with burnt seams. He sat up groggily, coughing.
"Ugh... where... the hell am I?" he muttered.
One of the mages gasped. "That... that isn't the Chosen Hero."
"No divine sigil. No blessing of the Light. No affinity to the Leylines."
"But... he was pulled through the Summoning Gate. That's impossible."
Archmage Varyn narrowed his eyes. "Not impossible. Catastrophic."
The young man looked up, blinking in confusion. His name was Aiden Knox, a technologist from a world without magic.
And as the mages argued, Aiden's vision blurred—flashing briefly with blue circuitry across his retinas.
A sound echoed in his ears, one that no one else heard:
[SYSTEM BOOTING…]
CHRONOFORGE INTERFACE v1.0
USER DETECTED: AIDEN KNOX
WORLD PROFILE INCOMPATIBLE. INITIALIZING INTEGRATION LAYER…
WELCOME, ENGINEER.
His eyes widened.
"What the hell... was that voice?"
No one answered him. The mages were already backing away.
To them, he was a mistake. A failure.
But to the world of Eltarion, this so-called error was about to become its most dangerous engineer.