Kaelen Sharpe swung the hammer down onto the glowing billet of steel, sending a scatter of sparks across the concrete floor. The forge roared in the corner of the workshop, crackling with heat. It was late, just past 10 but Kaelen wasn't ready to stop. Not yet.
His rented workshop was tucked behind an old mechanic's garage on the outskirts of town. It wasn't much, but it was his. Half-finished blades lined the walls, and the smell of oil and scorched metal clung to everything like a second skin.
He wore a thick leather apron over a hoodie and jeans. Safety goggles steamed over from the heat. His arms, corded with muscle, moved with practiced rhythm. Strike. Rotate. Strike again.
Kaelen didn't look like someone who spent most of his days behind a computer screen. At twenty, he had the kind of physique that came from swinging hammers, not pushing pixels. Broad shoulders, solid arms, and calloused hands that told a different story than his corporate ID badge.
His beard, thick and a little wild, made him look older than he was, and the sharp gray eyes beneath his messy black hair held the kind of focus most people never learned.
This workspace behind the mechanic's garage was his real world. His Forge. After eight hours in a fluorescent-lit office tapping away at shipping data for a logistics firm, Kaelen always ended up here. Tonight was no different. He'd barely dropped his bag before lighting the propane furnace and laying out his tools.
The piece he was working on was a commission, a matched set of longswords for a group attending a local Ren Faire happening in a few week. The commission was gonna help him meet rent this month, but Kaelen wasn't doing it for the paycheck.
He did it because shaping steel with fire and sweat made sense in a way nothing else did. In here, he wasn't an anonymous name on a payroll. He was a blacksmith. The man who told metal what it was meant to be.
He had never meant for this to become his life. At first, it was just a way to be closer to the old man.
Kaelen's grandfather had been a blacksmith in the most literal, stubborn, no modern tools kind of way. His home and forge were behind his weather-worn cabin Upstate. No internet, no distractions. Just smoke, coal, and iron.
As a child, Kaelen used to sit on a wooden stool just inside the open doors, watching the old man work shirtless in the summer heat, sweat gleaming on his arms as he moved with purpose.
Kaelen hadn't always lived with the old man. His parents had died in a car crash when he was eight. Killed instantly when a truck skidded through a red light in the rain. One second he'd had a family, the next he was being handed a duffel bag and told he'd be living with a man he barely knew.
His grandfather hadn't said much when he arrived. He just nodded once, showed him where the bed was, and lit the forge. But the silence between them hadn't been cold. It had been steady. Solid. Like the anvil in the center of the shop. And over time, Kaelen had come to understand: the old man didn't need to talk to teach him about the world, how to survive and how to create.
"Steel's honest," his grandfather had told him once. "It doesn't care who you are. It only gives back what you're willing to put in."
At the time, Kaelen had just nodded, not really understanding. He was maybe ten, more interested in the sparks than the philosophy. But the words stuck, the way real things do.
After his grandfather passed a five years back. Kaelen had found himself drifting. He had been 18 and not prepared to lose the his family all over again. Angry. Quiet. The world felt too thin, too cold. Too lonely.
He had slacked off then. Got mixed up in the wrong crowd and if not a lucky break from a kind police officer, he would have ended up in jail. A fine way to repay all that he had been taught and given.
However, one day, he'd gone out to the old forge, lit the coals, and picked up the hammer. He didn't even know what he was trying to make. He just needed to hit something. And when he did, when the metal sang under the hammerhead and the fire warmed his face, something inside him settled. It wasn't peace, exactly. It was something older than that. Like remembering a language he'd never learned.
Since then, he had got his shit together. Got a good job. And over the last couple years he has built up his own little space. Pieced together with salvaged tools, money from weekend odd jobs, and pure stubbornness. The old man would have been proud.
He read books. Watched every YouTube tutorial he could find. Cut his hands a dozen times. Burned himself more than he could count. Learned from it. Every mistake, every ruined piece of stock, every bent tang or split weld, it all taught him something. Not just about steel. About himself.
He still visited the cabin when he could, still kept the forge there running when the weather allowed. But the soul of the work had followed him. Into the city. Into this own workspace. Into this moment.
Now, standing in the sudden silence with the weight of a half-forged sword in his handz Kaelen continued to swing the hammer down onto the glowing billet of steel, sending a scatter of sparks across the concrete floor.
The propane forge roared beside him, roaring heat licking at his face. The steel hissed as it met the hammer's edge, glowing molten orange beneath his blows.
Each strike was deliberate. Strong enough to shape the glowing metal. The rhythmic pounding echoed in the quiet night like a heartbeat.
He wiped his brow with a grimy sleeve and rotated the blade, checking the curve.
The second longsword was coming together. He glanced over to the old mechanical grindstone sat ready to help him make the blunt smooth edge needed for these type of commissions. Can't have a bunch of nerds cutting themselves apart by accident.
Kaelen wasn't a master smith yet. Not by any means. But years of practice, stolen moments after work, had toughened his arms and sharpened his skill. His fingers knew the weight of the hammer, the texture of hot steel, and the subtle dance between fire and metal that turned raw ore into a blade.
He quenched the blade in a tank of oil, steam and smoke billowing up as the metal hissed violently, hardening beneath the surface. His lungs filled with the acrid smell of burnt oil and scorched metal, but he welcomed it. This was his escape from the world of data logs and dull office politics. A world where he was just another cog.
The blade cooled, and he lifted it carefully, inspecting every curve, every line. The steel gleamed under the flickering overhead light, almost alive.
Suddenly the music blaring from his Bluetooth speaker cut out suddenly.
Kaelen froze. The workshop lights flickered, then died. The forge fire, still roaring, cast wild shadows across the room.
"Come on," he muttered, placing down the unfinished sword and tossing the hammer onto the workbench and reaching for his phone.
Dead. No signal. No bars.
The silence stretched out, thick and electric. Then came the hum, a low, pulsing vibration deep enough to rattle his bones.
He grabbed a towel quickly wiping his face, his face scrunched in confusion.
He stepped outside, blinking taking a look around. No streetlights. No sirens. The entire city was dark. Silent.
"What the hell…"
And then it hit.
A pulse. Light exploded across the sky in concentric rings. Blue, gold, and white. Blinding him for an instant.
Kaelen dropped to a knee, arms raised, and felt a snap in his skull like something rewiring his brain.
He wasn't the only one.Screams echoed from blocks away. Somewhere nearby, a car alarm warbled and died.
His head throbbed with a sudden pressure, and then the voice came, not spoken aloud, but from inside his head.
SYSTEM INITIALZATION.
Initialization in progress…
Earth has been registered.
Welcome to the System, Player.
A glowing orange interface burst to life before his eyes, floating inches in front of him.
[Status Screen]
Name: Kaelen Sharpe
Age: 23
Class: N/A
Occupation: Office Worker. Blacksmith (Hobbyist Tier)
Kaelen stumbled back, heart pounding."What is this? Augmented reality prank?o" He waved his hand through the display. It flickered slightly but continued to hover in front of his eyes.
Another window popped open.
[System Alert: Global Event Detected]
Human civilization has reached Threshold Omega. Technological Singularity Blocked. System override in effect.
Congratulations Humans, your planet has reached the required technological and mana level for System intergration. The Age of Gods has returned! Welcome back to the Multiverse!
Terraforming in progress…
WARNING: Urban sectors will experience Level 1 instability. Survival not guaranteed.
"Terraforming?!" Kaelen looked up at the sky and watched as the entire starscapes shifted, twisted. The moon flickered like a glitch in a game.
The ground rumbled.
In the distance, a skyscraper cracked down the middle and folded in on itself as if a giant hand had squeezed it.
Kaelen ran back into his forge. The steel. The tools. The fire. He didn't know why but he just that he needed to be close to them.
A final alert appeared.
[Tutorial Quest Received]
Title: Kindle the Flame
Objective: Survive System Integration.
Reward: +50 EXP | Access to the Tutorial | Class Choice.
As he ran Kaelen's heart thudded in time with the pulse of something new in his blood.
Outside, the world was falling apart.
But inside his body something was new was being forged. Kaelen Sharpe was about to become far more than just a blacksmith.