Meanwhile, under the web of roots and ferns, Zach—completely unaware of any of this—had reached the critical point in his bloodline awakening. The blood flowing under his skin felt like boiling magma. The pain was unbearable, and for a moment, he had the insane urge to tear off his own skin just to get relief. But he gritted his teeth and endured, his body curled up and trembling uncontrollably.
His mouth tasted like blood. He had bitten down on his tongue too many times to count just to stay conscious. It was torture—pure and brutal.
His fingers clawed into the dirt, nails cracked and filled with blood and soil. His jaw was clenched tight, his teeth grinding against each other as another wave of heat surged through his core—liquid fire flooding every inch of his being. His chest rose and fell sharply with each breath, every inhale shaky, every exhale forced. Time dragged on slowly as he fought to hold on.
But then… after a while…
His breathing started to settle—slowly, gradually. The wild rise and fall of his chest eased into deeper, steadier breaths. The thick, pulsing veins that had bulged on his arms and neck began to fade. His fingers relaxed, unclenching from the dirt. His jaw loosened.
The pain was gone.
His body fell limp all at once like a cut string. He stayed there, completely still, the silence stretching long—until finally, his eyes fluttered open.
He had survived.
> [Ding!]
[Bloodline Awakening Complete.]
[Cursed Bloodline Awakened]
[Proceeding with body reconstruction…]
Zach didn't even bother to read the messages properly. His focus was on the warm, strange sensation spreading through his body. His limbs, his muscles, everything was being rebuilt from the inside out to match his new bloodline.
Unlike the pain of awakening, this part was painless. It was comforting—warm, magical, and strange, if he had to describe it. Bloodline Awakening was just a fancy name for bloodline evolution. When mana descended on the world years ago as the first calamity to strike Valeria—it seeped into human bodies and changed them, evolving their bloodlines to match certain powers.
Each bloodline is tied to an affinity or more than one. And some of those affinities require a specific type of body to function properly. That's why the body reconstruction happens immediately after the awakening.
Time passed as Zach allowed himself to relax into the soothing feeling of the reconstruction. But as always, good things don't last.
> [Body Reconstruction Complete.]
[Status Updated.]
[You have survived the Bloodline Awakening]
[Congratulations, Lucien Thorne. You are worthy.]
Zach stared at the screen in front of him. He could already feel the changes. He felt stronger. The weakness and exhaustion he had earlier were completely gone. He could also sense that his physical appearance had changed, though he didn't focus on that yet. His attention remained on the words in front of him.
'You are worthy? What does that even mean?'
It sounded like one of those cryptic lines whispered in ancient temples in the fantasy books he used to read—just before some unlucky guy got dragged into a thousand-year-old prophecy involving world-ending stakes and zero rest.
The kind of story where shadowy gods showed up to talk about "balance," reality bent itself like paper, and the so-called worthy one had to smile while suffering through pain, blood, and generational trauma.
Honestly, that kind of sounded like his life now.
After all, his soul had ended up in the body of Lucien Thorne—the same Lucien who was the final calamity of this world. Zach sighed deeply.
'What kind of twisted game have I been dragged into?'
His transmigration… it was too specific to be a mistake. He wasn't naive enough to believe it was random or that he was some fated hero. No, someone—or something—had done this on purpose.
Was it the author of Ashes of Valeria, the web novel? Or maybe the developers of Calamity's Crown, the RPG game based on that world? His thoughts were racing, but he pushed them aside as a new notification popped up in front of him.
> [Please go ahead and choose your class]
[Mechanic]
[Phase Warden]
Zach stared at the screen, a small smile tugging at his lips as he muttered, "So I get to choose a class like the players… how convenient."
In the webnovel Ashes of Valeria, getting a class required completing a trial. But all the trial grounds had long been claimed by powerful organizations and factions in this world. To access them, one had to meet their conditions—some demanded full membership, others had looser rules, but either way, they held you down. It was their way of recruiting and controlling talent.
Sure, a few trials didn't have such restrictions, but they cost a lot of money to access, and not everyone could afford that. It was a difficult path. So, when the RPG version was released, probably to give players more freedom, playable characters didn't have to go through those trials. Instead, they got to choose their class right after awakening their bloodline, which was very convenient.
Now, Zach—trapped in the game world inside the body of Lucien Thorne, who was originally just an NPC—seemed to be getting the same benefits, including the system itself. He couldn't help but wonder if, in the future, he might be able to access other player features too—like quests or hidden events.
But that was for later. Right now, it was time to choose a class.
There were only two options available to him: Mechanic and Phase Warden. Mechanic, he understood well. The other one… not so much. From the name alone, he could guess a few things, but he didn't want to make assumptions. So, he focused and willed for more information.
In the next moment, the descriptions appeared.
> [Class: Mechanic]
↳ Where others wield blades, you build legacies.
> [Class: Phase Warden]
↳ The world will fail to grasp you… for you are an anomaly.
Zach stared at the screen, his brows furrowed. Just as he thought, Phase Warden sounded like a spatial or distortion-related class. But the system didn't give many details, which was disappointing. As for Mechanic, he barely paid it any attention.
In Ashes of Valeria, the Mechanic class was rare but valuable. Mechanics could create all kinds of rune-based tech and tools. But they were weak in combat, which made them unpopular among players in the RPG Calamity's Crown. The main benefit of being a mechanic was the potential to get rich selling what they built. But that wasn't what most players wanted, so it became one of those classes people avoided if they had the choice.
Of course, mechanics weren't entirely useless in a fight. They could build gear to help themselves, but that took time—and time was something most players didn't have, especially given the game's difficulty. And now that Zach wasn't just playing the game but actually living inside it, knowing what the future held and what kind of fate awaited him, he had even less reason to waste time on a slow-growing class.
"Guess Phase Warden it is, then," he muttered, casually selecting it and hoping it would be as cool as the name sounded.
> [You have selected the class: Phase Warden]
[Base Skill Unlocked → Shadow Remnant]
Zach read the message. The base skill, as the name suggested, was the foundational ability that came with every class. It usually shaped the path of the class and was tied to the user's bloodline. That's why choosing a class that matched your bloodline was so important.
For example, if someone had a fire-based bloodline but picked a class aligned with ice, the base skill they received could clash with their bloodline's power. That could weaken their potential—or worse, in extreme cases, it could even kill them if the conflict became too intense.
Zach sighed as the memory hit him.
He hadn't even checked what his bloodline was before choosing a class. That was stupid. Really stupid.
He sighed again, deeper this time. What's done was done. All he could do now was hope he hadn't caused irreversible damage to himself.
Without wasting any more time, he willed to see his status.
The screen flashed open a moment later, and what he saw made his jaw drop in shock.