Sixty years ago, the world as we know it ended.
It was a world of science, technology, and a fragile, post-war peace. That all changed with the sudden, brutal arrival of the Dungeons. They were a cataclysmic tear in reality, and the creatures that poured out of them were not made of flesh and blood, but of unstable Qi and primal malice.
Entire cities were wiped out in a matter of hours, and humanity was on the brink of extinction. The dilemma of the human species was simple: fight a cosmic force with no weapons, or die. For a decade, the latter seemed inevitable.
Then, it happened. A cosmic event, a surge of pure spiritual energy, coursed through the planet. This event, now known as The Great Awakening, changed everything. It awakened ancient, dormant spiritual bloodlines in humanity, giving them the ability to harness and cultivate Qi.
From the ashes of the old world, a new one was born. For the first time, humanity had a weapon to fight back.
The first cultivators used this newfound power to push the monsters back and contain the dungeon breaches.
They created a universal system for classifying dungeons—from the low-threat Green-Rank to the world-ending Balck-Rank—and a hunter rank system to measure a person's strength from F-Rank to the legendary World-Rank. This new order, born of a desperate need for survival, solved the dilemma of the human species and brought a semblance of peace back to the world.
Today, fifty years after the Great Awakening, humanity has rebuilt itself. Megacities like Neo-Manila stand as a testament to our triumph. But the peace is an illusion. The dungeons still exist, their entrances scattered across the globe, a constant reminder of the chaos that still lurks just beneath the surface. The old nations are gone, replaced by powerful sects and ancient families who use their mastery of Qi to command corporations and plunder the dungeons for resources. This is a world of incredible power and immense danger, a world built on the bones of a fallen civilization.
This is the world that Ero Jaesan lives in.
"...and so, the theoretical application of a Tier 3 Qi-Core's resonance field can be used to stabilize a Blue-Rank dungeon's energy matrix. For your homework, you will…"
The professor's voice was a distant, droning hum. To Ero Jaesan, the classroom was a sea of whispers and the soft tap of styluses on holographic tablets.
He sat in the back, his chin resting on his hand, fighting a losing battle against sleep. A student next to him, a clean-cut boy with a spotless uniform, nudged him.
"Hey, Ero. You alright? You look like you just got back from the trenches."
Ero just grunted. "Yeah. Just tired."
"You should take a break," the boy said, not unkindly. "My dad just got us tickets to the new Dungeon-Sim. They say the graphics are insane."
Ero managed a weak smile. "Sounds great. Maybe some other time."
He knew there wouldn't be a "next time." To this boy, dungeons were a game, an exciting spectacle. To Ero, they were a paycheck. The classroom was a gilded cage, and as soon as the final bell of the day rang, he was a blur of motion, rushing through the bustling student crowd and out into the real world.
He traded the clean, sterile air of the campus for the smog-filled, noisy streets of Neo-Manila. The city was a symphony of modern life: the blare of flying vehicles, the cacophony of street vendors, and the chatter of thousands of people rushing to get home. His destination wasn't a library or a cafe; it was a Green-Rank dungeon.
He slipped into a dark alley, the noise of the city fading into a low hum.
The air grew thick with the stench of rot and unstable Qi, and the sounds of the battlefield began to emerge: the squelch of his worn-out boots in the grimy water, the scuttling of unseen creatures, and the cold, echoing silence of the sewers. This was his world.
He found his quarry near a broken ventilation pipe: a cluster of Filth Crawlers, grotesque, mutated roaches the size of his fist. They were bottom-of-the-barrel monsters, but their cores were a form of currency, and Ero needed every cent. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He had to be quick. He had to be precise.
He drew his dull knife, the cheap carbon-fiber blade glinting in the dim light of his flashlight. He took a shaky breath and muttered to himself, a mantra he'd repeated a hundred times before.
"Just one more. Just a little more. For them."
He lunged, his knife a blur of exhausted motion. He managed to kill three, their chitinous bodies cracking with a faint glow as they dissolved into a greasy vapor. Just as he went for the fourth, the world erupted.
A blinding, violet light tore through the tunnel, so bright it burned through his retinas. The ground beneath him buckled as a wave of pure, unadulterated power—a primal roar of darkness and chaos—slammed into him. It wasn't the ambient hum of Qi he was used to. This was an ancient scream from a broken dimension. He felt his mind being torn apart, then forcefully stitched back together with a searing, otherworldly energy.
He lay there, gasping, his body a trembling wreck. When the world came back into focus, he found a shimmering, translucent blue screen floating directly in front of his eyes. He heard a voice in his mind, both ancient and digital, speaking to him in a language that was both unknown and instinctively understood.
[System Fragment Acquired.]
[System Online.]
[Host has been assigned.]
[Hunter Name: Ero Jaesan]
[Rank: F]
[Ascension Tier: 0]
[Objective: Cleanse the Infested Alley (3/10)]
The screen flickered. A new notification appeared, a bold, confident message that felt impossibly out of place in the dark, rotting tunnel.
[Objective Complete. Claim Reward?]
Ero stared at the words, his mind a whirlwind of confusion and terror. But his empty stomach and the memory of his sister's hollow eyes made a decision for him. With a trembling hand, he reached out and tapped the word [Claim].
A new wave of energy, this time not violent but warm and soothing, surged through his body. The bone-deep exhaustion he had lived with for years seemed to melt away. He felt a newfound clarity, and the dull aches in his limbs vanished. The system's interface flickered and updated.
[Reward Claimed: 100 Credits, 10 System Points]
[Congratulations! Host has reached a new Tier. Ascension Tier: 0 → 1]
[New Objective Issued: Eliminate 5 more Filth Crawlers and 1 Whispering Bat]