The crack of the practice sword against his ribs was a familiar period in the long, run-on sentence of Kael's failure. He hit the packed earth of Oakhaven's training yard, the air driven from his lungs in a pained grunt. The taste of blood and dust was a constant, a bitter seasoning to every meal, every breath.
"Get up, Null!" Sergeant Borin's voice was a lash of pure contempt. "The Orc Horde doesn't care about your feelings. They'll carve you up while you're still feeling sorry for yourself!"
Kael pushed himself up, his muscles screaming a protest he felt deep in his bones. Around him, the other initiates—boys and girls on the cusp of adulthood—moved with a fluid, effortless grace that was as alien to him as the magic of the high elves. Elara's form was a blur of controlled motion, her Agility a tangible force that made the air itself seem to part for her. Rolf's practice sword whistled with lethal intent, his high Strength making every swing a lesson in physics that Kael's body was forced to learn the hard way.
They were all blooming, their stats—Strength, Agility, Vitality—inching upwards with each passing day, their connection to the Law of Ascension a natural, breathing part of their existence.
Kael was seventeen. A full year past the age when one's potential should have solidified. He was a Stat Null, a ghost in the system, a void where promise should have been. His body refused to grow stronger, his spirit remained dormant and unreactive, and his mind, while sharp, was a tool with no power to wield.
"Your Spirit is so low, you couldn't light a candle in a pitch-black room," Borin sneered, circling him like a carrion bird. "You are a drain on this village's resources, boy. A mouth to feed with no sword arm to protect it."
The words, honed by years of repetition, struck with the precision of a master bladesmith. This was it. His final assessment. Failure meant not just exile from the militia, but consignment to the life of a menial laborer—a permanent, walking monument to inadequacy, forever on the outskirts of a society that valued strength above all else.
As Borin turned to bark a correction at Elara's footwork, Kael stumbled back, the weight of his despair a physical force. He fell hard against the ancient, moss-covered Menhir Stone that stood sentinel at the edge of the training grounds—a relic from a forgotten age, said to be a place where the World Law whispered its secrets to the worthy.
For everyone else, it was a piece of scenery, a handy backstop for wayward practice swings.
For Kael, it was a conduit.
The moment his sweat-slicked skin made contact with the sun-warmed granite, the world detonated into silence. Not a quiet silence, but a roaring, absolute void of sound. Then, light—pure, undilited, and overwhelming—flooded the void behind his eyes. When it receded, a crystalline, blue screen hung in his vision, its text etched in lines of silent, cool fire.
[Soul Grimoire: Administrator Access Granted.]
[User: Kael of Oakhaven. Status: Anomaly Detected.]
[Initializing Core Protocols...]
[...Welcome, Architect.]
Hallucination. It had to be. This was the final, merciful break his mind had promised after a lifetime of strain and failure.
But the screen persisted, unwavering. It was more real than the ground beneath his feet, more solid than the pain in his ribs.
[Status Panel]
Name: Kael
Race:Human (Latent)
Titles:None
Health (HP): 28/30
Mana (MP):5/5
Attributes:
· Strength: 4 (Below Average)
· Agility: 3 (Deficient)
· Vitality: 5 (Average)
· Intelligence: 6 (Average)
· Spirit: 1 (Crippled)
Essence (Stat Points): 0
Epiphany Points (EP):0
The numbers were a brutal, unfeeling confirmation of everything he had ever been told. A Spirit of 1. It was a statistical miracle he was even conscious, let alone capable of coherent thought. He was, by every quantifiable measure, less than nothing.
Then, his gaze, dragged down by the weight of his own worthlessness, fell to the bottom of the screen. Two lines of text glowed there with a soft, terrifying, golden light, utterly alien from the sterile blue of the status report.
[Unique Trait: The Architect's Blessing]
· You perceive the foundational code of the Soul Grimoire. You may reassign all Essence once per day at will.
· Modular Evolution Tree: You are not locked into any single Path of Ascension. You may purchase any Evolution from any branch, provided you meet its individual requirements.
· Synthesis Engine: Evolutions from disparate paths can be combined to create new, unique abilities known as Synthetic Arts. This process is exclusive to you.
· Your potential is omni-directional and infinite.
Infinite.
The word did not echo with the promise of glory. It did not sing of future triumphs. It echoed with the grim finality of a life sentence. It was not a key to a door; it was the revelation that he stood at the edge of an endless, trackless ocean, and he was expected to cross it.
Before he could process the sheer scale of it, a new, smaller prompt appeared.
[New Quest Received: The First Step]
Objective: Survive the assessment.
Reward: 1 Epiphany Point.
"Kael! Are you praying to that rock now?" Borin's roar shattered his trance, yanking him back into the brutal reality of the training yard. "Your final judgment is now! Face Rolf. Let's be done with this charity."
Rolf stepped forward, his 12 Strength making the heavy practice sword in his hand look like a twig. He grinned, a wide, easy, unburdened thing.
The interface flickered but held firm. The cosmos of possibilities remained, a silent, shimmering backdrop to the smug, confident face of his opponent.
Kael looked from Rolf's face to the infinite tapestry of cosmic power in his mind. The gulf between them was so vast it was comical. He had been handed the schematics to build a god, but his hands were too weak to lift the first tool.
He had no EP. No Essence. He was, at this very moment, the most powerless person in the yard, despite being the only one who could see the summit of every mountain.
He bent down, his body a chorus of aches, and picked up his practice sword. The familiar, worn grain of the wood felt different under his fingers. It was no longer a symbol of his failure, but a simple, crude tool. The first of countless tools he would wield.
He settled into a fighting stance. His body ached. His spirit was bruised. But as he met Rolf's charge, something in his eyes had changed. The despair was still there, a cold, hard knot in his stomach. But it was now joined by a grim, weary, and utterly unshakeable understanding.
He would lose this fight. He would be beaten. He would be cast out.
But he knew the truth now. The road was infinite, and it was his alone to walk. He would grind where others sprinted. He would collect fragments of power where others claimed whole legacies. He would not choose a path; he would become the living nexus of all paths.
Rolf's first swing came, a predictable overhead chop. Kael raised his sword, his mind already analyzing, not the attack, but the infinite grid of possibilities behind his eyes. The impact was brutal, numbing his arms.
He fell. He got up. He fell again.
Each impact was a lesson. Each bruise was a data point. Each drop of sweat was the first grain of sand in the foundation of an eternity.
He was Kael the Null. But he was also Kael, the Architect. And the construction of infinity had just begun.