The smell of the Awakening Hall was a mixture of industrial disinfectant and teenage sweat. It was the scent of desperation.
Lin stood at the back of the line, his knuckles white as he gripped the railing. He wasn't nervous about glory or wealth. He was nervous because he was dying.
"Next! Student ID 7-4022!"
The voice of the instructor boomed through the speakers, echoing off the high, reinforced concrete ceiling.
Lin took a breath. The air felt thin. His lungs burned, a familiar reminder of the Mana-Deficiency Anemia that had plagued him since birth. The doctors said his mana channels were too narrow to support his own life force. Without expensive medication—or a high-ranking Awakening to restructure his body—he wouldn't live to see twenty.
Today was his eighteenth birthday. It was literally do or die.
"Move it, corpse-face," a student behind him muttered, shoving Lin forward.
Lin stumbled but kept his balance. He didn't look back. He walked up the ramp to the central platform, where the Awakening Crystal hummed with a soft, azure light.
Below the stage, the recruiters from the major Guilds sat like vultures. There were representatives from Storm Vanguard, Iron Blood, and the Black Tower. They were looking for Tanks, Mages, and Healers. They held tablets, ready to offer contracts worth millions of credits to anyone who pulled a B-Rank or higher.
Just moments ago, a girl from Class A had awakened a B-Rank Flame Elementalist talent. She had been signed on the spot with a bonus that could buy Lin's entire apartment block.
Lin didn't need millions. He just needed a D-Rank Constitution talent. Anything to stop his HP from leaking away.
"Place your hand on the crystal," the instructor said, bored.
Lin reached out. His hand was pale, the veins visible beneath the translucent skin. Please, he thought. Just let me live.
He touched the cold surface.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a dull, grey light flickered deep within the crystal. It didn't shine; it sputtered, like a dying lightbulb.
The holographic screen above the stage materialized. The text was brutally short.
[ System Analysis Complete ]
[ Name: Lin ]
[ Class: Archer ]
[ Talent: Eternal Hunt ]
[ Rank: F ]
A hush fell over the hall. Then, a ripple of snickers broke out.
"Archer?" the instructor read the screen, his eyebrows raising. "Well, that's... technically a combat class."
He tapped the screen to reveal the details. In this world, data was everything.
[ Talent Details: Eternal Hunt (F-Rank) ]
[ Passive Effect: Your ranged attacks no longer scale with Strength or Agility. Instead, they deal True Damage equal to 1% of your Maximum Health. ]
The silence returned, but this time it was confused.
"One percent of health?" A recruiter from Iron Blood frowned, tapping his calculator. "Hey, kid. What's your Constitution stat?"
Lin swallowed the lump in his throat. "My base Constitution is... 6."
The recruiter laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound. "Six? That means you have, what, 120 HP? Maybe 150 if you eat a good breakfast?"
Lin nodded slowly. "Current HP is 120."
"One percent of 120 is 1.2," the recruiter announced to the room. He threw his tablet onto the table. "You deal 1.2 damage per shot. Kid, a standard Lv.1 Goblin has 50 HP. You'd need to shoot it forty times just to kill it, and that's assuming it doesn't rip your throat out after the first arrow."
"But it's True Damage," Lin whispered, his voice cracking. "It ignores armor."
"It ignores logic!" someone shouted from the back. Laughter erupted again.
The instructor shook his head, looking at Lin with something worse than mockery: pity. "F-Rank Talent. Low base stats. Synergy is... terrible. Lin, you are not suited for combat. The Logistics Department is hiring porters. Next!"
Lin stood there for a heartbeat longer. The grey light of the crystal faded, taking his future with it.
He turned and walked off the stage. No Guild stopped him. No one offered a contract. He was a ghost walking among the living.
He exited the grand hall through the side door, stepping out into the smoggy twilight of Sector 7. The massive neon holographic advertisements for potions and weapons towered above the skyscrapers, mocking his poverty.
1.2 damage.
He looked at his hands. They were trembling. The medical scanner on his wrist beeped softly.
[ Warning: Vitality Low. Please administer serum. ]
"I can't afford the serum," Lin muttered to the empty air.
He pulled his hood up and turned into the alleyway that led to the slum district. He needed to get home. Maybe he could sell his books. Maybe he could find illegal work scavenging outside the safe zone walls.
As he walked past a pile of overflowing trash bags, a blue light flashed in the corner of his retina.
Lin flinched, thinking it was a Guild advertisement. He tried to swipe it away, but the window remained fixed in his vision. It was different from the clean, sleek UI of the Federation System. This one flickered with static, the text jagged and unstable.
[ System Error... ]
[ Anomaly Detected in Soul Wavelength. ]
[ Rerouting Karma... ]
[ Hidden Trait Awakened. ]
Lin stopped walking. His heart hammered against his ribs—a dangerous thing for someone with his condition.
[ Talent: Infinite Growth ]
[ Rank: ??? (God) ]
[ Effect: The limiter on your mortal vessel has been broken. ]
[ Condition: Kill. ]
[ Reward: Permanent Max HP +1. ]
Lin stared at the floating text. "God Rank?"
He checked his status screen. It still showed Rank: F. The new text hovered underneath, like a virus attached to the main file.
"Kill to gain HP?" Lin whispered.
Squeak.
A sound from the shadows interrupted his thoughts.
Lin froze. The alleyways of Sector 7 weren't safe at night. The high walls kept the monsters out, but the sewers were a different story.
A pair of red, beady eyes glowed from behind a dumpster.
A Mutated Sewer Rat crawled out. It was the size of a terrier, its fur matted with green sludge, its teeth yellow and sharp as needles.
[ Monster Identified: Sewer Rat ]
[ Level: 0 ]
[ State: Aggressive ]
It wasn't a Dungeon monster. It was just a pest. A vermin that crawled up from the drainage pipes. Usually, the city sanitation drones burned them, but this one had slipped through.
The rat hissed, smelling the sickness on Lin. Predators always targeted the weak.
Lin stepped back, his foot hitting a loose piece of rebar on the ground.
Kill.
The word flashed in his mind.
If the description was true...
The rat lunged. It was fast, a blur of dirty fur.
Lin didn't have the Agility of a Ranger or the Strength of a Warrior. He only had the desperation of a dying man. He fell backward, grabbing the rusted rebar as he went down.
The rat landed on his chest, its claws tearing through his thin school uniform. Pain flared—hot and sharp.
[ HP -12 ]
A chunk of his health bar vanished instantly. Ten bites and he was dead.
"Get off!" Lin screamed.
He swung the rebar. It was a clumsy, panicked strike. The metal bar slammed into the rat's ribs with a dull thud.
The rat screeched, biting at Lin's arm.
[ HP -8 ]
Lin gritted his teeth, ignoring the blood running down his sleeve. He smashed the bar down again. And again. And again.
Thud. Crunch. Squish.
The screeching stopped.
Lin lay panting on the dirty concrete, his chest heaving. The heavy weight of the rat sat on his stomach. He pushed the bloody corpse off.
He was bleeding. He was dizzy. But he was alive.
Then, the blue box appeared.
[ Target Eliminated: Mutated Sewer Rat (Lv. 0) ]
[ Experience Gained: 5 ]
[ Trait Triggered: Infinite Growth ]
Lin held his breath.
[ Max HP +1 ]
A sensation washed over him. It wasn't like the adrenaline of the fight. It was a warm, golden current that flowed from his core to his extremities.
It was subtle, but undeniable.
The tightness in his chest loosened. Just a fraction. The constant, low-level headache he had lived with for years receded by a millimeter.
Lin scrambled to sit up, ignoring the filth on his clothes. He summoned his Status Screen.
Name: Lin
Level: 1
HP: 101 / 121 (Base 120 + 1)
It wasn't a hallucination. His base cap had moved.
Lin looked at the dead rat. To the city, it was trash. To the Guilds, it wasn't even worth 1 EXP.
But to him?
"One hit point," Lin whispered.
He did the math instantly.
One rat was 1 HP.
A hundred rats was 100 HP.
Ten thousand rats...
If he had 10,000 HP, his F-Rank talent [Eternal Hunt] would deal 100 True Damage per shot. That was enough to one-shot a Level 5 Wolf.
If he had 100,000 HP... he would deal 1,000 True Damage. He could kill an Armored Knight through his plate mail.
And the cost?
Only the lives of vermin.
Lin slowly stood up, gripping the rusted rebar tighter. The pain in his bleeding arm seemed insignificant now. He looked deeper into the alleyway, where the shadows stretched long and dark.
He heard the scratching sounds. Hundreds of them. The city infestation was bad this year.
Before today, that sound terrified him.
Now?
Lin's lips curled into a smile that didn't reach his eyes. It was the smile of a starving man looking at a banquet table.
"I need more," he said to the darkness.
He stepped forward, raising his weapon.