The first thing Lin Chen felt was the weight of nothing.
Not the emptiness of death, but the hollow silence of a page with no words. When he opened his eyes, the world around him blurred into lines of code and ink—like a draft of something still waiting to be written.
He sat up in a cold stone room, surrounded by other kids in plain grey robes, all waiting their turn at the crystal orb on the table. When his name was called—or what passed for a name: "Boy 73"—he walked forward and placed his hand on the orb. It glowed for a moment, then faded to dull white.
"Another failure," the old proctor muttered, marking a line on a scroll. "No affinity for any Element, no awakening of a Narrative Trait… not even a thread in the World's Tapestry. You're a blank slate, boy. Worthless."
The words should have stung, but Lin Chen felt only calm—cold, calculating calm. A blank slate wasn't worthless. It was a canvas with no limits.
As he looked around the room, something strange happened: he saw more than just the kids and the proctor. He saw threads twisting around each of them—gold for the girl who'd stand out, black for the boy who'd turn on his friends, grey for the proctor who'd be gone in three days. He didn't know why he could see these things—only that they felt as real as the stone beneath his feet.
He was in the Twilight Weave Academy—one of the five great institutions that trained those who could manipulate the world's "Narrative Sequences." Paths like Chronicle Keeper, Calamity Weaver, Mystery Seeker—each step unlocking power, status, meaning. All things Lin Chen didn't have.
His status, when he tried to call it up in his mind, showed only one line: [STATUS: ZERO]. No name, no Sequence, no purpose. He was an anomaly—a zero in a world of ones and zeros—and that made him invisible to the rules that bound everyone else.
As he walked through the academy's corridors, other students stared. Some laughed, some pitied him. But Lin Chen paid them no mind—he was too busy observing, cataloging, planning. He knew he was an outsider in this world, but not a side character trying to fit in. He was something else entirely: someone with no role to play.
"Hey, blank face!" A boy with spiky red hair stepped in front of him, his badge gleaming with the mark of Sequence 9: Storyteller. "Give me your meal ticket. A zero like you doesn't need to eat—you're already empty inside."
Lin Chen looked at him, and the world shifted. He saw the boy's future: in two weeks, he'd try to advance to Sequence 8 and fail, losing his voice forever. Lin Chen could stop it. He could warn him. But… why?
"I don't have a meal ticket," Lin Chen said, his voice flat. "But I have something else." He held out his hand, and for the first time, the blank zero in his status flickered. A single word appeared, then vanished: [POTENTIAL].
The red-haired boy laughed, reaching for Lin Chen's collar. But before his fingers touched, the corridor went dark. A deep voice boomed through the air—like thunder rolling off the pages of a great book:
SCENARIO: THE FIRST TEST
Objective: Find the "Meaning of the Blank" hidden in the academy's library.
Failure: Erasure from the World's Tapestry.
Reward: A chance to write your own Sequence.
Panic spread through the students. But Lin Chen just turned and walked toward the library, a faint smile touching his lips. For the first time since he'd awakened, he had a goal. Not to gain power, or status, or acknowledgment—but to find meaning in the zero that defined him.
The world was a story, yes. But he wasn't just a character in it. He was the one who could rewrite the rules—one blank page at a time.