Song of Rust and Bone

At seventeen, Lu Chen swallowed sleeping pills—not because of a single beating, but because of a thousand ignored breakfasts and torn textbooks. Chronic social defeat stress finally dragged him into the abyss. He thought it was the end, but it was only the beginning. He woke up in a wasteland two thousand years after a nuclear war. Here, there are thinking robots called 'Bone Men,' pointy-eared radiation descendants called 'Flesh-Spirit Clan,' and terrifying self-healing immortals—while humans are the lowest of the ash people. He became a slave. For half a moldy ration, he had to race death in the mines; to survive the night, he had to improve steam engines with high school physics and concoct gunpowder with chemistry notes. In this theocratic world that regards technology as a 'demon's gift,' the math and science in his head became the sharpest blade. From slave to lord, he established the Rust Bone Alliance, ignited an industrial revolution, and shattered the church's technological monopoly. When cobalt bomb clouds loomed over the continent, this once-suicidal youth finally decided—he wouldn't just survive; he would take everyone to live among the stars. — Description from novelcodex.org