The sharp, acidic sting of toxic rain against his cheek dragged Chen Xi back to consciousness.
He gasped, his eyes snapping open. His hand immediately flew to his boot, drawing the rusted combat knife in a single, fluid motion before he had even fully processed his surroundings. He was still in the scrapyard. The heavy, ash-choked night had fallen over the wastelands, illuminated only by the distant, sickly neon glow of Mega-City 9’s perimeter wall.
To his right lay the carcass of the Steel-Scaled Hound. To his left, the empty crater where the black polyhedron had been buried.
Chen Xi pushed himself up, expecting the agonizing burn of radiation sickness or torn muscles. Instead, he felt an explosive, thrumming vitality coursing through his veins. The chronic ache in his joints—a byproduct of over-training his physical body without the System's nourishment—was completely gone. His senses were terrifyingly sharp; he could hear the faint scuttling of rad-roaches a hundred yards away and smell the metallic tang of the hound’s blood mixing with the rain.
System? he thought, a spike of adrenaline cutting through his usual calm.
The air in front of him did not shimmer with the pale-blue light of the standard Earth Cosmic System. Instead, a deep, archaic gold fractured the darkness, assembling into crisp, geometric text.
[Biometric Synchronization Complete.]
[Host: Chen Xi. Status: Awakened (Tier 1)]
[Origin Core Integrity: 1.4% (Critical Damage Sustained)]
"Host biological stability achieved," a voice echoed directly within his mind. It was a female voice, melodic but layered with a cold, metallic synthesis, like a pristine blade sliding against a whetstone. "I am Origin-Alpha, localized oversight intelligence of the Primordial Forge. Awaiting primary directive."
Chen Xi didn’t panic. Panic was a luxury for people who had a safety net. He leaned against the rusted chassis of a nearby rover, his mind racing.
"You're not the standard Cosmic System," he whispered, his eyes scanning the darkness for predators. "What did you do to me?"
"Negative. The entity your species refers to as the 'Cosmic System' is a degraded, public-access terminal of the grand network. I am a localized Origin Node. Upon detecting your lethal biological inferiority, I forcefully initiated your genetic unlocking to prevent host termination. You have been granted a Dual-Class pathway to ensure maximum survivability."
Lethal biological inferiority. Chen Xi let out a dry, humorless breath. "Appreciate the honesty. Show me my parameters."
The golden interface expanded, cascading down his vision.
[Name: Chen Xi]
[Level: 1]
[Classes: Novice Mechanic (Lvl 1) / Novice Martial Artist (Lvl 1)]
[Attributes:]
Strength: 15 (Standard Unawakened Adult: 5)
Agility: 18
Endurance: 14
Intelligence: 22
Affinity/Mystery: ? (Locked by Origin Core)
[Class Skills:]
[Basic Mechanical Affinity]: Grants intuitive understanding of structural blueprints and basic alloy composition.
[Qi Gathering (Passive)]: Automatically absorbs latent cosmic energy to temper the physical body. (Upgraded from flawed human manual).
[Unique Trait - Origin Forge:] The host can consume raw materials to fabricate blueprints directly from the Origin-Alpha database, bypassing standard workshop requirements. Current capacity: Micro-scale.
Chen Xi stared at the shimmering gold text, his heart pounding a heavy rhythm against his ribs. The standard Awakening only granted one class. Espers commanded the elements, Fighters broke mountains, and Mechanics built the fleets. To hold two was a genetic impossibility; the cosmic energy paths required for external machinery and internal Qi normally destroyed each other.
"Origin-Alpha," Chen Xi muttered. "That's too many syllables for a combat scenario. I'm calling you Zero."
"Designation accepted. Updating vocal parameters," Zero replied, the metallic edge in her voice softening just a fraction. "Warning, Host Chen Xi. The scent profile of the deceased biological entity is currently attracting three hostile signatures. Distance: four hundred meters and closing."
Chen Xi snapped out of his shock. The wasteland was no place to marvel at a golden ticket.
With his newly boosted Agility and Strength, his movements were a blur of lethal efficiency. He descended upon the dead hound, his rusted knife now feeling light as a feather. Where he previously would have struggled to pry the armored scales apart, he now intuitively sensed the micro-fractures in the beast's skeletal structure. He drove the knife in, twisted, and extracted the glowing, thumb-sized Cosmic Core from its chest cavity in seconds.
He didn't stop there. Using his [Basic Mechanical Affinity], he rapidly stripped the hound's thickest back-scales. He didn't just see bone and keratin; his mind automatically overlaid geometric angles, calculating tensile strength and durability.
"Zero, can you store this?" he asked, eyeing the heavy materials.
"Negative. Spatial storage modules are unavailable at 1.4% core integrity. The host must carry physical mass."
"Figures," Chen Xi muttered, stuffing the beast core into his inner pocket and hastily strapping the scales to his forearms with copper wire, fashioning crude but effective bracers. "We do this the hard way."
He hoisted his scavenged crate of copper and alloys onto his back. It felt like nothing now. With a powerful kick off the rusted earth, he vanished into the toxic fog, moving seamlessly through the shadows.
As he sprinted toward the towering, heavily fortified gates of Sector 4, the sprawling slums of Mega-City 9, his mind was already calculating his next move. The city's official Awakening Ceremony was tomorrow. If he walked in showing a Dual-Class, he wouldn't be hailed as a genius; he would be dissected by the megacorporations or conscripted as a black-ops lab rat.
He had to hide the Martial Arts class. He would present himself as a standard, unremarkable Mechanic. Let the elites of the Academy think he was just a wrench-monkey. He would use their resources, their workshops, and their funds to feed Zero the materials she needed to repair her core. And when the predators of the galaxy finally came knocking, they would find out exactly what happened when a mechanic built an army with the hands of a martial arts grandmaster.