The roaring monument of the Lionring Adventurer’s Guild loomed over the crowded thoroughfare, though it looked less like a sanctuary for heroes and more like a fortress built to hoard secrets. It rose four stories into the gray sky, a massive structure of C-shaped architecture that curved inward like a giant concrete claw trying to claim the very air around it.
Its design was cold, almost misanthropic, as if it resented the footsteps of the mortals who dared approach its threshold.
Stepping through the heavy, iron-reinforced doors, the chaotic rumble of the city streets died instantly. It was replaced by a vast, echoing expanse of blue marble flooring. The polished stone stretched across the immense length of the lobby—a frozen, azure sea reflecting the harsh, geometric lines of the upper balconies where veterans and mercenaries watched the floor below.
"Do you need me to come along?" Gregory asked, his gruff voice uncharacteristically quiet as he stared up at the imposing hall.
Vale shook his head, his gaze fixed forward.
"No. I’ll go myself."
"I’ll be out here. Call me if anything goes wrong," the tavern master muttered, giving him a firm nod.
Vale returned the nod and turned toward the belly of the beast. Each step he took clattered sharply against the stone, his pale, thin reflection shifting across the blue marble like a phantom.
There was no nervousness in his posture now. No sadness, no trembling fear. His face was an absolute blank slate, entirely devoid of the paralyzing thoughts that had defined his final days at the academy.
As he walked past the grand pillars, a few onlookers glanced down at his frail, youthful figure, but their interest waned in seconds. They turned back to their tankards, dismissing him as just another desperate runaway trying to cheat starvation..
Behind the long, marble-topped counter, two receptionists worked with mechanical, practiced exhaustion. Their hands were a blur of stamping parchment, counting silver coins, and nodding along to the tall tales blustered by drunk mercenaries.
A heavy thud rattled the wood nearby as a hulking warrior scooped up his pouch of freshly earned coin, bellowed a rough laugh, and sauntered off toward the tavern wing with his party.
The sudden clearance left a vacancy at the center counter. The receptionist’s weary gaze swept over the remaining line before catching Vale’s quiet, unmoving presence by the pillar. Recognizing the hollow stillness in his eyes, she offered a brief, professional smile as he moved closer.
"Hello," she greeted, her tone softening slightly as she took in his frail frame. "How can the Guild assist you today, sir?"
’This is actually it’ Vale’s mind screamed, his inner monologue briefly spiraling into a chaotic mess of awe and disbelief. ’The Guild Hall. The actual, honest-to-God Adventurers Guild’. Yet, despite the storm brewing beneath his skin, his external mask remained perfectly cool.
"I want to register an identity card," he said, his voice flat.
With a pleased, gentle nod, the receptionist pulled a fresh stack of registration parchment from a deep drawer. She paused, noticing the sudden, tense calculation freezing his features.
"Is there a problem, sir?"
Vale tilted his head slightly, his fingers subtly checking the meager pouch in his pocket. "How much is the registration fee?"
Seeing his worried expression, the receptionist offered a reassuring smile. "It is fifteen silver coins."
Vale exhaled a quiet, unseen breath. It was a steep price for someone with nothing, but within his current budget.
When he dipped the quill into the ink to write his name, his hand hesitated over the paper. His fingers twitched, instinctively starting to shape the letters of ’Roderick’—the proud noble surname he had carried since birth.
A sudden wave of bitter, painful memories flashed through his mind, forcing him to grit his teeth until his jaw ached. He slashed the ink through the air, filling out the line with a single, isolated word: ’Vale’
The receptionist accepted the paper, stamped it with the official Guild seal, and then brought out a secondary item alongside a blank iron identification card. It was a slender bracelet marked with the intricate, interlocking sigil of the Lionring Guild.
A faint, confused expression crossed Vale’s face. "What is this?"
"It’s a Mana Binder," the receptionist explained as she quickly organized the remaining documents.
The bracelet itself was beautifully crafted from dark, satin-brushed star-iron, twisted into two slender, intertwined bands that mimicked the creeping vines of a winter briar.
Rather than resting flush against the skin, the cold metal curved slightly outward, as if levitating by its own weight. Resting perfectly at the crown of the piece was the true marvel: a small, raw mana crystal no larger than a hazelnut, humming with a faint, dormant energy.
"Just send a small flicker of your mana into the core," she instructed, her voice rising with administrative urgency as she gathered a fresh stack of files.
"The crystal will project your current attributes and rank. As a rookie, you will be starting with E-rank requests." Before Vale could speak, she turned away, disappearing into the back room with a stack of archives.
"Wait—"
The word died in his throat. A sudden, terrifying realization bombarded his mind. ’Mana? Send a flicker of mana?’
A bitter, ironic laugh threatened to escape him. He had zero traditional mana. His body was a hollow defect. If he forced his spirit into that crystal, nothing would happen. The dark star-iron would remain dead and cold. ’How am I supposed to view my stats if the standard trigger requires the one thing I don’t possess? Is there another way?’
He bit his lower lip, suppressing the creeping anxiety. ’I’ll have to figure it out another day. With this shattered body, I bet my stats are the lowest in the city anyway.’
To honor his agreement with Gregory’s wife, he needed to find work immediately. Vale turned toward the massive cork bulletin board dominating the western wall.
His eyes scanned the hundreds of parchment sheets pinned to the wood, categorized from the legendary, blood-stained A-rank hunts down to the mundane E-rank chores. The E-rank section was heavily picked over by desperate beggars and children, but his luck held out.
’Found it. This will do.’
It was a standard extermination and gathering request: ’Capture ten stalks of veiling weed, located in the rocky barrens on the outskirts of Hermut Village’
An hour later, the sun was casting long, scorching rays over a vast, barren stretch of broken land. Vale stood in the center of the wasteland, the wind whipping dust against his pale cheeks.
"Hell damn my day," he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
Finding ten stalks of veiling weed was proving to be a nightmare for a frail body. The plant was notorious for growing upside down inside the narrow crevices of jagged boulders or buried beneath shifting gravel.
After nearly sixty minutes of back-breaking labor, his canvas sack held only two pathetic, wilted stalks. Exhaustion claimed his muscles, and he collapsed onto the dry earth, his chest heaving as he stared up at the sky.
"Skrrrreeee!"
A sudden, high-pitched scream tore through the silence of the barrens. It was a piercing, inhuman sound that vibrated right through the soles of his boots.
Initially, Vale’s survival instinct told him to stay down, to remain entirely unbothered by whatever horror was unfolding beyond the ridge. But as the echoes grew louder, a dangerous curiosity peaked within him, overriding his caution.
Crawling on his hands and knees, he dragged himself toward the edge of the deep forest bordering the rocky terrain to catch a glimpse of the commotion.
Through the thick brush, the scene was pure chaos. A group of four seasoned adventurers was sprinting toward the clearing, their faces twisted in absolute panic. Above them, the sky was fracturing—a shimmering, unstable glow of violet light was emitting from a tear in the atmosphere, sparkling like crushed glass.
’A corrosional faultline’ Vale realized, his eyes widening. A localized dungeon break.
Emerging from the violet tear was a six-foot-tall monstrosity. Its skin was a thick, leathery black that seemed to absorb the light, and its massive head turned toward the fleeing party, revealing eyes that were solid blocks of midnight black, devoid of any iris or white. Thick, foul saliva dripped from its jaw, sizzling against the grass.
Vale stood dazed by the sheer pressure of the creature, his mind failing to register the approaching hunters. To the panicked adventurers, the magicless boy standing by the tree line wasn’t a human being—he was a divine miracle. A perfect, disposable scapegoat.
Before Vale could even process the movement, the lead adventurer veered toward him. With a ruthless, heavy shove, the man slammed his palm into Vale’s shoulder, throwing the frail boy directly into the beast’s path.
"Thanks for the distraction, brat!" a voice mocked.
Vale fell hard into the dirt. As he scrambled to look up, he caught the cruel, mocking glints in the adventurers’ eyes as they sprinted past him, leaving him behind. The massive shadow of the black-skinned beast fell over him, its jaw snapping open as it lunged forward with terrifying velocity.
The world slowed down. Vale’s heartbeat stopped entirely. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the cold, agonizing grip of teeth tearing through his throat. He waited for the darkness.
One second passed. Then two. Then three.
The expected pain never came.
Instead, a strange, absolute silence fell over the forest. Vale slowly opened his eyes, but the black beast was gone. The trees were gone. In their place was a blinding, crystalline white light that filled his entire vision.
The light hummed with an intense, calculated energy before suddenly shattering into a million glowing pieces like a broken mirror.
When the glare finally receded, Vale found himself falling backward, landing heavily onto a carpet of soft, foreign moss.
The air here was completely different—dense, heavy, and pulsing with a strange, ambient electricity that made the hairs on his arms stand up.
The trees surrounding him didn’t look like the oaks of the empire; their bark was a dark, geometric obsidian, and their leaves glowed with a faint, synthetic luminescence.
A sharp, chime-like sound echoed directly inside his mind.
[ PLAYER HAS BEEN REGISTERED. ]
[ THE DUNGEON OF EVOLUTION HAS CHOSEN YOU. ]
Vale sat up rapidly, his heart hammering against his ribs as he stared at the unfamiliar, alien sky above the canopy. The voice hadn’t come from the forest; it had resonated from the very center of his consciousness.
A sudden, deep chill ran down his spine, a primal warning that he had stepped entirely outside the boundaries of the known world.
Then, a second voice spoke. It wasn’t the mechanical tone of the system. It was ancient, vast, and carried a rhythmic, humming resonance that sounded like the crackle of current through wire.
[ I have been waiting for a very long time ]
Vale’s breath hitched, his fingers digging into the glowing moss. "What?!"