Lucas remained standing in the hallway, staring at the empty space where the notification had disappeared.
Time Manipulation.
The name continued to echo through his mind.
He had no idea what rank the ability belonged to.
He had no idea what its limits were.
And he had no idea why it had appeared after his regression.
But Lucas wasn’t going to waste time worrying about it.
There was something far more important.
His other ability.
Boost Breaker.
Lucas had spent years learning the truth behind that ability in his previous life.
At first, everyone had called it worthless.
An F-Rank ability.
A joke.
A power that belonged to someone destined to remain at the bottom.
Lucas had believed them.
For years, he had struggled to become stronger while everyone around him progressed faster.
But Boost Breaker had never been an ordinary ability.
It had simply been sealed behind conditions that Lucas didn’t understand.
Every time he completed one of its quests, another portion of its power became available.
F-Rank.
E-Rank.
D-Rank.
C-Rank.
B-Rank.
A-Rank.
S-Rank.
SS-Rank.
SSS-Rank.
And eventually…
Ranks beyond what humanity understood.
Lucas walked back into his room and sat at his desk.
He pulled out a piece of paper.
Then he began writing.
“Power Rankings.”
He remembered exactly how the world understood them.
The system was simple.
Every awakened person received a rank when their power awakened.
F-Rank.
E-Rank.
D-Rank.
C-Rank.
B-Rank.
A-Rank.
S-Rank.
Those were the seven recognized ranks.
F-Rank was the lowest.
S-Rank was the highest rank that the average person knew existed.
S-Rank awakened were considered national-level assets.
Governments competed for them.
Guilds fought to recruit them.
An S-Rank awakened could potentially change the outcome of an entire battlefield.
But the public didn’t know everything.
Lucas wrote two more letters.
SS.
SSS.
These ranks existed.
But very few people knew about them.
Even among the strongest guilds, SS-Rank was considered almost legendary.
An SS-Rank awakened wasn’t simply stronger than an S-Rank.
The difference was enormous.
Someone at SS-Rank could completely overwhelm an ordinary S-Rank fighter.
And SSS-Rank?
That was something else entirely.
Lucas stared at the paper.
“Even SSS-Rank isn’t the end.”
He remembered his previous life.
After years of fighting, Lucas had finally reached SS-Rank.
At that point, he had believed he was approaching the absolute peak of humanity.
He was wrong.
There were beings beyond SS.
There were beings beyond SSS.
The problem was that humanity had no official name for those levels.
They weren’t recorded in public databases.
They weren’t taught in schools.
They weren’t discussed by ordinary guilds.
Most people didn’t even know they existed.
Lucas turned the paper over.
He wrote:
F
E
D
C
B
A
S
SS
SSS?
Then he stopped.
His pen hovered above the page.
There were no names for what came after SSS.
At least, not human names.
Lucas had discovered that truth during his final battle.
The God he had fought had possessed a power so far beyond anything Lucas understood that the system itself couldn’t display its rank.
There had been only one symbol.
?
Lucas’s eyes narrowed.
“That thing wasn’t SSS-Rank.”
He remembered the moment clearly.
His Boost Breaker ability had activated.
One of the strongest abilities he had ever obtained.
It had given him an unusual advantage.
Boost Breaker could allow Lucas to see two ranks above his own when he fought an opponent.
At first, the ability seemed strange.
But as Lucas became stronger, he realized how terrifying it really was.
If Lucas was F-Rank, he could perceive two ranks above F-Rank.
D-Rank.
If he became C-Rank, he could see A-Rank.
If he reached A-Rank, he could see SSS-Rank.
And when Lucas reached SS-Rank…
He should have been able to see two ranks above himself.
Whatever those ranks were.
That was how he discovered the truth.
The God wasn’t merely SSS-Rank.
The God had gone beyond the known ranking system.
Boost Breaker couldn’t even display the number.
Only one symbol appeared.
?
Lucas leaned back.
“That’s why I couldn’t understand its strength.”
The God had been beyond SSS-Rank.
Yet Lucas had still been able to fight it.
Not because Lucas himself had surpassed the God.
He hadn’t.
He had survived because Boost Breaker had become something far greater than an ordinary ability.
Lucas remembered the battle.
The ruined dimension.
The shattered mountains.
The collapsing sky.
The God standing above him.
Every attack should have killed him instantly.
But Boost Breaker had continued to evolve.
It had broken restrictions.
It had increased his physical abilities.
It had enhanced his skills.
It had given him temporary advantages that shouldn’t have been possible.
The ability had effectively allowed Lucas to fight above his actual rank.
That was the true terror of Boost Breaker.
It wasn’t an ability that simply made Lucas stronger.
It broke the rules that were supposed to limit his strength.
Lucas looked down at his hands.
“In my previous life, I reached SS-Rank.”
He remembered the feeling.
The moment his rank changed.
The overwhelming energy.
The shock throughout the world.
The strongest guilds immediately trying to recruit him.
Governments attempting to negotiate with him.
People calling him a monster.
A genius.
A hero.
A threat.
But Lucas knew the truth.
SS-Rank wasn’t the peak.
Neither was SSS-Rank.
There were levels beyond them.
Levels humanity didn’t understand.
And if Gods existed beyond those levels…
Then becoming stronger wasn’t optional.
It was necessary.
Lucas folded the paper.
He didn’t need to explain any of this to anyone.
As far as the world was concerned, he would simply be another awakened person.
If he awakened as F-Rank again, nobody would care.
That was perfect.
He preferred it that way.
Lucas suddenly heard footsteps.
He quickly hid the paper inside his desk.
The door opened.
His mother looked inside.
“Lucas?”
He turned around.
“Yeah?”
“You’ve been awake for a while.
Are you okay?”
Lucas stared at her.
For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
His mother.
Alive.
In his previous life, she had died during the first major monster outbreak.
Lucas had arrived too late.
He had searched through the ruins for hours.
He never found her.
He had carried that regret for years.
Now she was standing in front of him.
Alive.
Lucas smiled.
“I’m fine.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded.
“The Awakening Ceremony is in three days.
Make sure you get some sleep.”
“I will.”
She closed the door.
Lucas remained silent.
His hands slowly tightened.
This time…
He wouldn’t let the same thing happen.
But he also knew something important.
He couldn’t save everyone.
Trying to change everything at once could cause the timeline to collapse.
Every major change could create consequences he couldn’t predict.
The regression hadn’t given him a completely different world.
It had given him the same starting point.
That meant he needed to be careful.
He would change things gradually.
He would take advantage of opportunities he already knew about.
He would protect the people closest to him.
And when necessary…
He would allow events to happen exactly as they had before.
Lucas looked toward the clock.
Three days.
The Awakening Ceremony was approaching.
That was when he would receive his visible power.
Boost Breaker.
But Lucas knew something the others didn’t.
The ability wouldn’t remain F-Rank forever.
It had quests.
It had hidden conditions.
It had power that could evolve far beyond what anyone imagined.
And now Lucas had something he never possessed in his first life.
Knowledge.
He opened his hand.
A faint silver glow appeared between his fingers.
For less than a second, the room seemed to slow.
The ticking clock stopped.
The air became still.
Then everything returned to normal.
Lucas stared at his hand.
Time Manipulation.
The power was still sealed.
He couldn’t control it.
He couldn’t even determine its rank.
But he knew one thing.
It was his secret.
Boost Breaker would be the power everyone saw.
Time Manipulation would remain hidden.
At least until he understood it.
Lucas smiled.
“I have ten years of memories.”
He stood.
“I know the future.”
He looked at the paper hidden inside his desk.
“I know the rankings.”
His eyes became serious.
“And I know there’s something beyond SSS.”
The memory of the God returned to him.
That question mark.
That impossible rank.
Lucas had once thought that creature represented the end.
Now he knew better.
It was simply the first thing he had encountered that stood beyond humanity’s understanding.
And if Lucas wanted to survive the coming apocalypse…
He needed to reach that level.
Maybe even surpass it.
The world believed S-Rank was the peak.
A few powerful people knew about SS.
An even smaller number knew about SSS.
Nobody knew what came after.
Lucas did.
He had seen it.
He had fought it.
And he had died to it.
But this time…
Things would be different.
Lucas walked toward his bed.
Three days until awakening.
Ten years until the apocalypse.
And an unknown number of ranks standing between him and the Gods.
He smiled.
“I’ll climb them one by one.”
Then he closed his eyes.
Deep inside his soul, something stirred.
[Boost Breaker detected.]
[Current Rank: F.]
[Hidden progression system initializing.]
[First Quest unavailable.]
[Condition not met.]
[Host hasn’t awakened yet]
Lucas opened his eyes.
A smile slowly appeared across his face.
“So it begins.”
Far beyond the world, beyond dimensions humanity had never discovered, something ancient briefly opened its eyes.
Then it closed them again.
The timeline continued.
The Gods remembered nothing.
And Lucas…
Was completely alone with the knowledge of what was coming.
For now, that was exactly how he wanted it.