Chapter one: Ashlar Kain

Tio club

Lux City, 

Lucionis Nation

Continent of Zenithan 

Amidst the skull-splitting pain, I forced my body forward, pushing through the agony as I closed the distance between myself and my opponent—a towering, fair-skinned brute enhanced with illicit augmentations that amplified his Psychic abilities. This underground arena thrived on defying international law, where both Psionic powers and restricted tech were wielded without restraint.

But I didn't care. I was one of them—at least, I pretended to be.

I glanced down at the Astral-tech gauntlets encasing my fists, designed to enhance my strikes with superhuman strength. The tech was functional, yet utterly useless to me. It provided no augmentation, no protection. I was fighting an Esper in an illegal underground club—one whose augmentations actually worked, amplifying his power beyond normal human limits.

So how was I still standing against him?

No... That's not the question.

[Pay attention!]

A voice cut through my thoughts just as a fist came hurtling toward my jaw. Instinct took over. My body reacted before my mind could, seizing his arm with perfect timing. In the same motion, I drove a counter jab into his gut, then unleashed a relentless barrage of strikes. His psychic barrier trembled under the onslaught, fractures forming in the shimmering energy field meant to shield him.

It didn't matter.

I exhaled sharply, bracing for the finishing blow.

[Collapse Fist]

The moment my fist struck, space itself seemed to warp around the impact. Kinetic energy surged, condensing in a split second before detonating on contact. His barrier shattered like fragile glass, the force of the explosion launching him clear across the ring—and straight out of it.

For a moment, the crowd was silent.

Then, chaos erupted. Cheers rang through the underground arena, voices chanting my name in fevered excitement. Grinning at the result, I raised my fist in the air as the referee rushed in to announce my victory.

"Winner of the Psyweight match—Ashlar Kain!"

The referee's voice rang through the underground arena, and the crowd erupted into a frenzy. My name echoed off the walls, chanted in unison by a sea of voices.

I grinned, my lips curling with satisfaction as I soaked it all in. This feeling... this rush... I swear, I could never get tired of it.

Later, I stood in front of a cracked, grime-streaked mirror, pressing an ice pack against my jaw. The cold numbed the dull ache, easing the soreness left behind by the fight. My reflection stared back at me—brown skin marked with fresh bruises, some darker than others, fading into the remnants of past battles. My brown hair, damp with sweat, was slicked back into a small braid, a habit I'd picked up over the years.

I let out a slow breath, lowering the ice pack and rolling my jaw to test the damage. Minor bruises, nothing serious. I'd had worse.

Shirtless, my frame bore the scars of my journey—faded injuries, reminders of every fight that had led me here. I turned away from the mirror and walked over to the bench beside my locker. Inside, the gauntlets sat in their designated space, gleaming under the dim lighting.

Fake weapons. A facade.

I glared at them before pulling on my clothes, dressing in silence. The gauntlets may not have worked on me, but in this world, appearances mattered. As I secured the last of my gear, I reached for my spatial band, a sleek, metallic device that acted as my personal storage unit. With a simple thought, the gauntlets vanished into its subspace, locked away until I needed to put on the act again. With one last glance at the locker, I shut it with a metallic clang and turned to leave. My next stop—the Collector's Office, where my credits for the match awaited.

The air was thick with the scent of smoke and processed metal when I stepped into the Collector's Office. A man stood in the corner, half-shrouded in dim lighting, the red ember of his cigar pulsing with each slow drag. Wisps of smoke curled upward, dissipating into the cold, artificial glow of the silver monitor he worked on. Around the room, workers moved with quiet efficiency, handling green Astral shards—small, coin-shaped fragments of crystallized energy. They arranged them in neat stacks, ensuring precise organization before another set of hands would come to transport them to the Spatial Vaults in the adjoining room.

I paid them no mind. Instead, I made my way to the booking agent in the corner. The moment he saw me, his face split into a grin, his stained gold teeth gleaming in the low light. He pushed himself up from his seat with exaggerated enthusiasm, his eyes gleaming with both joy and greed as he spread his arms wide.

"Ashlar, my boy! What a fight!"

Tio's embrace was brief, more of a businessman's welcome than a friend's. He clapped my back before pulling away, still beaming like he'd just won a jackpot.

"I still can't get over how many Espers you've manhandled in that ring," he laughed, shaking his head in disbelief.

I gave a casual shrug, my expression unreadable. "Having Astral tech helps," I said smoothly, the lie slipping from my tongue without hesitation.

Tio cackled, nudging my arm like we were in on some grand secret. If only he knew. In a world overflowing with Astral Energy, Psychic powers, and cutting-edge Astral technology, I was among the rare few who refused to rely on Psionic abilities, choosing instead to hone my physical prowess.

Not because I lacked the power.

I wasn't some mundane human lost among the gifted. I had Psychic abilities—strong ones, even. But the truth was far worse. If I ever unleashed my full potential, I wouldn't just risk exposure... I would die.

So I kept my secret buried, locked away behind controlled breaths and well-practiced lies.

I refocused on Tio as he pulled out his Psyphone, the sleek device flashing with soft luminescence as he transferred my credits from the fight.

"When can I expect you next?" he asked, his voice tinged with amusement, already anticipating another payday at my expense.

"Next time I need cash," I replied, tossing the words over my shoulder as I left the room.

Stepping out into the streets of Lux, I inhaled the crisp night air, leaving behind Tio's district and its underground fights. The deeper I walked into the city, the more the scent of sweat, smoke, and blood faded—replaced by something cooler, cleaner, but no less artificial.

I moved along the sidewalk, hands buried in the pockets of my black jacket, blending into the flow of late-night wanderers. Despite the hour—past midnight—the city still pulsed with life, though softer now, subdued.

Towering spires stretched toward the sky, their luminous facades casting long, shifting shadows across the pavement. Overhead, neon billboards flickered between advertisements, their glow reflecting off the sleek, glass-like streets. Streetlights bathed the city in a sterile white radiance, contrasting with the deeper blues and purples of the night sky.

Lux—the entertainment capital of Lucionis, a playground for the wealthy elite to indulge in their vices away from the judgment of their polished, self-righteous world. Here, they could unwind, gamble, fight, or revel in pleasures best left unspoken.

I have been living in this city for two years now. Two years of achieving nothing. By the time I reached my apartment, exhaustion weighed down on me like a lead vest. My building was one of the cheapest complexes in Lux, the kind of place where walls were thin, plumbing was unreliable, and no one asked questions. It was all I could afford on my minimum-wage existence when I wasn't brawling in underground rings for extra cash. I barely managed to get inside before I collapsed onto my bed, muscles protesting with sharp aches from the fight.

"Damn, I'm sore," I muttered, pressing my fingers with the icepack into the tense knots in my neck.

[If only you stuck to the routine I implemented for you, you wouldn't be feeling so sore.]

A voice—cold, calculating, and distinctly non-human—echoed inside my mind.

I sighed. "How many times do you want me to apologize?"

As I spoke, a dark purple glow flickered in the air beside me. A moment later, a floating object materialized—a cube, its rough surface etched with intricate glyphs and shifting symbols, pulsating faintly like a living thing.

The cube whirred for a moment before projecting a holographic interface into the air before me. Lines of glowing text unfolded, revealing my status.

[Status Displayed]

System Name: Voidnet

Name: Ashlar Kain

Cultivation Level: Tier 1: The Foundation stage (Psionic Awakening Realm)

Mind Core: Awakened

Physique: Awakened

Mental Stats

Intelligence: 7

Wisdom: 8

Will: 9

Physical Stats

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 10

Endurance: 9

Psionic Applications

Void absorption: Energy disruption

Matter Disassembly: Entropy Touch

Conceptual Decay: Controlled Disintegration

Specialized Art: School of Entropic Will (Locked)

Ability Factor: Unknown

Astral Shard Consumption: 74/100

I exhaled sharply, rubbing my temple as I stared at the status screen.

This… damn system.

One of the many reasons I was stuck in poverty was because most of my earnings—my hard-fought, bloodstained winnings—had been consumed by this parasitic AI system that had embedded itself into my very being.

In Zenithan, the economy revolved around Astral Coins, physical shards infused with condensed energy, while Credits functioned as the universal digital currency, traded through the Psynet. And yet, somehow, between rent, training, and this gluttonous AI, I was barely scraping by. I sighed again, tossing the ice pack aside as I stared up at the ceiling, the neon glow of the city leaking in through my window. Tomorrow, I'd have to hunt for Astral shards.

[The exercise protocol I designed has been adjusted for your Awakened physique. It is meant to temper the vessel's body.]

"There you go again," I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I told you—I have work. I can't just go running through the streets of Lux for 30 miles every morning."

[With the user's current physical capabilities, running 15 miles twice a day should be a trivial task.]

I groaned, rolling onto my side in a feeble attempt to ignore the AI system's cold, unwavering logic. No matter how long I had lived with this thing, it would never understand my reality.

Nine years. It had been nine long years since this damn system awakened within me, triggering the surge of Psychic energy that changed my body and mind forever.

You'd think that for a kid who had unlocked something that millions of people craved, life would have been smooth sailing.

But no.

Instead of power, prestige, and opportunity, this system had revealed truths I was never meant to know—truths that put a target on my back. Secrets that made it clear: Using my true power would get me killed. And so, in the name of "protecting" me, the damn system had locked away my access to my own power, claiming it was too dangerous for me to wield.

Can you imagine how frustrating that is?

To have an ocean of power inside you, only to be told you can't touch it? To feel it simmer beneath the surface, raw and untapped, yet be completely denied the right to use it?

And to make things worse, the system demanded constant fuel—Astral Shards, rare and expensive, which I had to hunt, fight, and bleed for just to feed it. All so it could grow in strength while keeping my power under lock and key.

The only upside—if I could even call it that—was that as the system evolved, so did my body.

I might not have been able to use my Psychic abilities, but my physical prowess more than made up for it. My strength, endurance, and speed—all grew, enhanced by the system's passive modifications. But unlike a normal Esper who could rely on their Psionic gifts, I had to work for my strength.

Daily training. Daily meditation.

I had to condition my body, refine it like a blade, and build the energy necessary for my physical ascension. Because in a world where Psionic might rule, I was surviving on nothing but raw, relentless physical power.

[Perhaps I should impose a penalty to force you to comply with the daily quest.]

I stiffened, a cold shiver crawling up my spine. The system had been threatening this for a while now, and knowing its twisted logic, it was only a matter of time before it made good on the promise. I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. I had to de-escalate this before it turned into another problem.

"Fine, fine! I'll wake up early and do it," I grumbled, my voice edged with irritation. "Now, can I go to sleep?"

[I shall set an alarm system in place to wake you at dawn.]

I barely mustered the energy to scoff. Whatever. As soon as my head hit the pillow, exhaustion swallowed me whole, and the world faded to black.

****

I pushed the trolley down the corridor, my eyes heavy, each step dragging with exhaustion. Sleep clung to me like a fog I couldn't shake off.

The damn morning exercise.

Thanks to the system forcing me through the grueling routine, I had barely managed to get to work—thirty minutes late. The running, the pull-ups, the endless conditioning had drained me more than I was willing to admit. My body ached from overuse, screaming for restoration and sleep, but I had no choice. Bills needed paying.

So here I was.

I grabbed a cleaning product from the trolley, along with an auto-brush tool—standard equipment for janitorial work. My job.

My gaze drifted toward the restroom cubicles I had to clean, the sour stench of chemical disinfectants and something worse lingering in the air.

I grimaced. This was my life now. After an entire day of scrubbing floors, wiping down surfaces, and inhaling the stifling scent of cleaning agents inside a commercial warehouse storage facility, I was finally done—free to leave.

But I wasn't going home.

The MagTrain hummed beneath me as it sped across the magnetic railroads, cutting through the sprawling infrastructure that connected Blaze Avenue—the industrial district where I worked—to the Daybreaker Flux Center. The rhythmic vibrations of the train, the faint hiss of its energy propulsion system, and the soft murmur of tired passengers filled the cabin. Some leaned against the glass panels, their reflections merging with the neon-lit skyline outside. Others sat in silence, engrossed in their Psy-interfaces, lost in whatever digital escape they could afford.

When the train slowed, its momentum shifting with a smooth deceleration, I rose from my seat. The station doors hissed open, releasing a flood of passengers onto the platform. I stepped out, adjusting the black jacket draped over my shoulders, and made my way through the crowd, leaving the train station behind. The streets of Daybreaker Flux Center pulsed with life. People moved in shifting waves, either heading toward or departing from the FluxGate, a towering installation embedded deep within the heart of the district. Sleek, autovehicles whirred by, following designated lanes, their paths choreographed by the city's neural grid.

The hum of Astral technology was everywhere—pulsing through the roads, humming beneath the golden spires, resonating through the air itself. The towering FluxGate, a marvel of energy conversion, shimmered under the artificial glow of neon signs and suspended holograms, casting faint ripples of Astral flux into the sky. This was where I needed to be. There were countless gateways spread across Lucionis, each leading to different regions, cities, and key locations throughout the country. These FluxGates represented one of the most advanced forms of transportation ever developed, using Astral-infused energy conduits to bridge vast distances within seconds.

Beyond domestic travel, a select few specialized gates were reserved for intercontinental passage, connecting Lucionis to the other six nations of Zenithan. These were the gates used by elite operatives, high-ranking officials, and powerful Espers—not ordinary civilians.

I made my way to one of these platforms, my fingers tightening around the travel pass tucked in my pocket. The air here was different.

Unlike the bustling, overcrowded domestic gates, the International Transit Platform had a stark, imposing atmosphere. There were fewer people, but the ones who stood waiting carried an undeniable presence—each of them Rankers.

They were clad in sleek, high-grade battle suits, the kind integrated with cutting-edge Astral tech augmentations, built to enhance their psychic abilities and physical prowess. Their aura alone was suffocating, a silent warning to anyone who dared step out of line.

I kept my head low, doing my best to ignore their scrutinizing gazes.

People like them had no patience for someone like me. Rankers looked down on ordinary people—always had, always would. In a world where Psychic power and Astral technology dictated status, those who lacked either were considered worthless. The strong trampled the weak, and those who couldn't keep up were left to rot in the shadows.

It had always been that way.

Especially in the place I grew up in—the Lower World, also known as Pitland.

And that was exactly where I was headed. Growing up in Pitland—the derogatory name for the Lower World—I had seen more than my fair share of adversity and poverty. Life there wasn't just hard—it was merciless, a brutal cycle of survival and struggle where the weak were discarded, and the strong barely clung to existence. Unlike the Upper World, which thrived under a glittering skyline of wealth, innovation, and cutting-edge Astral tech, Pitland was a graveyard of forgotten dreams, a place where progress never reached and where luxury was a distant fantasy.

But here's the irony—Pitland was rich.

Beneath its crumbling infrastructure, beyond its overcrowded slums and its decaying districts, there was treasure. Resources that could shake economies, Astral-rich veins of energy, rare minerals, and artifacts buried beneath the ruins of a bygone era. And yet, the people who lived there owned nothing. Because the land itself—its wealth, its potential, its lifeblood—wasn't theirs.

It belonged to the International Corporations, to the governments of the six great nations, who claimed ownership of every valuable resource buried in the depths of the Lower World. Pitland's people? They were left with nothing but scraps, struggling for survival in the shadow of untouchable riches. The Upper World flourished on the backs of Pitland's suffering, and no one cared enough to change it. Because in this world—only power mattered.

When I reached the checkpoint leading to the FluxGate for Pitland, I pulled down my hood, revealing my face as I retrieved my travel pass from my jacket. The guards stationed at the checkpoint barely spared me a glance, their expressions blank beneath the glow of their helmet visors. Automated drones hovered above, scanning the crowd, while security sentries clad in combat-grade exosuits stood like statues, watching for the slightest disturbance.

I stepped forward, holding up my travel pass—a small holographic card embedded with Astral-coded permissions. This pass allowed me unrestricted access to the FluxGates, making it possible for me to move between Pitland and Lucionis—a rare privilege that had been granted to me by my crazy guardian.

Not many from the Lower World had this advantage.

In fact, just getting the paperwork to apply for travel authorization was a bureaucratic nightmare, taking nearly a year for approval—if you were lucky. For most, it was impossible. Between the layers of red tape, corporate greed, and systematic corruption, the entire process was nothing more than a money-draining labyrinth designed to keep the people of Pitland trapped where they belonged—below. To them, the Lower World wasn't a place of people. It was a resource depot, a human dumping ground, a forgotten slum where only the desperate and discarded remained. And yet, here I was, standing at the gate between two worlds—one that refused to let people like me in, and one that refused to let people like me go.

After the drones scanned me, running their automated security sweeps, a soft chime confirmed my clearance. The guard at the checkpoint barely spared me a glance, letting out a bored sigh as he lazily gestured for me to move along. I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to ignore him. It wasn't worth it. But deep down, it grated on me—the sheer apathy, the way he carried himself like his job was a meaningless chore, like getting paid to stand around and wave people through was somehow beneath him. I fought the urge to glare, to say something that would land me in trouble. Because the reality was, his paycheck probably outweighed mine tenfold.

I was a janitor, a foreign worker scraping by on minimum wage—and since I wasn't a citizen of Lucionis, I was paid even less than the standard rate. My labor was cheap, my rights limited, and my presence tolerated only because someone needed to do the work no one else wanted. And yet, here he was—bored, ungrateful, wasting the very thing I had to fight for every single day. That's when it hit me. If there was one thing I had come to understand about myself since living in Lucionis…

I hated waste. Not just the waste of resources or money, but the waste of effort, of time, of potential. In Pitland, I had watched people fight with everything they had, scraping and bleeding just to see another sunrise. Survival was a daily battle, a relentless struggle against forces that sought to crush the life out of them.

But here, in the Upper World, where wealth flowed like water and comfort was a given, people like him acted as if their ease and security were some kind of burden. As if having everything handed to them was just another chore. It made me furious in a way I couldn't quite explain. My hands tightened into fists, knuckles whitening beneath the fabric of my sleeves, but I forced myself to keep moving. I stepped away from the checkpoint, letting the soft murmur of conversations and the distant hum of Astral tech drown out my lingering irritation.

Ahead, the Fluxgate came to life, a low, resonant hum vibrating through the platform. The air grew thick with electrical charge, the scent of ozone permeating the atmosphere as a column of light surged upwards, piercing the sky like a beacon. Bright amethyst tendrils crackled along its edges, weaving intricate patterns in the air as the gateway stabilized. The light was almost hypnotic, swirling in controlled chaos, the threshold between worlds.

All I had to do was step into it. And so I did. The moment I entered the Fluxgate, the world shifted around me—colors blurred, sounds warped, and gravity felt like a distant memory. It was like falling and floating simultaneously, the Astral energy wrapping around me in a cold, electric embrace. In the blink of an eye, Pitland awaited on the other side—a world of shadows, hardships, and unseen treasures, the place I once called home.