APEX AWAKENING

NOT PREY ANYMORE

<< INITIATION MISSION: COMPLETE >>

<< Rewards: System Guide Mode Activated. +10 Aura Points >>

<< Cultivation Base Upgraded: Skin Refining Level 1 >>

A new screen appeared larger, brighter, and far more detailed revealing just how dangerous this new world truly was.

Draven swallowed hard.

“Okay… things just got serious.”

For a long moment, he just lay there in the dirty, still water. The cold from a broken pipe seeped through his clothes and into his bones. He was soaked, shaking, and completely drained, his body still trying to recover from fear, adrenaline, and almost dying.

The Gravelback’s roar echoed in his head, like it had been carved into his nerves.

But under all the fear… something new hummed inside him. A soft, steady buzz, like warm energy sitting just under his skin.

A reminder that he wasn’t the same anymore.

“Great,” he muttered weakly. “I’m cold, wet, and apparently glowing on the inside. Perfect.”

He pushed himself upright. Pain tugged at his leg and back, but when he checked the wounds… they were already closed. Fresh pink skin.

“That’s… not possible,” he whispered. “I was bleeding everywhere ten minutes ago.”

His breathing slowly steadied.

Then

A soft chime echoed through the tunnel.

A glowing window shimmered into view again, brighter and more detailed than before.

Draven groaned. “Oh, wonderful. The system is back. Because today clearly wasn’t insane enough.”

But this time, he didn’t panic. He forced himself to breathe slow, focus, and stay alert. Whatever this thing was… it might be the only reason he was still alive.

“Alright,” he muttered, sitting straighter. “Show me what you’ve got.”

The glowing screen expanded, new words sharpening into place.

<< THE PATH OF APEX CULTIVATION >>

A step by step path to rise above normal human limits.

Each stage has 13 levels. Reaching level 13 grants a special ability.

· Skin Refining (2/13) – Strengthen your outer body. Better durability, resistance, and sharper senses.

· Marrow Refining (Locked) – Boost your life force and healing.

· Organ Refining (Locked) – Unlock elemental powers.

· Body Refining (Locked) – Reach the peak of human ability, and beyond.

· Qi Refining (Locked) – Shape your Aura into real energy attacks.

· Foundation Building (Locked) – Create the core of your power.

· Golden Core Stage (Locked) – A qualitative leap.

· Nascent Soul Stage (Locked) – Birth a spiritual self; step toward immortality.

Draven blinked at the list, eyebrows shooting up.

“Skin refining? Marrow? Organs? Elemental powers?” He rubbed his face.

“Okay… either I’m dreaming… or I am seriously in the wrong universe.”

He leaned closer to the glowing screen.

“But… if this is real,” he whispered, “maybe I actually have a chance to survive.”

A laugh bubbled out of him, rough, shaky, almost broken. It bounced off the damp tunnel walls, sounding too human in a place that felt anything but.

“That’s… crazy,” he muttered, wiping water from his face. “Three months of running, hiding, almost dying… and now this?”

He stared at the floating words again, letting them sink in.

“For the first time,” he whispered, “there’s… a plan.”

No more guessing. No more relying on luck.

The Aura had destroyed the old world and rewritten the rules. But this… this system wasn’t chaos.

It was instructions.

A guide.

A way forward.

“So you’re telling me,” Draven said to the empty tunnel, “that I don’t just have to survive the Aura… I can actually use it?”

The screen didn’t answer, but the truth settled in his chest like a spark catching fire.

The days that followed blurred together, hard, exhausting, necessary.

The storm drain became his temporary home. He left only when he needed food.

“Great,” he muttered one morning, staring down an Aura mutated rat the size of a small dog. “You used to fit in a trap. Now you want to eat me.”

The rat hissed. Draven hissed back.

“Yeah? Well, I’m hungry too.”

The meat was stringy and weird, but it was packed with energy. Every bite fed the system inside him. Every meal made him a little stronger.

He could feel the Aura settling into his body slow, steady, real. Not flashy, not explosive, just… changing him. His hands grew tougher. The skin felt almost leathery.

“Useful,” he said, flexing his fingers. “Ugly, but useful.”

Then his hearing sharpened. One night, while resting, he sat up suddenly.

“…That’s not falling rubble,” he whispered. “Those are claws. Tiny ones.”

He listened harder.

“Insects. Big ones. Fantastic.”

Even the darkness had changed. Shadows weren’t just black anymore. They glowed faint green, like the world was quietly lit from within.

Draven let out a long breath.

“Okay,” he muttered. “I’m not the same guy who fell into this drain.”

He wasn’t sure what he was becoming yet.

But he wasn’t weak anymore.

The real test came the next morning.

Draven woke in the cramped hollow of a collapsed office wall. His body was stiff and cold. Before he could fully sit up, a sharp sting ran along his forearm.

“Ah what now?” he groaned.

He looked down. A rusty nail had scraped across his arm from wrist to elbow while he slept.

“Great. Tetanus. Exactly what I needed.”

He waited for the burn of an open cut… the blood… the panic.

But all he saw was a thin white line. No blood. No broken skin. The mark was already fading, like someone had drawn on him with a dull pencil.

Draven blinked.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He pressed a thumb against the line. Nothing. Not even a flinch.

“So my skin’s tougher than nails now?” He let out a breath somewhere between a laugh and disbelief. “Okay. That’s… actually pretty cool.”

He wasn’t superhuman. Not like the stories he’d heard people lifting cars, slicing through buildings, glowing like lanterns.

But as he stared at his unbroken arm, one thought settled hard and steady in his chest:

“I’m not prey anymore,” Draven whispered. “Not ever again.”

But the world was changing faster than he was.

Moving through the broken buildings, he stumbled onto a small trading camp tucked into a reinforced parking garage. The air smelled of smoke, sweat, and fear. People whispered, bartered, argued, everyone just barely surviving.

Then Draven saw something he would never forget.

A tired looking man stood in front of his family, trembling, trying to guard a tiny pile of canned food. A swarm of twisted squirrels, small, vicious, teeth glinting like shards of glass, charged toward them, chittering wildly.

The man stumbled back, voice cracking.

“Stay back! Please stay back!”