Evolving Infinitely: SSS-Ranked Talent Awakening

“Psst… I see dead people.”

Those words slipped from my lips as I stood in the middle of the smoldering ruins of our towns square.

The air was thick with ash, light debris and the grief of alive people around me.

What happened? A gate had torn open, completely unannounced and unexpected. It spewed monstrous Shadows that devoured half the town before the Reapers could seal it.

Bloodied bodies littered the ground. They were friends, neighbours, strangers and their lifeless eyes stared into the void as their corpse began to attract flies.

I was barely eighteen, had survived, but not because of my strength. No, my frail body had betrayed me again, collapsing behind the Awakening Stone as the chaos rolled.

But, unlike my body, my mind was sharp as ever. I catalogued every screm, every claw mark, every moment of terror. It’s what I do— A weak body but a strong mind.

I’ve always been different. Born weak, my body is something one would call a fragile cage that couldn’t keep up with the worlds demands. While other kids trained to become Reapers or adventures, honing their bodies to face the horrifying shadow creatures that came out of the gates, I could barely walk a mile without my lungs burning with fatigue.

Swords? Too damn heavy.

Shields? A cruel joke.

But my mind… oh, it was a constantly burning furnace. Every book I read, every lecture I overheard, every scrap of knowledge about the gates and their shadow creatures burned into my memory never going to fade.

I spoke three languages by the age of twelve, deciphered gate runes by fifteen. Yet, in a world that worshipped strength and kissed the feet of people who possess it, my intellect was nothing more than a curse.

The frail boy with a clever tongue, always on the sidelines looking at others achieve great things.

Unlike the disappointment that is me, my parents were legends, Reapers who vanished into a gate without a trace when I was just at the young age of ten. The Reapers Association pronounced them dead after weeks of searching in subsequent gates just to give I and my siblings some kind of closure.

Percy and Jackson, my twin younger brothers. I tried to be their shield, but without strength, I was just a shadow of the hero they needed. Everynight, I’d lie awake with the weight of their safety crushing against my fragile ribcage from the inside.

My only hope was the Awakening Ceremony, in this world full of Arcane, which was the source of the magic, this ritual is given to all eighteen year olds as a right that could unlock skills, power or some hidden gift to rewrite their fate.

I counted down the days, praying the gods would see past my broken body and give me something… anything, to protect whats left of my family.

The Ceremony was supposed to happen today. The town square was absolutely packed with people of different calibers and discipline, the Awakening Stone pulsed with raw Arcane energy in the center of it all.

I stood at a corner around the crowds edge with a hood over my head to give me the illusion of not being seen and mocked at for my frail appearance, however I could still feel the stares and hear their murmurs.

“Levi, the weakling. The scholar who can't fight to save his life and his parents legacy”

“The unintentional offspring of the legendary Reapers”

My parents legacy was like a heavy shadow looming over me, a mountain I wouldn’t dare to dream about reaching the peak. When my name was called, my heart thundered. I stepped forward with visibly trembling knees and pressed my hand against the cold surface of the Arcane saturated Awakening Stone.

Then, the gate opened.

The sky burst open with a roar of light and Shadow creatures swallowed the entire square in their dark aura of anti-arcane.

They were relentless monsters that were drawn to Arcane energy, the very fuel that gives us humans our abilities and power in this world, very much like mana but raw and unrefined.

We are able to use it by honing our hearts to a level whereby the Arcane can be converted into a useable form and flow into our bloodstream to give us whichever power that is deemed fit.

While the shadow creatures clawed, fanged and tore everything in sight, my hands were glued to the Awakening Stone. At first I thought it was out of fear, but no it was as a result of something else.

The world around me dissolved into empty darkness and although I could still very much hear the chaos around me, it was as if I was not physically there.

Time warped and distorted into an endless and suffocating expanse causing something ancient to awaken inside of me, like a spark turning into a hot splinter then a roaring blaze and burning through my superficial veins like a wildfire.

Suddenly light flooded my five sensory receptors and when I opened my eyes, the ruins of the town square remained the same but something was different.

Ding!

A sharp, chime rang in my head adding to my already disoriented state.

Then, a glowing purple and gold panel hovered before me, plastered with symbols I was sure I should in no way understand, but I did anyway.

It was a system that was intricate, definitely foreign and it had this overwhelming powerful aura to it that I couldn’t explain even with my supreme intellect.

The screen displayed my stats that I was able to understand easily: Intelligence was off the charts, Memory unmatched. My Strength, Agility and Endurance? Still pitiful it could make one cry out of shame. But this system didn’t care about my body. It offered potential that was raw, limitless that could help me bend the rules of this world.

I glanced around me, taking in the carnage the Shadow creatures and the Reapers left behind after their gruesome battle. This event was especially baffling to many because even though it was common knowledge that gates are very much likely to open in places with high Arcane concentration, they is almost never a gate break until a period of atleast a week.

So the burning question? Why did this specific gate start speewing shadow creature immediately it opened. And what relationship does it have with this purple and gold, futuristic system screen hovering across my peripherial view?

Someone tapped my shoulder asking me if I was okay, I wiped the dust off my face and gazed around the scene again.

"There are all dead..."