No humming city traffic. No flickering blue light of a phone screen. No ceiling fan creaking above his bed.
Instead, the air was thick and metallic, and something damp trickled down his neck as he stared up at unfamiliar stone. A ceiling, uneven and dark, veined with faintly glowing moss.
He blinked.
Where the hell am I?
He sat up too quickly and winced. His muscles ached like he’d run a marathon after getting hit by a truck. His breaths came shallow, and his ribs protested with each inhale. Dim amber light spilled in through a jagged window carved into stone. The room was bare—crude shelves with folded linen, a makeshift cooking pit near the far wall, a thick cloth door swaying slightly in a breeze.
Then he saw the mirror shard.
His reflection stared back. Pale, too-thin face. Short black hair. Eyes not quite his own.
And a memory—not his—surfaced.
Ryan Carter, twenty-five, had died. A different world. A collapsing building. Flames.
Now... this wasn’t Earth. Not anymore.
“Ryan!” A soft, urgent voice pierced the haze. “You're up?”
The door flap swept aside.
A girl burst in—about ten, lanky, with tangled black hair tied with a strip of red thread. She wore a patched tunic and boots too big for her, and her eyes were wide, glowing faintly green under the cavern light.
She rushed to his side and grabbed his wrist. “You’re really awake! I thought—I thought they said you might not—”
Ryan blinked. Her hands trembled. There were calluses on her palms.
Memory bled in again. Her name was Ellie. His sister in this new world. He’d inherited everything about the original Ryan Carter—including the debt, the failing bloodline, and this girl, too small for the burdens she carried.
“Easy, Ellie. I’m okay.” His voice cracked, hoarse.
“You were out for three days,” she said, pressing her sleeve to his forehead. “They said it was exhaustion. You pushed too hard during allocation week. Dummy.” Her voice broke at the end.
Ryan swallowed. “Right. Allocation week.”
Even the name sounded grim.
In Ironvale Citadel—the first of the Eight Great Underground Cities—bloodline power determined your place. And those with low-grade bloodlines were sent to settlements like this: Stonegate Hollow, one of the outermost fringe shelters.
Three days ago, the original Ryan had collapsed during spiritual endurance trials—right before conscription to the front lines.
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And that’s when he, the new Ryan, had woken.
Ellie leaned against his side. “I made porridge. You need strength. The instructors are still expecting you today... You’re late for survival class.”
Ryan blinked. “You’re serious?”
“They don’t cancel just because you almost died.”
He snorted—then winced. His ribs definitely didn’t like laughter.
But he stood anyway.
Stonegate Hollow didn’t have a sky, but the domed ceiling above was painted with glowrock veining, mimicking dawn. The cavern was wide, filled with stacked shelters carved into walls and platforms hanging from chains. Traders shouted from makeshift stalls, smoke hissed from steam-cookers, and children darted past in scavenged boots.
Ryan followed the narrow rope bridges across levels, passing low-bloodline residents already hauling beast-waste or sharpening scavenged spears.
It was dirty. Claustrophobic.
But it was alive.
“Hey! Carter!” a voice called.
Dylan Ross stood near the outer gate checkpoint, leaning against the rusted spine of a dismantled mech frame. He was tall, wiry, dark-skinned, and grinned like someone who didn’t care that he’d been born to die.
“Still breathing, huh? Thought we’d have to scrape your soul off the training mats.”
“Just needed a little beauty sleep,” Ryan replied dryly.
They bumped fists.
“Ellie told me you were awake this morning. Good thing. Survival class is today’s final session. After that... it’s the assignments.”
“You mean conscription.”
Dylan’s grin faded. “Yeah.”
They walked toward the training yard, where a dozen teens with lean muscle and half-healed scars were already practicing with spears made of scrap metal and beast bone.
Today’s instructor, a grizzled woman with half her face burned, barked, “You want to live past your first week outside the settlement? Then listen up. Beast types don’t care about your feelings!”
She slammed a metal rod against a bone-plated dummy. “Psyflare Leeches target your mind. You hesitate, you die drooling. Arrow Serpents? Hit your calves, bleed you dry. And if you ever see a Cragjaw—pray it’s hungry. That’s faster.”
Ryan’s head buzzed with fragmented knowledge—spiritual seas, bloodline ranks, cultivation techniques—but it was still foreign. His original world had textbooks and air-conditioning. This one had blood and beast crystals.
He gritted his teeth and practiced anyway.
Spear forward. Feet steady. Strike with intention.
They sat after class under the ventilation ducts, the sound of howling wind echoing from pipes overhead.
“You feel different,” Dylan said, tossing a pebble into the murky pond below. “Ever since the collapse, like... more focused. Like you’re not the same guy who froze up in every spar.”
Ryan shrugged. “Guess I woke up.”
“Yeah? Well, if you got any miracle tricks, now’s the time. Beast scouts reported a Spinescale Wyrm north of the ravine. They’re saying we might get called out early.”
Ryan felt it then. A pulse.
Not from the world around him—but from somewhere deeper.
Something clicked.
A whisper that wasn’t a whisper echoed in his skull:
Skill-Stealing System Activated.
Initiating Host Synchronization...
Name: Ryan Carter
Bloodline: Irontrace (Low-Grade)
Spiritual Sea Capacity: 4 / 100
Health: 67 / 100
Mental Resilience: 6
Strength: 8
Agility: 7
Intelligence: 9
Beast Crystals: 0
Skill list: None
Cultivation Methods: None
Mental Strike Techniques: None
Skills: None
Items: None
Target Scan Unavailable. No subject locked.
Skill-Stealing Function: Online
Use Skill-Stealing Card to target visible subject.
Card Level Required: RED or higher.
Ryan’s breath caught. He blinked, but the glowing translucent window remained fixed in his vision—clean, precise, unmistakably game-like.
This… this isn’t just a memory. It’s real. I’ve got a system.
He glanced at Dylan—alive, breathing, a friend—and a small prompt appeared over his silhouette:
Target: Dylan Ross
Bloodline: Emberhide (Low-Grade, Flame Affinity)
Cultivation Method: None
Skill list:
? Flame Palm (Basic Skill)
? Ember Step (Basic Skill)
? Improvised Flame Guard (Self-Created, Unstable)
Mental Strike Techniques: None
Items: None
Ryan didn’t move. His heart pounded.
He didn’t have any Beast Crystals.
Didn’t have a Red Card.
But for the first time in this brutal, blood-soaked world—he had a chance.
Not strength.
Not talent.
Just a single unfair edge.
Skill-Stealing System: Awaiting Command.