The ancient runes pulsed beneath Lucian’s fingertips like living veins. Each symbol was a fragment of a language older than civilization itself — a language written not in ink, but in blood. The scroll drank his focus whole, pulling his consciousness deeper and deeper into a sea of crimson.

He didn’t feel time pass.

He didn’t feel his body.

He was somewhere else. Somewhere vast and dark and endless, where the only light came from rivers of blood that flowed through the void like shooting stars. The blood moved with intelligence, with purpose — splitting, merging, multiplying, creating shapes that lasted for a heartbeat before dissolving back into the crimson current.

Lucian watched. And understood.

Blood was not just liquid. It was memory. It was life. It was will given physical form. Every drop carried the essence of the creature it belonged to — their strength, their instincts, their very soul. To manipulate blood was not merely to move liquid. It was to command the essence of existence itself.

The deeper he sank into the comprehension, the more the runes on the scroll rearranged themselves in his mind. They stopped being symbols on parchment and became concepts. Feelings. Instincts that threaded themselves into his bones.

A clone made of blood was not a puppet. It was an extension of the self — a piece of the creator’s will given temporary autonomy. It thought. It fought. It bled. And when its purpose was fulfilled, it returned to the nothingness it came from, taking its experiences back into the host.

The crimson rivers in the void surged. Lucian felt something inside him crack open — not painfully, but like a lock turning after centuries of rust. A door that had been sealed shut was now, finally, yielding.

His consciousness snapped back to his body like a rubber band.

His eyes opened.

The room was dark. The scroll in his lap had turned to ash, crumbling into fine red dust that dissolved before it hit the bedsheets. The air smelled of copper and ozone.

Midnight.

Two hours had vanished like a single breath.

Then the system pulsed.

╔═════════════════════════╗

║ ⚠ — STAR PALACE UPDATE — ⚠ ║

║ 2ND STAR PALACE: [CRIMSON ORIGIN] ║

║ First Limiter Unlocked! ║

║ Stars Ignited: [★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆] 1/9 ║

║ First Star Spell Unlocked: ║

║ ◀ BLOOD NEEDLE RAIN ▶ ║

║ Type: Offensive / Area of Effect ║

║ Releases dozens of hardened blood ║

║ needles in a targeted area. Needles ║

║ pierce D-Rank defenses. Range: 30m. ║

║ Cost: 15 MP + 5 BE per cast. ║

║ SPELL LEARNED FROM SCROLL: ║

║ ◀ BLOOD CLONE ▶ ║

║ Rank: A ║

║ Type: Construct / Combat ║

║ Creates a solid blood construct of the host that fights independently for 60 seconds.║

║Clone possesses 50% of host’s physical stats and can use any spell the host knows. ║

║ Cost: 50 MP + 15 BE per cast. ║

║ Cooldown: 1 hour. ║

╚═══════════════════════════╝

╔═══════════════════════════╗

║ SYSTEM REWARDS ║

║ +1,000 System Credits ║

║ +300 EXP ║

║ EXP: 9,450 / 20,000 ║

║ System Level: 9 ║

║ System Credits: 9,600 SC ║

╚════════════════════════════╝

Lucian stared at the blue windows floating in front of him. A slow breath escaped his lips.

The Crimson Origin Palace was no longer locked.

The first star burned inside it — a tiny, furious point of red light in the darkness of his Sea of Consciousness, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. It was nothing compared to the blazing star in his Light Palace.

Two new spells. Blood Needle Rain for crowd control. Blood Clone for a combat multiplier. The clone had fifty percent of his stats and could cast his spells. That was essentially fighting two-on-one against any opponent.

Worth every second of comprehension.

Lucian set the system windows aside and lay back on his bed. His body was exhausted — not physically, but mentally. The comprehension state had drained him in ways that cultivation couldn’t fix. He needed sleep.

His eyes closed. Within seconds, he was gone.

BRRRR. BRRRR. BRRRR.

4:00 AM.

Lucian’s eyes snapped open.

He silenced the alarm on his phone and swung his legs off the bed. The wooden floor was cold against his bare feet. He stood, stretched, and began.

Hundred push-ups. Two hundred sit-ups. Two hundred squats. Three sets.

His muscles burned and screamed and then healed, and then burned again. The cycle of breaking and rebuilding — that was how strength was forged. The Du Maurier estate had taught him that much.

After the calisthenics, he drew the Sword of Aikis from his shadow storage. The starsteel blade gleamed in the dark room, catching the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains. He ran through the Basic Sword Form — the eight foundational strikes, each one smooth, deadly. Cut. Thrust. Parry. Slash. Guard. Riposte. Feint. Execute.

Then Phantom Walk. He moved through the house like a ghost, his feet barely touching the floor, his body shifting between positions with seamless fluidity. The B-Rank movement skill was already at Novice level, but he could feel it inching toward Adept with each session.

By 5:30 AM, his shirt was drenched in sweat. He showered, dressed in his academy uniform, and stepped outside into the cold morning air. A two-mile jog through Havenford’s empty streets, circling the academy’s outer wall, and back.

When he returned at 6:15 AM, the house was stirring. He could hear Rose moving in her room, the soft clink of her toiletries. Clara’s door was still shut — she was cultivating.

Lucian made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast for Rose. He left the plate on the kitchen counter with a note.

Made food. Don’t burn the house down. — L

He grabbed his bag and headed to class.

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

Days blurred into weeks. Classes, training, cultivation, killing beasts in the academy’s underground training grounds for EXP — the routine was relentless, but Lucian thrived on it. Every night, he pushed his limits. Every morning, he woke up slightly stronger than the day before.

His cultivation had climbed from Late Neophyte to the very edge of Late Neophyte just a step from the Peak Neophyte. He could feel the barrier — a wall of compressed mana in his lower dantian that refused to budge. One more push. One more session. He was right there.

Clara and Rose were still at the peak Neophyte realm but could breakthrough to the Core realm anytime soon. Ryan — ever the researcher — had reached Late Neophyte, his Dual Awakener talents giving him an edge in efficiency.

And then the announcements came.

The academy’s mission board lit up with a fresh wave of assignments. Monthly missions. Every student was required to complete at least one to maintain their enrollment and earn Academy Points. The missions ranged from herb gathering in Garden Zones to dungeon clearing in the surrounding regions.

Lucian found Ryan in the cafeteria, hunched over a tablet, his glasses reflecting lines of data. His plate of food sat untouched beside him — a crime that Lucian intended to address.

"Ryan."

Ryan looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. He’d been at the research lab again. "Lucian! Perfect timing. Look at this."

He turned the tablet around. Lucian saw a complex molecular diagram with annotated notes in Ryan’s cramped handwriting. At the center of the diagram was a blood cell — but not a normal one. It was Rose’s blood cell, with its unique half-zombie, half-Bastion bloodline signature.

"I think I’m almost there," Ryan said, his voice buzzing with barely contained excitement. "To creating a cure for the zombie virus. With the help of Rose’s blood."

Lucian blinked. "What?"

"Think about it!" Ryan leaned forward, his hands gesturing wildly. "Rose’s Bastion bloodline neutralized the virus. She’s the only known case of a human surviving a bite without turning. If I can isolate the specific bloodline marker that fights the infection and synthesize it into a deliverable form — a serum, a pill, anything — I can cure the zombie virus."

The words hung in the air between them.

"Do you know what that means?" Ryan’s eyes were wide, almost manic. "If I can create it, imagine the fame and the money I could make. Every government on the planet would want it. The World Government, the Hunter Guilds, the Awakened Association — all of them. We’d be set for life. No, for ten lifetimes!"

Both of them looked at each other. The same mischievous glint flashed in their eyes simultaneously.

They rubbed their hands together like cartoon villains.

"Money. Power. Fame," Lucian murmured.

"We’d own the pharmaceutical market for the post-Cataclysm era," Ryan added, grinning from ear to ear.

"We could buy the entire Du Maurier estate and burn it to the ground for fun."

"That’s... dark, but I’m not going to say no to the funding."

They shared a quiet, calculating laugh. Then Lucian’s expression shifted back to neutral.

"We better get our mission done first and stop dreaming," he said. "I already ran out of Academy Points."

Ryan’s grin faltered. He looked away, scratching the back of his head, whistling a tuneless melody.

Lucian stared at him with a deadpan expression. "And you used mine too, idiot."

"I... I needed those spell scrolls for the research," Ryan mumbled, still not making eye contact. "It was an investment."

"An investment that left me with zero points and no way to buy lunch at the cafeteria."

"I’ll pay you back. After the mission."

"You said that last mission."

"And I meant it last mission too."

Lucian sighed. There was no point arguing with Ryan about money. The guy was a genius — a legitimate, certifiable genius — but he had the financial sense of a concussed goldfish.

"What’s the mission?" Lucian asked.

Ryan brightened, grateful for the subject change. He pulled up the mission board on his tablet and scrolled through the listings.

"Okay, so most of the high-tier missions are taken. But there’s an F-Rank dungeon that popped up three days ago in Sector 7 — about twelve kilometers east of the academy. Fresh dungeon break. The portal hasn’t fully stabilized yet, so the monsters inside are still at F-Rank. Basic stuff. Shadow hounds, mutated rats, maybe a few low-tier insectoids."

"Requirements?"

"Two-man team minimum. Four-man maximum. Objective: clear the dungeon core within forty-eight hours. Reward: 500 Academy Points per person, plus whatever loot we find inside."

Five hundred points each. Enough to cover Lucian’s expenses for the month and then some. And F-Rank dungeons were essentially pest control for someone at his level.

"Send the registration," Lucian said.

Ryan tapped the confirm button. The tablet chimed.

"Done. We leave tomorrow at 0600."

Lucian nodded. He glanced at Ryan’s untouched plate. "Eat your food."

"Huh? Oh, right." Ryan picked up his fork, took a mechanical bite, and immediately went back to staring at his research data.

Lucian shook his head, a faint, almost imperceptible smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Then he leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and closed his eyes.

An F-Rank dungeon. Simple. Straightforward. A cakewalk for two Late Neophyte cultivators.

What could possibly go wrong?