Chương 1: Happy Anniversary

"Happy birthday!" his parents chorused. Gray Kim forced a smile from the head of the dining table. Savory steam curled from three bowls of freshly scooped white rice and miyeokguk —the traditional Korean seaweed soup served on birthdays. Across from him, his parents were already dressed for the office in black slacks and crisp button-down shirts, their attention divided between him and the glowing screens beside their breakfasts.

"Your present!" His mother leaned forward and slid a slim rectangular package wrapped in vibrant rainbow paper across the table. Gray waved a hand in feigned modesty.

"Mom, you really didn't have to get me anything." Without missing a beat, he snatched the gift from her fingertips.

"But if you insist." He tore through the wrapping to reveal a plain cardboard box. Bold black letters stamped across the front read E-Reader. Gray pinched one corner between his thumb and index finger and held it at arm's length like a dirty gym sock.

"Take it back," he said.

"I'm already getting a migraine just looking at it."

"You'll need it for your freshman year." His mother crossed her arms, unfazed by his theatrics.

"Your high school recommended that every student have one for English."

"You said recommended, right?" Gray set the box beside his spoon.

"That means optional."

"You haven't even given reading a chance, boy!" His father finally pulled his attention away from the laptop propped beside his rice bowl.

"I heard they made a book based on those video games you love so much. Start with one of those." Reading a game wasn't exactly the same as playing one, but arguing this early in the morning wasn't worth the effort. Gray let out a long, defeated sigh.

"Fine."

"Excellent," his mother said.

"I left a cake in the fridge for you to eat with your brother later. Hyun texted earlier. He's coming down to visit today."

"Hyun's coming?" Gray frowned.

"Doesn't his semester start in a few days? The trip down from NYU is a massive hassle just for my birthday. A text would've been fine." Even so, a spark of warmth stirred in his chest at the thought of seeing his older brother again.

"I suppose he misses his little brother." She gave a slight shrug.

"I'll head straight home after school, then." Gray reached for his spoon but stopped as her exact wording finally registered. His eyes darted between his parents.

"Wait. Did you just say eat it with my brother? Don't tell me you two are working late again tonight." A flicker of guilt crossed his father's face.

"I'm afraid so, boy. We're completely swamped right now." Of course they are. Gray swallowed the familiar sting of disappointment and looked down at his breakfast. It was always the job first. His father flipped through the thick folder resting beside his keyboard. As the Director of Forensic Services, his work had a habit of bleeding into their home life. The same was true for Gray's mother, an administrator with the DEA.

Their agencies had recently joined forces to investigate a mysterious new stimulant that had flooded the upper-class market seemingly overnight. Even during breakfast, the open case file demanded his father's attention. Gray leaned slightly to the side for a better look. A photograph was clipped to the top of the current page, showing a thin glass vial sealed with a cork. Vibrant purple liquid filled the container, with what appeared to be finely ground herbs suspended inside.

Gray shoveled a spoonful of warm broth and seaweed into his mouth, his gaze lingering on the photograph.

"That looks exactly like an elixir," he mumbled around his food. His father's fingers froze over the keyboard.

"You said what?" His gaze snapped up from the screen and locked onto Gray.

"An elixir." Gray swallowed and pointed at the report with his spoon.

"Like the ones in RPGs. Players drink them for a stat buff—you know, a temporary boost to strength. Sometimes they restore health, too." His father's eyes narrowed as he glanced back at the photograph.

"That… is exactly what this substance does." Gray paused, then wiped a stray drop of broth from his chin with the back of his hand.

"What, like steroids?"

"No. I mean this liquid can seal an open wound in seconds. It can erase a decade-old scar as though the injury never happened." His father slid the laptop closer and leaned across the table, sudden excitement sharpening his face. His fingers hovered eagerly over the keys.

"Tell me—what else do these elixirs do in your games?"

"Please don't encourage him," his mother warned, shooting her husband a pointed look.

"I thought we agreed we were trying to get him to quit gaming." His father chuckled under his breath and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Sorry. You know how desperate I am for a lead."

"We both are." Her expression softened.

"But I'm not quite desperate enough to start citing video games in a federal investigation." She rose from the table and retrieved a foil tray from the kitchen island. Neatly arranged inside were rows of injeolmi —chewy rice cakes generously coated in roasted soybean powder. Their warm, nutty sweetness drifted through the kitchen.

"Come on, Gray. Grab your backpack. I'll drop you off for your first day." Gray stared at the tray with absolute dread.

"Mom, do you really think my teachers are going to eat that? Why don't you just bring donuts or cupcakes instead?" She dropped the tray onto the granite counter with a heavy thud.

"Fine. But they're missing out."

"I'm home!" Gray called out as he eased open the front door. He tossed his backpack onto the entryway mat with a dull thump.

"I met this cool kid in homeroom today. Apparently, his parents run an illegal weed farm, and his mom is some kind of drug kingpin—" The words died in his throat. Something damp brushed his cheek. Gray recoiled and swatted wildly at his face, his skin prickling as though he'd walked straight into a spiderweb. A broad green leaf trembled beside his shoulder. Coarse vines had swallowed the entryway, sprawling across the normally spotless marble floor in tangled knots.

They climbed the walls and crawled along the ceiling like invasive ivy, their thick stems twisting over one another. Heavy roots branched from the growth, several ending in tightly wound blossoms that looked ready to burst open. The air was hot and suffocatingly humid, damp enough to cling to Gray's skin within seconds. Beneath it all hung the thick, unmistakable reek of wet soil and fresh vegetation. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. It was far too dark.

The mid-afternoon sun should have been pouring through the front windows.

"What the hell is this?" Gray muttered. He fumbled for the hallway switch. The overhead bulbs flickered, then buzzed to life, revealing the full scale of the infestation. Gray flinched. His heart pounded against his chest as he hesitated before carefully stepping over a twisted vine and moving deeper into the house. The wide archway to the living room opened on his right. Gray crossed the threshold and instinctively slapped the light switch beside him. The room flared into view. Every muscle in his body locked.

The living room had transformed into a twisted, overgrown greenhouse. A dense mass of vegetation had swallowed the leather sofa and glass coffee table. Thick vines smothered the windows, blocking out the sun completely, while a massive splintered root had punched straight through the wall-mounted television, leaving a web of fractured glass across the screen. But Gray barely registered the ruined furniture. His vision tunneled toward the center of the room.

A massive tree trunk had erupted through the floor, splitting the marble into jagged slabs, and one thick branch stretched outward beneath the ceiling. His mother and father hung from it. Braided vines cinched tightly around their necks. Jagged wooden spikes had been driven into their eye sockets, crumpled sheets of paper had been stuffed into their mouths, and vibrant green lotus flowers bloomed in clusters across their clothing and skin.

Directly beneath their dangling feet stood a twisted sapling no higher than Gray's knee, cradling a single jade lotus at the tip of its stem. The flower gave off a faint, unnatural glow. Gray stood paralyzed. A shrill ringing filled his ears. Seconds stretched into an eternity, and he couldn't blink. Every muscle in his body drew tight enough to ache, but his mind refused to tell them to move.

The room seemed detached from reality, like something his brain had invented because the truth was too impossible to accept. Then the rhythmic beeping of the front door's electronic keypad cut through the silence. The lock clicked.

"What the hell happened in here?" Hyun called from the entryway, confusion thick in his voice.

"Gray, your big brother is home! Happy birthday!" Footsteps approached through the hall. Hyun awkwardly stepped over the sprawling roots, heading toward Gray with no idea what waited beyond the archway.

"Hey, why are you just standing there?" he asked. He reached Gray and clapped a hand onto his rigid shoulder, already preparing to give him his birthday punch on the shoulder. Then Hyun looked past him. He froze. A sharp gasp caught in his throat. In an instant, Hyun spun Gray around and pulled his brother's face hard against his chest, blocking the living room from view—his arms closed tightly around him.

Keeping Gray's face buried against him, he slowly guided them backward through the hallway, over the tangled roots, and out the front door.

"It's okay," Hyun whispered, though his voice cracked around the words.

"I'm here." Hyun folded the blanket, smoothed the pillow on his makeshift couch bed, then crossed the cramped apartment to the bedroom. Knock, knock, knock.

"You ready to leave?" Hyun asked, easing the door open before Gray could answer.

"Just give me a couple minutes," Gray murmured. He didn't look up. His attention remained fixed on the battered folder resting in his lap, its pages softened and heavily creased from years of handling. Hyun's gaze dropped to the police report.

"Are you still obsessing over those files?" Frustration crept into his voice.

"It's been four years, Gray. What do you expect to find by wasting your time on that?"

"Expect?" Gray slowly raised his head to meet his brother's eyes. His expression remained flat.

"I stopped expecting anything a long time ago. Especially after they ruled it a joint suicide." Neither brother believed the official narrative. In the months following their parents' deaths, Hyun had relentlessly hounded their former colleagues in the DEA and Forensic Services. He called, emailed, showed up at offices—anything to keep the case from disappearing beneath a stack of closed investigations. Eventually, one contact cracked under the weight of his own guilt and slipped Hyun a classified dossier.

Inside was the name of the organization believed to be producing the mysterious purple stimulant: The Jade Lotus. Its distributors operated entirely in the shadows and accepted only physical gold as payment. According to the forensic reports, every attempt to identify the liquid's chemical composition had failed. More disturbing were the herbs suspended inside it. After cross-referencing them against every botanical database available, researchers reached an impossible conclusion.

The plants didn't exist anywhere on Earth. On the morning of Gray's fourteenth birthday, their parents had received an anonymous tip claiming to reveal the Jade Lotus's primary base of operations. They pursued the lead and immediately went radio silent. They weren't seen again until that afternoon, hanging lifelessly from the ceiling of their own living room. Hyun used a portion of the life insurance payout and inheritance to purchase the small one-bedroom apartment they now shared.

He rationed what remained carefully, stretching every dollar while finishing his master's degree in psychology. These days, he worked long shifts as a psychologist at a state-run psychiatric hospital. The afternoon their parents were murdered, Hyun had driven down from NYU intending to announce that he was dropping out to pursue a career in art instead. The trauma hollowed Gray out. He dropped out of high school and spent most of the next four years confined to his bedroom, letting one day dissolve into another.

Weeks became months. Months became years. Only recently had the deep psychological wound begun to form a fragile scab. Gray was eighteen now. Hyun was twenty-six, though the heavy bags under his eyes made him look much older. Hyun leaned against the doorframe and released a weary sigh.

"You know there's nothing we can do about those prosecutors. The whole thing was obviously a cover-up."

"I've got a good idea." A trace of dry humor entered Hyun's voice.

"Why don't you finally get off your ass, go to law school, and become a prosecutor so you can reopen the case yourself?" The brothers locked eyes. A second later, both broke into hollow, barking laughter that didn't quite reach their eyes.

"Alright, enough jokes." Hyun cleared his throat as the laughter died.

"Put on your suit for the memorial. I'll go start the car."

"One question, though." Gray tilted his head and sniffed the air. A faint sweetness drifted in from the living room, unmistakably floral.

"Did you buy flowers for the cemetery?" Hyun's expression tightened.

"Y-yeah. I did." His voice turned cautious.

"I thought maybe, after all this time, you'd be okay being around them." Gray lowered his gaze.

"Yeah…" he murmured.

"It's fine." He drew in a slow breath, lifted his head, and forced a reassuring smile.

"Alright. Let's go." Before he could stand, a translucent blue window flashed into existence directly in front of his face.

"H-hey…" Gray blinked rapidly and jabbed an index finger toward the glowing display. His fingertip passed straight through it.

"What's this blue light?"

"Blue light?" Hyun raised an eyebrow and glanced around the bedroom.

"What are you talking about?" Scanning "Gray Kim" for the compatibility with 'Gozen Kotetsu's' Mistveil class. … … … Scan complete. Cloud Affinity — None Incompatible vessel. The summoning process has failed. … … … The vessel for S???? d has been chosen. Summoning successful. Gray recoiled so violently that the back of his skull slammed into the drywall with a hard thud.

"The text!" he shouted, pressing a hand to the ache blooming behind his head. His eyes remained fixed on the hovering screen.

"You seriously don't see it floating right there?" Hyun's confusion gave way to alarm. He stepped closer and swept a hand through the blue window—and directly across Gray's line of sight.

"Are you okay? You just cracked your head against the wall. Maybe you're dizzy."

"I'm fine!" Gray swatted his hand aside.

"How can you not see this?" Without warning, an azure light burst from Gray's hands. The glow raced over his fingers and climbed his forearms in branching streams, before spreading across his neck. A faint hum filled the room, growing louder as the energy intensified. Hyun staggered backward, his face draining of color.

"Gray… what is this?" He stared at his trembling palms. The azure light brightened until his fingers were nearly lost inside it, and heat prickled across his skin, followed by a strange weightlessness that turned his stomach.

"What is this, Hyun?" Panic finally cracked through his voice.

"What's happening to me?" He snapped his head up toward his brother. Hyun was gone. So was the bedroom. The worn carpet, faded walls, bed, doorway—everything vanished at once, swallowed by a pitch-black void that stretched endlessly in every direction. Gray spun around, but there was nothing beneath his feet and nothing above him. Only darkness. Then another blue window appeared in his vision, cutting through the darkness. Summoning participant to Astoria for the 917th Natural Selection!