Chương 1: Ray

Ray was tired. Tired of trying so hard, just to fail every time. Life had become one day after another of searching for some kind of meaning in his fleeting existence. Standing on the roof of his apartment building, staring down at the traffic thirty stories below, felt like the right idea. Continuing this charade felt futile. Moving forward and accepting the primordial law of gravity seemed like the obvious choice.

"Meow." Ray turned toward the sound. The neighbor's cat was walking along the ledge beside him, seemingly unconcerned with the several-hundred-foot drop only inches from its paws.

"Hey, buddy. Be careful." The cat continued forward, either ignoring him or simply not understanding. Whatever Ray had been planning for himself, the poor thing didn't deserve to fall because it had wandered somewhere dangerous. He stepped toward it and reached out. Just as Ray got within range, his foot landed on a particularly smooth section of the ledge. His shoe slipped before he could shift his weight, and the world suddenly moved beneath him. Ray instinctively closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the side of the building was rushing past him. Wind tore at his clothes while the traffic below grew larger with every passing second.

'Shit.' The ground arrived before he could think of anything else. - Ray's head hurt. That was the first thing he noticed when consciousness returned. The second was the cold pressing into his back. He was lying on a hard metal surface, his tangled hair bunched beneath his head in a dense mess. This was not his room. He pushed himself upright and looked around. The cramped space could only be described as a cell. Metal walls stood barely a few feet apart, with a heavy door opposite him.

Rust covered sections of nearly every surface, and the air smelled heavily of oil and sweat. It looked like something pulled straight from a sci-fi prison movie. Then he looked down at himself. This was not his body either. Ray had been in his late twenties. The person sitting on this floor couldn't have been much older than his late teens. His arms were thinner, his hands looked different, and the tangled hair falling around his face was far longer than anything he had ever worn.

'What the fuck?' he thought. He remembered standing on the roof. He remembered the cat, his foot slipping, and the ground rushing toward him. There shouldn't have been anything after that. Instead, he was here. Ray closed his eyes and tried to focus, but another strange sensation grabbed his attention. Something inside his mind seemed to resist him, almost like a sheet of plastic had been stretched across part of his thoughts. He pushed against it.

The resistance grew stronger, but so did his need to understand what was happening. Ray pressed harder until something finally gave. Pop. Pain split through his skull. Memories flooded into him faster than he could process them. They weren't fragmented images or random thoughts. They were years of experiences, names, locations, emotions, and knowledge that somehow felt familiar despite belonging to someone else. Gaia. Irnabster. The Gaialian Empire. The Outer Ring. Raymond Foley.

He had grown up an orphan in the poorest section of Irnabster, the Outer Ring. Food had never been guaranteed, and neither had safety. Joining a gang had been one of the few decisions that actually made his life easier. Then Holland had taken him in. The old gang leader eventually made Ray his adopted son, teaching him how to survive while also giving him something the boy had never really possessed before: a home. Then Holland died. Afterward, Ray tried to keep everything together.

He pretended he could lead the gang the same way the old man had, and some of the members even promised to support him. Promises meant very little in the Outer Ring. Eventually, those same people left him stranded inside a warehouse full of drugs. Military police arrived not long afterward. The memory of armored boots slamming against concrete echoed through Ray's head as he finally understood why he had woken up inside a cell. He had been betrayed. Ray opened his eyes again. The memories remained.

He knew he didn't belong in this cramped hole but he couldn't bring himself to focus on it. It seemed so... pointless. No one was waiting for him if he managed to get out of here anyways. It was difficult to tell where one life ended and the other began. Both lives felt real. Ray barely had time to sort through any of it before a metallic click came from across the cell. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The door unlocked and swung open.

A man entered wearing an officer's uniform. His dark blazer was covered in medals and patches, and there was something about the way he carried himself that immediately told Ray this wasn't someone interested in a long conversation.

"Raymond Foley." Ray said nothing.

"The Court has sentenced you to be made a ward of the military. Your rights have been completely signed over to us, and you will be transferred to the Great Lakes Military Base." Ray's new memories supplied the meaning almost immediately.

'The Great Lakes?' His body stiffened.

'Everyone knows that's a combat zone.' The officer noticed his reaction and smiled slightly.

"This is a privilege, boy. Most criminals get sent to the mines until their sentence is up. You get the chance to join our ranks and make something of yourself." The smile disappeared.

"Don't fuck this up." Before Ray could ask anything, the officer grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. Ray stumbled before following him out of the cell. They passed through several security checkpoints before Ray was given a fresh set of prison-issued clothes and led toward the transfer port. The city outside was a blur of lights and movement. Hundreds of vehicles flew between enormous buildings stretching high into the air, some moving in organized lanes while others disappeared behind towers.

Ray stopped for half a second just to stare before the officer pulled him forward. A wide black vehicle waited near the edge of the platform. An insignia was painted on either side, showing a sword piercing through a pair of wings. Once inside, Ray noticed that both he and the officer were sitting in the rear seats. No one occupied the front. There didn't even appear to be anywhere for a driver to sit. A low vibration traveled through the vehicle as it lifted away from the platform and began a sharp ascent.

Within minutes, the prison had disappeared behind them.

"We should arrive within the hour," the officer said.

"The program can be difficult to handle, even for adults who know what they're walking into." Ray looked toward him.

"I read your file, kid. The program is perfect for someone like you. No family. No future here. Nothing waiting for you except a sentence." The officer turned back toward the city.

"You also have the luxury of being one of the first to arrive. Think about what you want to protect." Ray didn't answer. - Eventually, a massive hexagonal structure appeared in the distance. The GLMB. The Gaialian Empire's foremost military base stretched outward like an entire city designed for war. The vehicle passed through an opening in the outer wall and descended into one of the upper landing bays. The moment it touched down, the door opened and cold air rushed over Ray as he stepped outside.

Dozens of vehicles sat in organized rows while Soldiers moved between them with practiced efficiency. As he followed the officer deeper into the base, Ray finally noticed the man's nametag. Burgen. They left the landing bay through a wide metal door and entered another section of the facility.

"What exactly is this program?" Ray asked. Burgen ignored him until they reached another security checkpoint. A scanner descended from the ceiling and washed green light over both of them before the door ahead opened.

"The Empire has spent generations trying to push back the Beasts," Burgen finally said.

"We built walls. We built weapons. We built bases like this one. It's worked well enough to keep humanity alive." He glanced toward Ray. That was when Ray noticed his eyes. They were green, but not in the way someone's natural eye color might be. They glowed faintly beneath the hallway lights, sharp and unnatural enough that Ray immediately knew something was different about them. Burgen turned away and continued walking.

"The Beasts use Mana. Humans normally can't. The System changed that."

'Mana,' Ray thought. The energy that filled the world. The same power used by the creatures humanity had spent centuries fighting.

"The System forms a Soul Core inside your body," Burgen continued.

"Once that process is complete, you'll be able to use Mana and begin developing like every other user who survives the procedure." Ray slowed without realizing it. Burgen caught the back of his shirt and pulled him forward.

"Don't stop." They passed through another checkpoint. The section beyond it looked completely different. The smell of metal and oil had been replaced by something sharp and sterile. People in white coats moved between rooms filled with equipment Ray couldn't identify. Several of those rooms contained enormous glass tanks. Inside one of them, a man floated unconscious in pale liquid. Tubes had been connected to his arms, chest, and neck while the substance surrounding him gave off a faint white glow.

Burgen didn't force him forward this time.

"Every year, the Beasts get stronger. Every year, the walls need more Soldiers to hold them. You were sentenced to the military because the Empire needs bodies." Ray looked toward him.

"You were placed in this program because someone decided yours might be worth more than that."

"Who decided?" Ray asked.

"Not me." Burgen started walking again.

"You're not important enough to know that yet." Ray followed him into another room where several more tanks stood in the center. A woman in a white coat approached with a tablet in her hand.

"Raymond Foley?" Ray nodded.

"Remove your clothes and step onto the platform. Your body needs direct exposure to the Nul Mana solution." He was led behind a small partition and stripped down to his underwear before stepping back into the room. The woman gestured toward the platform beside the tank. Ray approached slowly. The glass cylinder stood several feet taller than him. Inside, the pale substance moved even though there was no visible current. It looked almost like water mixed with smoke.

"Nul Mana," Burgen said from behind him.

"Mana without an Element. Neutral enough to begin the process safely." Ray stepped onto the platform. Metal restraints opened beside his wrists and ankles, and his first instinct was to step back. He stared at the white liquid waiting inside the tank as everything that had happened over the last several hours seemed to crash together at once. The roof. The cat walking along the ledge. The ground rushing toward him. Then another set of memories joined them. The warehouse. Armored boots. Holland's smile.

Ray stepped forward. The restraints closed around his wrists and ankles before the platform began to rise. It carried him into the tank, and thick glass sealed shut in front of him. The Nul Mana began flowing inside. It touched his feet first, the cold spreading across his skin as the level continued upward. Within seconds, it passed his waist and climbed to his chest. Ray clenched his fists as his breathing grew faster. Then it reached his neck. A moment later, he was completely submerged. Panic hit him instantly.

Ray pulled against the restraints as every instinct screamed at him to get out before he drowned. His lungs tightened. He finally gave in and took a desperate breath. Air entered his lungs. Ray froze. He could breathe. Before he could understand how, something deep inside his chest twisted violently. Pain spread through him, sharp enough that his entire body tensed against the restraints. Then came warmth. Green text appeared in front of his eyes.

[System Upload Initiated] Ray's eyes widened as another message appeared beneath it. [Formation of Soul Core has commenced] The pressure inside his chest tightened. One final message filled his vision. [Welcome, User: Raymond Foley]