Rain fell hard over the city of Draegor, hammering rooftops, bouncing off mana-warded streetlights, and running in red-stained rivulets through the slums. Neon signs flickered above cracked stone walls. A rune-bus buzzed down a flooded road, its levitation glyphs spitting sparks. Amid the chaos, Kian Thorne stood beneath a rusted awning, soaked to the bone, watching adventurers walk by in gleaming combat suits.
They didn't notice him.
They never did.
The world had changed fifty years ago, when the first Gate opened above the oceans. Since then, dungeons had become normal, monsters a part of city planning, and people with magical affinity—Awakened Ones—became celebrities, soldiers, and mercenaries. Nations fell. Corporations rose. And those without power were left behind.
Kian was one of them. Unawakened. Unranked.
Not weak by choice—weak by design.
He clutched a cheap mana-damp coat around his narrow shoulders, hiding the bruises from yesterday's failed dungeon sweep. It was supposed to be an easy gate—a Grade-F training dungeon—and instead, they lost two rookies. Kian barely made it out, dragging a shield fragment and a cracked focus stone as his only reward.
Another death. Another anonymous loss. He hadn't even known the boy's name.
The Adventurer Guild Tower stood in the distance—black steel and blue-glass spires, glowing with enchantments. Banners bearing the House Emblems of the top guilds flapped in the storm: Crimson Pact, Arc Blades, Order of Iron. Each had S-Rank Hunters, dungeons under contract, and private armies.
Kian wasn't part of any of them. He wasn't even registered as a true Hunter.
He was a Runner—an unlicensed scavenger who signed proxy raid contracts and prayed not to die.
His stomach growled. The mana-supplement bars he'd bought yesterday were expired. He ate them anyway. Better mold than nothing.
A familiar voice cut through the downpour.
"Still alive, cockroach?"
He turned. Arlen, a certified B-Rank Healer, leaned against a rune-stabilized wall. Her coat shimmered with minor shielding runes, and her hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense braid. She looked at him like one might a limping stray animal.
"You look worse than yesterday," she said.
"I feel worse than yesterday," Kian muttered.
She tossed him a small vial. "Mana tonic. Weakest kind. I had extras."
Kian caught it. "You're spoiling me."
"You're sixteen. You should be in school, not playing dungeon bait."
"I was kicked out when I couldn't pay the aura fees," he said flatly. "Turns out starving kids don't cultivate well."
Her face softened, but only slightly. "There's talk about an Unrated Gate opening outside the eastern wall. The guild hasn't moved on it. You might have a shot before the big teams notice."
"Unrated?" he asked. "No classification means no map. No monster index. That's suicide."
"And no contract boundaries," Arlen said quietly. "If you clear it, the loot's yours. And if there's a core…"
Kian didn't sleep that night.
Instead, he sat in the corner of his attic apartment, high above a tavern filled with shouting drunks and cheap illusions. His bed was a pile of worn blankets. The lights flickered. The mana grid had been unstable all week.
He stared at a crumpled photograph of Nyla and Dael, his younger siblings, taken before he'd sold his last legal identity papers to get them out of the city.
They were in the countryside now. Safe. He hoped.
He touched the cracked pendant around his neck. His mother's charm—once a soul-ward, now just hollow crystal.
The System hadn't acknowledged him since birth. Some people awakened early. Some during combat. Some never.
He was beginning to believe he'd be the third.
But he couldn't die yet.
So, at dawn, soaked again by the relentless rain, Kian made his way to the Eastern Expanse, where broken train lines met wild mana storms and the Guild's reach grew thin.
There, hidden behind collapsed buildings and thorn-choked earth, was the gate.
It wasn't swirling vortex or glowing rune-circle.
Kian stepped deeper into the Unrated dungeon, his footsteps echoing along the black-veined stone. Hours passed—or maybe minutes. Time twisted in here. The path should've looped back by now, but the corridors kept shifting—walls stretching, ceilings pulsing like muscle.
There were no monsters. No traps. No signs of life.
Just whispers.
He couldn't understand them. Not words. Not quite. But something ancient clung to the air, crawling under his skin.
He reached a broken atrium where moss grew upside down along the ceiling, dripping mana like dew. At its center stood a staircase that spiraled down—too narrow, too old, too forgotten.
The System didn't mark it. No notifications. No warnings.
Kian hesitated, then descended.
The temperature dropped. His breath misted. The torches lining the walls flickered and died, one by one. The deeper he went, the louder the silence became, until it was all he could hear—dense, smothering.
And then he saw it.
Not a swirling gate. Not a glyph-carved door like those found in ranked dungeons.
This was something else.
A perfect obsidian arch, embedded in living stone, its surface smooth as glass, humming like a held breath. No runes. No locks. Just presence. It didn't belong here. It didn't belong anywhere.
It had been waiting.
Kian reached for it. His hand trembled.
The stone was cold.
Then it opened—without sound, without resistance.
He stepped through.
Inside was silence—not the absence of sound, but the presence of stillness. The walls were carved black stone, veined with mana. Floating torches lit a path, but there were no monsters, no traps.
Just a corridor of echoes and shadows.
Then came the chamber.
Circular. Massive. A shrine or throne room, long abandoned.
At its center floated a book, suspended above a silver pedestal. The book turned its own pages. Words glowed faintly. The room pulsed like it had a heartbeat—and it wasn't his.
He stepped closer.
The air cracked. His head spun. His chest ignited in pain.
Then the book exploded into light, and wrapped around him like a serpent.
You have touched the Codex of the Dead.
Soul Resonance: Confirmed
Awakening Forced.
Class Acquired: Necromancer (SS-Rank – Sealed)
Title: Graveborn Heir
System Warning: Body Unqualified
– Mana Circulation: Weak
– Physical Constitution: Malnourished
– Musculature: Inadequate
– System Access: Tier-1 Summons Only
He collapsed, twitching, gasping for breath.
Training Protocol Activated:
– Daily Physical Training: 3 Hours
– Mana Channeling: 1 Hour
– Meditation: 30 Minutes
– Objective: Stabilize Body for Class Integration
The pain dulled. His limbs ached as if burned. The Codex floated in front of him, its pages now etched with a single phrase:
First Trial: Bind what death cannot hold.
From the walls, bones stirred.
They snapped together like puppets on invisible strings. A knight formed—wreathed in faint fire, armored in rusted plates, its sword jagged but whole.
Kian raised his blade, but the Codex whispered:
Command, not destroy.
He lowered the weapon.
Swallowed.
Then whispered, "Kneel."
The knight obeyed.
Undead Bound: Boneblade Knight – Tier D
Loyalty: Absolute
For the first time, Kian felt the weight of command—cold, ancient, endless.
The Codex spun and vanished into his chest, embedding like a phantom heartbeat.
He stumbled out of the dungeon hours later, soaking wet, shaking, the knight hidden behind an illusion.
Nobody could know. Not yet.
Soulbound Necromancers were classified as threats—monsters in human skin. If the Guild discovered him, he'd be hunted.
But now, he had power.
More importantly, he had purpose.
He would train. Fight. Survive.
And when the time came, the world that ignored him would hear the footsteps of the dead behind him.
End of Chapter 1