Chương 1: The First Transit

Sector 4, the very bottom of the Seventh Abyssal Hive. The air hung thick and sour, a foul blend of low-grade sewer nutrient paste and expired alchemical potions.

"Warning: Concurrent deduction thread No. 47 completed. Brainstem cortex temperature is bordering the safety threshold. Earnings from this processing power lease: 45 Terra Credits." Hearing the cold, mechanical voice echo in his mind, Rowan Vance severed his neural link. Like a drowning man just hauled ashore, he collapsed onto his workbench—a patchwork of scrap metal plates—chest heaving. He gagged, bringing up only a trickle of bitter stomach acid.

In the lower right corner of his vision, an AR projection blinked to life. The crimson countdown burned across his retina like the edge of a rusty saw blade. [Aether Loan Overdue Countdown: 03: 14: 55] [Total Outstanding Balance: 180, 000 Terra Credits (Including compound interest)] [Default Consequence: Mandatory deportation to the Abyssal Mana-Ore Mines of Sector 4.] Rowan pressed his fingers hard into his throbbing temples.

On his right wrist, an ugly birthmark shaped like a closed loop throbbed in time with his overloaded nerves, emitting a faint, burning sensation. For over twenty years, he had endured this bizarre burning agony every single month. It felt as though an endless swarm of ants was injecting fiery acid directly into his flesh. Lately, the flare-ups had grown increasingly severe, forcing him to spend extra money on more painkillers.

The doctors had always dismissed it as an incurable mutation caused by the radiation in the underhive. But Rowan felt differently. He knew something hungry was lurking beneath his skin. Glancing at the paltry 45 credits that had just hit his account, he forced a bitter, ugly smile. A hideous surgical scar on his left arm began to ache.

Two years ago, desperate to avoid a life as a mindless cog on the lower-level assembly lines, he had physically sliced open his own arm to implant a micro "Aether Core-IIα"—bought with a black-market loan. But fate's price tag was always paid in blood. This core hadn't just chained him to a life-threatening debt; it was a ticking time bomb that could melt down at any moment. Coupled with student loans, medical bills, and the cost of cultivation resources, the debt was suffocating him.

"Haa..." Rowan took a deep breath, stood up, and checked the clock. 7: 50 PM. Tonight's online preliminary screening for the Republic Military's "Combat Department" was his only lifeline. The military held the sole special admission quota in the entire Seventh Abyssal Hive for the prestigious "Terra First Magitech University."

If he could just secure a ticket to the next stage—the "Practical Combat Assessment"—Republic law dictated that his status as a military candidate would enforce a mandatory three-month freeze on his deadly debt. Otherwise, in three hours, the Consortium's armed debt collectors would smash through his rusted iron door, drag him out like a dog, and throw him into the underground mines. He would spend the rest of his short life mining highly carcinogenic raw mana-crystals. Even death would require waiting in line.

Rowan peered through his shattered window. On the street corner, a massive holographic billboard was broadcasting an announcement from the Seventh Hive Aether Consortium.

"In response to the Republic's call to optimize the distribution of mana resources in the Seventh Abyssal Hive, the system will, effective immediately, automatically revoke the purchase quotas of individuals with poor credit histories. We will ensure that every drop of precious coolant is used on talents who bring value to the Republic."

Just half an hour ago, he had gone to the corner vending machine to buy "Cryo-Neural Coolant"—a life-saving drug used by mages during high-intensity mental overclocking to prevent their brains from being cooked by magitech heat. The 45 Terra Credits he just earned, plus the 95 he had saved, were exactly enough to buy a single vial of the lowest-grade coolant. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Yet the vending machine, after scanning his irises, flashed a blinding red: [Network Credit Anomaly] [Your account has been flagged as a High-Risk Defaulter. Coolant purchase privileges have been frozen.] Julian's ice-cold gaze flashed through his mind. Staring intently at the screen, Rowan let out a hoarse, cold sneer. Optimizing distribution? Bullshit. It was only because the military's requirements for the Combat Department's special admission this year were exceedingly specific.

The military had explicitly requested "Low-Modification Subjects" with minimal magitech implants. And without the cheat-like enhancements bought by wealth, Julian's only threat in the Seventh Hive—the only pauper who could absolutely crush him in raw brainstem processing power—was Rowan. It was a bloodless, legal assassination. Julian was forcing him to choose his own poison—forfeit the exam and rot in the mines, or take it and fry his brain alive.

"You want me to die by the rules..." Rowan murmured softly, the Aether Core beneath his skin beginning to heat up. Gonggg—！ The mechanical clock on the wall let out a muffled chime. He spun around, ripping his gaze from the window to stare at the center of the room. Eight o'clock sharp. On his desk, a miniature "Magitech Array"—heavily modded from a scrapped server chassis—erupted into a low vibration.

The cooling fans inside shrieked in protest as a spectral blue beam shot up from the obsidian conduction base, projecting the military's austere Twin-Sword Cross emblem in mid-air. Rowan pulled up a rusty iron chair and firmly clamped his fingers into the grooves of the obsidian base. A violent surge of mana flooded into him, spreading through his body in the blink of an eye. It forcefully synchronized the "Citizen Personal Magitech Chip" implanted in his left chest with the array's base architecture.

[Candidate Identity Confirmed: Rowan Vance] [Warning: No liquid cooling medium detected. This is an S-Rank High-Pressure Mental Assessment. Forced activation will result in irreversible physiological damage. Initiate forced log-out?] Log out? Retreat to the sunless, irradiated mines?

"Log-out rejected. Force connection." [Connection established. Tier 1 Source Rune replication, initiating.] BOOM! Thousands of complex mana nodes slammed into Rowan's brain like a tsunami of data. He muffled a groan, his teeth grinding audibly. Forcing himself to remain calm, he guided his internal mental power to pick out the corresponding nodes and weave them into a Mana Source Rune. [Tier 1, Passed. Time: 1. 4 seconds. Grade: S.] [Tier 2, initiating.] The pressure multiplied exponentially.

Without coolant to suppress the backlash, the extreme extraction of his mental power caused deadly waste heat to frantically build up within his body. [Tier 5, Passed. Grade: S.] Ten minutes later, Rowan was soaked—sweat and blood mixing into a single dark sheen across his skin. A nauseating stench of char filled the air—the smell of proteins denaturing under extreme heat. Warm blood oozed from his nostrils and the corners of his eyes, his vision blurring into a blinding red mix of sweat and gore.

Every breath felt like inhaling scalding glass shards. The Aether Core in his left arm was glowing a dangerous, superheated red, looking as though it would detonate at any second. [Warning! Candidate's mental load is at 140% capacity! Large-scale necrosis detected in nerve endings. System initiating forced physical breaker trip!]"Override—keep going!" Rowan squeezed a beastly growl from the depths of his throat.

Gripping the base with bloody fingers, he forcefully bypassed the root permissions, disabling the self-preservation firewall of his citizen life-support system. [Final Tier, Tier 8 Assessment Commencing. Military Top-Secret Spell (Tier 1): "Minimalist Water Blade (Supercritical State)" pre-casting test. Initiating.] In that instant, the colossal mental requirement utterly crushed the physiological limits of the human body. What unfolded in Rowan's mind was a genuine spell model!

His cerebral blood vessels tore with agonizing pops. His vision began to black out; the Grim Reaper's fingers were already resting on his spine. Just as his sanity was about to be entirely reduced to ash by the heat, Rowan made the craziest decision of his life. Abandoning every last shred of the barrier protecting his subconscious, he dumped all the mental power from the depths of his soul—like emptying a barrel of oil—and forced it unreservedly into the roaring, broken machine.

"Form... the array!" On a microscopic mana level, over 560 Mana Source Runes, forcefully fused together by Rowan's will, erupted with brilliant data-light and perfectly closed the final circuit. It was this exact moment—this violent, limit-breaking fluctuation of his soul—that finally tripped a hidden switch deep within him. On Rowan's right wrist, the circular birthmark suddenly lit up with a profound, heart-stopping blue light.

Like an awakening black hole, it greedily absorbed the terrifying heat radiating from his body. In the void, the blue light twisted, connecting end to end, forming a slowly rotating Möbius star ring. Inside the cramped rented room, space tore open without warning, revealing a pitch-black rift.

A split second before Rowan's battered body was utterly sucked into the alternate dimension by the immense gravitational pull, a mechanical voice—sweet as a heavenly chorus—finally rang in his ears: [Spell pre-casting complete. Model integrity: 100%. Assessment passed.] [Preliminary screening concluded. Comprehensive Rating: S.] [Qualification Confirmed: Eligibility for "Terra First Magitech University - Combat Department Special Admission Practical Assessment" obtained.] [Supercritical Water Blade model, currently burning into Aether Core...] [Burn successful.] Snap. The spatial rift closed instantly, as if nothing had ever happened. The tiny rented room was completely empty. All that remained was the glaring, viscous pool of blood on the obsidian base, and the debt countdown frozen on the holographic screen, its red glow reflected quietly in the cold glass.