Lanz woke up feeling like he’d gone twelve rounds with a particularly angry treadmill.
His whole body ached in ways that shouldn’t have been possible from just swinging a sword at virtual dummies.
Every joint in his arms crackled when he moved, and his back felt like someone had rolled him up like a burrito and left him in a gym locker overnight.
"Ow," he muttered as he sat up, blinking against the early morning light seeping through the curtains. The relic crystal was still on his desk, still faintly glowing like a dying firefly. He gave it a suspicious glance.
"You better not be cursed."
Downstairs, he could already hear the clatter of pans and the familiar voice of his mom humming some old pop song from ten years ago. The smell of garlic and rice hit him a second later, which helped make the soreness slightly more bearable.
He dragged himself to the bathroom, splashed his face with water, and stared at his reflection. There were dark circles under his eyes, his hoodie was wrinkled, and his hair looked like it had been through a blender.
But today, he noticed something in his face now that had always been there, but he just ignored. "I’m f*cking handsome as f*ck."
When he walked into the kitchen, his mom greeted him with a worried frown and a steaming bowl of champorado. "Did you sleep okay? You were tossing around like you were fighting someone in there."
"I was," Lanz said without thinking, then quickly added, "in my dreams."
His little sister, Miko, sat at the table swinging her legs and scrolling through her phone. She looked up at him and smirked.
"So, Mr. Triple-Failure, how’s it feel to be famous?"
He gave her a dry look as he sat down and started eating. "It’s called being underrated. It’s a branding strategy."
She snorted. "Yeah, okay, Mr. Branding Strategy. You know you’re on MemeNet, right? Someone made a sticker of your test score. It’s going viral."
"Of course it is," he muttered. "I fail one test and suddenly I’m public property."
His mom gently ruffled his hair as she passed by with a tray of eggs. "Ignore them. They’re just jealous."
Lanz smiled faintly, even as the champorado burned his tongue. He didn’t say anything, but the warmth from the food helped. So did the fact that, despite everything, this was still his family, people who didn’t care if he was ranked FFF, SSS, or WTF.
In the background, the TV was playing the morning Hunter News. Footage of flashy awakenings lit up the screen, new BBB-rankers smiling for cameras, associations handing out badges, proud parents crying on stage.
A glowing banner scrolled across the bottom: TOP TEN AWAKENINGS IN THE REGION
One name flashed across the screen, a kid from St. Jomawa’s in the central district who got a BB-rank and was already getting sponsorship offers.
Another showed a seventeen-year-old who awakened as an AA-rank and was being hailed as the next prodigy. Wait, it was the same bright dyed hair, flawless skin, tiny silver hoops dangling from both ears, idol Lanz saw before.
He glanced at the window. The light was getting brighter. The day was just starting.
"They really don’t know what to do with me yet, huh," he muttered.
He shook his head and finished his champorado. "Nothing, just thinking about branding strategies."
She gave him a look but went back to her phone.
He wiped his mouth, grabbed his bag, and headed for the door.
School was the exact kind of disaster he expected.
The second he stepped past the front gate, heads turned and whispers started. He walked past a group of second-years who were literally pointing at him and laughing, one had their phone out.
He caught a glimpse of the screen.
It was him, his handsome face, frozen in confusion during the Awakening Test, plastered onto a trash can with the caption: "When the system crashes harder than your GPA."
But he just kept on walking. The hallway didn’t offer any mercy though, a few teachers gave him pitiful glances and one even tried to be nice and said, "Hang in there, Kuroda," which somehow made it feel worse.
When he got to his classroom, someone had helpfully scribbled a giant FFF across his desk in permanent marker. "How subtle," said Lanz sarcastically, putting his bag down.
Lanz pulled out a tissue from his pocket, wiped it once and yup, it was definitely permanent, but he sat down anyway.
A guy at the back of the room snorted. "Yo, that seat’s for ranked people only. Might wanna check the lost and found, see if they’ve got a desk for failed awakeners."
Lanz didn’t even look up. "Cool, then maybe you should switch with me. I hear the dumbass section is right over there."
The guy blinked in confusion. A few students laughed.
Class dragged on. Lanz took notes out of habit, his hand still sore from yesterday’s training. Every so often, someone would try to whisper behind his back or cough the letters "FFF" under their breath like it was comedy gold.
He just kept writing.
By lunch, his name had basically become a punchline.
At the cafeteria, he sat with his usual group. None of them said anything for a while. One of them, Kenji, finally broke the silence. "Hey, so... that test, huh?"
Lanz raised an eyebrow. "You mean the one where the system rejected my existence? Yeah. Kinda hard to forget."
Kenji chuckled nervously. "I mean, at least you’re not dead, right? Could be worse."
Another guy, Leo, chimed in. "Yeah, maybe it’s a glitch. Those happen, don’t they?"
Lanz stabbed at his rice with his spoon. "Sure. And maybe next week I’ll wake up an S-rank."
The table went quiet again.
Then one of them, Hiro, leaned back and said, "Well, I guess now we know who the weakest really is."
Lanz looked up slowly. "You’ve been waiting to say that for some time, haven’t you?"
Hiro blinked. "What? No, I was just—"
"Don’t pretend this sh*t is new."
Kenji tried to cut in. "Okay, let’s just chill—"
Lanz stood, picked up his tray, and said, "Nah, it’s cool. I should sit with the FFF section anyway."
He walked off before they could say anything else, dropped his tray off, and left the cafeteria.
Somewhere in the halls, he let out a deep breath and rolled his shoulders.
Then he smiles to himself and said, "I definitely looked like a loser there. I should apologize to them soon."
Later that night, long after the lights in the neighborhood went out and the house settled into its usual sleepy silence, Lanz sat cross-legged on the floor of his room.
The relic crystal rested on the mat in front of him, faintly glowing with that same eerie pulse. He stared at it for a long time, then reached out.
"Alright, round two. Let’s see what you’ve got."
He tapped it and the world blinked.
A moment later, he stood once again in the simulation room. His loadout from before appeared in a shimmer, sword, gloves, those ridiculous Speedy Sandals.
He opened the menu and blinked at a new option:
Inside was a small inventory of "legacy items," some of them labeled with strange tags. He scrolled through them slowly, eyebrows raising.
One item caught his eye: [Aged Blade Fragment – ??? Rarity]
He tried to equip it, but the system pinged back:
[REQUIRES ALT RANK LEVEL 5]
"Of course it does," Lanz said, but he tucked it into his inventory anyway. Just having access to these was already bending the rules.
He also grabbed: – [Boots of Basic Mobility] (better than sandals) – [Starter Cloak: Faded Black] – [Training Ring: +1 VIT, Unofficial]
Once geared up, he walked toward the next simulation door, which now had a new symbol glowing on it: a basic humanoid enemy challenge.
As he approached, the system chimed.
[ALT ACCOUNT ACTIVE] [EXP: 20/30 – LVL 3] [Next Threshold: Skill Slot Unlock – LVL 4]