Location Unknown, Time Unknown.
*COUGH!* *haah!* *Pant!*
"Wha!? Where? What!?"
A young man with brownish hair and pupils sat up with a look of shock and confusion etched on his face.
His entire body was covered in burn marks, and he only had a half-torn pair of pants on his body.
Even his face was covered with serious burn marks.
The young man felt immense pain all over his body as he tried to remember what was happening to him.
His entire body was covered in cuts and wounds, and he looked like a torture victim with such severe injuries.
"H-how am I still alive?... I-I am pathetic..."
"How can someone like me end up with such a depressing fate... I was supposed to reach for the heavens..."
"I was supposed to be a star... sob... sob..."
Tears started to well in the young man’s eyes, but even crying felt painful. His eyes had also suffered from severe damage, as he had once cried tears of blood.
Due to severe damage, his eyes were only working at less than half of their capacity, and everything around him seemed blurry.
The young man cried bitterly in sadness as the rough and dry wind kept hitting his pale face.
The dry sand blew along with the wind and covered his hair with dust, making him look even more pathetic and defeated than before.
Everywhere he looked there was only sand and rocks scattered around him.
"A desert?... What is this place?"
With a look of confusion, the young man glanced at the sky and noticed something that caused him to feel extreme shock.
There were five suns shining brightly in the sky at the same time.
"Wha!? What!? Where is this place!? Did I end up on some other planet or something!?"
The earth that he knew didn’t have so many suns hanging in its sky at all! There was no way so many suns could appear out of nowhere!
"Did I end up on some other planet!? Or perhaps I am inside some high-level dungeon or something like that!"
The young man felt even more despair after noticing that his situation was even more severe than he was expecting it to be.
There were no plants or any living things for as far as he could see, which means he couldn’t find anything that could quench his thirst or could be used as food.
’Even the mana in this place is so thin... if it was a high-level dungeon, mana should have been much denser... but the mana in the environment here is extremely thin...’
’Did I really end up on some faraway unknown planet?’
Speaking felt painful as his throat was suffering from burns, so he stopped speaking and only thought about things in his mind.
’Mom, Dad... sis... I have wronged you all, I am pathetic, I am the worst loser in this entire world, I caused your death...’
’Why, why didn’t I notice that you were not contacting me? Why was I so busy being arrogant that I even forgot the well-being of own family?’
’I hate it all, I hate it all... I hate myself...’
*Sob* *Sob*
Tears kept appearing in his eyes, but instead of helping him vent his sadness, they caused his eyes to feel burning pain, and he felt even more despair and sadness.
’I don’t even have the qualification to live... I should just die already...’
Just when the young man was at the absolute depths of despair, a familiar sound rang in his mind.
It was the sound of the same entity that had brought him ’Hope’ in his time of great despair before.
[Ding! The System has suffered severe damage due to ’Host’ luck being damaged to severe level!]
[Ding! Error! The system has suffered severe damage! Many functions will be lost!]
[Ding! Error! The system has suffered severe permanent damage as the strings of destiny has been interfered with!]
[Ding! The host has lost tremendous amount of luck and the support of the heavenly will has been severed permanently!]
[Ding! ERROR! ERROR! The system has lost the ability to enhance the host using ’EXP’ mechanisms!]
[Ding! Rebooting system! ERROR! ERROR! The connection with the heavenly will has been severed permanently due to loss of luck!]
[Ding! ERROR! The system has lost the ’Shop’ function due to severe damage!!]
[Ding! ERROR! The system has lost the ’Inventory’ function! All items stored in the inventory are lost!]
One after another, notifications kept appearing in the mind of the young man, and with each new message, he was plunged into an even deeper pit of despair.
At that point, he could only say one sentence.
"Just kill me already. Just let me die, please... I beg you, God, Creator, whoever you are... just let me disappear."
Tears ran down his face as he sobbed and cried in absolute despair while feeling pathetic and broken from inside out.
[Ding! Error! Cannot Reboot due to the lack of connection with the heavenly will!]
The familiar system window panel opened in the young man’s mind, but this time its panel was covered in cracks and broken parts, showing that it had suffered severe damage.
<Status>
[Name: Fade Crest]
[Class: Mage]
[Rank: B-] [Max Rank Potential: ERROR!]
[HP: 300/2000] [MP: 50/1500]
[STR: 32/100] [SPE: 37/100] [AGI: 28/100] [DEF: 21/100] [INT: 41/100]
[Talent: Mage Aptitude (B+), Water Element Affinity (B-)]
[Technique: Mana manipulation (C-), Fire Magic (C-), Water Magic (C+), Wind Magic (D+)]
[Skill: Mana Interference (D-), Mana Quality (D+), Appraisal]
[Evaluation: ERROR! ERROR!]
[Shop: ERROR!] [Exp Points: ERROR!]
...
’I am not even worthy enough to call myself Fade Crest anymore... I have lost the trust of my parents in me...’
Fade’s parents gave him the name and loved it because they had absolute faith in him.
His parents were just ordinary people who were living happily even if they were poor and barely had anything to eat most of the time.
Even though Fade grew up in extreme poverty, he greatly respected his parents and truly cared about his family.
But even he doesn’t know why he stopped contacting them once he awakened his system.
Before awakening his system, he was so attached to his family that he contacted them almost every single day, but once he became successful in life, he never contacted them again.
Even in the original novel, once the protagonist becomes stronger and reaches great heights, his original family is almost never even mentioned again.
As if they didn’t even exist anymore in his mind, almost as if,
’Almost as if I was... brainwashed!?’
If it were usual, his system would have definitely interrupted his thoughts and would have stopped him from thinking wrongly of the system.
But now that the system has been severely damaged and its connection to the heavenly luck has been completely severed, it’s stopped working properly.
Not only has it completely lost the functions like Shop, EXP, and Inventory, but it also seems to have lost the ability to smartly control itself anymore.
The more Fade thought about this matter, the more he felt his mind becoming clearer and clearer.
’I-I what have I been doing all this time... I see, I understand it now... this system, it amplified my inner insecurities and my desire to control everything around me to a very high level...’
’I did so many unthinkable things because this system brought out my worst inner thoughts and gave me the push to bring them to reality...’
Every human has thoughts in his mind that are not acceptable to many, and people usually keep such thoughts buried deep in their minds.
But the Fade system worked perfectly like a medium and brought out his darkness and made him behave exactly how he was in true reality.
All people pretend and fake being good while hiding their dark side. Fade’s true side always existed; the system only caused it to appear in front of everyone.
’In other words,... everything is my fault to begin with... I cannot blame the system; I cannot blame anyone else... I am just trash...’
After nearly three years of receiving the system and suffering many setbacks.
Fade Crest finally accepted his own ’Fault.’
But there was no one to acknowledge his self-progress anymore; he was alone and abandoned by everything.