"Hey, it's been a while, hasn't it? How have you been?"

"I'm doing good, just a bit intrigued by someone~"

On the footpath of a giant suspended bridge, the voices of two girls chimed along with the muffled noises of the cars.

Despite the cold, stinging breeze of the night, their minds seemed too engaged to even care about something like cold.

"Whaaaaat!? Wait, could it be Chris!?"

"No! It's that guy everyone's been talking about lately!"

As they walked, they saw a vague silhouette of someone sitting over the bridge's safety railing. It was a man, sitting in a plain black hoodie, hunched towards the fall.

A young man, sitting over the edge of a bridge, hunched over as if he'd fall any second. It all pointed to a single thing. It was self-explanatory, yet the girls passed by, ignoring his existence as if he didn't exist.

Maybe it wasn't the first time they'd seen something like this. Maybe they had grown tired of stopping people as such. Or perhaps, they just truly didn't care.

Whatever the reason was, their gossip seemed to have no end.

"You mean the guy who defeated the executive Charles's son in a single punch?"

"Yeah! They say he's a handsome hunk~ I really hope he has a big d—"

"Fuuuuuuuck—" Before the girl could finish her words, a young man's voice cut through—the voice of the girl fading away with their increasing distance.

It was Lucian, sitting over the bridge's edge, looking defeated. Tilting his head back, he sighed heavily.

"Should I just jump into the river below?" Thinking deeply in his mind, he blurted out his thoughts subconsciously.

'So many things happened in the last few days... And I'm getting further and further away from my lifelong retirement.' He closed his eyes and began reminiscing about memories from a few days back.

'The tight-ass punk I decided to discipline just so turned out to be the son of an executive of the Resource Management Department.' He slowly opened his eyes and stared at the luminous white card shining in his hand—reflecting the moon's light.

His gaze drifted across the small words engraved on the card as he subconsciously began to read them out loud.

Name - Allen Cross

Alias - Void

Rank - A

...

Whatever came next didn't matter. The name was different, and so was his alias. It wasn't someone else's, but his own.

"The good thing is that when my physique was being recreated, my body features changed. Fingerprints, iris color—anything that bound me to my past has been rewritten. Thus, using an alias was an easy but temporary escape from the situation." He muttered under his breath, tightening his grip on the card.

'The bad thing is that my past identity has become the world's target as of now. Unlike my expectations, the world and the humans recovered from the dire situation too quickly. With their worries easing, everyone began realizing just how similar the situation seemed to the book they so loved at one point. Soon enough, concerned fingers were raised towards the book and, of course, the one who constructed it word by word.'

"As much as I would hate to say it, going back to my original identity in a time like this would not be any different from hugging death myself." He slipped his card in the pocket of his hoodie and slowly tilted his body back. With an accelerated force, Lucian's body began falling to the ground as he quickly rolled midair and landed safely, jerking dust off his clothes.

He raised his head and walked towards the right. "The problem right now is that most of the essential things about the world have collapsed. The money I had saved in my bank account has gone down the ditch. My apartment building collapsed in earthquakes, and as of now, I'm officially homeless. Without a doubt, I can go back to Sera's place since she lives in her house alone, but..." For a moment, he hesitated to speak any further, as if he had remembered something ominous. A cold shiver ran through his spine, and his body trembled slightly. "Her house is too dangerous for me and my eyes..."

Almost instantly, his expressions changed, and his brows grew tense. "Not to forget, she knows my name. The name I had recklessly told her—Lucian Cross. It'd be wise for me to stay away from her if possible."

For a brief moment, Lucian fell completely silent. So many things had happened at once that even he was having a hard time thinking things through.

'System,' he called out loud in his mind, 'give me those rewards you were talking about earlier.'

The system reacted to his command instantly, and a screen materialized in front of his eyes.

---

———————————————————

[#~System Notification~#]

———————————————————

[Understood.]

[Fetching you pending rewards...]

[A total of 7 rewards have been found.]

[Classifying the rewards...]

[Your Trait—Transcendence—is in effect! All the rewards will be enhanced.]

[Congratulations! You have successfully cleared your 'Task #3'!]

[Distributing rewards...]

---

The screen extended below, and a list appeared over it.

---

[Rewards:-]

[• You have obtained 5,000 Exp.] (↑2x)

[• You have leveled up!]

└ [Level] - 7 → 11

└ [Exp] - 320/2920

[• You have obtained 54 unassigned attribute points.] (↑2x)

[• Your understanding of your Element of Creation—Infinity—has grown!]

└ [Comprehension] - 0% → 1%

[• Your understanding of your Trait—Transcendence—has grown!]

└ [Assimilation Rate] - 0% → 100%

└ [Comprehension] - 0% → 10%

└ [Grade] - F → E

[• You have unlocked new functions of the System:]

└ [You may review the details any time.]

---

Upon reaching the sixth notification, the system suddenly froze. Lucian, who had been skimming through the rewards with his eyes widened, flinched in confusion.

The vision before his eyes, the system screen, the bridge, the world—seemed to be slowly losing its colors.

No matter how much he tried, Lucian couldn't even shut his eyes, let alone move his body. Panic slowly seemed to be clutching at his heart as cold sweat began seeping through his pores. Then suddenly, the same sharp alert sound rang in his mind.

His eyes sharpened as he caught the glimpse of a new system window materializing.

---

[Congratulations! You have obtained—]

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