The Specialists: Book One — Awakening

“So far as we’re on Earth, we all live, we all walk, and we’re all different... but... it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

There will always be a set of people — or maybe various sets — different from the rest.
They walk among us, invisible yet always watching, bound by rules written before time began.
Not all their stories are told.
But come to think of it... if we never tell, they will never know.

Beneath the hum of cities and the illusion of normal life, another world breathes — one of Specialists, relics, and Arms that bend the laws of nature itself. Shadows move across time, hunting, watching, waiting for those who can rewrite reality.

When an orphaned student receives a call that changes everything, and a stranger draped in dusk arrives at the edge of his world, the first thread begins to pull loose.

What wakes isn’t always alive.
What’s buried doesn’t always stay dead.
And the ones who remember… are already watching.

Awakening is just the first movement in a war older than history itself.

They walk—several turns, then an alley behind a neon-lit library sign flickering CITY ARCHIVES & BOOKHOUSE.


The street opened into a large center where the city's oldest library sat like a patient guardian—stone façade warmed by decades of hands, its windows lit honey-gold against the evening. 


One wouldn't call it a creeky old library partly shrouded in dust and gloom though as this was one of the busiest and standard library and bookstore, the city had to offer. 


It's huge—about seven floors of books, soft lighting, warm wooden desks, the faint hum of printers. The place smelled like coffee, paper, and time. People moved in quiet currents — librarians shelving, a child reciting a poem under his breath, eyes totally focused on the book in his hand, a circle of older readers murmuring, students, parents, professors with thermoses, a line of teenagers arguing softly about exams. Sunlamp light pooled around wooden tables; the bookshop annex smelled of glue and new print.


The façade worked—this was the sort of place professors assign, couples meet, exam crammers haunt. Perfect cover — the place felt alive in the ordinary way a heart is alive: steady, noticed yet serene.


Violet slowed and let them take it in for a second, the noise washing over them. She smiled, one of relief and newly found belief. The air smelled of paper, wood, people and damp concrete.


"Public. Busy. Safe. Some places hide the dangerous things under things people actually like."


"Why hide underground when you can just open to the public?"


They exchange a look—equal parts disbelief and tired amusement.


"Guess you both missed the restricted section sign."


"Oh sure, next time I'll ask one of the librarians for directions to the secret tech base."


Mù Xiāo Xiāo leads them behind a shelf labeled CLASSIFIED HISTORICAL RECORDS. A smooth glass panel scans her palm. A mechanical hum follows, and the bookshelf splits open silently, revealing an elevator.


"Welcome to the real Factor IV. Try not to freak out."


Chapter 17 - Seventeen - This Is Factor IV?!