Yan Guefeng woke the way he always did on school days: with a sharp beam of morning sunlight stabbing straight across his face through the thin curtain. He groaned, rolled over, and fumbled for the cracked phone on the floor beside his mattress. 6:47 a.m. Fifteen minutes later than he liked.
He sat up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and stared at the small, familiar room. One narrow bed, a half-broken desk, a wardrobe that never quite closed, and a single window that looked out over the cracked rooftops of the lower district. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever did.
Tomorrow he turned fifteen. In this world, that number meant almost nothing if you were still unawakened which he unfortunately was told he wasn't at age 10.
Feng pushed himself up, washed quickly in the shared bathroom down the hall, and pulled on the cleanest uniform he owned—dark pants, a slightly frayed white shirt, and the thin purple-and-black jacket his sister had given him last winter. The fabric was worn at the elbows, but it still fit. He ran a hand through his messy brown hair, decided it was good enough, and stepped out into the main room.
The smell of fried dough and weak tea filled the small apartment. His mother stood at the stove, back straight, shoulders slightly hunched the way they always were when she was trying not to look tired. On the table sat three plates—one for him, one for Hao, and one for Lei. The portions were carefully measured. They always were.
"Feng," his mother said without turning around. "You're up late."
"Sun got me," he answered, sliding into his usual seat.
She finally turned and gave him the soft smile she reserved for mornings that he looked unhappy as a way to cheer him up a bit (which it did).
"Tomorrow you turn fifteen. Is there anything you would like?"
The question hung in the air longer than it should have. Everyone in the room already knew the answer. Their mother was part of the twenty-five percent of the population who had never awakened. In a society where gates opened without warning and beasts poured out of them, being unawakened meant the only steady work left was the kind that paid almost nothing. She kept the books for a mid-tier accounting firm that still needed human oversight for tax law the system couldn't fully automate. It was honest work. It was also never enough.
Hunting and gate-clearing paid real money. Magic-related jobs paid even more. Everything else was survival. But she always sacrificed so they could have which all 3 of them appreciated even though things didn't always work out.
Feng's older siblings had both awakened at ten, like most people. Sadly, Feng wasn't in that percent of people which is something that he often lingers on which just puts him in a bad mood.Hao and Lei were twins, eighteen years old, and had joined a mid-rank guild only a month ago. They were still at the very bottom of the ladder—fodder for the safer gates, the ones veterans didn't bother with. Their father had died years earlier in a mid-level gate collapse with his body never being found. That left their mother's salary and whatever the twins managed to scrape together.
Feng looked at his mother and shook his head. "I don't want anything. It's okay."
Her expression dimmed for half a second before Hao's voice cut in from the hallway.
"Don't worry about it, Ma." Hao strode in, still pulling his guild jacket over his shoulders and with a big confident smile before ruffling Guefengs hair. Lei followed a step behind, quiet as always. "Me and Lei have been saving up. We're getting him something decent."
Lei nodded once, firm. She rarely argued with Hao when his heart was in the right place, and it usually was. The two of them were idiots in different ways—Hao loud and impulsive, Lei quiet and stubborn—but they had never once left Feng behind and would do anything for him. Although they did awaken decent C-Rank abilities, them being from the rough has kinda made people have less belief in them, but they always push through with smiles on their faces. Feng never says it but that's his favorite thing about them both.
Feng looked between them. "You don't have to get me anything. Just help with the bills." He said with a snarky remark but they didn't take it personal at all.
Hao and Lei exchanged the same knowing glance and smile they always did when Feng tried to refuse. Lei spoke this time, voice calm. "We're climbing the ranks. Slowly, but we're climbing. We want to do this. Accept it for us, okay?"
Feng held their gazes for a long moment, then sighed with a slight smile. "…Okay."
His mother smiled again, softer this time, and placed a plate in front of him. Breakfast was quiet after that. Hao talked about a low-level gate their squad had cleared the day before. Lei corrected two of his details without looking up from her food and while smiling as he exaggerated everything with their mother believing almost all of it.
When the meal ended he checked the time, cursed under his breath, and grabbed his bag. "I'm late."
"Shortcuts," Hao called after him. "Don't get into anymore fights or skip again."
Feng raised a hand in acknowledgment and stepped out into the narrow street.
He had lived in this district his entire life. He knew every alley, every broken fence, every rooftop path that cut minutes off the walk to school. The lower city was a maze of old concrete, rusted pipes, and the occasional shimmer of residual gate energy that never quite faded. Most people hurried through it with their heads down. Feng moved through it like he owned the place.
He was halfway across a cracked overpass when the air changed.
A low, resonant hum rolled through the street. Pedestrians froze. Heads snapped upward. A golden glow bloomed in the middle of the intersection ahead—bright, dense, and wrong. Gates appeared often enough that people had routines for them. Grey are the least worrying. Green are very common. Blue gates were common. Purple ones meant trouble. Red means absolute danger and essentially tells you to leave.
Feng should have turned around. He should have run the other way like everyone else was beginning to do. Instead he stood there, staring, as the golden light expanded into a perfect circular portal that hung in the air like a wound in the world. He was frozen in fear, he couldn't move.
The pull hit him before he could move.
It wasn't wind. It was something deeper—like the space around him had decided he belonged somewhere else. His feet left the ground. The street, the shouting people, the morning sky all stretched and blurred. The last thing he saw was the golden edge of the gate collapsing shut behind him.
Then everything went dark.
When the darkness lifted, Feng was on his knees in a ruined stone courtyard. Broken pillars leaned at odd angles. Vines thicker than his arm crawled over shattered walls. The sky above was a bruised purple-black, lit by two pale moons that looked too close. The air smelled of wet earth, old blood, and something sharp and metallic.
A low growl rolled across the courtyard.
Feng's head snapped up. At the far end of the ruins, something large shifted in the shadows between two fallen columns. Yellow eyes reflected the dim light. White fur. Massive shoulders. Wings folded tight against its back. A tail that looked like a snake that's eyes were also glowing yellow and staring at him.
Feng's heart slammed against his ribs. He had no weapon. No skill. No awakening. Just a sudden, absolute certainty that he was about to die as it all flashed before him.
A translucent blue window snapped into existence in front of his face, hovering in the air like it had always been waiting.
[Beast Taming System initializing…]
[Host detected: Yan Guefeng]
[Status: Unawakened → Candidate]
[Welcome to Viscous Ragnorok User Yan Guefeng]