Lune stirred awake, if you could even call his current state that. He was neither conscious nor unconscious. His mind floated in an abyss, and yet the darkness was not blinding. It was visible, strangely so. He felt the darkness move. He could feel its presence, shifting constantly as if reacting to his movement.
Then, his eyes adjusted.
He looked down at his body.
Somehow, despite the total blackness around him, he could see himself clearly. All his wounds were gone, and his once crashed legs were whole. The unbearable agony that once consumed him had vanished without a trace.
It wasn't just that the pain was gone, he felt as if he was burning with energy, he felt more alive than ever.
The steady beating of his heart thundered in his ears. He could hear the blood coursing through his veins, the air filling his lungs, the faintest twitch of his muscles as he moved.
Everything was so vivid. So real.
His fingers curled into a fist, testing this newfound strength. It felt effortless. The exhaustion, the agony—it was all gone, replaced with something foreign yet strangely familiar.
"What is this place?"
Lune felt something stir inside his abdomen. With a startled gasp for air, he clenched his stomach and stared, wide-eyed, into the darkness around him, questioning what was happening. The feeling was neither painful nor painless. As if a burning star had manifested inside him, a surge of energy radiated from within.
He felt that strange energy fill every fibre of his being. Every muscle, every joint, and every bone became infused with it.
Then, Lune felt his mind, thoughts, and emotions shift as the surge of energy reached his head. His mind became clearer and sharper in almost an instant.
As the energy radiating from his stomach spread through every part of his being, he felt stronger, faster, healthier—and even smarter. Every part of him had become more than it ever was.
The transformation grew stronger with each passing second, its effects only intensifying with every moment.
Lune basked in the exhilaration of this change, enjoying every second of it.
After about a minute, the radiating sensation began to subside, and the surge of energy eased. As Lune calmed his racing heart, he welcomed the cooling sensation that replaced the intense burning.
Then, he heard a whisper from a familiar voice.
[ Your expedition is over ]
[ Please accept your rewards... ]
[ You have received a Relic: Dark Moon Katana ]
[ You have received a Relic: Shadebreaker Armour]
Lune raised a brow in a thoughtful expression.
"Armour and a weapon…?"
Those were the two things he had lost during his expedition. Was it due to luck that he just received those, or did the system know what he had lost and simply replaced it?
Of course, there was no answer to the questions spiralling in his head, so he simply dismissed them and summoned his status window.
***
Name: Lune
Title: Void's Heir
Title Rank: Divine
Title Description: [You are the Void's Heir. Your existence cannot be remembered.]
Void Core: Dormant
Stage: White [0/500]
Void's Legacy: ???
Technique: Hollow
Abilities: -
Relics: Dark Moon Katana, Shadebreaker Armour
***
Lune's eyes widened at the sight.
He already knew that his title had changed, but its rank? Divine? He had never heard of anyone receiving a Divine Title.
His heart raced against his chest as he continued reading.
"Your existence cannot be remembered…" he murmured the words of the description under his breath, of course, in the endless sea of nothingness he was in, no sound came.
But he didn't dwell on either the lack of sound or the words that described his title. Instead, his focus moved further down, toward his stage.
"Stage… white?"
Confusion dawned on him as no book that he studied, no story that he heard ever told a tale of someone having a Stage in their status window.
Humans didn't have stages, well, they did, but they could not be changed outside an expedition. For people, the stages, or rather, the number of layers in their core, grew with each successful expedition, unlike the monsters, which could have any number of layers and be staged at any core rank.
Human progression was straightforward.
Human:
First Expedition -> Dormant Core -> One Layer
Second Expedition -> Awakened Core -> Two Layers
Third Expedition -> Ascended Core -> Three Layers
Fourth Expedition -> Transcended Core -> Four Layers
Fifth Expedition -> Aetherial Core -> Five Layers
Sixth Expedition -> Celestial Core -> Six Layers
Seventh Expedition -> Divine Core -> Seven Layers
Meanwhile, the monster progression was a bit trickier.
Monsters:
Dormant Core
Awakened Core
Vile Core
Corrupted Core
Cursed Core
Forsaken Core
Abyssal Core
Monster Core Layers:
One Layer -> White Stage
Two Layers -> Grey Stage
Three Layers -> Silver Stage
Four Layers -> Bronze Stage
Five Layers -> Crimson Stage
Six Layers -> Purple Stage
Seven Layers -> Black Stage
Monster Core can have any number of Layers. For example, an Awakened Monster can be at the Purple (Six Layers) Stage.
This made fighting even weaker monsters trickier than it'd seemed, but also made the jump in power in human progression far greater.
The more layers the core has, the higher the mana capacity and output the person can have. Meanwhile, the core rank was responsible for redefining the extent of your technique and your physical and mental prowess.
Lune's heart raced as he stared at the text before him. Not only did he have a Stage visible in his Status window, but he also had a counter, zero out of five hundred.
Could it be…
Realisation struck him.
"Could it be that I can evolve my stage without entering another expedition?"
The thought was both exciting and dangerous.
He had heard many times about how government officials took those who had powers they couldn't quite understand. If they hear about any of this, his freedom and perhaps his life might be taken.
At the same time, it could help him outgrow others. Expeditions are long and dangerous. The wait between them is long and often inefficient, but if he could continue to grow without the need for entering another expedition… he couldn't even imagine the heights he could reach.
His gaze, still disoriented by what he just saw, continued down the list.
Void's Legacy, whatever it was, appeared empty.
"Perhaps I need to do some hidden quest or something to unlock it", Lune thought, giving it only a quick glance before moving to his Technique.
Techniques were very similar to abilities, but they were usually far more complex, and each one was locked to a Title, which meant that no other person could ever have the same one.
As he focused on the Hollow Technique, a small description window appeared.
Technique: Hollow
Description:
Fragment of Void.
It was once commanded to destroy, and so it destroyed.
It was once commanded to protect, and so it protected.
It was once commanded to consume—
and so it consumed.
Lune blinked a couple of times, unsure what to make of that description. It didn't give him a clear outline of what this ability could actually do. Instead, it made it seem like it could do it all, which he doubted.
"Well, the ability of a divine title cannot be bad, can it?" he thought in a self-assuring manner.
Then, his eyes finally moved toward his relics.
***
Relic: [Shadebreaker Armour]
Relic Rank: Dormant [Black Stage]
Relic Type: Armour
Relic Description: [Forged in Wavren's dark forges, this armour offers exceptional protection against physical attacks]
***
Relic: [Dark Moon Katana]
Relic Rank: Awakened [Crimson Stage]
Relic Type: Weapon
Relic Description: [Born from the pale light of a dying star, this blade carries a silent chill that cuts through flesh and soul with equal grace]
Passive Enchantment: [Moonbathed]
Moonbathed Description: [The weapon is imbued with frost, dealing additional ice damage to its enemies]
***
A smile crept onto his face as he read the description of both relics.
Firstly, the Shadebreaker Armour was a great item to have. Despite being only of a Dormant Rank, it was a Black Stage armour, meaning its quality was the best possible for a Dormant Relic. It should withstand most strikes, even from awakened monsters.
Then, there was the Dark Moon Katana.
An Awakened Weapon, something that could cut through any dormant creature with ease. Even its stage was impressive, Crimson Stage on an awakened weapon may as well be considered hitting a jackpot for someone like him.
The only other way of acquiring such a weapon would be facing an Awakened Crimson Stage monster, and that task alone would require at least a small group of awakened humans.
But there was more. The weapon had a passive enchantment. Regardless of rank or stage, getting an enchantment was purely luck-based, and so it was very, very rare. This one in particular was on a weapon, meaning additional damage.
Lune's smile only widened as he continued to reread the description of Moonbathed enchantment, but before he could savour the moment, everything around him began to shift.
The endless darkness seemed to collapse in on itself, and before he could even react, his consciousness was pulled away once more.