Here is the rewritten first chapter of our new webnovel, expanded to meet your pacing requirements and meticulously blending the lore of both worlds.
Chapter 1: The Disposal of the E-Rank Trash
The cathedral was a masterpiece of blinding white marble and spun gold, but the gaze of the Goddess Vicius was infinitely colder than the stone beneath my knees.
My name is Kaelen Vance. Until about an hour ago, I was just a background character on a high school field trip, sitting at the back of a bus and hoping to quietly graduate without drawing the attention of the class bullies. Then came the blinding light, the sudden vertigo, and the jarring realization that our entire class had been summoned to another world by a woman claiming to be a divine being.
She introduced herself as the Goddess Vicius, the protector of Alion, and she wore a scant, flowing white robe that looked like it belonged in a mythological painting. She had summoned us to fight a Great Demon King, bestowing upon us a "status system" that translated our newfound powers into an interface resembling a video game.
One by one, my classmates stepped up to a glowing crystal pedestal to have their innate potential evaluated.
"S-Class. Astounding!" the Goddess Vicius clapped her hands together in faux delight as Takuto Kirihara, the class golden boy, placed his hand on the crystal. "You possess the Dragonic Buster skill. Heroes capable of using their skills at Level 1 are incredibly rare!".
Kirihara smirked, basking in the adulation of our classmates who fawned over his S-Class rank. Next came Shougo Oyamada, the loudmouthed bully, who grinned like a maniac when he was designated an A-Class hero with a +500 Vitality modifier. The golden armbands were handed out, and the elite students were ushered to a lavish banquet table set up on the right side of the dais.
I waited in line, my stomach twisting into a tight knot. I don't need an S-Class rank, I thought to myself, watching the crystal flash with brilliant blues and fiery reds for the others. Just give me something average. Something that lets me survive and stay out of the way. I'm just Kaelen. A background character. That should be enough.
"Step forward. State your name," one of the hooded attendants demanded.
I stepped up, my school uniform feeling stiff and uncomfortable under the heavy gazes of the Goddess and the native knights guarding the perimeter. I placed my trembling hand on the crystal.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the sphere flickered, emitting a dull, muddy brown light that looked like dirty water.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the cathedral. The holographic display materialized above the pedestal, visible to the Goddess and her attendants.
[Name: Kaelen Vance][Level: 1][Class: E-Rank][MP: +33]
"Oh, my," the Goddess Vicius whispered, her previously warm tone dropping several degrees into something resembling absolute zero. She glided over to the pedestal and peered at my holographic status screen, her golden eyes narrowing with undisguised contempt.
"E-Rank," she sighed, the disgust in her voice amplified by the cathedral's acoustics. "And your modifiers... they are absolutely abysmal. I highly doubt you will improve any faster than a completely average human, even if you level up."
Snickers erupted from the right side of the room. Oyamada slapped his knee, howling with laughter. "E-Rank! Are you kidding me? He's totally useless!"
I swallowed hard, desperately pulling up my own skill tree on the mental interface the Goddess had explained earlier. There had to be a mistake. I flicked the holographic screen down, looking for the branching combat abilities my classmates had received. There was only a single, sad root at the bottom of the screen.
[Unique Skill 1: Abnormal Status (Paralyze, Sleep, Poison)][Unique Skill 2: Infinite Gacha]
"Wait! Goddess, look!" I pleaded, holding up my glowing palm. "I have two unique skills! And it says they are 'Available for Use' right now! I can apply status effects! Poison, sleep, paralyze... that has to be useful, right?".
The Goddess Vicius let out a long, theatrical sigh. She looked at me with the same expression one might give a cockroach found scurrying across a dining table.
"Listen here," she said, her voice dripping with pity. "In this world, status effect spells are almost completely worthless. They rarely succeed on even the lowest-level monsters, let alone anything of actual threat. And even if by some miracle you get one to stick, the effects are minor and the duration is incredibly short. You drew a losing hand, as befitting an E-Class failure."
"But the other skill!" I argued, my voice cracking with desperation. "The Infinite Gacha! I can summon things!"
"Oh, the Unlimited Gacha," an amused voice echoed from the shadows behind the throne. "We know of that 'Gift'."
Three figures stepped forward into the light. They weren't humans. They were the "Concord of the Tribes," an elite, multi-racial adventuring party renowned across the continent for rejecting bigotry and recruiting from all nine races. The Goddess had hired them as elite mentors for the newly summoned heroes.
The speaker was a dragonute named Drago, a towering half-dragon, half-human hybrid covered in tough scales. Beside him stood Garret, a heavily muscled wolfman with sharp fangs and a sadistic grin, and Sasha, an astonishingly beautiful elf with long flaxen hair and a haughty, aristocratic sneer. Rounding out the group was Sionne, a dark elf researcher with platinum-blonde hair and eyes that looked at me like I was a rat waiting to be dissected.
"We've seen the Unlimited Gacha before," Sionne mused, adjusting her posture. "It operates by absorbing mana from the surrounding air to produce an item on a card. However, because the mana on the surface world is so thin, it requires an exorbitant amount of personal mana to pull anything of value."
"And since you have the mana capacity of a gnat," Garret the wolfman barked with laughter, "it ain't gonna do ya any good, kid! Go on, try it! Prove us wrong!"
My heart hammered against my ribs. I accessed the Infinite Gacha skill. A spectral slot-machine interface appeared before my eyes. I poured my meager starting mana into it and pressed the mental button.
Clunk.
A grey card materialized in my hand. It shattered into particles of light, leaving behind a physical object.
It was a rusted, broken spoon.
The cathedral erupted into roaring laughter. My classmates, the people I had sat next to in homeroom, pointed and jeered.
"Honestly, I know humans are an inferior race, but I can't stand how pathetic you are," Sasha the elf chimed in, wrinkling her perfect nose.
"Trash," the Goddess Vicius declared, stepping back up to her throne. "Since the beginning of time, the lowest-ranked heroes have never been of any use. They only cling to their higher-ranked peers and pull them down. Therefore, I have decided that all E-Class heroes are to be eliminated."
The blood drained from my face. "Eliminated?"
"If I were to kill you here, it might traumatize the others," Vicius smiled, a terrifyingly serene expression on her flawless face. "So, I am going to give you a chance to redeem yourself. Concord of the Tribes, prepare the disposal circle."
Drago the dragonute grabbed me by the collar of my uniform, lifting me off the marble floor as easily as if I were a stray kitten. I kicked and thrashed, but his grip was like iron.
"Wait! Please! I didn't ask to come here!" I screamed, looking toward my classmates. Kirihara just watched with mild amusement. Only a few, like the class rep Sogou, looked horrified, but the Goddess's guards quickly suppressed any attempts to intervene.
Drago carried me toward a heavy iron door at the back of the cathedral. Beyond it was not a prison cell, but a jagged stone cliff that dropped off into an abyss so dark and deep it seemed to swallow the light itself. A foul, acidic wind blew up from the depths, smelling of rotting meat and ancient death.
"These are the Ruins of Disposal," the Goddess Vicius projected her voice so the whole room could hear. "A subterranean hell where we cast our worst criminals. It is filled with monsters of Level 1000 and above. If you survive and make it to the surface, I will grant you your freedom."
"Nothin' beats the look of terror on an inferior's face," Garret the wolfman sneered, stepping up to the edge of the cliff beside Drago. He cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing over the roaring wind of the abyss. "Truth is, kid, I wanted to toy with ya a bit more. But we're on a schedule. Call this a parting gift."
Garret pulled back a leg thick with muscle and fur.
"No, wait—"
CRACK.
The wolfman's heavy boot slammed into my left knee. The agonizing, wet crunch of my bone snapping in half sent a shockwave of pure, white-hot agony through my brain. I couldn't even form a complete scream before the force of the blow launched me backward, over the precipice.
"Happy landings, trash!" Garret's laughter faded as gravity took hold of me.
The golden light of the cathedral shrank into a tiny pinprick above as I plummeted into the suffocating darkness. The wind roared in my ears. My leg throbbed with a pain so intense it made my vision blur.
Why?Why me?I'm just a kid.
"I hope you die in an unsightly and pitiful way," the Goddess's parting words echoed in my mind, a magical projection that followed me down into the dark.
I curse you, I thought, the despair rapidly crystallizing into a cold, hard spike of pure hatred. If I survive this... I will annihilate every single one of you.
[WARNING: TOXIC MIASMA DETECTED]
I hit the ground.
It wasn't solid rock. I crashed into a massive, uneven mound of something brittle and sharp. The impact knocked the wind out of my lungs, and my broken leg twisted beneath me, drawing a ragged, bloody scream from my throat.
I lay there for several minutes, gasping for air in the pitch-black darkness. The air was heavy, damp, and smelled of sulfur and decaying marrow. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, illuminated only by a faint, eerie bioluminescence from the cave walls, I realized what had cushioned my fall.
Bones.
I was lying on a mountain of bones. Human skulls, shattered femurs, and the massive, unidentifiable ribs of monstrous beasts. This was the garbage chute of the world. The graveyard of the discarded.
I tried to push myself backward, my hands scraping against jagged bone fragments. My left leg trailed behind me, entirely useless and pulsing with blinding pain.
Grrrrr...
A guttural growl vibrated through the floor.
From the shadows of the massive cavern, a creature emerged. It was a monstrosity that defied logic—a towering, humanoid beast with the muscular body of a Minotaur, but its flesh was pitch-black and pulsating with glowing orange veins. Acidic sludge dripped from open sores on its chest, hitting the bone pile and dissolving the calcium with a violent hiss.
My system interface automatically activated, projecting a horrific truth above the beast's head.
[Target: Rot-Beast Minotaur][Level: 1,250]
Level 1,250. And I was Level 1.
The creature locked its bloodshot, golden eyes onto me. It didn't rush. It lumbered forward slowly, savoring the fear of its trapped prey. It raised a massive, clawed hand, preparing to crush my skull into the pile of bones.
Nobody is coming to save me, my mind raced, panic giving way to a strange, hyper-focused clarity. If I die here, the Goddess wins. Garret wins. I become just another skull in this pile.
"Screw that," I spat, coughing up a spatter of blood.
I raised my right hand, pointing my trembling index finger at the towering beast. The Goddess had said my skills were worthless. She said status effects never stuck to high-level monsters.
But I had nothing left to lose.
"Paralyze," I gasped.
A silent, invisible wave of energy rippled outward from my palm.
Creeeeeak.
The Level 1,250 Minotaur stopped dead. Its massive arm froze mid-swing, mere inches from my face. Its golden eyes locked in place, unable to even twitch. A yellow gauge suddenly appeared above its head, slowly beginning to tick down.
I stared at my hand, my breath hitching in my throat.
"It... it worked?" I whispered into the silence. "The Goddess said the success rate was practically zero. But it worked instantly."
I dragged myself backward, putting a few feet of distance between myself and the frozen statue of acid and muscle. The monster couldn't move, but it was still alive. Its HP was massive. I couldn't scratch it with my bare hands, and my rusted spoon certainly wouldn't do the trick.
But I had another skill.
I pointed my finger at the beast's chest. "Let's test the combo. Poison".
The Minotaur's black skin instantly flushed a sickly, necrotic purple. Translucent, toxic bubbles began to form and pop across its flesh.
[Poison Damage: -100 HP][Poison Damage: -200 HP][Poison Damage: -400 HP]
The numbers hovering above the beast began to compound exponentially. The creature couldn't scream, but I could see the absolute agony in its frozen, bulging eyes as the venom liquefied its internal organs. It was a slow, agonizing death, but I didn't feel a shred of pity.
You tried to kill me, I thought, a dark, manic grin spreading across my face. This is just survival of the fittest.
I sat in the pile of bones, clutching my broken leg, and watched the yellow paralysis gauge. Right as it was about to deplete, I raised my hand again.
"Sleep".
The Minotaur's eyes fluttered shut. It collapsed onto the bone pile with a deafening crash, completely incapacitated while the purple poison continued to melt its life away. The loop was flawless. Absolute crowd control layered with lethal, compounding damage.
Ten minutes later, the beast let out a final, gurgling breath and dissolved into a puddle of foul-smelling sludge.
PING!PING!PING!
A cascade of golden notifications flooded my vision, accompanied by a rush of heat that surged through my veins like liquid fire.
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 4,500,000][LEVEL UP!][LEVEL UP!][LEVEL UP!]
My level shot up from 1 to 258 in a matter of seconds. The sheer volume of experience points granted by a Level 1,250 monster in the Abyss was staggering. The level-up restoration washed over me, knitting my shattered knee back together with a sickening pop and erasing my fatigue entirely.
I stood up, testing my weight on my newly healed leg. I felt lighter, stronger. I opened my status screen.
[Name: Kaelen Vance][Level: 258][MP: +8,194 / 8,194]
My mana pool had exploded.
I looked up at the impenetrable ceiling of the Hell-Maw, a chilling laugh bubbling up from my chest.
The Goddess Vicius had thrown me down here because my Infinite Gacha required too much mana to be useful on the surface. What she hadn't realized was that the Abyss was the most mana-dense environment in the world. Down here, mana regenerated at an absurd rate, and with my newly expanded MP pool from power-leveling on her "disposal" monsters, I had virtually infinite currency.
I was an E-Rank failure with a 100% success-rate instant-kill loop, trapped in a dungeon filled with high-level experience pinatas, possessing a skill that let me summon legendary items if I just had the mana to afford it.
"You called me trash," I whispered to the dark, pulling up the shimmering gold and crimson slot machine interface of the Infinite Gacha. The Super-Super-Rare (SSR) banner, which cost a million mana to spin, was now glowing brightly, fully affordable.
"Let's see what kind of trash I can pull."
I slammed the mental button. The shadow reels spun, bathing the dark cavern in a blinding, blood-red light.
The disposal of Kaelen Vance was complete. The rise of the Abyssal Gacha Lord had just begun.