Chapter 1

Lucian Graves, the fourth son of the prestigious royal family, stood at the edge of the grand courtyard, his eyes falling on the vast horizon outside of his family's estate. The warm rays of the afternoon sun bathed the land in a golden glow, casting long shadows from the surrounding hills and lush forests. However, despite the beautiful landscape before him, Lucian could not feel its warmth. His heart felt as empty as looked at the distant sky.

Around him, the estate was alive with motion. Servants rushed to and fro, preparing for the celebration of his eldest brother's ascension. Kael Graves, the family's pride and joy, had reached the Golden Core Realm only a year prior. Tonight, he would undergo the last ritual that would push him safely into the Nascent Soul Realm—another step toward immortality. 

The day was meant to be joyous for the whole family, yet as he watched his brothers laughing and celebrating in the open area at the middle of the courtyard, Lucian's bitterness only grew.

The jeers and laughter only continued as he stepped into the shadows, unseen.

They were without a doubt the happiest noises he'd ever heard. Each of his three elder brothers, Kael, Darion, and Valen, had been born prodigies, their bodies ready to pull Qi mere moments after emerging from their mother's womb. Their progress had been steady and strong, each one advancing through the stages of the Lower Realm before the age of seven.

Lucian had spent every day since his twelfth birthday repeating the same prayer over and over, hoping that one day he too would feel that flicker of energy in his veins. Each new day he would meditate in the courtyard from dawn to dusk, but according to the whispers from the rare visitors that came and went from their home, the Qi had never answered his call, his body never so much as flickering into life.

"I see you're still lurking in the shadows,"

a voice called out from behind, Lucian cringing at the sound of it. "Are you going to pretend to not be there so you can come skulking through the house in the dark?"

He turned to see Valen leaning against the nearby wall, each hand gripped around a hilt, a smirk on his face. Lucian turned away. Far too many of his brothers' victories had started with statements like that. "Afraid you'll wake up with some sort of skill in your blood before the ceremony tonight?" Valen continued, his face eager. "Get serious," Lucian said, "Even you don't have the imagination to hope for the impossible." 

Lucian clenched his fists together, unable to utter a word. Surely, none needed to be said. He had become accustomed to the taunts, the ridicule, the scorn. To his brothers, and to everyone else, he was simply a failure. A blemish upon the glorious name of their family. 

"You should be thankful that Father lets you stay here in the family estate at all, after all, most families would have cast you off by now," Valen continued, now advancing so that he was standing closer. "You are a prince in name only, leeching off the family name of others." 

Lucian tightened his jaw once more, without looking up from the ground. Valen was not wrong. Their father, lord Tyrian Graves, had always been harsh but fair, and he had been harsh but fair to his sons. There was little that could be administered with love for Lucian, the youngest son who failed after miserable failures of nothing of concern. Tyrian has simply drifted into indifference from an otherwise urgent coldness once Tyrian could no longer survive watching Lucian fail over and over.

"You're lucky today is a great day for me," Valen said, those two words stark with laughter. 

"Kael's ascension is the only thing that matters. But when this is all over, you might want to think of what use you are to this family." 

With that, Valen turned, and walked away. Lucian found himself stationary among the perpetual quiet of the courtyard. 

Hours slowly passed, and as the sun began its descent, the estate swelled with a cacophony of celebration. The ascension ceremony had commenced, and the atmosphere buzzed with anticipation as Kael stepped into the last part of his journey into the Nascent Soul Realm away from Lucian's observant eyes.

Meanwhile, Lucian the unwanted was stuck in his room, staring fixedly at the tiny, bent-up book, which had been his only friend all these years. It was a book about Qi, one devoted to the various diagrams and how to pull the energy from the world into yourself, anything but throwable aside. He had poured over it in a desperate attempt to understand what he had done wrong, to no avail as nothing ever changed after its reading.

There was simply nothing. 

He threw the book aside, fell face first into the bed, and buried his face in his fisted hands, feeling the weight of rejection and failure slide further down into him, feeling heavier than he had ever felt. Tomorrow would be his 18th birthday, and instead of blissful opportunity, he was greeted with a creeping nothingness stealing the light away from this life.

If I only I had power, he thought feebly, barely whispering it, to change everything.

He let the thoughts of his despair float in the air for a moment, feeling alive whilst simultaneously dead, when suddenly an oddity transpired. 

A soft glow in the corner of his room, it was tiny and ethereal, pulsating brightly. Lucian birthed his head to see the glow brightening, swirling his thick matted hair around like a cyclone until at last the energy coalesced into a small begotten orb. Before long, it floated effortlessly perpetuating a slightly bluish pale glow all over his room.

What… what is this, Lucian whispered to himself tightening up to stand.

As he timidly moved closer to the ball, it infinitely pulsed in reach to him while a voice rang out in his head, one far removed in gender, leaning further into an ether aside from either male or female, it was something new. 

"Welcome Lucian Graves. You have been chosen." 

Lucian's heart raced and his mind spun with disbelief. He looked around him, half expecting someone to barge into the room, but he was still alone. 

"Chosen?" he stuttered. "Chosen for what?"

The sphere pulsed again, and the voice continued. 

"You have been chosen by the System to transcend this world's limitations. You will inherit the Absolute Realm, an even greater power than any other. You will reshape reality itself."

Lucian stared at the sphere, his mind struggling to take in the entirety of what he was hearing. The Absolute Realm? Reshape reality? It sounded impossible, unbelievable. Yet even still, the energy he felt radiating from the sphere was otherworldly in a sense that he had never felt before. It was… overwhelming. Overpowering. 

"I… I don't understand," Lucian blurted, mind racing. "Why me? I can't even cultivate, I am nothing."

"You're more than you give yourself credit for," the voice replied. "The power you need is within your reach. Sign into the System, and it's yours." 

The voice broke off as Lucian continued to wrestle with his own thoughts. This was real? It was real? It couldn't be real? But deep down, there was something stirring within him, a familiar flicker of hope that he hadn't felt for years. Some warmth; some brightness. For a moment, the feeling of emptiness stirred by the energy within the sphere felt… different. Like it was morphing into something else. Something powerful. 

"Sign in," Lucian whispered to himself, slowly reaching his hand towards the sphere.

The moment his fingers grazed the glowing palm of light, a rush of energy poured through him, so powerful that he gasped involuntarily. Lucian's body trembled, and the Absolute Realm flowed through his blood. In an instant, Lucian's mind expanded beyond the human strain of thought and comprehension. He could feel it; the raw, unbound power of creation coursing through him. 

"Congratulations, Lucian Graves," said the voice quietly. "You have ascended to the Absolute Realm. From now on, you are limitless."

Lucian stood there, breathless, vibrating with new force. The room around him distorted as reality bended to his minds will. He could feel the whole of everything—the raise of the land and the crash in the ocean.

He was no longer the powerless outsider he was just a moment before. He was something way much better.

"I… I can feel it," Lucian said with a smirk cracking his face. "This is power… it is infinite."

And there as he discovered he existence; shall now that the whole entire world—no, could never be the same again.