Chapter 1: One-Way Ticket to Another World
Luck always played fair with me.
Whenever something good happened, something bad was never far behind like the universe was obsessed with balance. If I found money on the street, I'd lose my wallet the next day. If I got a free upgrade in a game, my phone would glitch or crash. It was almost funny.
Almost.
For the last ten years, I sank hours no, years into a busted mobile RPG called Tales of Arcania. A gacha game with the worst drop rates imaginable. Pay-to-win whales ruled the rankings. PvP was a joke. And the devs? Pretty sure they forgot the game existed. The last real story update had dropped over a year ago.
Still, I kept playing.
Not out of loyalty. Not even fun.
It was habit. Comfort. A familiar grind at the end of a long day. Where the numbers always went up eventually. And when the updates stopped, the player base didn't quit. We got creative.
No-armor boss runs. One-stat builds. Farming mobs with stick. Okay, not literally, but close. One guy beat the final dungeon using only a frying pan and Fireball I the weakest spell in the game.
Victory became secondary. It was all about style.
Me? I built characters that looked good. Cool armor, smooth animations, flashy spell effects. Didn't matter if my builds were trash. I wanted aesthetic. Fashion over function. Drip over DPS.
Then came the event.
Realmwalker's Gambit: One-Time Gacha.
No warning. Just a cryptic patch note that said:
"One spin. One winner. One fate."
The rules? Collect a bunch of hidden coins scattered across the world map. If you found enough, you could spin the wheel just once. No second tries. No rerolls.
The prize?
A unique item. Only one in the entire game.
The community lost its mind. People datamined everything. Forum threads blew up. Spreadsheets appeared overnight. Some players claimed to have found coins. Trolls faked it just for clout.
I didn't care about winning.
Really, I didn't.
But I joined the hunt anyway. Something about it called to me like chasing one last high before the game inevitably shut down.
I had no strategy. No guild. Just brute force it till I find it.
It took me three days of near-nonstop play. Barely ate. Barely slept.
And then, sometime past midnight, it happened. I had all the coins.
Lying in bed, phone cracked, screen glowing in the dark, I tapped "Spin."
White light exploded across the screen.
Then....
Nothing.
Just black.
---
I opened my eyes to silence.
No bed. No phone. No body, at least not one I recognized.
Just warmth. Pressure. The feeling of being wrapped in something soft.
A glowing message hovered in the air before me
> [Congratulations! You have obtained the Unique Item: One-Way Ticket to Another World!]
Initializing Transfer Protocol...
Complete.
Welcome to Arcania.
[Status]: Rebirth Successful.
What...?
A new screen blinked into existence:
> [Open Status?]
I didn't even blink. The system read my thoughts.
---
[Status Window]
Name: ???
Tier: Colorless
Class: —
Title: —
>
[Stats]
Health: 20/20
Mana: 5/5
Strength: 1
Stamina: 1
Agility: 1
Dexterity: 1
Endurance: 1
Intelligence: 1
Perception: 1
>
[Skills]: [None]
[Quest]: —
---
That's when it hit me.
I wasn't just in the game.
I was a baby.
---
I heard voices. Footsteps. Leaves crunching under heavy boots. A figure stepped into view.
A man, cloaked and weathered, with a greatsword strapped across his back like it was part of his spine.
He knelt beside a still body. A woman her arms outstretched, blood soaked into the forest floor.
My mother.
I didn't remember her. Didn't need to. I just knew.
The man whispered something, closed her eyes, then turned to me.
He studied the glowing brooch pinned to my wrappings. The light dimmed, then flickered out.
"A veil charm," he muttered. "Strong one, too. Not bad."
He picked me up like I weighed nothing.
"You've got guts, boy," he said, voice like gravel. "Looks like the world doesn't want you dead just yet."
And just like that, he carried me into the woods. Away from blood. Toward something unknown.
---
Years passed like dreams. Vague. Blurry. Moments stitched together by warmth, hunger, sleep, and quiet lullabies hummed by a man who didn't believe in lullabies.
The man Aeren took care of me.
He fed me. Bathed me. Built a fire when it rained. And when I could finally speak, he taught me words. When I could walk, he gave me a stick. When I fell, he watched silently then made me get up on my own.
Now I'm older. Maybe six. Maybe seven. Age doesn't matter here like it did in my old life.
What matters is this:
I'm in Arcania.
The game was real or at least, a version of it.
I pulled up my [Status Window] again, almost out of habit.
---
[Status Window]
Name: ???
Tier: Colorless
Class: -
Title: -
[Stats]
Health: 20/20
Mana: 5/5
Strength: 1
Stamina: 1
Agility: 1
Dexterity: 1
Endurance: 1
Intelligence: 1
Perception: 1
[Skills]: [None]
[Quest]: —
---
One night, as we sat by the fire, Aeren sharpened his sword. Sparks danced in the dark.
"You weren't placed in that tree by accident," he said suddenly. "Someone left you for a reason. A powerful one."
I said nothing. Just listened.
"You're Colorless now," he continued. "But tiers can change."
That was the first time he told me about the Tier System.
Tiers in Arcania weren't just levels. They were thresholds, gates that defined the rules of reality.
Colorless - Baseline humans. Can't use aura. Barely cast spells.
Red - Awakening tier. Aura becomes usable. Combat truly begins.
Orange, Yellow, Green - Trained soldiers, elite mages, kingdom elites.
Blue, Indigo - Rare. Respected. Feared.
Purple - Heroes of legend.
Transcendent - The kind of names whispered in temples and war rooms.
Even if a Colorless had 99 in every stat, they couldn't defeat a Red-tier fighter with 1s.
Tiers overruled raw numbers. That was how the system worked.
And I?
I was at the bottom.
But not for long.
---
[Quest Panel]
Category: Main
Title: Beginner's Path
Clear Conditions:
Survive to Age 10
Reward:
Stat Allocation +10
Skill Unlocked: [System Adaptation I]
Bonus Objective:
Complete Basic Physical Training with Aeren
Bonus Reward:
Unlock Red Tier Potential
Penalty for Failure:
Permanent Death
---
I stared into the fire .
This world might be cruel.
Unfair.
Dangerous.
But I had something I never really had in my old life.
A reason to grow.
--