In an old dusty garage, somewhere on the outskirts of the city, a twenty-five-year-old man was relentlessly hammering a piece of white-hot metal. The light of the flames made the shadows dance on the decrepit walls, and each strike of the hammer echoed like the stubborn beating of a heart. That young man was Alex, a passionate blacksmith and lover of magic… in a world that had never believed in either.
Around him, the space was crammed. Books piled up to the ceiling: treatises on ancient metallurgy, dusty grimoires, and fantasy novels recounting the feats of heroes wielding enchanted weapons. There was barely any room left to step, but Alex didn't care. This garage was all he had left.
His dream? To forge a legendary weapon. A real one. Not just a well-made blade, but a weapon worthy of the tales he devoured as a child. A sword with a soul. A weapon that even the gods would want to wield.
But in this world without magic, that dream was just madness in the eyes of others.
A gentle, slightly weary voice pulled him from his work.
"Alex, that's enough now…"
He jumped. In the doorway stood Élise, his older sister, looking at him with a tired and sad expression.
"You spend all your days here. You don't work anymore. You don't live anymore. You're sinking into this impossible dream. Dad left you this garage, not so you could lose yourself in it… You have to leave."
Alex lowered his eyes. He wanted to answer her, to scream that it was more than just a dream, that it was all he had, but no words came out. He knew that to her, it was just a child's fantasy—he had already given too much to a world that didn't want any of it.
That very evening, he packed up his tools, his books, and the fragments of his hope into an old wobbly shopping cart. He left the city, shoulders heavy, heading toward an abandoned cabin he had spotted in the heart of the forest.
There, far from everything, he started over.
Day after day, he forged. He engraved ancient symbols, traced runes, tried to infuse the impossible into metal. He worked until exhaustion, until his hands bled, until his breath became short. He read, experimented, failed. Again and again.
But nothing changed. No spark. No magic. Only the silence of the world and the scream of his solitude.
And then, one winter night, as he attempted one last creation, his body gave out. Fingers clenched around the handle of his hammer, he collapsed, alone, in the midst of the dying flames of his forge.
He died as he had lived: obsessed with his dream. The dream of forging a weapon worthy of legends.
But what he didn't know was that, at that precise moment… the universe, or maybe something else, had finally heard his call.
He opened his eyes.
Or so he thought.
Everything was black. No sound, no light. Complete void.
"Tch… again… I fell asleep while working," he muttered, his voice groggy.
Quickly, a strange sensation overtook him. His body didn't respond as usual. He tried to get up, but felt neither arms nor legs. His heart raced.
"Wait… why can't I see anything? Am I… blind?!"
Panic set in, and he instinctively closed his eyes… then reopened them.
This time, the world appeared… in red. Everything was tinged with a crimson veil. He could make out shapes, masses… silhouettes hanging upside down.
Bats. Dozens. No, hundreds, clinging to the walls of a vast, damp cave. The smell of stone, moss, and blood lingered in the air.
A shiver of dread ran through him.
He panicked, tried to move, and lost his balance. His body fell heavily from the ceiling — THUD — crashing to the ground with a muffled cry. A sharp pain shot through his skull.
"Aaargh… What the… what is this madness?!"
He tried to get up, but what he saw paralyzed him.
Instead of arms… there were membranes. Long, thin wings, covered in a fine layer of fur. In place of legs, small atrophied limbs. No hands. No feet.
"No… no no no… what is this?! This isn't me… This can't be…!"
He was panting, trembling. A deep, visceral terror seized him.
"I… I'm a bat?!"
He wanted to believe it was a nightmare. That he would wake up in his garage, next to his forge, hammer in one hand and an impossible dream in the other.
But the pain in his skull, all too real, reminded him of the truth.
He cried.
"I just… wanted to forge a legendary sword… I wanted to be a hero. Not… this. Even a slime would've been better, damn it…"
He didn't have time to pity himself further.
TING!
A crystalline sound rang directly in his head, clear as the note of an anvil.
[ACTIVATION OF THE CRAFTING SYSTEM.]
PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR CRAFTING CLASS.
His tears stopped instantly. His red eyes widened.
"…A system?"