The television buzzed with the daily news. A reporter stood outside a local school holding a microphone.

[BREAKING: Heiress of the Alisson Colgemorte Group is missing. Last seen near LIC High.]

Caelus froze when her picture flashed on the screen. She was around his age according to the news but the girl was tiny with a small frame and a small face. She was the kind of kid you could easily lose in a crowded street. Yet her presence completely locked him in place.

There was something about the way she stared directly at the camera. It felt completely off. She felt wrong in a way he could not put into words.

He leaned in closer. He felt like he knew her from somewhere, but the memory slipped through his fingers.

He sat back and let out a long breath.

This girl was not Sylvia. Therefore, he did not need to waste another thought on her.

"I need to find Sylvia," he muttered to the empty room.

That was the only thing that mattered right now.

She had made it out of the abyss safely. He had zero doubt about that fact. Lyra and Mia must have survived as well. If he had been dumped on this twisted version of Earth, then they were here too.

The main problem was the sheer size of this planet.

She was out there somewhere. Meanwhile, he was just sitting in a small dorm room in Queens. Neither of them had a way to find the other. The world was simply too wide to rely on blind luck.

He needed money. He needed a whole lot of it. He had to earn enough to hire a professional tracker who could finally pick up her trail.

He checked his current balance.

[Bank: $70]

[Origin Credits: 100]

Caelus stared at the glowing numbers and sighed.

He used to be a man who generated millions of credits every single day. Now, he was just a guy who could barely afford a cheap sandwich, an energy drink, and maybe a roll of toilet paper to go with it. He clicked the television off and leaned back onto his bed.

Right then, the door swung wide open.

It was Chad.

"Yo Caelus, you back? You ran off so fast I almost forgot to give you the shirt from my gym bag."

However, half way through, Chad stopped dead in the doorway.

He stared at Caelus as his eyes grew wide.

He slowly raised a trembling hand and pointed a finger straight at Caelus’s face.

"Who are you?"

Caelus blinked.

"What did you do to my buddy?" Chad demanded, his voice cracking with panic. "He is a sweet guy. He has his whole life ahead of him. What did you do to him?"

"Stop overreacting." Caelus sighed and waved his friend inside. He pressed a finger to his lips. "And keep it down."

Chad went completely stiff. He recognized that tired sigh. He knew that flat voice. He had heard it from across the room every single morning for years.

It was Caelus’s voice, there was no doubt about it.

Chad’s brain struggled to process the facts.

Then his legs gave out completely. He dropped onto his own bed, his eyes glued to the stranger sitting across from him.

The scrawny roommate he knew was gone. The guy sitting there looked like a professional model.

He had a razor-sharp jawline and perfectly clear skin. His broad shoulders filled out his shirt effortlessly.

"Is this a second awakening?" Chad asked quietly.

Caelus did not answer right away.

A second awakening. It was the moment your talent evolved and grew teeth.

It was incredibly rare.

It was the exact kind of event that made the front page of the news.

"How did this even happen?" Chad dragged a hand through his short hair. "Caelus, listen to me carefully. You need to wear a mask outside from now on. I mean it. Are we clear?"

"Yes," Caelus immediately agreed.

He meant it. The people on this Earth were not the type he could just ignore.

Back on the Azure Origin Planet, the locals had been slow and easy to trick. Here, they had secure labs, strict ranking systems, and thousands of cameras pointed at every street corner. If he walked around looking like an ascended being with no solid cover story, a researcher would slice him open just to study his biology.

"So what is your talent now?" Chad leaned forward eagerly. "Your old talent was D-Rank Body Enhancement, just like your mom. Did you awaken to your Dad’s talent or did you pull something even stronger?"

Caelus said nothing. He simply flicked his wrist and summoned his system interface. He rotated the blue screen so Chad could read a single line of text.

[Talent: Ascended Body (Lower S-Rank)]

All the color drained from Chad’s face. "What?"

His head spun. He read the floating text twice to make sure his eyes were working. An S-Rank talent. It was sitting right there on a kid who had awakened as a simple D-Rank barely a week ago. The system had even labeled the talent as Ascended.

"Ascended? Are you a god now or something?" Chad whispered, his voice sounding incredibly thin. "What does an Ascended Body even mean?"

To Caelus, the fancy title meant nothing. It was just the current state of his physical form.

However, he could clearly see how the word affected his friend. In this society, a term like ’Ascended’ carried immense weight.

It belonged in the same category as mythical gods and ancient factions.

Chad was staring at him like there was an invisible wall of glass between them. He looked at Caelus like he stood a full head above the rest of humanity.

"Nothing Like that. But, I trust you to keep your mouth shut, Chad." Caelus offered a small smile.

He was not actually worried. He had known this guy since they were young boys. Chad could be loud and annoying, but he never gossiped about the things that truly mattered.

"This is completely insane." Chad shook his head in disbelief. "You could go pro with this talent. You could be a massive superstar, Caelus. You understand that, right?"

"Okay, it is not that deep." Caelus felt his lips twitch into a smirk. He stood up from the bed and grabbed his jacket. "Come on. Get yourself ready. The domain opens any second now."

Chad nodded blankly. He was still in a daze, but he quickly snapped back to reality.

"Hey, do you want to run with my party today? You are still Level 1, right? I can carry you."

"You spent way too much time in the market gambling away Caelus. Now that you have a talent, you should use it wisely."

Caelus gave him a strange look. He was gambling away while the domain opened up?

Yep, that sounded like him.

An hour slowly passed by. Finally, the glowing system notification they had both been waiting for popped up in the air.

[The Origin Ascension Domain is now open.]

The two friends looked at each other. Then, they stepped forward into the portal together. A bright spark of pure excitement lit up inside Caelus’s chest.