Mark Lit

Wang Xuan opened his eyes. Above him was a rust-streaked metal ceiling, so low it nearly pressed against his face. The soundproofing was terrible; the arguing couple next door, a crying baby, and the droning hum of some old air purifier all poured into the room at once.

He lay still, staring at a stubborn water stain on the ceiling.

Yesterday's events played through his mind like a movie, frame by frame.

"Wang Xuan, let's break up!"

"We're not children playing house anymore. I don't want to go on living like this. You really are outstanding, always near the top at school, but if you can't enter the Heavens Tower, you have no ability to survive in this world. I have to change my life. I hope you won't blame me!"

"Oh, and thank you in the end. If it weren't for you, Young Master Feng wouldn't have given me this opportunity. When I return from the worlds of the heavens, I'll definitely repay you!"

Wang Xuan's vision blurred, and Lin Ke'er's voice gradually drifted away.

The secluded alley behind the school. The sleek silver hovercar, floating silently above the ground.

The car door slid upward. As Lin Ke'er bent down to enter, her face blooming with a smile, he found that smile painfully familiar. He had seen it ever since they were children, but now it stabbed at his eyes.

He did not know why he had followed them as if possessed.

The hovercar was fast, but he ran even faster. His lungs burned, and his heart hammered as though it would leap from his throat.

He watched the hovercar pass through the dense traffic of low-flying vehicles. Those were transportation for the upper districts, weaving between skyscrapers like schools of fish. Beneath his feet, however, was uneven ground littered with debris—the ground of the Shanty Town.

For some reason, perhaps deliberately, the hovercar did not move very quickly. In the end, it stopped outside the nearby Star Dome Hotel. The hotel was absurdly tall, its roof vanishing directly into the low-hanging clouds. Its exterior was made from some material that adjusted its brightness on its own. It looked solemn by day, while at night, it was said to flow with ribbons of light like a river of stars.

Lin Ke'er got out of the car, but she was not alone.

A young man in a tailored dark coat had an arm around her waist. He was strikingly handsome, with meticulously combed hair and an excellent profile.

But Wang Xuan's gaze was locked on the man's forehead.

There was a faint golden rune there, seemingly glowing on its own: [King].

Just that simple word, like a red-hot brand, instantly froze Wang Xuan in place. He even forgot to breathe.

The young man seemed to sense something. Before entering the hotel's revolving doors, he turned his head and glanced in Wang Xuan's direction.

They were far apart, but Wang Xuan knew the man had seen him. There was no intense emotion in that gaze, only a faint, condescending contempt and mockery. The corner of his lips curled up before he vanished through the splendid doors with Lin Ke'er in his arms.

Feng Shaoyun!

That Royal Clan transfer student, the one who targeted him at every turn and could never stand the sight of him.

Wang Xuan stood in the shadow across the street for a long time, his fingers clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms. Something wet and sticky seeped out, but he could not feel the pain.

His head buzzed.

Ten thousand years.

The Heavens Tower had descended upon this world ten thousand years ago.

The textbooks made it perfectly clear: it was the beginning of all supernatural power, and the source of the ironclad class system that existed today.

The Longevity Families, along with subordinate Royal Clans like the Feng Clan, had long controlled everything.

The best planets, the best resources, and the opportunities within the Heavens Tower that could change one's destiny all belonged to them.

Ordinary people?

Ordinary people were fuel, background scenery, and occasionally, entertainment for them.

Before, those had merely been words in a book, heavy sighs from teachers.

Yesterday, the glowing [King] on that man's forehead and Lin Ke'er's retreating figure as she leaned against him had turned those words into cold reality and smashed them viciously into Wang Xuan's face.

Wasn't it laughable?

He and Lin Ke'er had grown up together in the orphanage. They had split a piece of synthetic nutrient cake, hidden beneath the covers to read old-era comic books they had picked up with a flashlight, and promised to save money together so they could leave this cramped, foul-smelling Shanty Town.

And what happened?

She had climbed straight into a hovering car and gone to the Star Dome Hotel, a place he might never be able to enter in his entire life.

It was not that Lin Ke'er had changed. It was that this damned world had never given them any other choice.

Clinging to a Royal Clan was the only ladder upward she could see.

And Wang Xuan was probably the bottom rung of that ladder, the one someone had stepped on.

If not for the Heavens Tower's special rules that made Origin Earth Star an absolute safe zone, he had no doubt that the moment Feng Shaoyun took a dislike to him, he would have been thrown into some consumables factory and worked day and night until he died.

He had heard that on life planets beyond Origin Earth Star, the masses had almost no path other than factory work. Even if they managed to make something of themselves in the Heavens and Myriad Worlds, they were nothing more than slightly higher-ranking lackeys.

Wang Xuan abruptly sat up from the hard plank bed. The thin blanket slipped to the floor, and he walked to the room's only narrow window, forcing open its rusted latch.

A wave of deafening noise and murky air rushed in.

Outside lay densely packed, haphazardly built metal shacks, like an endless expanse of gray moss creeping over the earth.

Farther away stood smooth, towering buildings with cold, hard lines—the Citizen District. At the edge of his vision, where it nearly pierced the sky, rose an even more magnificent tower-like structure radiating a faint energy glow: the Tower Gate of the Heavens Tower.

Every day, people who had reached eighteen vanished there, entering that world said to be filled with infinite possibilities.

Small delivery hovercraft skimmed low over the Shanty Town like insects, scattering disinfectant or dropping cheap packs of synthetic food.

This was the upper class's "charitable handout," and also the customary "civilized procedure" of Origin Earth Star—the last shred of rights the United Government had secured for those at the bottom.

Wang Xuan looked toward the towering Star Dome Hotel. Yesterday, it had been in that direction.

As he watched, he suddenly felt dizzy, and his stomach churned.

It was not anger, nor was it sadness. It was simply a profound sense of helplessness, as if he had been thrown into a swamp where the more he struggled, the deeper he sank.

He tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying to smile, but he could not.

Forget it.

He turned around and stopped looking at the suffocating sight outside. Bending down, he picked up the blanket from the floor and casually tossed it back onto the bed.

Just as he turned to get some filtered water, a faint burning sensation suddenly came from the back of his left hand.

"What is this...?"

He froze for a moment and raised his hand.

On the skin of his hand, an extremely simple gray mark shaped somewhat like a tower was emitting an incredibly faint white glow from within, almost too weak to notice.

This was the Heavens Tower Access Mark.

Every Origin Earthling automatically awakened one upon turning eighteen. He had turned eighteen three months ago, but his mark had remained dull and gray like a dead tattoo. Such cases were exceedingly rare even in the history of the Heavens Tower's descent. Once it happened, the outcome was nearly impossible to predict. Perhaps the mark would return to normal the next second; perhaps it would take ten years, or even decades. But more often than not, it would never light up again for the rest of their lives.

The moment his mark showed no response on his eighteenth birthday, the excellent student who had once ranked near the top of his school had effectively been sentenced to death, falling directly from the clouds into the abyss.

The more glorious he had once been, the more miserable that moment had become.

And now, it had actually lit up?

Though the light was weak, flickering as if it could go out at any moment, it truly was glowing.

"I knew heaven wouldn't leave me without a way out!"

Wang Xuan stared at that tiny glimmer for several seconds. The clamor of the Shanty Town seemed to recede in that instant.

The mocking gaze of that [King] youth yesterday, Lin Ke'er's back as she left without looking back, and the hopeless sky outside, frozen in place for ten thousand years...

The faint light on the back of his hand flickered weakly, yet stubbornly.

Wang Xuan slowly clenched his fist, enclosing that bit of light in his palm.

He walked to the old purifier in the corner of the room, pressed the water button, and filled a cup. The water looked fairly clear, but when he brought it close, he could smell a faint odor. He had long heard that the filtered water in the Slum District was actually untreated wastewater from the upper districts, delivered here after only the most basic purification.

If they could not afford expensive home water purifiers, ordinary people could only endure this water for years. In time, many lost their hair in clumps or developed strange illnesses, eventually dying in silence and pain.

"I can't stand this damned world for another day!"

He tilted back his head and drained the cup in one gulp.

When he set the cup down, his face showed no expression.

Yet deep in his eyes, beneath the stagnant pool that had nearly frozen over because of everything that happened yesterday, something seemed to stir, ever so slightly.