The Mark Ignites

Wang Xuan opened his eyes to a rusted metal ceiling so low it felt like it was pressing against his face. The soundproofing was abysmal; the bickering of the couple next door, the wailing of an infant, and the buzzing of an old-fashioned air purifier from somewhere unknown all drilled into his ears at once.

He lay still, his eyes fixed on a stubborn water stain on the ceiling.

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

"Wang Xuan, let's break up!"

"We aren't children anymore; we can't keep playing house. I don't want to live like this in the future. You are indeed excellent, and you're at the top of your class, but if you can't enter the Heavens Tower, you have no ability to survive in this world. I have to make a change, and I hope you won't blame me!"

"Oh, and one last thing, thank you. If it weren't for you, Feng Shaoyun wouldn't have given me this opportunity. When I return from the Heavens World, I will definitely repay you!"

Wang Xuan felt a wave of dizziness as Lin Ke'er's voice faded into the distance.

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

When the door slid upward and Lin Ke'er bent down to sit inside, the way her face beamed like a flower—a smile he had known since childhood—looked particularly piercing at that moment.

He didn't even know how he had been possessed to follow them.

The hovercar was fast, but he ran faster, his lungs burning and his heart threatening to leap out of his throat.

He watched the hovercar weave through the dense, low-flying traffic of hover-vehicles—the transport of the upper districts, moving like a school of fish between the skyscrapers. Beneath his feet, however, was the uneven, debris-strewn ground of the Shanty Town.

For some reason, perhaps intentionally, the hovercar didn't move quickly, eventually stopping in front of the Star Dome Hotel not far away. The hotel was absurdly tall, its roof disappearing into the low-hanging clouds. Its exterior walls were made of a material that adaptively adjusted its brightness; it looked solemn during the day, but at night, it was said to flow with ribbons of starlight.

Lin Ke'er stepped out of the car, but she wasn't alone.

A young man in a well-tailored dark coat had his arm around her waist. He was strikingly handsome, his hair combed meticulously, his side profile sharp and refined.

But Wang Xuan's gaze was locked onto the center of the man's forehead.

There, a faint, golden rune that seemed to emit its own light: [Royal].

That single, simple character felt like a red-hot branding iron, searing Wang Xuan into place and making him forget even how to breathe.

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

The distance was great, but Wang Xuan felt certain the man had seen him. There was no intense emotion in that gaze, only a condescending, faint mockery and derision. The corner of his mouth curled up, and then he ushered Lin Ke'er into the golden, opulent lobby.

Feng Shaoyun!

The Royal Clan member who had transferred in, the guy who targeted him at every turn and couldn't stand the sight of him.

Wang Xuan stood in the shadows across the street for a long time, his fingers clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms. He felt a sticky dampness, but he couldn't feel the pain.

His mind was buzzing.

Ten thousand years.

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

The textbooks stated it clearly: it was the starting point of all transcendence and the source of the rigid class system that existed today.

The Longevity Families, along with the vassal Royal Clans under their command like the Feng Clan, had long since seized control of everything.

The good planets, the good resources, and the opportunities within the Heavens Tower that could change one's fate—they were all theirs.

Ordinary people?

Ordinary people were fuel, background noise, and "entertainment" to be toyed with whenever they felt bored.

In the past, these were just words in books or the heavy sighs of his teachers.

Yesterday, that glowing [Royal] character on the man's forehead and the sight of Lin Ke'er leaning into him had turned those words into a cold reality, slamming into his face with brutal force.

Is it ridiculous?

He and Lin Ke'er had grown up together in the orphanage, sharing a single piece of synthetic nutrient cake, hiding under the covers with a flashlight to read old-era comic books they'd scavenged, promising to save money together and leave this crowded, stinking Shanty Town.

And the result?

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

It wasn't that Lin Ke'er had changed; it was that this godforsaken world had never given them any other choice.

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

And he, Wang Xuan, was likely just the bottom rung of that ladder, the one meant to be stepped upon.

If not for the special rules of the Heavens Tower, which designated the Origin Earth Star as an absolute safe zone, he had no doubt that the moment Feng Shaoyun first took a dislike to him, he would have been tossed into some factory to work as a consumable until he died.

He had heard that on life-bearing planets outside the Origin Earth Star, the masses had almost no choice but to enter the factories. Even if they managed to make something of themselves in the Heavens and Myriad Worlds, they were nothing more than high-level lackeys.

Wang Xuan sat up abruptly from the hard bed, the thin blanket sliding to the floor. He walked to the only narrow window in the room and pushed hard against the rusted latch.

A wave of noisy clamor and foul air rushed in.

Outside the window lay a dense, chaotic sprawl of metal shacks, like an endless expanse of gray moss creeping across the earth.

Further away stood the smooth, cold-lined giant towers that had risen from the ground—the Citizen District. And at the edge of his vision, where it seemed to pierce the sky, stood a more magnificent, tower-shaped structure emitting a faint, energetic glow: the "Tower Gate" of the Heavens Tower.

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

Small deployment hover-drones skimmed low over the Shanty Town like insects, spraying disinfectant or dropping cheap, synthetic food packets.

This was the "benevolent charity" of the upper levels, and simultaneously the customary "civilization process" of the Origin Earth Star—the last shred of rights the United Government had managed to secure for the people at the bottom.

Wang Xuan looked up at the towering Star Dome Hotel; it had been in that direction yesterday.

As he watched, he suddenly felt a wave of dizziness, his stomach churning.

It wasn't anger, nor was it sadness, but a profound sense of powerlessness, as if he had been thrown into a quagmire where the more he struggled, the deeper he sank.

He tugged at the corner of his mouth, trying to force a smile, but failed.

Forget it.

He turned around, no longer looking at the suffocating sight outside the window. He bent down to pick up the blanket from the floor and tossed it back onto the bed.

Just as he turned to go get some filtered water to drink, a faint, burning sensation suddenly flared on the back of his left hand.

"This is..."

He froze for a moment and raised his hand.

On the skin of his hand, an extremely minimalist, tower-shaped gray mark was emitting an incredibly faint, almost imperceptible white light from within.

This was the Heavens Tower Access Mark.

Every Origin Earthling automatically activated it upon turning eighteen. He had just celebrated his eighteenth birthday three months ago, and the mark had remained dull and gray ever since, like a dead tattoo. Such a situation was extremely rare in the history of the Heavens Tower's arrival, and once it occurred, the outcome was almost entirely unpredictable. Perhaps the mark would return to normal the next second, or perhaps it would take a decade or several decades, but more often than not, it would never light up again until death.

The moment the mark failed to react on his eighteenth birthday, the top-performing student who had once led his school was sentenced to a "death penalty," falling straight from the clouds into the abyss.

The more glorious he had been in the past, the more miserable he was at that moment.

Now, it was actually glowing?

Although the light was weak and flickering, as if it could go out at any moment, it was undeniably shining.

"I knew it, heaven never closes every door!"

Wang Xuan stared at that glimmer for several seconds, and the noise of the Shanty Town seemed to fade away at that moment.

The mocking gaze of the Wang clan youth yesterday, the back of Lin Ke'er as she walked away without looking back, and the despairing, solidified sky outside the window that had remained unchanged for ten thousand years...

The glimmer on the back of his hand flickered, weak yet stubborn.

Wang Xuan slowly clenched his fist, gripping that light within his palm.

He walked over to the old purifier in the corner of the room and pressed the button to dispense water. The water looked clear enough, but when he brought it closer, he could smell a faint, strange odor. He had long heard that the filtered water in the Slum District was actually untreated sewage from the upper levels, sent down after only the most basic purification.

If one couldn't afford expensive household water purification devices, ordinary people had no choice but to endure this water long-term. Over time, many ended up losing clumps of hair or suffering from strange illnesses, eventually passing away in silence amidst their pain.

"I can't stay in this goddamn world for another day!"

He tilted his head back and downed it in one breath.

When he set the cup down, there was no expression on his face.

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