Chapter 2: The Sleeping Storm
Ethan Walker didn't cry like most children.
He didn't babble or flail. He didn't laugh at toys or suck his thumb. Instead, from the very moment he was taken into House Valen, he watched.
Everything.
Everyone.
Like a storm biding its time.
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Age 1 – Valen Estate, Southern Allitia
To most, he was just a strangely quiet infant. But to Ethan, this was a prison.
He remembered everything—Jacob's face, the Null Reactor, the screams, the moment time fractured. And now… this. A baby's body. Helpless, slow, humiliating.
But his mind hadn't dulled. If anything, it had become sharper. Time passed slower. He could see the flow of mana in the air, decode it. He could hear hearts beat in adjacent rooms. His senses were evolving.
And more than that…
He could see the System.
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[SUPREME UNIVERSE SYSTEM] Initialized...
> Name: [Unregistered]
Race: Unknown
Age: 1
Class: None
Core Level: N/A
Affinity: [Null / Aether]
Status: [Soul Lock (99%)]
WARNING: Host not recognized by universal parameters. Processing failsafes…
ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.
Manual Override Engaged…
Welcome, anomalous entity.
Initiating: Evolution Protocol – Tier 0.
---
Ethan blinked. The System didn't operate like anything he'd seen before. It wasn't just code. It was alive. A sentient, semi-conscious overlay bound to the very laws of this new world. And it didn't know what to do with him.
Even better.
He chuckled—softly, soundlessly. No one noticed.
Except her.
---
Her name was Rinnia.
She was a maid. Maybe seventeen. Poor. Born of a minor merchant family but sold into servitude to pay off her father's debts. And she had the rare talent of spirit-sight.
Which meant she could see him.
Not the infant. But the soul inside.
"You're not a normal baby," she whispered one night, alone in the nursery.
Ethan stared at her. Silent.
She smiled, nervous. "You understand me, don't you?"
He blinked once.
"That's what I thought."
From that moment, she became his secret. She taught him to speak in private. To move. To stretch. To understand the strange mana and spell-laced books of this world. And he, in turn, listened.
Because the world she described was terrifying.
---
The World of Erothein – The Supreme Universe
It was divided into seven Divine Realms and the Mortal Lands. Humans, elves, dragons, fae, beastkin, and other evolved races all fought for survival and dominance under the rule of the Eternal Pantheon—gods who had rewritten reality using the Supreme System.
To rise in this world was to evolve—literally. Souls grew through battle and comprehension, awakening 'Cores' that allowed mortals to touch divinity itself.
Ethan didn't have a Core.
Because he was never born into this system.
He was from before.
From something outside.
And that meant… he could break it.
---
Age 2 – The First Skill
He didn't awaken mana.
He didn't form a Core.
Instead, he hacked the System.
By the time he turned two, he could force it to reveal hidden data—glitches in skill trees, corrupted logic paths, ancient protocols from when the System first formed. He was learning to code in magic.
That was the day he acquired his first "skill."
Not from training.
Not from the System.
But from himself.
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> Custom Skill Created:
Skill: [Reality Layer Deconstruction: LV. 1]
Type: Passive / Active
Effect: Allows the user to see through false systems, illusions, or manipulations of mana. Grants partial immunity to status effects and skill-based compulsion.
Warning: This skill cannot be registered in the current universe. Manual Override Enabled.
System Note: This should not be possible.
---
Ethan grinned.
Of course it shouldn't.
But the world didn't get to decide what was possible anymore.
---
Age 3 – The "Noble Scandal"
One night, the Viscount held a private dinner with an envoy from the Church of the Sun God. It was boring. Political. Hypocritical. But Ethan paid attention.
Because the bishop brought a crystal.
A crystal that vibrated with something terrifying.
He'd seen Null. Touched Aether. Studied every waveform known to science. But this was divine code—a fragment of the System's source logic. And it was unstable.
Worse: they were using it to test infants for potential divine affinity.
Ethan's eyes narrowed.
They were building a weapon.
That night, Ethan left his crib.
He walked on shaky legs, climbed onto a table, and stole the crystal.
By the time anyone noticed, the mansion's east wing had collapsed in a chain reaction of mana failure.
Everyone blamed a magical surge.
No one suspected the toddler.
But Rinnia… smiled.
"You're going to burn this world, aren't you?"
He looked at her, unblinking.
"No," he said, his first word in days.
"I'm going to rebuild it."
---
Age 4 – The Sleeper Wakes
By now, Ethan was already crafting his own magic—secretly, in the broken cellar beneath the estate. He used chalk, blood, and stolen mana crystals. His body still looked like a child's, but his mind? Beyond godlike.
And then it happened.
The Soul Lock weakened.
By 1%.
It was small. Insignificant.
But it changed everything.
The energy inside him surged. The Aether and Null remnants in his DNA pulsed. And the System began to glitch again.
Words appeared in the air.
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> New Trait Detected:
Trait: [Singularity Core: Dormant]
Effect: Unknown
World Notification: An unclassified being has awakened a Forbidden Trait. Notifying Administrators…
…Failed.
…Failed.
…Failed.
Warning: Entity is outside jurisdiction. Tracking impossible.
---
Somewhere, in the highest halls of the Supreme System, alarms blared.
In the skies above Erothein, a star flickered.
And in the body of a child playing with chalk in a ruined cellar, something smiled.
The Sleeping Storm had opened its eyes.
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