Orin was dying.
The hospital room buzzed faintly with artificial life—IV drips, heart monitors, and quiet murmurs from his parents. His bones ached under the weight of skin stretched thin by cancer. His breaths were shallow, each one a tiny war against the inevitable.
He didn't fear death. He was just... tired.
His eyes closed.
And then—He opened them again.
He gasped.
Gone was the sterile hospital room. Instead, he found himself seated in a large, high-tech classroom with rows of desks floating mid-air in concentric arcs. Transparent windows looked out onto a floating city suspended in the sky, where glowing runes spiraled through the air and ancient stone towers clashed with sleek crystalline tech.
The room buzzed with noise. Teenagers dressed in stylish academy uniforms chatted with excitement. A teacher, tall and robed in silver and black, stood at the front, lecturing calmly beside a massive floating projection.
Orin blinked.
Where... am I?
The teacher's voice echoed clearly now:
"As you all know, tomorrow marks your first descent into a lower world. The Heavenly Dao has blessed our realm with infinite reincarnation opportunities. Time flows differently—no matter how long you spend in a lower world, only one day passes here."
"The mark of the Heavenly Dao on your palm is your gateway to descent. Once activated, it connects you to a lower world suited to your karmic resonance. Upon activation, your innate talent will awaken."
Orin's breath hitched. Innate talent? Lower world?
His head pulsed, then suddenly—Memories surged.
The pain was brief, like a needle through the skull, but then his confusion faded. Orin now remembered his new identity.
This body's name was also Orin—Orin Velhart, son of commoner in the outer province of the Aetherion Empire. A quiet, brilliant student. Kind. Too kind. A boy who had never made waves. And today was the most important moment of his life—his first reincarnation.
But he was not that boy anymore.
He—Orin from Earth—had somehow taken over.
A transmigrator. A soul foreign to this world.
And no one knew.
"Those of you with Heavenly Points from your parents, I recommend you invest wisely!" the teacher continued. "You may purchase a strong background, enhanced comprehension, or even a chance at a superior body talents to aid your performance in the lower world."
Many students lit up. Some pulled up translucent blue interfaces. Orin caught glimpses—
[Purchase: Sword Saint's Bloodline – 200 Points][Purchase: Son of the Dragon King – 450 Points][Talent Enhancement: B-Rank to A-Rank – 300 Points]
Orin tapped his own interface.
Heavenly Points: 0Access denied.
He sighed. No rich parents. No noble house support. Nothing but himself.
The teacher raised a hand. "Now, activate your Dao Marks."
All around the room, students placed their palms upward. On each, a faint spiral mark shimmered into view. Orin did the same. The symbol on his palm flickered—then pulsed with light.
"Commence First Reincarnation."
In an instant, the classroom vanished.
Orin found himself floating in a dark void filled with radiant threads of light. The space felt infinite, sacred—individualized. A presence lingered, unseen, yet undeniable.
Heavenly Dao Acknowledges You.
Awakening Innate Talent..
Grade: EX
Talent: [Paradox: You Should Not Exist]
"Only what you willingly acknowledge can affect you—be it people, forces, laws, or fate. You are untouchable unless you allow the world to touch you."
You are a flaw in reality. A crack in the system. A being that defies classification.
Orin excitedly said. "In the memories of the original owner there is no mention of Ex rank. Is it my cheat as a transmigrator."
A new screen appeared before him: a celestial store filled with glowing treasures, bloodlines, divine backgrounds, rare soul constructs.
He tried to touch them.
Insufficient Heavenly Points.
Of course.
A final window opened.
Selecting Random Lower World...
Random Lower World Chosen
Sealing memories related to details of science and Cultivation/Magical Techniques
Descent in 3... 2... 1...
Light swallowed him.
And then—darkness again.
The cries of the newborn echoed softly in a clean, dimly lit hospital room.
The white light above him flickered softly as he blinked for the first time in his new body.
Cold air. The faint scent of antiseptic. A distant beeping. The world greeted him not with mystic chants or divine beasts—but with machines, masked nurses, and clinical white walls.
Orin had been born in a hospital.
In the heart of Linhai, a coastal city in the eastern provinces of the Jiangzhou Republic, to a middle-income family with no history of martial legacy or arcane mystery.
They named him Li Orin.
His mother, Li Hua, and father, Li Ren, were ordinary people.
His mother worked in finance; his father ran a logistics company. They loved him. They worried over him. They tried their best, like any modern parents.
And when he was only a few weeks old, they gave him what many newborns in the country were fed—Xingwei GoldStar Formula Milk.
The scandal broke three months later.
"Contaminated batches found in multiple cities—infants hospitalized—investigation ongoing..."
Children across the region fell ill.
Some suffered lasting damage.
But Orin?
He blinked, yawned, and burped like nothing had happened.
His parents chalked it up to a strong constitution.
They never questioned why their son never so much as coughed.
His infancy passed without incident.
He learned the language faster than expected—speaking in complete sentences by the age of two. He never got sick. Never had a rash. Never cried at night. Neighbors called him a "miracle baby," jokingly suggesting his parents had unlocked some secret formula.
Orin never thought much of it.
He simply accepted that this body, like his previous one, was oddly stable. Healthy.
He didn't know it was because his talent, [Paradox], subconsciously dismissed illness and disruption as irrelevant.
By age six, Orin was fascinated with machines, circuits, engines.
He once disassembled a toaster just to figure out why it worked. Later, he tried to rebuild it better.
He failed, but didn't stop trying.
His dream wasn't power or cultivation. To him, such things do not exist in this modern world.
Instead, Orin dreamed of becoming a scientist—one who could invent the kind of tools that would reshape society. Hovercraft highways. Healing nanobots. Energy-efficient micro-cities.
If he could bring something world-changing to the table in this life, he reasoned, the Heavenly Dao would grade him highly.
S-rank? Maybe. SSS? Only if he surpassed the boundaries of current science.
And so he studied. Trained. Exercised. Not because of some secret knowledge—but because he wanted his mind and body sharp for the future.
Through elementary and middle school, Orin lived like any driven student.
He aced physics, devoured chemistry, learned coding, played light sports, and tinkered with electronics. A few teachers noticed his uncanny intuition with devices, though they couldn't explain it.
By his final year of high school, he had a plan.
Ace the National College Aptitude Exam.
Enter a prestigious university in a major city.
Gain access to state labs.
Innovate something that would ripple across the world.
Get that heavenly evaluation.