A face that defied reality, so divine it seemed sculpted from starlight and apathy, was reflected in the window. Through it, the boy watched his kingdom—Nexus City.
He owned it all. Or rather, his father, Zane Valerius, owned it all. And his father was the god of this 'boring world,' as Kai called it.
A world where every conceivable problem, from interstellar logistics to a spilled drink, was solved by flawless algorithms in the blink of an eye. Nexus City was the gleaming heart of Terra, and within it beat the headquarters of Terra Energy, the monolithic corporation that didn't just power the planet, but produced, packaged, and prescribed its very existence.
Kai knew this empire of effortless perfection would one day be his. He was the sole heir, a title sealed by the mysterious disappearance of his older sister when he was just a child. A ghost in the family's perfect history, her absence was the only unsolved equation in their world.
At seventeen, on the cusp of manhood, Kai's beauty was a weapon he never wielded. Standing at five-foot-nine, his frame was a paradox of porcelain fragility and hidden, delicate strength sculpted beneath his loose tunic. His face, a chiseled masterpiece of masculine and feminine grace, provoked either breathless awe or the raw, ugly sting of jealousy in others. Kai never noticed.
His dark blue hair, a shade of twilight, fell across a forehead that harbored a mind of terrifying genius. It contrasted with crystalline, azure eyes—eyes so deep and vibrant that to meet their gaze was to feel oneself falling into a mesmerizing abyss.
To Kai, they were just input devices. What other purpose did sight have?
From his seat in the corner of the classroom—on the uppermost floor of Nexus Academy, a space reserved for the children of Terra's rulers—he watched the world function below. Orbital transports weaved through the sky like silver threads in a tapestry. He tracked a single luxury vehicle, its chassis gleaming with the ubiquitous Terra Energy logo. Inside, its passengers would be sipping on sleek juice packs, effortless sustenance, a silent monument to the family that had industrialized paradise and stripped it of all struggle.
Life simply happened. Smoothly. Predictably. Boringly.
To combat the soul-crushing monotony, Kai had engineered a persona. He played the part of a weak-minded, socially awkward boy. This mask was his private experiment, a way to poke and prod at the flawless facade of his peers. His "friends"—alliances forged by parental decree—bullied him for this perceived weakness.
He allowed it. He craved it.
In those moments of cruelty, their perfect masks would slip, revealing the ugly, greedy, truthful faces beneath. He wanted to see that truth. He wanted to collect it. What more could they do to him in a world designed to be utterly safe? He, who could outmaneuver Terra's greatest strategists in his sleep, cultivated the image of an odd boy obsessed with virtual worlds. It made them predictable. And in a world with no real challenges, predictability was the ultimate resource to be exploited.
The "joke" became a nightmare.
One moment, he was the punching bag in a sound-dampened luxury car, the air thick with the cruel, high-pitched laughter of his "friends." The next, they shoved his head out an open window, having casually disabled the automated safety protocols for their prank.
The wind hit him not as a whip, but as a solid wall. A terrifying roar engulfed him as the pressure threatened to crush his skull. Panic, a cold and alien serpent, coiled in his gut. He flailed, his pampered hands, built for dataslates and the cool touch of luxury, finding no purchase. No lever. No railing.
No salvation in the empty sky.
He slipped. His weight shifted. And he was falling.
Below, Nexus City spread out like a shattered galaxy of chrome and light, a monument to an ingenuity that had made him its prince and its prisoner. The sky-lanes were rivers of light, the towering arcologies silent, geometric gods. His world—the only existence he had ever known—was utterly, irrevocably uncaring of the tiny, plummeting speck that was Kai Valerius.
His grand plan, the meticulously calibrated strategy to one day seize his father's throne and grind his disappointment into dust, was falling with him. He wanted to prove he wasn't the weakness in the Valerius line. Now, that ambition was just fuel for a burning regret—a foreign emotion his analytical mind had always cataloged but never truly felt.
So this is how it ends? The question was logical. The answer, unacceptable. But what could he do?
His mind, that fortress of logic, was being flooded. Emotions, once dismissed as useless oddities, now screamed for attention. He was an emotional infant, and he was drowning. His vision blurred. The ground, a distant promise of oblivion, was rising. He didn't look. There was nothing to be done.
Death by impact was the only logical outcome.
And yet… a strange thought bloomed in the terror. Kai had always found life boring because it lacked stakes. Wasn't this it? Wasn't this the ultimate stake, the one thrilling, unpredictable moment he had always craved? Why not… enjoy it?
Death felt unreal. So when a coppery-green panel flickered to life before his eyes, he accepted it as part of the grand delusion. His brain's final act of madness. He didn't pay it any mind.
But it felt… real.
No. He was just scared. He finally admitted it. Fear. The first emotion he truly, consciously acknowledged, if only to rationalize the illogical panel shimmering in front of his face.
Words were written on it, blurry and unstable.
He was seconds from impact. Mustering a final act of desperate defiance, he forced his eyes wide, choosing to believe in this last, beautiful lie.
And he saw the words.
[Congratulations…]
[You have awakened the Aura Farming System]
[Swap Initiated]
◾️⚜️〰️〰️〰️⚜️◽️
Author's Note.
Hi reader.
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I will continue to update 1-2 chapters for this book daily.
Stay tuned.