Chapter 1: Awakening in a New World

Arjun sat rigidly at the sleek glass conference table, the polished surface reflecting back a fractured version of himself. The sterile hum of fluorescent lights filled the air, steady and indifferent, as though mocking the storm churning inside his chest. His MBA presentation—the capstone of years of work—was supposed to be his triumph. Months of research, late nights, and relentless preparation had led to this moment.

Yet sweat slicked his palms. The weight of the executives’ gazes pressed down like iron chains. Their tailored suits and calm expectancy made him feel small, like a schoolboy caught unprepared. The piles of neatly arranged charts and data sets should have been tools, but tonight they looked more like shackles.

He inhaled, forcing his breath steady. He was ready—or so he told himself.

The blare of screeching tyres split the air.

Before his mind could process the sound, a bone-rattling impact crushed the moment flat. Metal shrieked. Glass shattered in a violent cascade. Pain flashed white—then darkness swallowed everything.

Light returned in fragments.

Arjun’s eyes fluttered open to see a ceiling of rough-hewn slats, warped and darkened by age. Faint beams of dawn crept through the cracks, scattering across the room like broken strands of gold. His body ached as though forged anew, his limbs heavier, stranger. Beneath him, the ground was no longer plush carpet but hard-packed earth, cold enough to seep through his skin.

He sat up slowly. A musky scent of damp soil and burnt wood clung to the air. His hand brushed against coarse fabric—his clothes were gone, replaced by a tunic of rough homespun cloth, frayed at the seams. His fingers bore smudges of dirt, his nails uneven, his palms calloused.

The world felt wrong. Or perhaps he felt wrong inside it.

A small sound stirred behind him.

“Brother?”

The word cut sharper than any blade.

Arjun turned, heart thundering.

A girl sat huddled near the wall, knees tucked to her chest. She could not have been more than eight years old. Tangled black hair framed a face that was pale but unyielding, her wide eyes fixed on him with equal parts fear and fragile hope.

He stared, breath caught in his throat. “Anaya,” he whispered, the name escaping like a prayer.

Her lips quivered into the faintest smile, relief softening her gaze.

Arjun’s chest tightened. In that moment, disbelief gave way to a brutal clarity. He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t imagining her. His sister was here—alive, vulnerable, depending on him in a world he did not know.

Light flared.

An orb materialized before him, hovering at eye level. Translucent and luminous, it shimmered with an inner glow that pulsed like a heartbeat. Strange glyphs swirled across its surface, rearranging themselves in patterns both alien and mesmerizing. The faint hum it emitted resonated deep in his bones.

Words carved themselves into his mind, not spoken but understood:

Welcome to the Dominic System.

Two channels branched from the orb’s core, alternating in rhythm. One exuded a dark, oppressive weight, its glyphs etched like scars into smoke—the path of demonic cultivation. The other gleamed in sharp, orderly symbols—ledgers, contracts, an arsenal of commerce.

A thrill of power coursed through him, but with it came warning. Each option carried a cost. He could feel it in his marrow, the drain of energy lurking behind every choice.

The orb pulsed once more, then dimmed, waiting.

Arjun exhaled slowly, pushing the vision aside. The room returned—bare walls, a rickety table, the faint flicker of an oil lamp clinging to life. He reached into the pouch at his belt, fingers brushing metal. Coins clinked faintly as he counted: three hundred bronze.

The sum seemed meager, pitifully so. He tallied in silence: rent for two weeks, one hundred and forty bronze. Food for himself and Anaya, eighty more. Ink, candles, scraps of parchment—twenty. A single battered shield core, the lowest-grade talisman he could find, another twenty.

Forty coins left. That was all.

The numbers pressed on him with suffocating weight. In his old life, budgets were abstract exercises, lines on a spreadsheet. Here, they were survival. A miscalculation didn’t mean a failed grade; it meant hunger. Or worse.

From outside drifted the sounds of morning: the sharp clang of hammers on metal as stalls were erected, merchants shouting their wares in eager voices, the bleating of goats being herded down dusty lanes. The village moved with rhythm and purpose, life carrying on indifferent to his confusion.

Arjun looked at Anaya. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him. Fear lingered in her expression, but behind it burned something purer: trust.

That trust hit him harder than the crash ever had.

Resolve gathered in his chest. He could not afford recklessness. Power would come, but cautiously. For now, survival meant stability, and stability began with work. A delivery boy’s job—lowly, but safe—would place him in the market, let him learn, and earn the coin they desperately needed. It was the path of least risk, and for her sake, he would walk it.

As dusk fell, the hut dimmed to shadow. Arjun sat cross-legged on the earthen floor, the Dominic System’s orb hovering faintly before him. Its glow bathed the room in pale light, spilling over Anaya where she had curled against his side, already asleep. Her breathing was soft, steady, a small anchor in the vast uncertainty around him.

He reached out, hand hovering near the orb’s surface. Within it, the twin paths pulsed again: cultivation and commerce, danger and discipline, both blades waiting to be drawn.

His reflection shimmered back at him—eyes sharper, jaw set with quiet defiance.

“I’ll master you,” he whispered, voice low but steady. “Not for me. For her.”

The oil lamp sputtered, its flame bowing before straightening again, casting shadows that trembled across the walls like silent witnesses.

Arjun stayed awake as night deepened, the vow burning inside him brighter than the lamp. Whatever this world demanded, he would endure. Whatever it took, he would not fail.

Not this time.

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