The moonlight spilled through the tall arched windows of the Arkanveil estate, silver beams painting quiet shadows across Lucien's room. The marble floor glistened with ethereal light, and the golden-etched runes on the walls seemed to pulse faintly, echoing the residual energy from the awakening ritual.
Lucien sat on the edge of his bed, still dressed in the ceremonial robes of his Trait Awakening. The fabric shimmered with spellwoven threads, a garment worthy of a scion of one of the Nine Great Families. But Lucien barely noticed. His gaze was fixed on the system panel hovering before him—translucent and humming with power.
His heartbeat was steady, but the storm inside him roared louder than ever.
> "Adaptation… and Devour."
Two Traits.
Two destinies.
One soul.
Most would be overwhelmed with joy at awakening a single high-grade Trait. An S-grade Trait alone could place someone among the elite. An SSS-grade Trait would turn them into a generational genius. But Lucien… Lucien had gone beyond even that.
He had awakened Adaptation—the same Trait that had defined the original Lucien Arkanveil in the novel. A Trait with infinite potential, limited only by its glacial growth and passive nature. It let its user slowly acclimate to combat styles, magical laws, or even biological toxins. A Trait designed not for battle, but for survival and evolution.
But with Lucien's Proficiency Panel, the Trait would never be passive again.
Instead of waiting for experience to accumulate over weeks or months, his panel accelerated the learning curve. Every adaptation became a skill. Every skill could be leveled, upgraded, and—when it reached its peak—evolved into something greater.
> "That alone would've made me unstoppable in the long run," he muttered, brushing a lock of golden hair from his eyes.
But fate had given him more.
Devour.
An anomaly. An error in the system. A forbidden trait ranked EX—beyond even SSS+. A Trait that didn't exist in the world's records, not in the novel, not in the lore. Not even in the divine archives left by the ancient gods.
> "This… this wasn't part of the plot," Lucien whispered.
He had read the book in his past life. Every chapter. Every arc. Every twist of the fate-bound story. Nowhere had it mentioned Devour. This wasn't just a deviation.
It was a divine gift.
A reward from the deity who had orchestrated his reincarnation.
He remembered the vision now—faint, like a dream etched into starlight. A meditating figure surrounded by a cosmic halo. Lord Shiva, seated amidst the ruins of time, opening one eye to gaze upon Lucien's dying soul with a flicker of amusement.
> "You sought a new life," the god had said, voice echoing through creation itself.
"Then take with you a fragment of destruction. Devour, child of karma. Devour… and become what even fate cannot contain."
And now, the Trait lived within him.
Raw. Untamed. Hungry.
Devour allowed him to consume the very essence of other Traits—from corpses, from defeated enemies, even from trait stones if he ever found one. Upon devouring, he could assimilate their power.
But it wasn't limitless.
He could wield only four active devoured Traits at a time.
Five could be stored as reserves.
To gain another, one had to be discarded… or sacrificed.
Yet even that limitation had been shattered the moment Adaptation reacted.
That moment during the awakening ritual… he had felt it. The glyphs didn't fade like they were supposed to. Instead, they twisted, reformed, and flowed into one another. It was as if the laws of the world themselves didn't know what to do with someone who had both Adaptation and Devour.
And then came the resonance.
The Proficiency Panel, that ancient primordial treasure he'd discovered in his past life and fused with upon reincarnation, had responded. The trinity was complete. Three separate forces—Trait, Trait, and Artifact—merged into something that didn't exist anywhere in the novel's world.
> Adaptation evolved.
Now, every Trait he discarded through Devour… wasn't truly lost.
Their essence lingered in Adaptation's matrix—stripped down, analyzed, and recombined.
It was like forging a new metal from old alloys. Like alchemy of the soul.
If he devoured a Flame Trait and discarded it later, Adaptation could merge its essence with that of another discarded Shadow Trait, and depending on Lucien's experience, his battles, his emotions—even his creativity—something new would be born.
Darkflame. Burning Shadow. Ash Rebirth. Infernal Fog.
There was no limit to the combinations.
No pattern for the world to trace.
Every discarded Trait was like a word. Adaptation was the grammar. And Lucien? He was the author of a new language.
The system interface pulsed softly before him, its pale blue light like the heartbeat of the future.
---
[Lucien Arkanveil's System Interface]
Name: Lucien Arkanveil
Age: 14
Race: Human
Level: 1
Rank: F
Traits:
– Adaptation (SSS-grade, Evolvable)
– Devour (EX-grade)
Proficiency Panel: [Primordial Artifact: Active]
Storage Grid: 10m³
Skills: [None currently registered]
---
No one else could see this.
The world gave every Trait holder a system interface at 14. It was the great equalizer. It showed their Traits, rank, skills, and storage space. And it came with absolute privacy. No divine being, no artifact, no spy skill could pierce its veil.
It was the one thing in this world that belonged entirely to the self.
But Lucien had more.
The Proficiency Panel was a secret that didn't belong to this world. It predated even the universe itself. It belonged to the void before time, and now it served him alone.
It had been dormant until today. But with the awakening of his Traits, it had begun to react.
> "Adaptation. Devour. Proficiency," Lucien said slowly, almost reverently. "The trinity is complete."
His voice echoed softly in the quiet room. No one heard it. No one knew. Not his siblings. Not his parents. Not even Aleron, his beloved eldest brother.
And that was how he wanted it.
Let them think he was the same Lucien—the quiet, studious one. The younger brother with a rare but "passive" Trait. The heir who couldn't compete with Ignis Vaelthorn.
> "Let them underestimate me."
He stood and walked toward the window. Outside, the stars shimmered above the estate, and far in the east, the faintest tint of dawn crept across the horizon.
A new day.
A new world.
He stared at his reflection in the glass—golden hair, red eyes that gleamed with cunning and clarity.
He wasn't the villain anymore.
And he wasn't the hero either.
He was something else. Something unknown.
> "Let the world play its game," he whispered.
"I'm not here to play by its rules… I'm here to rewrite them."
And behind his reflection, just for a moment, the faint shadow of a third eye flickered on his forehead—silent, watching.