The crying was brief. Weak. A muffled sound beneath the labored breathing of the woman who had just given birth on the cold stone floor. The air in the underground chamber was heavy with moisture and the scent of blood — both old and new. Three scribes in gray robes watched in ceremonial silence, their sharp quills poised above enchanted scrolls.

  One of the Registry crystals floated between them, pulsing with a cold bluish light. When the crying echoed a second time, the crystal glowed brighter and emitted a tone that was both high and low — as if the air itself had refused to hear it.

  “Zero,” announced the eldest scribe, not lifting his eyes. His voice was dulled by centuries of routine. “Life Value: 0.”

  The midwife shuddered. Not from the cold, but from disgust. Her hand, still smeared with blood, hesitated before picking up the child. As if the touch would taint her soul.

  The woman who had given birth, a servant with eyes dulled by exhaustion, turned her face to the side. She said nothing. Didn't ask to hold her daughter. She just closed her eyes and exhaled — not a sigh of relief, but the emptying of someone who had already given up.

  The child was wrapped in a torn cloth and dropped into the arms of a guard waiting by the door. He held her like a sack of spoiled flour — a useless load. His face was angular and hard, etched with years of institutional disdain.

  “Record: registered as Lysa,” the scribe murmured. “Class: Nonexistent. Fate: Transfer to State Orphanage 12.”

  “Or straight to the market, if someone pays for the transport,” another added, nearly laughing.

  No one in the room protested.

  In that world, the “System” was the absolute truth. A divine intelligence that, at birth, defined each individual’s Life Value — a number etched into the soul, measured by criteria no one understood, but everyone obeyed. A number that told who deserved to exist… and who didn’t.

  Lysa, with her Value of 0, was no one.

  The orphanage had cracked walls, a smell of mildew, and a courtyard where sunlight barely reached. The other children — even those with a Value of 3 or 5, still deemed useless — avoided Lysa as if she were cursed.

  And maybe she was.

  She didn’t remember her mother’s face, nor the day she arrived there. But she remembered the looks. Always the looks.

  “Don’t go near her.”

  “She brings bad luck.”

  “If you play with her, your Value might drop too.”

  She grew up in corners, curled up. While the others learned to count or practiced small spells under the instructors' eyes, Lysa was ignored. When she learned something just by watching — how to conjure a spark, how to hold a blade — she was punished.

  “That’s not for you,” they said. “You were born with Zero. Not even the System wants you.”

  She wondered why she felt so much if her existence was worthless. Why it hurt so much to be touched with disgust. Why she craved to be truly seen — not like a shadow clinging to the edges.

  Why she wanted to exist.

  At nine, she was sold for the first time. A miner took her to the mountains, using her to dig tunnels too narrow for adults. No food, no bed, no words. When she collapsed from exhaustion, he dragged her back to the market and traded her for a new pair of boots.

  Then came a blacksmith, a bored noblewoman, a collector of rare slaves. With each trade, fewer looks. Fewer words. Lysa learned not to speak. To listen to the silence. To read intent in gestures, in the weight of footsteps, in the fury coiled in hands that struck before they gave orders.

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  But even in silence, she felt. A mute fury pulsed in her chest. As if something inside her screamed constantly, even without sound.

  It’s not fair.

  One day, at fourteen, she fell ill. No one bothered to kill her — maybe out of pity, maybe laziness. They tied her up, threw her into a cart, and took her to the place where they left the “disposables”: a forgotten dungeon buried beneath the foundations of the Empire’s first capital. The place was so old, it no longer appeared on maps.

  “You’ll die painlessly, if you’re lucky,” the coachman said before shoving her down the stairs.

  She tumbled down stone steps, her weak body striking the edges. When she stopped, the darkness was nearly solid. The sound of the gate slamming shut above her was the last echo of civilization.

  There, at the bottom of the world, Lysa remained.

  Alone.

  And that’s where it happened.

  In the first few days, she crawled. No light, no food — only pools of stale water and the smell of mold. The cold burrowed into her bones. The silence was so absolute that even the sound of her own breath startled her.

  She didn’t pray. She didn’t cry. She just thought.

  Why?

  If I’m so worthless, why am I still here?

  If I’m good for nothing, why do I still feel this? This rage? This need to break everything?

  It was on the third day that something changed.

  She reached a deeper chamber — walls covered in inscriptions she didn’t recognize, written in a language that seemed to vibrate inside her chest. At the center, a suspended sphere of glass and metal rotated slowly. Lines of code ran across its surface — like living veins — and the air around it was warm, though no heat source was present.

  Lysa fell to her knees before the sphere. Not out of reverence, but exhaustion. But when her eyes met the inscriptions, something clicked inside her.

  As if she had always been part of it.

  As if this place — forgotten, rejected, unwanted — was the only space where she truly belonged.

  The sphere recognized her.

  Red light flared on its surface. A sound — like a dissonant chord — filled the room. The lines of code vibrated, and one detached, floating toward Lysa’s eyes.

  She didn’t understand the language.

  But she felt it.

  This was the Core. A fragment of the Primordial Code. The foundational structure of the System. The truth behind the lie. Something never meant to be seen by humans. Let alone by someone with a Value of 0.

  But Lysa reached out anyway.

  The line of code pierced her skin like a needle made of light. She gasped, eyes wide as symbols burned inside her — in her mind, her blood, her spirit. Her body convulsed. But she didn’t faint. She couldn’t.

  The System tried to resist.

  But she was already inside.

  Injecting command...

  Authentication failed.

  Forcing unauthorized access...

  Access denied... denied... accepted.

  Lysa collapsed forward, gasping. The sphere went silent. The light faded. But inside her, something had changed.

  She was no longer just a disposable body.

  Now, every higher Value was an opportunity.

  Every soul ranked above her could be consumed, integrated, absorbed. Not just their skills — but their stats. Their place in the world.

  The System had given her 0.

  She would rewrite that — one murder at a time.

  When she left the dungeon, Lysa was no longer the same.

  Her clothes were torn. Her face pale and filthy, but her eyes — those eyes dulled for so long — now glowed crimson, as if reflecting the very logic of the universe.

  The first man she met was a scout, sent to investigate rumors of the forgotten dungeon. When he saw her, he laughed.

  “Didn’t think even the rats ate down here anymore.”

  She smiled. A thin, quiet smile. And killed him with a rock.

  The System shuddered.

  Value transferred: +4.

  Skill acquired: Stealth I.

  Endurance increased.

  Luck increased.

  New status unlocked: Hacked.

  Lysa wiped the blood from the rock with her sleeve and murmured, her voice hoarse from years of silence:

  “One.”

  She had a list. She knew who had sold her. Who had beaten her. Who laughed while she bled. She knew the names. The houses. The crests. Every noble who worshipped the System. Every hero who ignored the world’s shadows.

  They all had Value.

  And she wanted every number.