Albert Brown was a man with a short but harsh life.

Born in New York City to a drug-addicted family, his mother died a few weeks after giving birth to him, and he was solely raised by a junkie father.

A child with no familial love and support could not survive in such conditions, but there was one thing that was on that child's side.

Luck.

As fate had it, a neighborhood auntie had just recently given birth, but her child didn’t make it. Thanks to this fact, she took pity on him and adopted him. Sadly, fate had given him enough, making her lose her life due to cancer when he was three years old.

As for his father...

The man only came by to check if he was alive, constantly frowning at his appearance. When the woman died, he took him back and only gave him scraps to eat.

He was born in a time when things like child abuse were not taken seriously, living in remote and abandoned areas.

He spent his first few years not learning how to write or play around like other kids, but learning how to find his own food and survive on his own.

By age 5, his father would send him to the streets to sell matches, paper tissues, and ‘small stuff’, hoping he’d get him enough money for his alcohol and drugs.

In those years, Albert had witnessed his first robbery and his first killing, being a victim of stabbing.

When you think of New York, you probably think of the towering skyscrapers and of the amazing opportunities; that’s why people called it the no. 1 land of opportunity.

However, that was only for aspiring people who had a certain amount of background. For poor people like Albert, life was hell, witnessing death, theft, and arson on a daily basis.

Life always had its dark spots, not to mention their apartment, which was full of mold and barely big enough for one person.

He would usually sleep in the corner of the room, waiting to somehow fall asleep after getting beaten relentlessly by his drunk father, sobbing silently.

He had gotten so used to getting beaten up, to the point that he didn’t even cry anymore, since that, of course, would be a cause for more beating.

Surprisingly, his father had let him attend school, registering him after relentlessly hearing of his friends bragging about his kids. Thanks to this, he was able to get an education.

He studied a lot on his own, at least enough to be a few classes or even grades ahead. It was his only free time, as he would spend most of his hours either selling things on the streets, peddling, or begging for money after school.

Honestly, it was a miracle he was still alive, only persevering through his sheer instinct to survive.

Teachers would see him bruised up in many places and would express concern to his father, who of course denied having ever touched him and made up excuses about his condition, saying that he easily bruised up after falling or touching something.

There was nothing he could do. It wasn’t like he could retaliate against his own father.

For a small child who had only seen that world, it even seemed normal to him at the time. He thought every child would be beaten to learn and treated like he was.

However, after talking with other kids and beginning to socialize, he realized he was an exception.

Many children would distance themselves from him, probably thanks to his background and family.

Years would pass like this, and he would take odd jobs from time to time to help his junkie father earn money for his things.

At the same time, his father would constantly freeload from him, using him like a slave.

As for finding a job, he would find one and get fired soon after due to misconduct.

By that time, he had realized that he was far ahead of other children his age when it came to education, at least in public school, as he would spend most of his free time studying.

As he had no other books, he would spend the small amount of side money he had hidden from his father to dawdle at the library while he was at work.

To this day, he is glad he made that decision, securing knowledge to cultivate himself.

He would spend all his free time there, reading all sorts of books, be they comics, novels, or educational books.

It all seemed so fascinating to his small world.

Once again, surprisingly, his father didn’t tell him to drop out of high school; however, he made him do more part-time jobs.

The reason was simple. It was face.

It seemed that his grades were excellent, as he was a straight-A student even without anyone’s guidance.

He would spend his time bragging that his son was smart to his drunken friends, which of course didn’t mean anything to Albert.

He finished high school with a 5.0 GPA and had taken the SAT test twice, once with a 1530 score and the last one with a 1600 score, thanks to his hard work.

This, of course, came as a surprise to his father; however, to Albert’s own shock, he beat him to unconsciousness when he told him about it.

He couldn’t understand the reason at the time, but now he could.

He was clearly feeling inferior that his son, who was beaten almost every day, worked like a dog, and begged like a beggar, was able to get a 5.0 GPA and be in the top 1% of the country in the SAT.

Albert’s body had become really tan and well built over the years; however, it was full of wounds, be they scratches or even cuts, be they from thrown bottles, cigarette burns, or even stab wounds. His body was covered in them.

He had looked at his father with the wish to kill him for a few years, harboring severe ill will towards him.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it, but he didn’t dare.

After all, he was his father. For all 18 years of his life, he had been beaten up by him so many times that he had an instinctual fear of him.

 

---

 

Albert had applied to colleges that he found interesting, Harvard being one of them.

His letter of acceptance came in from Harvard after a few weeks.

That day, things were the worst they had ever been, and his father was furious. He had never expected him to apply to college, especially to such a prestigious college as Harvard.

His father was not like other fathers, who would congratulate their children.

He was a bastard who almost crippled his son that day, beating him so badly that he didn’t wake up for a few days.

After that day, Albert completely changed his approach towards his father, having had enough of him.

He had decided to put him in jail to finally be free from his clutches, as he didn’t have the guts to harm him in any other way.

After a year of trials and with sufficient evidence and help from his neighbors, as well as countless witness testimonies, Albert was able to lock his father in prison for life.

Of course, if it was just child abuse, he would just have to pay a certain fine and face a smaller number of years in prison; however, this man had done worse things than one can imagine.

Albert had dug up any sort of information he could on him, getting him as much time in prison as possible.

As his father had no extra money to even defend himself and get a proper lawyer, it was much easier for Albert since he had been stockpiling money for a few years now.

His father had committed countless crimes, child abuse being the obvious one, followed by drug trafficking, sexual assaults, and two cases of rape.

Of course, there was one more horrible thing: actual man slaughter.

Albert was able to dig up this information by interrogating his drunkard buddies with the police, as he was sure his junkie father had done some incredibly horrific things when he was not around.

He had raped two 16-year-old girls and was able to get away with one, while he killed the other and dumped her body into a river.

Thankfully, they were able to dig up old footage, and the police were surprised to find that there was evidence of the crimes, reprimanding and fining the warehouse owners for not reporting such data.

The corpse was, of course, later discovered, and the family was informed.

 

---

 

The matter didn’t take too long; within a few months, Albert was freed from his father’s scope, which got him multiple life sentences in prison.

Finally, free from his father, he started living his life like a human.

He sold their old, shitty apartment to some people who actually needed it more than he did.

That day, of course, he witnessed another drive-by shooting.

After moving to Cambridge, he was able to attend Harvard. Of course he would do part-time jobs to get by, as he was incredibly poor, and by that period of time, he had already gotten into writing novels and literature in his free time.

Surprisingly, he was able to earn a small amount of money from them after contacting a publishing company and getting it serialized.

Having entered the department of business, since that’s what he thought would be the best for him, he did not regret it.

Having spent most of his life roaming the streets, peddling, and doing business, he thought this would be the perfect path for him.

 

---

 

His twenties went by in a blink of an eye, having finished college and getting a stable job at a decent-sized company.

Having a good income and buying a house and a car of his own.

Just like before, he would still spend most of his free time either hanging out with friends from college or writing novels.

Having been in a few romantic relationships, he realized that he wasn’t ready to get serious and get married, despite being already in his thirties.

It would be good if he could settle down and have a relaxing, fulfilling life; however, he was restless, as if stopping for a bit to enjoy his life would result in him losing everything and returning to zero.

Like so, another five years passed.

One day, while he was returning home from work, he got out of his car and was about to walk towards his front door.

As his house was located in a somewhat desolate area, and since he didn’t enjoy the bustling of the city, cars would rarely pass by here.

A car pulled up. He could see four or maybe five people inside the car.

One of them suddenly opened the window and shouted something.

Albert couldn’t make out what he had said as the sound of a muzzle flash rang in his ears.

Before he could realize what was going on, a bullet wound had appeared in his chest.

Touching the wound, blood spurted all over his clothes.

Even after looking at the blood on his hands in disbelief, a few more gunshots were heard, and more holes appeared on his body.

He couldn’t comprehend what was happening to him.

The car stopped as the person who shot him came over and fondled his pockets, pulling out his wallet and saying.

"Sorry, buddy, but we ran out of cash, so I'm taking this.”

Before proceeding to check the money, smiling, storming off to the car, and leaving, shouting something to them.

Albert couldn’t believe that his final moments on earth were caused by a drive-by shooting, something that he had seen multiple times as a child.

As he bled out, the cold feeling in his body dissipated as a warm feeling overcame it.

His eyes relaxed and slowly closed soon after he breathed his last.

 

---

 

Albert wandered in a void of consciousness, unable to comprehend his situation.

He didn’t know if he existed or if anything existed. The only thing resonating in this void is the sound of a chime.

Suddenly, he felt sensations that he had almost forgotten in this void.

He opened his eyes, letting out an uncontrollable cry.

In the next moment, he found himself in the arms of a man, his face incredibly beautiful, but he was Asian, which he was not. He had never seen this person before in his life.

As his mind was still hazy, he thought he was dreaming.

He opened his mouth, trying to scream out, but to his dismay, he couldn’t produce the words he wanted; the only sound coming out of his mouth was an infant’s cry. This resulted in him screaming harder, only for the same thing to happen.

After calming himself, he observed his situation, remembering that he had died.

Even if he hadn’t read dozens of fantasy books with this trope, he would have still come to the conclusion that he was reborn.

 

---

 

Albert Brown was reborn as Guang Rui, the son of Guang Ryuji and Guang Ya, an extremely loving family that owned a tavern.

However, if things had gone happily ever after, then it would’ve been great, but somehow things were weird in his new life.

He was reborn in a world of cultivators; of course, that wasn’t what they called them here; they called them Rune masters.

They were people who utilized some unique things called runes.

Having learned this fact, his expectations of the future were great, as he could become the main character of his own story, but things weren’t looking good for him in that aspect.

His family was a family of commoners, with no rune masters in their known lineage.

Thankfully, this family of his had a tavern, which would earn a stable income.

By his second year of living in this world, his family had increased by one, with a little brother.

His name is Guang Jian.

Both his mother and father were happy, of course, as having sons in this world seemed like a good thing.

Even though his father was a mortal, he was incredibly good-looking, while his mother looked mediocre at best.

Weirdly enough, though, Rui’s appearance resembled a smaller version of his father's, being extremely pretty.

By age 10, he was a well-built child with long black hair and bright blue eyes, just like his father.

His 8-year-old brother was similar in appearance to both him and his father; however, he had bright red eyes, just like his mother.

 

---

 

In this new world, power was everything. If one was weak, he would be stumped out like weeds.

Especially for commoners like them, in front of rune masters they were nothing but livestock.

Rui had witnessed it multiple times: the difference between a rune master and a commoner.

They would kill commoners like weeds, either by directly cutting them or crushing their heads like they were watermelons.

The sheer difference in power was compared to that of a professional heavyweight boxer and a normal adult man.

Of course, they didn’t call commoners "commoners," but mortals.

A rune master, even a low-ranking one, was still far more powerful than a mortal.

The city that they lived in was the capital city of the illusive empire, the empire created by the illusion emperor.

This sort of information was basic knowledge, and basic knowledge for rune masters was also common since they were almost everywhere.

One could see a rune master for every one thousand mortals, but of course their ranks were incredibly low.

Rune masters were beings that awakened something called an innate rune. Commoner mortals could give birth to an individual with a rune.

The innate rune would be awakened in the awakening ceremony held every new year. One would have to take it when they reached the age of 14, and it was mandatory.

The reason was, in fact, quite simple. If someone was incorrectly awakened, they could explode into a mass of energy and cause massive damage; as such, even mortals like Rui would be eligible to awaken.

However, to be honest with himself, he had extremely low expectations.

Even if he had awakened as a rune master, the rune he would probably possess was Nauthiz, the rune of necessity, an extremely low-ranked rune with limited potential, but it was still better than nothing.

 

---

 

Having reached the age of 14, Rui had to partake in the awakening ceremony that would be taking place today.

He said goodbye to his parents and his little brother with eyes full of emptiness. He was not expecting anything, while his family cheered him on.

Especially his little brother, his eyes were shining in anticipation. A bitter smile couldn’t help but form on Rui’s lips as he looked at him.

Even though he came from a commoner family, he was incredibly good-looking, even by earth standards. He could have been a supermodel or even a K-pop star with this face.

Not to mention the unique contrast his blue eyes created with his eastern-looking appearance.

He was called the prince of the commoners by the rune masters and customers.

Thankfully, even though he was teased by low-ranking Rune masters’ multiple times, he was never beaten up more horribly than his father did on earth.

Since he would train together with his younger brother, be it sword training or body training, since they required at least a basic level of fitness to survive in this man-eats-man world, the damage the low-ranking rune masters did didn’t matter much.

As he approached the awakening altar, he looked at the row of people queuing up.

They were all mortals, since people from rich or noble households of clans and sects would be personally awakened by their family members.

“Hooh, look who’s here; it’s the prince of the commoners!”

Said a tall, muscular man with a rune on his forehead. This, of course, was a rune master and one that had harassed Rui multiple times in the past. His name was Lao Shi, and he was what one would call a typical Thug Mob character.

"Greetings, Master Lao Shi.”

Rui said while bowing.

Of course, he wasn’t sincere with his greeting, and it could be heard in his voice, but Lao Shi let him be for the time being, not wanting to cause a commotion on such an occasion.

Just as Rui was waiting in line, a shout was heard from up ahead, its voice full of excitement.

“I’ve awakened! Hahahah! And as a Fehu! The gods of luck and fortune are looking upon me and my family!”

Just as the teenager was screaming in excitement, a group of elders approached him with amicable smiles and offered him incredibly high positions for a mortal.

However, seeing this scene, Rui couldn’t help but scoff.

‘They were probably going to suck this poor guy dry.’

He thought, feeling bad for the guy.

The Fehu rune was known as the rune of luck and was incredibly rare. By just having the individual in their sect or clan, they could make the family prosper.

However, of course, mortals didn’t know their true worth, so they would be enticed by just the bare basics.

Such plots and manipulations were basic, especially in this cruel world.

Looking ahead, he saw that two more individuals had awakened, one with Nauthiz and the other with Berkana.

Seeing as more people had awakened, different people went ahead to recruit them. Of course, the Berkana user was offered a much higher amount for his contract.

Berkana was the rune of beginnings and was a rare rune that would boost one’s family if it ever appeared. Of course, Nauthiz was nothing special, barely even qualifying as a rune.

A bunch more mortals were tested, and only a few Nauthiz popped up here and there, and one person even awakened with the Inguz rune, the rune of growth and fertility. He was instantly given offers, as he was guaranteed to have a certain amount of growth thanks to his rune.

After 15 minutes, it was finally Rui’s turn.

A tall man resembling a brown bear looked at him with a bright smile and said,

“Such a good-looking lad will probably have great talents.”

Placing his hands on Rui’s chest.

Just as he was about to insert his energy and awaken him, he stopped and frowned. Turning around and saying to his friend behind him.

“Hey, I ran out of rune energy; take a few till I recover.”

The man behind him looked at him, shrugged, and smiled.

“You already tested a thousand people, so of course it was used up; just relax.”

Seeing this exchange, Rui thought that he was already tested and was about to leave; however, he was stopped by the tall man’s yell.

"Hey, little brother, you still haven’t been tested; I just ran out of rune energy!”

Hearing his words, Rui looked at him, perplexed.

‘Did he have to raise my expectations suddenly? I already had no hope of awakening; even if I did, it would be a shitty rune like Nauthiz anyway.’

Resolving himself for a bad outcome, Rui waited patiently to be awakened.

The new person nodded and proceeded to test him.

A bright ray of light burst through, shocking him and the people nearby.

A rune slowly appeared on Rui’s forehead, glowing in a bright blue light.

Surprise shone in Rui’s eyes.

‘What was this exaggerated reaction? What rune did I awaken?’

Just as he was thinking of what it was, something popped up right in front of him.

However, the others didn’t notice and screamed.

“Ansuz! This kid awakened as an Ansuz!”

“It really is the Ansuz rune! Heavens!”

“A sage born out of mortals! The heavens have spoken!”

Buzzing was heard in the crowd, and many elders of clans and sects were looking at each other in disbelief.

The tall, bear-like man suddenly got up from recovering and laughed. He was happy that the batch he supervised had such a result.

“What great luck! My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me when I saw this little brother!”

Lao Shi, who was witnessing this scene, was dumbstruck, with fear slowly creeping in as he had done many horrible things to this little guy. He hoped that he wouldn’t take any sort of revenge against him.

All of the onlookers stared in astonishment.

However, the person who was the center of attention, Rui, was looking at the air as if he had seen a ghost.

In front of his eyes, something had appeared.