Awareness didn't come back all at once. It returned in layers, like a photograph developing in a tray of chemicals. First came the smell—not the stale, metallic scent of a dying apartment, but the fragrance of ancient pine, damp earth, and something electric, like the air right before a summer storm. Then came the sound—not the screeching tires of the city, but the deep, rhythmic thrum of something massive breathing nearby.
I opened my eyes and didn't see a ceiling. I saw a canopy of emerald leaves so thick they blotted out the sun, save for a few stray beams of gold that danced in the air.
I tried to sit up, but my limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated. I looked down at my hands and gasped. They were small. Tiny. The skin was smooth, devoid of the warehouse callouses and the scars from my father's belt. I caught a glimpse of my hair falling over my shoulders—it wasn't the dull brown of my previous life. It was a violent, pulsing red, the color of a dying star.
I crawled toward a small puddle of rainwater trapped in a hollowed-out stone. The reflection that stared back at me was a stranger. A five-year-old boy with vibrant red hair and eyes as blue as the deepest part of the ocean.
I was in Eleceed. But this wasn't the South Korea I had read about. The trees were too tall, the air too thick with energy. This was a modified reality, a place where the legends were more than just stories.
"You're finally awake, little spark."
The voice didn't come from a throat; it resonated in my very marrow. The ground beneath me trembled as a shadow fell over the clearing. I looked up, and my breath hitched.
He was magnificent. A dragon, his scales the color of obsidian, polished to a mirror sheen. But he wasn't just black; ripples of violet and white lightning danced beneath the surface of his skin, appearing like veins of pure energy. His eyes were molten gold, pupils slit vertically, holding the wisdom of a thousand eons.
This was Argon. The Black Lightning Dragon. The being that had plucked me from the edge of death when the lightning strike bridge the worlds.
He lowered his massive head, his snout the size of a small car. A single hot puff of air from his nostrils nearly blew me over. With a delicate movement that defied his size, he nudged a small, glowing red object toward me.
"So, little one," Argon rumbled, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. "This is your food."
I stared at the object. It was an apple. A very ordinary, slightly bruised apple.
"An apple?" I croaked. My voice was high-pitched, the voice of a child. "Really, dude? I just crossed dimensions and survived a lightning strike, and you're giving me a snack?"
The dragon's golden eyes narrowed, though I sensed a flicker of amusement. "Call me 'Dad,' or 'Master.' 'Dude' is a title I am unfamiliar with, little spark."
I let out a shaky laugh, sitting cross-legged on the mossy ground. I picked up the apple and took a bite. It was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted. "Hehe... you know, until yesterday—or whenever my last life ended—my life was useless. I was a shadow. A regret."
Argon settled his massive body into a coil around the clearing, the lightning in his scales humming softly. "Hah. Little one, this world is crueler than you think. Do not let the beauty of this forest fool you. Only the strong survive here. There are beings outside this grove plotting, reaching for power they do not understand, trying to stab each other in the dark."
He looked toward the horizon, where the mountains touched the clouds. "Humans are especially greedy. They find power and try to smother it so they can claim the warmth for themselves."
I thought of my parents. I thought of my brother's coy smile as I was beaten. "I know that better than anyone," I whispered. I looked up at the dragon. "What about the top awakeners? what are they like ?"
Argon let out a snort that sent a spark of black lightning dancing across the grass. "There is a pact. A series of ancient agreements meant to keep beings of my stature from disturbing the human hive. I have observed their 'Top Ten.' They are... capable, in their own small way. But to be the 'hope of humanity,' they are still desperately weak. They play with static while I command the storm."
I looked at my small, soft hands. A cold realization washed over me. "Then I am weak too. I'm just a kid."
Argon leaned in closer, the scent of ozone intensifying. "You have a high affinity for lightning, Arthur. I can feel it vibrating within you, a dormant power waiting to be unleashed. I did not save you to let you wither in the shade."
He paused, his golden gaze searching mine. "Do you wanna train under me, child?"
My heart leapt. In my old life, my "training" was being forced to study until my eyes bled or running until my lungs burned just to avoid a lashing. But here... "Really? You will help me? You won't... you won't hit me if I fail?"
Argon's expression softened, a strange look for a creature of destruction. "Why not? You are my child now. A dragon does not strike his hatchling for stumbling. He teaches him to sharpen his claws."
I felt a lump form in my throat. I wiped my eyes quickly, embarrassed. "So far... no one really did anything for me. Not without wanting something back."
"I do not know what you have been through in that other world, child," Argon said, his voice dropping to a protective growl. "But let me make you strong enough. Strong enough so that no one can ever take your light again. So you can be safe."
I stood up, my small chest swelling with a new, fierce determination. "Yeah. Let's do it. Make me strong."
Argon stood up, his wings unfurling and blotting out the sun entirely. He looked like a god of the apocalypse. "Good. We start now. First, run for twenty kilometers around the perimeter of this grove."
My jaw dropped. "Twenty... what?"
"Then," Argon continued ruthlessly, "two thousand push-ups and two thousand sit-ups. Only after your muscles have been torn and rebuilt will we begin to discuss the manipulation of Aura and the Black Lightning."
I stared at him, certain he was joking. He wasn't. "WATTT! Dude! I'm five! I'm literally a toddler! My bones haven't even finished hardening! I will die, man! I'll actually just explode!"
Argon leaned down, his slit pupils fixed on mine. "Then you die. And you try again in the next life. But if you want to stand at the peak of this world, if you want to be more than a victim... you will run."
I looked at the vast distance of the grove. I looked at my tiny legs. I looked at the dragon who had called me his child.
"Man..." I sighed, beginning to trot toward the treeline. "I always end up in the crazy twists. From a warehouse slave to a dragon's personal marathon runner."
I started to run. My lungs began to ache after the first few hundred meters, and my legs felt like lead. But every time I faltered, I felt a tiny spark of black electricity flicker at the base of my spine, pushing me forward.
For the first time in two lives, I wasn't running away from a belt. I was running toward a future.
The sun was beginning to set when I collapsed. I had finished the run—mostly because Argon had nudged me with his tail every time I tried to stop—and I was currently on push-up number forty-two.
"Forty... three..." I wheezed, my face buried in the dirt. "I can't feel my arms. Argon, I think my arms have actually detached from my body."
"Focus, little spark," the dragon said, lying nearby, watching me with the patience of a mountain. "Pain is just the body's way of admitting it is changing. Feel the energy in the air. Don't use your muscles. Use the power that lies deep within u"
I closed my eyes, my forehead resting on the cool earth. I stopped trying to lift my weight with my strength. Instead, I reached out. I felt the static in the grass, the vibration of the wind against the trees, and the massive, swirling vortex of power that was Argon.
I reached for a tiny sliver of that power.
ZAP.
A spark of black lightning arced from the ground into my palms. Suddenly, my arms felt light. I pushed up, my body snapping into position with a speed that surprised me.
"That's it," Argon whispered, his voice filled with a pride I had never heard directed at me. "That is the beginning. You are no longer just a human, Arthur. You are the son of the Black Lightning."
I looked at my hands. Faint ripples of black energy played across my knuckles. I wasn't just a student anymore. I wasn't a regret.
I was a weapon in the making. And for the first time, I wasn't afraid of the dark.