Peter’s empty gaze did not falter as he sat in his usual squatting spot in the slums and observed the boy sleeping nearby.

If he let his mind wander too much, he could almost imagine the boy next to him being the same kid who had been taken by that man.

The thought of what he had been forced to accept unsettled his newfound confidence. As his interaction with the man had proven one thing – he might be free now, even if only barely, but that didn’t mean everyone was free nor that he could help them no matter how much he wanted to.

Whether he liked it or not, the world had existed before him, and there were those who just by dint of that fact were far more powerful and important than he was and they practiced things that he found abhorrent.

Yet, who was he to stop them?

Even now, in his ‘freedom’, he was back in the slums toiling away everyday making crappy enchanted items to fool a girl into continuing to teach him whilst he waits for his [Idle Progression] perk to finish whatever upgrade its assigned to.

His previous sense of optimism about the future was now tainted, but it did endure as Peter reminded himself that given enough time – nothing would be able to stop him.

However, he couldn’t help but clench his fists every time he imagined the sleeping boy, or even his younger former self, being dragged away by that man and everyone in the city just being completely fine with it – not daring to put up even a symbolic and empty fuss.

Yet, he couldn’t help everyone like him as he was, and he doubted he would be able to help them any time soon either, but Peter’s moral compass, despite it being frayed in recent months, refused to do nothing in the face of what he had seen.

Something was happening in the state-run orphanages and Peter would figure it out and do his best to fix it – though, he knew, that fixing the problem entirely would probably take the rest of his life if what was happening was what he suspected.

The sound of the rain battering against his squatting spot’s frail roof growing harder and harder broke him out of his thoughts about the potential slave ring in his area and transitioned his focus towards thinking back to the conditions that Katie had said were necessary to be met if he wanted to legally ascend the standard way.

1. He had to own a house.

2. He had to not be visibly poor when he turned up to the social advancement office.

3. And, finally, he had to have someone of the [Bronze] rank or above there to vouch for him as a worthy candidate for ascension.

Peter had the final condition sorted with Katie saying she would vouch for him. But, he was still months away from being able to sell any halfway decent enchanted items and thus make the necessary money to buy the mandatory house.

Though, honestly, Peter didn’t understand why the house was even necessary. It wasn’t like he was buying a house for him to live in permanently, as once he ascended, he would have to then buy a [Bronze] rank house to ascend any further. And he very doubted he’d make so much money that he could afford to keep his [Copper] rank house and form some kind of property empire.

Katie had offered to lend him money, but Peter wasn’t so keen on the idea and would do his best to avoid borrowing as much as he could.

He would earn his money through his enchanted item sales, and then only if he truly had to, he would borrow a small amount of money from the girl.

That was his solid position on the matter.

----------------------------------------

2 weeks later, Peter had caved into the girl’s not-so-subtle peer pressure and borrowed a massive amount of money from her to buy himself a house in the upper end of the [Copper] district as well as some new fancy-ish clothes to wear.

Katie was far keener on his ascension than he thought – as she seemed to be in a hurry to get his ascension over and done with.

Peter had no idea why she was in such a rush, but he had run out of the patience necessary to deal with her incessant nagging and thereby put off borrowing money any longer.

Though, if he was being fair to her, he also couldn’t deny that he was probably the keenest of them both to ascend, for obvious reasons, and so perhaps it had taken far less convincing than he liked to admit getting him to do as he had done.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Regardless, now he “owned” a home.

The home itself was quite similar to every other home in the [Copper] class district; meaning there wasn’t much decoration but there were a few basic rooms with a few basic bits of furniture that all served to create a somewhat liveable space.

However, from Peter’s point of view, this was way luxurious and it kind of disoriented him, and adding to his vertigo was the fact that Peter had barely spent a few minutes inside his new home before Katie had dragged him out by the length of his rags to get moving towards the nearest seamstress to get him some half decent clothes.

The seamstress had recognised Katie at first but looked utterly shocked to see that the teen had already ascended to the [Bronze] rank – something that most people never did, and especially not when they were in their early to mid-teens.

Whilst Peter could somewhat relate to that feeling of astonishment when it came to Katie’s absurd growth and talent as an individual, the more time Peter spent with her, the more he realised that her abrasive personality dragged down her image in his mind and the less he thought that much of her.

The seamstress’ shop itself had been rather cramped, with racks and racks of half-finished clothes crowding the already small room. The floor had been covered in dust, and Peter had coughed quite heavily the whole time that the woman had tried her best to measure Peter’s proportions carefully and precisely.

After an awkward interaction as the woman tried to measure his upper thigh’s width, the measuring had concluded, and he and Katie were told to wait in the main compartment of the store as she had decided that their order was her current top priority.

This had initially confused Peter, but Katie had been quick to give him a hint, “Legally speaking, those of a higher social [Rank] have to pay more for services in establishments in districts below their rank – as a form of noblesse oblige as it were.”

Peter had no idea what the last few words of Katie’s sentence meant, but he nodded his head anyway as he very much understood being driven to extreme loads of work in the pursuit of greater profit.

He had put in quite a lot of work at the tavern as a younger kid to keep himself fed, and so he understood the woman’s passion and drive – one’s prosperity and survival were one hell of a motivation multiplier.

A mere hour later, the clearly tired woman wiped her forehead of the sweat that had built up, and stretched out her back a bit, all as she walked into the main compartment of the store to hand Peter’s new clothes to him.

Katie thanked the woman, then paid the exorbitant bill, and then looked at Peter with a glare that screamed ‘I am about to give you an order, and you dare not disobey it.’

Finally, she spoke, and her usual commanding tone rang out, “Now, get changed, we’re going to head to the social advancement office right away – there is no point in waiting any longer. We’re already days behind schedule and we’re swiftly running out of what little time we have left.”

Peter blinked once, then twice, then looked down at the clothes in his hands and then at the clothes he was wearing.

Katie stared daggers at him expectantly, and after a few seconds more resistance, Peter gulped before he ran to the back compartment of the store and hurriedly did his best to put on the new clothes he had just been “graciously gifted”.

The clean white shirt and silky black trousers were of a quality unlike anything Peter had ever experienced before, and they felt remarkably comfortable on his skin and he thus swore that he would never let these clothes be ruined.

“Would you hurry up in there?!” Katie’s voice shouted from the main compartment, and Peter hurried back to her – now fully dressed, and having completely forgotten about his old set of rags.

Once he was back in the main compartment of the seamstress’ store, Katie had given him a once over with her eyes and said – “You look passable, now let’s go.”

And with that, she had already started walking out of the seamstress’ shop at a fast-walking pace.

Peter scrambled after her, rushing through the thin gap that acted as the door to the shop and after a bit of running he caught up with Katie – whose eyes were filled with an unfamiliar intensity of dedication.

The two walked down the main road of the city, passing by some decent-looking shops that seemed to be franchises of one larger guild or another, as well as those stores that were quite obviously being run by desperate people barely getting by in this harsh new reality.

The sun hung low in the afternoon sky, and a cool late winter evening wind began to caress Peter’s face as he fast-walked towards the very centre of the still remarkably busy city.

However, something felt… off.

Whether it was that the wind blowing against his face felt oddly weak, the smells from the street vendors that seemed far too metallic to be normal, or the sky above that began to imperceptibly dim with each second that passed, the world itself seemed to be whispering words of warning to each of Peter’s senses.

Yet, whilst this new set of phenomena seemed to unsettle Peter a little, they downright seemed to terrify Katie who stopped in her tracks and her head shot upwards to look into the sky before she began to mutter meaninglessly.

A few seconds later, the ground beneath everyone’s feet began to shake, and the sound of screaming could be heard as people ran around in fear that this was the first of many future earthquakes that would hit humanity since the apocalypse had begun.

However, in time, the earth's trembling would prove to mean far more important than this as a minute or so later the sun in the sky suddenly turned green and it shot back up to the central position in the sky – and the whole world was soon bathed in this new star’s sickly pale green light.

Then, a roar that shattered the sky echoed through all of known creation, straining the limit of the human ear to hear, and then, like the fire revealing itself from within the smoke, it appeared and began to descend from the highest heavens – its jaws wide open, as if it was going to swallow the earth itself.

And, unable to handle the emotions running through him, Peter blacked out – falling face-first onto the pavement below.