The portal cracked open in the middle of my apartment like it was slicing reality in half.
No big summoning spell, no arcane light show, just a ripple of pressure and a deep whoosh as the air warped and folded inward. My hair flew back from the force and the windowpanes trembled like they had been caught in a wind tunnel. Then, just like that, it was there.
A delivery portal.
I stepped forward cautiously, eyes narrowed, until the air inside the portal shimmered and ejected a container onto the apartment floor. It landed with a soft thud and the moment the portal closed behind it, silence returned to the room like a sigh of relief.
I stared at the case.
So this was it. My official deployment gear.
I knelt, fingers brushing over the surface of the case. It recognized my Flux signature immediately and hissed open with precision, each side unfolding like metal petals. Inside, packed neatly with almost ceremonial care, was everything I'd need to survive the Cursed Basin—or at least, try to.
The first thing I noticed was the backpack.
Sleek, matte-gray, reinforced with absorbing material and multiple magnetic latches. It had compression capabilities, tools, and even a hidden stasis chamber for storing mined Synsiline. It probably cost more than my old apartment complex back on Earth. I slid it on and immediately felt how well it clung to me, like a second spine. And it said that it had a lot of space inside it so maybe it's one of those bags which can store even the biggest of items like in ancient animations.
Next: the pickaxe. Except, calling it a "pickaxe" was an insult.
This thing was a masterpiece. Lightweight but incredibly dense, with a dual-mode switch that shifted the head from regular impact to Flux-infused channeling. It glowed faintly in my hands, as if recognizing its new owner. I tested the weight and it felt right.
Then I picked up the bracelet.
It looked deceptively simple: a silver ring with faint glyphs etched into its surface, almost like tattoos that shimmered under the light. I clipped it onto my wrist and instantly, a system booted in my head, like something brushing past the back of my thoughts. It synced with my Flux, taking my vitals, my neural data, and feeding me interface options through micro-projected visuals in the corner of my eye.
Flux Interface System Bracelet. FISB. Custom-designed.
Probably Phaser's doing. That smug bastard.
And then… the armor.
My breath hitched for a second.
It wasn't what I'd expected. It was better.
Gone was the clunky, old protection I'd worn on my first day. What sat before me now was streamlined. Black with shimmering accents, slim and form-fitting yet clearly fortified with Synsiline-infused plates. The joints were flexible. The chestplate, reinforced. The gauntlets had adjustable plates, and the boots—god, the boots—looked like they could kick a tank and leave a dent.
My forger. That little genius of a blond.
He must've worked on this behind the scenes while Phaser turned me into mashed potatoes on the training floor. There was even a handwritten tag inside the chest plate.
"Be the sword you want to wield. -Levon"
Damn it. That made me feel things.
Last, but absolutely not least, was the weapon.
And oh, it was beautiful. Still, I hated it.
The strings were attached to gloves instead of gauntlets. And unlike before, it felt less like borrowed power and more like something that belonged to me now.
I stood slowly, fully geared, catching my reflection in the window.
There she was.
Permonelle. No longer just the sarcastic Earth girl with trust issues and trauma buried under caffeine and sass. Now, she looked like a warrior. An elite. Someone who belonged in this world.
But then the weight of it all settled in.
I was actually going mining.
Like, real mining. With a weapon, a backpack, a death bracelet, and the emotional stability of a half-feral alley cat.
And I knew nobody was actually going to stick to the storm sector.
No one worth their Flux rating was going to play it safe at the 75% survival zone. Not when rarer Synsiline was deeper in, when the other areas offered greater rewards, if you were dumb or strong enough to try. The spooky forest? The bare plain? Even the unknown zone? Yeah, I bet people were already scheming how to get down there.
And I knew I'd do the same.
The deeper we went, the stronger the Synsiline and if I wanted any chance of surviving in this mad world or climbing the ranks, I couldn't afford to settle for scraps.
But then, the other thought crept in. The real problem. It wasn't the monsters or the Lurkers or the nightmare storms.
It was the people.
The operatives I'd be grouped with. I didn't know who they were yet, but I'd seen the way they looked at me during the briefing. The whispers. The cold glares. The outright resentment.
The serum I drank, one of the rarest kind in all of Erae, possibly made with blood access from the Five Erasnae themselves? The personal training with Phaser? The tailor-made equipment and armor upgrades? Yeah. It was a neon sign screaming favoritism.
They hated me.
And it wasn't even irrational. From their point of view, I probably looked like some spoiled chosen one who hadn't earned her stripes but still got all the perks. Some even thought I was sleeping with Phaser to get them—gross—and that rumor had spread like wildfire.
Would they actually try to kill me?
Maybe not directly. But in the Basin, where anything could happen and death was always a breath away… "accidents" weren't rare. A teammate slipping off a cliff. Being left behind during a retreat. A friendly fire incident during a panic moment.
Maybe that was why Phaser trained me like he did. He didn't coddle me. He broke me. Built me back up and made me earn my ability to survive.
Because he knew that in the real world, kindness was a luxury. Trust was suicide. And survival? That was something you had to fight for, especially when your own team might want you dead.
Still, despite all that, I didn't feel afraid. Not exactly.
I felt… ready.
Not because I knew I'd win. But because I finally understood what game I was playing.
I let out a slow breath, peeling off my gear, folding the armor neatly on the prep rack Phaser had installed in the corner of my room. My limbs ached from the training, my fingers still twitched from string manipulation drills, and my back had developed this permanent dull ache that told me I was officially battle-worn.
But my mind was clear.
The bed looked like heaven. I crashed into it in a tank top and shorts, the lights dimming automatically.
No more worrying. No more running scenarios in my head. No more paranoia for tonight.
Tomorrow, I'd enter the storm. Maybe even go deeper. And I'd survive.
No matter who I had to face, Lurkers, HODs, or backstabbers in my own squad, I would live.
Because that was all I had left to do.