They were fighting again.

  Just outside the ruined outpost, bursts of light and thunderous impacts shook the ground. Another group of levelers chasing stats, glory, and power. The usual.

  I didn’t care.

  While they swung swords and unleashed fireballs, I crouched near a pile of junk, brushing aside rusted metal and cracked cores.

  “There you are,” I muttered, lifting a small, oddly-shaped crystal. It wasn’t glowing, not yet—but I could feel something hum inside it.

  People say I’m wasting my life. No stats, no skills, no combat class. Just a "Scavenger"—the kind they laugh at, until they need a rare part I already have in my stash.

  They don’t understand.

  I don’t even understand.

  All I know is that I have to collect. Scraps. Relics. Forgotten things. I feel drawn to them, like my soul's chasing after something it lost.

  And maybe—just maybe—that something is about to wake up.

  The next morning, I packed my finds into a worn-out bag—nothing special, just the usual scraps, crystals, and half-working gadgets. I wasn’t sure why I kept half this stuff, but throwing anything away felt… wrong.

  I headed toward the trade road, a dusty path that wound between the fallen and the safer zones. That’s where the merchants came through. That’s where secrets passed hands.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Today, though, something was off.

  The road was quiet. Too quiet.

  Then I saw him—a man with a crooked cart, parked alone beneath a dead tree. His cloak was tattered, his face hidden beneath a strange mask with no eye holes.

  No one else was around.

  “You’re late,” he said, before I could speak.

  I blinked. “Do I know you?”

  “No,” he replied. “But you know what you’re carrying. Even if you don’t understand it yet.”

  He reached into his cart and pulled out a small device—metal, jagged, humming with dormant power.

  “I’ll trade,” he said. “That crystal you picked up yesterday… for this.”

  My hand instinctively gripped the bag.

  I didn’t remember telling anyone about that crystal.

  I didn’t take the trade.

  Something about the merchant felt… wrong. Not just strange—wrong. Like the air around him was hollow, like sound didn’t echo near his cart.

  So I walked away.

  But I didn’t get far.

  By the time I reached the next ridge, the crystal in my bag began to glow.

  Faint at first. Then stronger. A pale, pulsing light, like a heartbeat. I pulled it out, and it felt heavier than before. Warmer, too.

  That’s when the voices started.

  Faint whispers. Not in my ears—in my head. Words I couldn’t understand, spoken in a language older than dirt, yet I somehow felt what they meant:

  “Awaken.”

  “Find the rest.”

  “It begins with the key.”

  I stumbled back, nearly dropping the crystal.

  And then—silence.

  When I looked up, the horizon had shifted. Just past the ridge, where there had been nothing but dust and stone before, now stood something else.

  Ruins. Ancient. Overgrown.

  And at the center, half-buried in sand, was a massive, broken doorway.

  The ruins weren’t on any map I knew. No markers, no warnings, not even a collapsed road to suggest it had ever existed.

  I moved cautiously, each step crunching dry sand beneath my boots. The crystal in my pocket had gone dim again, but I felt it tug at me—guiding me deeper.

  That’s when I saw it.

  Half-buried beneath stone and thorn, nestled between the roots of a dead vine, was… a bag.

  It looked ordinary. Worn leather, a bit dusty, one broken buckle. But when I touched it—my fingers tingled. Like something inside had woken up.

  I opened it.

  Empty.

  Then I dropped in a piece of rusted scrap out of habit.

  Gone.

  Just… gone. Like it vanished into the void.

  I stared, then reached in—and the scrap came right back out, like it had never been lost.

  I tried again. Two items. Then five. Then fifteen. Everything fit.

  No weight change. No bulge. Nothing.

  The bag didn’t just store items. It devoured them—neatly, without a trace. And somehow, every time I added something… I felt more focused. Sharper. Like my instincts were tuning themselves.

  A faint message blinked across the inner flap, written in shifting letters:

  “Gatherer’s Pouch — Spirit Sync: +2”

  I didn't know what that meant.

  But I knew one thing:

  This bag wasn't normal.