Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!

Three hours later, Morzan, Julian, Blackie, and Micah stood together, staring into the sky as the massive mech, Shatterstar, descended through the clouds. Its steel frame glowed faintly, humming with restrained power, before settling heavily on the ground before them.

With a mechanical hiss, the chest hatch slowly opened.

Ethan emerged, his movements stiff and deliberate. In his right hand, he carried a black wooden box; strapped to his left arm was the sleek, high-tech watch that KH3106 had always worn.

Morzan's expression darkened instantly. Julian and the others had no idea what the wooden box meant, but Morzan knew at once. It was a Four-Corner Box—an artifact from Earth. Each person was allowed to use one only once in their lifetime, and the reason for its existence was unmistakable.

Ethan had an urn.

The explanation was almost absurd, yet tragically fitting. Years ago, when Ryan had been scraping by to survive, he had moonlighted as a spiritualist, dabbling in odd jobs and even selling funerary trinkets. When Ethan had helped pack Ryan's belongings to move into the Whitmore estate, everything had been dumped into Ethan's Mindscape for storage, the urn included.

He had forgotten about it during his long coma, only rediscovering it when idly sorting through his Mindscape. At the time, he had cursed the thing as useless clutter, intending to throw it away. But now—of all things—it had found its purpose.

Dragging his broken body through unbearable pain, Ethan had spent two hours collecting every trace of gray ash from the pilot's pod. KH3106, their taciturn ally, would not be abandoned here in the desolate Spirit Realm. Ethan would take him home to Earth, to rest.

"Boss, where's that 3106 guy?" Blackie craned his neck toward the mech.

Ethan took a deep breath, his voice low. "He's gone."

The words silenced them all. Ethan recounted what had happened, his tone steady though the grief was plain beneath it.

That night, in a world of dust and shadows, he laid out a feast with the best food he had left. It was a farewell banquet for KH3106. Though they had only known the pilot briefly, he had saved them more than once, wielding Shatterstar as both sword and shield. Around the firelight, Julian and the others came to understand Ethan more deeply. They learned that he was not of their world—that he did not come from Umbral Star—and that his time with them was running short.

When the silence grew too heavy, Ethan finally stood. "There's no time for mourning. We need to move. We're going back."

Every step sent lances of agony through him. His bones, broken over a year ago, still showed no signs of healing. The pain had only worsened, gnawing deeper each day.

With a gesture, Ethan drew KH3106's urn into his spatial storage, then fiddled briefly with the watch. Shatterstar shimmered with light, collapsing into nothingness as it was drawn back inside. Only then did Ethan realize the truth: the watch wasn't just a control unit. It was Shatterstar's core.

Within it lay an entire self-contained workshop—an autonomous forge capable of repairing the mech no matter how badly it was damaged. And Shatterstar's body itself was forged of memory alloy, able to heal over time, almost impossible to destroy. Even more astonishing, Ethan discovered he could alter the mech's external design, a feature he welcomed eagerly. KH3106's sense of aesthetics, apparently, had been dreadful.

Just as Ethan was turning these revelations over, Morzan—silent until now, his flask nearly empty—finally spoke. "Going somewhere, boy? You think you've got no debts left to settle?" His eyes burned as they locked onto Ethan.

Ethan frowned, exhausted. "What are you talking about?"

Then it struck him. Right—the creature sealed in his Mindscape.

Closing his eyes, Ethan sank into the inner world of his consciousness. He arrived just in time to see Beastie, now in a humanoid form, bouncing gleefully atop the Sigil of the Wild Legion, each jump sending ripples of power surging outward. Beneath it, the cage of living branches—woven from the Tree of Life itself—struggled to contain a writhing black mist.

"Master! You're back!" Beastie chirped.

Ethan blinked. For a second, he thought it was Luna speaking. But then Luna herself appeared, alongside Yaya. Both girls looked older now, closer to seven or eight years old. Luna no longer wore her childish topknot, her white dress fluttering with a hint of heroic poise. Yaya, in a pale green gauze dress, still looked delicate, though there was an undercurrent of resilience in her eyes.

"Master…" Luna said softly.

"Brother!" Yaya chimed in.

Ethan gawked at their growth. "How did you get so big so fast?"

"Easy," Luna replied, pointing to the cage. "That thing poured us with power. We grew."

Ethan's eyes sharpened. "It's not dead yet?"

"No… but it's close," Yaya admitted.

The black mist inside the cage was faint, nearly transparent. Ethan's stomach dropped. If they'd gone any further, the creature would have been destroyed outright. He remembered Morzan's warning, cold sweat prickling his skin.

"Beastie, stop! Come down!" Ethan barked, halting the Sigil's endless pounding. Yaya complied, slowly unraveling the cage. What emerged was a black sphere, the size of a soccer ball, quivering with weakness.

"You win! I'll agree to anything!" a desperate voice wailed from within.

Before Ethan could even speak, the creature blurted out again, cutting him off: "Just let me out—I'll take you to what you're looking for!"

The sphere trembled violently, as if afraid even one more strike would shatter it. Ethan hesitated only a moment before the Gate of Ascension opened within his Mindscape. The creature didn't wait for the threshold to widen—it shot through like a prisoner fleeing a collapsing cell.

Ethan's consciousness snapped back. A sharp pain lanced through his brow, followed by a burst of black light. The creature emerged into the physical world, hovering before Morzan.

"Follow me!" it commanded, wasting no words before darting away.

Morzan glanced once at Ethan, then seized his arm and pulled him along in pursuit.

Blackie groaned, flopping back into his seat. "Great… more waiting. Just what I needed."

"Waiting? I'll give you something better to do." Micah smirked, kicking Blackie's stool out from under him. Blackie yelped as he hit the ground.