Chapter 2 Chapter 2: The Only Talent: Infinite Fusion!

Whoosh!

White light cascaded down like a waterfall.

Ethan blinked.

He was standing in the middle of a sun-drenched town square, surrounded by cobblestone streets, wooden storefronts, and the distant sound of wind rolling through open fields. The sky above was impossibly blue — the kind of blue you never saw in Fresno.

【Ding~ Welcome, player, to the NeuralVerse World. You have been randomly assigned to Maplewood Town, Westland Server!】

A slow smile crept across Ethan's face.

Same starting village as last time.

He remembered every inch of this place. Every alley. Every hidden chest. Every NPC with a secret quest tucked behind a throwaway line of dialogue.

Other players would spend days figuring out what Ethan already knew by heart.

He intended to use every single second of that advantage.

【Ding~ Please set your username!】

He didn't hesitate.

【Cole】

Short. Clean. His.

【Ding~ Player Cole, identity confirmed!】

【Ding~ Based on your login device tier — Bronze Grade — you have received one Lucky Draw opportunity. Please proceed!】

The system prompt dissolved, and in its place, a massive glowing spin wheel materialized in front of him. It was loaded, rare skill books, powerful artifacts, high-tier crafting materials, things that could completely reshape a player's early game.

Ethan gave it a casual flick.

【Ding~ Congratulations! You have won 7th Prize: Level 1 Health Potion x10!】

The lowest reward on the board.

He shrugged.

Better than nothing. Health potions were genuinely useful in the early grind, and honestly, the wheel had already served its real purpose just by existing, it confirmed he was in the right place, on the right track.

The Bronze headset's true value hadn't come from the wheel anyway.

【Ding~ Draw complete. Have a pleasant game!】

Ethan immediately clicked the blinking mail icon in the corner of his interface.

【Ding~ Congratulations! You have claimed your reward and obtained the one-of-a-kind SSS-Rank Talent: Infinite Fusion!】

He'd told himself he was ready for this moment.

He wasn't.

His chest tightened. His pulse spiked so hard he could feel it in his fingertips. Something hot and electric rushed through him, equal parts joy and disbelief and the kind of desperate relief that only comes from a man who'd already lost everything once.

He pulled up his talent panel with trembling hands.

【Infinite Fusion】(Stage 1)

Talent Rank: SSS-Grade (Highest)

Effect 1 — Equipment Fusion: Any two pieces of equipment sharing the same type, level, and quality tier can be fused into a single piece of the next quality tier. Maximum ceiling: Gold-Ancient Immortal Grade. Fused equipment is automatically soul-bound — cannot be traded, dropped, or transferred.

Effect 2: Unlocks upon advancing to Stage 2.

Advancement Requirement: 10 Reputation Points.

Ethan stared at it for a long moment.

Then he read it again.

"Fusion ceiling of Gold-Ancient Immortal Grade?"

He exhaled slowly through his nose.

In NeuralVerse, equipment quality climbed through seven tiers, White Common ~ Green Fine ~ Blue Rare ~ Purple Epic ~ Orange Legendary ~ Red Mythic ~ Gold Ancient Immortal.l

In his entire first life, Ethan had never once touched a piece of Purple-Epic gear. Not once. He'd spent a year clinging to Blue-Rare scraps and calling himself lucky.

And this talent could theoretically reach the absolute ceiling of the game's item system.

But that wasn't even the part that stopped his breath.

"This talent has stages."

"Stage 1 is equipment fusion. What does Stage 2 unlock? Skill fusion? Pet fusion? Something else entirely?"

His mind started racing through the possibilities and couldn't stop.

This was why three people with SSS-Rank talents had become the most feared players in the entire Oracle World. Not because they started strong, but because their talents had no ceiling. They just kept growing.

And now that talent belonged to Ethan Cole from Cedar Avenue, Lakeview, California.

It was worth every dollar of debt sitting in fourteen different loan apps on his phone.

Not that the debt would matter for long.

He minimized the talent panel and opened the main system interface.

He already knew what he'd find, but seeing it still sent a cold, quiet chill down his spine.

The 【Log Out】 button was gone.

No logout. No exit. No going home.

Just like last time.

The countdown had ended. The trap had closed. And now, ten thousand miles of virtual wilderness stretched out in every direction, indifferent to whether any of its players lived or died.

The doomsday game had begun.

Ethan rolled his shoulders and pushed the dread aside.

No time for that. Think.

He remembered the rules of Maplewood Town clearly. Every starter village in NeuralVerse ran on the same hidden mechanic, the first player to hit Level 10 and leave the starter zone received a special System Grand Prize. No announcement. No fanfare. Most players never even found out it existed until someone else had already claimed it.

Last time, a cocky twenty-year-old from Sacramento had grabbed it while Ethan was still wandering around in the dark, newly arrived and utterly lost.

Not this time.

He opened his inventory.

Inside sat his ten Health Potions and the standard three-piece starter kit every player received on login,

【Starter Wooden Sword】(Lv0, White Common) — Attack +2

【Starter Cloth Shirt】(Lv0, White Common) — HP +10

【Starter Cotton Pants】(Lv0, White Common) — Defense +1

He equipped all three and pulled up his full stat sheet

【Player: Cole】

Talent: Infinite Fusion (SSS-Rank)

Level: 0 (0/100)

Reputation: 0

Currency: $0.00

Strength: 2 | Agility: 2 | Stamina: 1 | Constitution: 3 | Intelligence: 2

Attack: 4 | Defense: 2 | HP: 40

Core Skills: Detection, Resurrection

System Note: Combat power rating — 5. Classification: Dead Weight.

He almost laughed at that last line.

Combat power of five. The system wasn't wrong. On paper, Ethan Cole was the weakest possible version of a player. Average stats. Basic gear. No skills.

But Resurrection, that mattered more than anything else listed there.

Every player entered NeuralVerse with one Resurrection charge, refreshed each morning. It was the only thing standing between a bad day and a permanent death. Once you used it and died again before the next reset, you were gone. No exceptions. No appeals.

Ethan had watched friends, people he'd trusted, die that way. Permanently. Forever.

He wasn't going to waste his.

"I need to use the talent. Now. Before anyone else gets a head start."

He pulled up the Wooden Sword's item detail. A small prompt glowed at the bottom of the panel,

【Can Fuse — Combine one additional Lv0 White Common Wooden Sword to upgrade quality to Green Fine!】

Ethan worked through the math instantly.

Two White Common → one Green Fine.

Two Green Fine → one Blue Rare.

Two Blue Rare → one Purple Epic.

And so on, all the way up.

64 White Common Wooden Swords, fused in the right sequence, would produce a single Gold Ancient Immortal Wooden Sword.

A starter weapon. At the highest quality tier in the game.

The thought almost made him dizzy.

Now I just need 63 more.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

The answer arrived on its own.

From every direction, columns of white light streaked down across the town square. Players materialized by the dozens, then the hundreds, blinking, spinning around, gasping at the sky, already pulling up their stat panels with wide eyes and loud voices.

Maplewood Town had a capacity of 100,000 players.

According to system data Ethan still remembered from his past life, within the first minute of launch, the population had already surpassed 60,000.

NeuralVerse had taken the world by storm in a way no one was prepared for. And standing here in the middle of it, watching thousands of people marvel at a world they didn't yet understand was a prison

It hurt a little.

They looked so happy.

A teenage girl with her hair in two braids was literally jumping in place. "Oh my God, this is SO REAL, it's like actually being somewhere else!"

A guy in thick-framed glasses pushed them up his nose and breathed reverently. "Honestly? If I had to live in this game forever, I think I'd be okay with that."

"I only pulled an E-Rank talent, plus one percent attack speed. That's it. That's literally it."

"Bro, I pulled D-Rank Onslaught with an Iron headset! That's basically getting a Bronze headset for free!"

"Anyone want to party up and grind some mobs? Healer here, need DPS!"

"New player, looking for someone to carry me, please!"

Ethan watched them all with sharp, calculating eyes.

And then something clicked.

Every single one of them spawned with a full starter kit.

Three pieces of White Common gear. Same as him.

If he could collect their extras, even just their duplicate weapons, he could start fusing. Right now. Before the first monster was even killed.

He couldn't buy the gear. He had zero currency.

He couldn't ask for it. Nobody handed out their only equipment to a stranger.

But he didn't need to buy it.

And he didn't need to ask.

He just needed to redirect them.

A slow, deliberate smile crossed Ethan's face.

He opened the Maplewood Town Regional Chat and typed a message, posted it anonymously.

【Anonymous】: "Heads up, there's a Lord Wolf King boss in the Silverwood Forest south of the starter zone. First player to kill it gets top-tier gear and a massive reward drop. First come, first served, don't sleep on this one."