Chapter 1 - Starting Life From Level 0

Aster Zenith stood on the raised platform, looking at nothing and everything.

The sun beat down on her, blurring the faces of her peers, and making her feel overheated in her heavy cargo jacket. Despite being winter, the frost still hadn't settled in, leaving the city of Echelon in a suspended state of waiting.

To her right stood Professor Rose, a dryad woman whose skin was as pink as her name suggested. She reached a hand towards the podium, and the EVE System shimmered to life.

"Aster Zenith of Sector 8. The EVE System will now reevaluate your class and level, based on your growth and aptitude over the past sixteen years. Once you have received your official assignment, you will be required to attend classes and training here at the Progression Academy."

Aster's legs trembled, and she instinctively clasped her hands behind her back, hiding her nerves.

This was it.

When she finally received her class, everything would change.

From birth, she had been given the class: NULL.

Growing up was always a competition of levels. Who had the best class. Who levelled up the fastest. Who could rise above everyone else.

Aster stood apart from it all. She gave everything she had, always hoping that one day, she'd receive something in return.

And she did. A nickname.

Zero.

Every time results came back, every time The EVE System assessed her, the truth was always in the code.

ASTER ZENITH: Level 0.

But this time would be different.

It had to be.

Finally, she would find her place. People would see her and not call her Zero. They would call her by her name, her real name, Aster Zenith.

Friends would save her a place at their table. Her peers would welcome her with a smile.

Even her own parents would finally--

"NULL."

The EVE System's voice cut through her thoughts.

"Aster Zenith... Level 0."

The world seemed to fall away beneath her.

For a long moment, she remained frozen on the platform, violet eyes wide as the words hung in the air.

No.

It couldn't be.

Then, the whispers began. Some were giggling, others pitying. Aster didn't want any of it.

"Zero will always be Zero!" One goblin hissed, prompting barely suppressed laughter from the others.

"There, you see? Null! Looks like I won the bet..."

"Why is she even here? Send her back to the Null Sector, where she belongs."

"ENOUGH!"

The thorns woven through Professor Rose's hair writhed, and the students fell into a deathly silence. Aster barely registered as her brain attempted to catch up with her reality.

Professor Rose cleared her throat.

"Aster Zenith has received her reassessment." Her voice was eerily calm. "And... The EVE System does not make mistakes."

As the dryad woman examined Aster, data hovered above her head in translucent blue writing.

NAME: Aster Zenith

LEVEL: 0

CLASS: NULL

SUBCLASS: None

STATUS: Valid

The writing glowed, as though mocking her. Finally, it faded, disappearing entirely. Yet the mark on Aster's heart still remained.

"Although you have not received an official class, you will still be required to attend The Progression Academy. I expect to see you on Monday."

Aster Zenith did not reply.

She turned and walked down the steps, ignoring the golden banners dancing in the wind, each one boldly announcing the reassessment ceremony.

It was a joke.

Her worn boots thudded against the polished stone path, as she tried to ignore the whispers and pitying looks following her.

"Eleanor Weiss," The EVE System announced from the stage, already moving on to the next assignment. "CLASS: Ranger, level 15. SUBCLASS assignment... hawkeye."

"Yes!" The girl cried out, and the audience erupted into cheers.

Aster kept walking.

Then, she saw them.

Two violet eyes, eerily similar to her own, stood out in the crowd. Aster could recognise those eyes anywhere.

The face of her mother, Lila Zenith, stared back at her, the disappointment written into her uncannily perfect features.

The rejection stung worse than the reassessment did.

Her whole family was there. It had been years since she'd seen them.

Her mother, CLASS: Architect

Her father, CLASS: Warden.

Even her older sister Mayu, CLASS: Chronomancer.

Their levels were high, and so was their status in the city of Echelon.

When Aster Zenith had been pronounced 'Level 0' at birth, they had regarded her as a failure.

And now...

Now they had written her out of their lives permanently.

She turned, without giving them another look.

None of them called out to her.

She hadn't expected them to.

At the base of the stairs leading up to the academy, Aster finally gave herself permission to cry.

It had begun to rain.

She wandered towards Sector 8, informally known as the NULL Sector, and tilted her face towards the sky.

It was the first day of the rest of her life.

When Aster had been pronounced Level 0 at birth, her parents had sent her to live with a family friend; Doctor Daniel Wrinkle.

He was Level 25 in the Mediator class, with the subclass Mechanic, and lived up to it through his actions.

Aster Zenith walked into his clinic in Sector 8, completely unsurprised to see Doctor Wrinkle standing over a giant of an orc, steadily stitching together a wound on his shoulder.

"Aster!" Doctor Wrinkle greeted, his cybernetic eye eerily rolling to face her, while his left human eye remained on the patient.

Aster winced.

"Hi, Daniel," She replied, glancing from him to the orc sitting on a chair that seemed far too small for him. "Did you get injured in the Dead Grid again, Victor?"

Victor laughed heartily. "Not this time, Zero. Nooo, I got into a fight with Freya."

"Again?" Aster replied, with an amused smile. "I'm starting to think you like teasing her on purpose."

The orc laughed so hard he shook the table. "Guilty as charged."

Aster turned, beginning to walk up the stairs, but paused when Daniel spoke.

"Aster..."

She looked back.

"How was the reassessment? Did you...?"

He hesitated, clearly afraid to ask the question that had been weighing on him.

"No," Aster finally replied, keeping her back to him. "No, I..."

She shook her head, then kept walking.

Aster shoved open the old wooden door to her room, and froze.

It was... destroyed.

Every bolt, wrench, nail, and scavenged item she'd ever collected had been dumped across the floor. For a moment, Aster could only stare.

Who... or what... had torn through her room?

An elephant, perhaps?

After a tense silence, a familiar mechanical whir broke her stunned stupor. She turned, eyeing the cylinder shaped robot who had managed to turn itself upside down, and was now repeatedly driving into the corner.

One of Aster's old shirts was still draped over its head.

"Madge..." Aster groaned.

She approached the robot and removed the garment. As soon as she flipped it upright, the two blue eyes protruding from its rounded silver head focused on her.

"Room is... not tidy," The robot said, in her synthesized voice, "Must organise... must clean..."

"Madge... that's enough."

Aster's voice softened, as the robot continued to shudder and whine.

"The room... is clean." It was a lie, but the only one that would satisfy the broken robot.

Madge glitched again, attempting to scan the room. Aster gently covered its eyes, blocking the visual data.

"Madge... power off."

The robot went still.

Aster placed the small cylinder form on her desk, sighing heavily. Using one arm, she cleared away the mess of bolts and nails, searching for wherever the screwdriver had disappeared to.

Finally finding the right tool, she flipped Madge over, unscrewing the back panel with practised ease.

The cable connecting Madge's logic to her cleaning direction had come loose again.

Aster carefully replaced it, tightening the screw until the wire emitted a dull glow and the connection was restored.

"Power on."

Madge's eyes flickered to life, two glowing blue orbs that Aster had replaced herself.

"Mess identified!" The robot announced, with immediate concern. "Do I have permission to clean it up?

"No... that's okay, Madge," Aster replied, beginning to gather the various bolts scattered across the floor. "I'll do it."

The small cylinder robot whirred for a moment, before seating itself at the edge of her desk, an almost human gesture.

Madge simply watched Aster for several minutes, as the young woman picked up a pair of worn cargo pants, searching the pockets for a specific tool.

"Madge was created to clean..." The robot finally said, in a soft and broken voice. "Why can't Madge clean?"

Aster hesitated.

She looked up at Madge.

Aster could still remember the day she had found her, worn and broken in the middle of the dump site, still trying to clean a mess that was far too catastrophic for her to handle.

Aster placed the worn clothing on her bed and sat down at her desk, bringing herself eye-to-eye with Madge.

"Do you want to clean, Madge?"

The robot scanned her face, seemingly confused by the question.

"Madge was programmed to clean. Therefore, Madge must clean."

"Even if you don't have to anymore?"

Madge whirred, likely processing Aster's words.

"Madge has to. Otherwise, why does Madge exist?"

Aster couldn't answer.

She had tried to convince Madge to develop other skills, to try new activities with her mechanical hands built for cleaning.

But... Madge always returned to the same notion.

She had to clean.

Aster turned to face the window, gazing at her reflection in the smudged glass.

Her freckled, tanned complexion stared back at her, framed by ginger hair and the familiar white strand at the front.

Her whole life, Aster had searched for a place.

She desperately wished for the system to give her a purpose.

Yet here, in this room, she wasn't Zero.

She wasn't the girl who had never been assigned a class.

She wasn't the girl who had never levelled.

She was just...

Aster Zenith.

And if the system wouldn't give her a role or rules, she would just have to make her own.

Aster was starting the first day of the rest of her life...

From Level 0.