Empress with no Virtue - Chapter 5

He was supposed to be just a guardian.But love doesn’t follow rules.After losing his mother, 18-year-old Kai finds himself under the roof of his cold, powerful stepfather, Sebastian Vaughn. What begins as silence turns into lingering glances, late-night tension, and a love Kai can’t run from—even if he tries.But Bast isn’t just any man. He’s possessive, broken, and hiding dangerous secrets… including an ex-lover who wants to destroy everything. As feelings grow, so do the risks.How do you escape a man who says he’s your everything—your father, protector, friend… and lover?

In the era of steam and mystery, becoming a correspondence student at the Thaumatology Academy was something Shad never thought of.

A whispering voice rang in my ears, who was reciting the poems of foreigners——

The old gods and aliens,

When the brassy rings of fate turn,

The golden runes are flickering.

steam surge,

the fire flickers,

Relic echoes,

The old gods revived.

The outstretched hand after the thick fog,

Pull back the hazy curtain of the crazy age.

Guests from afar explore the lands of the Old Continent,

Striking the melody of the next era.

Came here through the gate of time,

Shad put down his suitcase,

Look at the silvery moonlight overhead.

- Description from novelbuddy

Lanz Kuroda failed his Awakening Test in the most spectacular way possible, he didn’t just rank low, his ass got slapped with an FFF. He was locked out of the system entirely, and sent home like the rejected tutorial character that he is.But when a cracked relic crystal he bought from a sketchy street vendor activates, it boots up something the world shouldn’t even know exists, a hidden system that logs him into an old, forgotten alt account, one with no level cap, restrictions, and absolutely zero oversight.By day, Lanz is still the same guy that no one aspires to be.But at night? In the dungeons?He becomes Zero, an anonymous hunter operating outside the system, clearing high-tier raids solo, and slowly building a legend no one can trace.The world thinks he’s a joke.He’s about to become its biggest problem.

A pill, a tiny capsule encased in a biologically harmless water-soluble shell; A shell whose very existence is a result of a century of research and technological advancement. A manmade synthesis of Chemicals and product of complex processes.

And in the end, a means to an end.

A way to deliver a concoction of other Chemicals for an agenda; Vitamins for nutrition, medication for treatment, or… perhaps more.

We trust that what we eat won’t do us harm, and trust that those who are responsible for its creation had the best of intentions. But in the end, it is difficult or perhaps impossible to truly tell what lies within a pill.

That is until one day I entered a research institution as a test subject. All I did was swallow a pill I was told to be a health supplement.