Chapter 1

"Faith, congratulations! This time, your success rate of guiding us to awaken our elemental abilities struck 100% again!"

"Yeah! As long as Faith’s here, our Vanguard Base has the highest number of awakened in the entire Federation of Survivors!"

Surrounded by the crowd, I felt a flicker of disorientation.

The scent at the tip of my nose wasn’t the putrid rot of the zombie pit but the sharp, sterile smell of disinfectant from the lab.

I instinctively reached for my arms and legs. They were whole. They hadn’t been broken. There was no bone-deep agony from being torn apart by zombies.

"Hold on!"

Just as General Brett Thomas was about to announce me as this month’s top researcher, my so-called best friend, Ruby Barrett, suddenly stepped forward. Her expression was timid, almost fragile.

"General, actually… this guidance plan was mine."

The moment I looked at her innocent, harmless face, it hit me. I had come back to the exact day Ruby first claimed she’d mastered the Spark of Dominion.

My fingers tightened around the notebook in my hand, my knuckles turning pale.

Whispers of doubt rippled through the room, and Ruby’s eyes instantly reddened.

"If you’re saying it was yours, then show us. Demonstrate it right now." I forced down the hatred surging inside me and pointed toward Morgan Grant, an earth-element user, who was hovering on the brink of awakening, yet was stuck at a bottleneck.

"His mental threshold is unstable. Since you have this Spark of Dominion, go ahead and help him break through."

Ruby froze for a split second, then quickly composed herself. She stepped forward with confidence, placing her hand against the man’s forehead in a practiced gesture.

At the same time, I felt it—faint, subtle, but unmistakable.

Something was brushing against my thoughts. Just as I expected. Ruby was reading my mind.

In my past life, this was the moment I’d panicked internally, running calculations over and over in my head, terrified something would go wrong.

She had heard everything, turning it into the foundation of her performance.

This time, I didn’t expose her. Not yet. Instead, I narrowed my eyes slightly. I had already tracked Morgan’s data for an entire week.

The truth was, I’d long since drafted the outline of a solution. I just hadn’t completed the final stage of clinical validation.

In my mind, I pulled up that unfinished plan and rapidly filled in the final step.

Almost at the exact same second, Ruby’s eyes lit up. She began muttering under her breath, "I feel it… start from the grounding point…"

As her hand moved, Morgan, who had been grimacing in pain, suddenly jolted. The surrounding earth elements instantly calmed, gathering around him to form a thick layer of armor.

"It… it worked?!" he shouted, stunned. "I broke through! Thank you, Assistant Barrett! You’re incredible!"

"Oh, my God! It really is the Spark of Dominion! She doesn’t even need calculations. Just one touch, and she knows exactly how to guide it!"

Applause and cheers erupted around us in an instant.