In deep sleep, a student slept without worrying about anything. All problems were irrelevant.

"Ethan, have you seen this video? A blond boy with delicate features smiled at Ethan as he nudged him with his cell phone close to his face.

Ethan's look of rage as he woke up was clear to all the students around him, but no one ever called him. Not that he cared about anything.

All the students were on the phone, laughing and talking loudly. A group of 5 students was behind Leo, who was focused on waking up Ethan.

The boy wiped his eyes a little, lost in time. He realized he was in fourth class, had slept for four hours straight.

The expression on his face didn't change. There was no point in missing classes, he always got good grades. Deep down, it wasn't like he cared about his grades, Ethan didn't have feelings for anything, so no one was interested in him.

When he arrived at school, he was nicknamed Dead Eyes. Even after three years in that class, he never cared about insults. His existence began to be ignored, but he never felt anything about it.

He was just a ghost, not really alive. In time, everyone forgot about him except Leo.

The most famous in the room, the star in everything he did. Girls thought he was perfect with his blue eyes and light hair. His fine and delicate features gave him an air of nobility, his wealthy family helped him in this regard.

Any group in the class liked his presence. He always had options for places to sit, girls calling him to be their partner. Competition for him was commonplace, but he'd always chosen to stay close to Ethan.

Their friendship started in 9th grade, Leo saw Ethan as his best friend, even if there was no reciprocity.

"Ethan, Ethan, Ethan…" Leo called after him wildly, just to annoy him. Ethan's dead eyes focused on the screen.

The video showed a man about to open a chicken for roasting, the animal had recently died. Inside the bird, it was possible to see a stone with a symbol in red, the video quality was poor, so it was difficult to correctly identify what it was.

Continued with another video. A restaurant chef found a stone, identical to another. However, it was possible to see a symbol on the gray stone. The man cleaned the stone in the water, revealing a red symbol. A rune centered in the middle of the object.

The video ended with the chef holding the thumb-sized stone. His fat face was smiling for the camera, the stone showing.

Another video followed. A big moose was hunted by a man, his speech was strange, which made it difficult to understand his language. The sniper, who killed the animal, was yelling at the cameraman, who, without caring, plunged a knife into the moose's belly.

The cut pierced the animal's flesh, setting off a violent scene. When paying attention amidst the viscera of the animal, it was possible to see some stones with runes in the midst of the blood. At least 5 gray stones appeared to be inside the corpse.

Other witnesses to these runestones roamed the internet.

- What do you think? Angry, isn't it? Is there someone giving rocks to the animals to eat? Leo said with a smile, looking into Ethan's face.

"Leo, why do you still talk to him?" This guy shows no reaction at all.

"Yes, he is very strange.

"They say he's an undead, so he has no emotions.

"All I know is that this boy with the dead eyes is very strange.

The boys who accompanied Leo insulted Ethan, trying to understand what a guy like him saw in that undead without any motivation.

Leo grinned in delight when he saw Ethan's reaction, he didn't care what the other boys thought.

— Hahahaha! Why that face? I managed to get your expression! My role as your best friend is being done. Leo tapped his best friend on the shoulder, seeing him make a confused expression.

Ethan was more confused than ever. When he watched the videos, he realized that he had seen those stones before, in the rubble of his house.

Those old bits were your grandfather's or your father's. Well, he didn't even know whose they were, but he saw one of those stones inside some old drawers or chests.

His memory was always good, that's why he remembered, even after so long, that he touched those old and useless things.

The expression on her face spoke for him as he laid his head back on the table. Still sleepy, he went back to sleep.

…

Ethan said goodbye to Leo and headed towards his house.

He lived in a small house, with only one room and a bathroom. In the past, it had three bedrooms and a kitchen, but sold it to the neighbors next door, thus making the property smaller.

When he arrived in front of his house, he saw that it was still broken, as usual. His neighbors lived much better than he did. His house was the worst in the whole neighborhood.

The place was a middle class region, but the boy couldn't keep the house, it ended up with time.

The neighbors thought the land was abandoned, they didn't even know about the boy's existence.

Inside the place there was almost nothing, just a rug on the floor, which he called a bed - all the furniture was sold.

A few changes of school clothes were in her bathroom, with old clothes, which were used for sleeping or going out.

On the opposite side of the front door, close to where a bedroom would be, there was a cloth on the floor, covering a trapdoor. In this place, your father's or grandfather's worthless items were stored.

The reasons for the boy to live in these circumstances was a chain of bad events in his life.

Just before Ethan was born, his father was killed, the reason he never knew but never cared.

When he was 4 years old, his mother was totally taken by cancer, his grandfather spent all his finances on the treatment, even then it was not enough, the only solution was to borrow money from loan sharks.

His mother went into a coma due to the expansion of the tumor in her brain. In a vegetative state, he died two months later.

One of the few feelings Ethan remembered was that. The sadness of feeling your world being destroyed, the confusion of not feeling your feet on the ground.

He was welcomed by his grandfather, who lost the sense of living little by little, lived with him for another 2 years. The old man took to drinking, with ever-increasing debts.

Ethan always knew his grandfather was a good man, even in that state, he was always a great grandfather.

However, the men began to visit her house. The boy had watched them beat his grandfather while they bullied him with knives. These acts were frequent in his life.

That was a lot for an old man. Over time, he could not stand the torture, both physical and psychological.

Ethan waited for his grandfather to wake up for 4 days. After the stench spread through the street, the police showed up.

He was taken to the orphanage, but he didn't stay for 1 day, he ran away and went back to his house, he tried to do his best to survive, but the men who collected his grandfather's money came to take the house.

They didn't expect the child to still be there, so their grandfather's debt became their own. Required to pay an amount just to cover interest.

If he died, the house would be taken away, it became common for men to come to find out if the boy had died of hunger.

That was Ethan's life until today. In an attempt to pay off an endless debt he couldn't pay.

That was the reason his house was empty, he sold everything to pay the interest on the debt. She ate as little as possible and had no luxuries. He lived a miserable life.

Somewhere in your life you lost interest in everything. He didn't care anymore whether he was alive or dead, his dreams and hope didn't exist. There were no feelings in his being, he became an empty shell. As his eyes showed, there was no more life.

The collectors said they were going to kill him, but his expression didn't change. Over time, men lost interest in intimidating him.

Ethan left his backpack by the door, took off his sneakers, and headed for the trapdoor. Opened easily, it showed a number of worthless old things.

He looked for any rocks that looked like the one he saw in the video. With a little searching, he found an old sock-like bag.

When lifting the bag, he noticed that there was a hole in the bottom, but there was still some object inside.

Curious, he opened the bag on the floor of the room and the entire contents spilled onto the floor. Marble-like noises echoed through the house.

Gray stones, marked with colored carvings were tossed across the room. The boy looked surprised and realized he was correct.

"Why are these stones here? They are the same as the ones in the videos."

As he looked, he could see other colors of runes, one green and one yellow. Confused, he began to separate them. Seven red runes, four green runes, three yellow and one orange.

"So many different runes, in no video have I seen this. In addition to the different colors, the symbols change, if I had a phone, I would look for it."

Shrugging at the thought of not having a phone, he threw himself back and lay on the floor.

"It doesn't matter if I have these stones or not, I looked for them out of curiosity, now I'm not interested anymore." Ethan returned to his normal features, lost the will to do anything, even his curiosity about the mystery disappeared.

He got up to go to the bathroom. But before picking up a red rune, he tried to analyze the symbol carved into it. He realized that they were all identical down to the smallest details.

The stone began to crumble in his hand as he tried to squeeze a little harder.

"Has it become fragile with time? I don't want to break it, it might be worth something."

When he realized it was too late, he slowly opened his hand, but the stone was already with several cracks and crumbled into powder so fine that it disappeared into thin air.

When he looked again, his hand was empty, and before Ethan could think of anything, a message appeared in front of him.

+0.1 to Strength has been acquired.

STATUS

STRENGTH 1.1

AGILITY 1

STAMINA 1

MIND 2

"What the hell is that?"