Tomorrow is my sixteenth birthday.
Well, truth be told, it's my second time being sixteen. But in this world, it's my first.
I was reincarnated—or was it transmigrated? I'm not sure what to call it anymore. I've been reading too many novels about reincarnation and transmigration in my previous life, so the difference between the two is almost non-existent to me.
Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, my birthday.
Tomorrow is important. I shouldn't miss this, even if I don't want to.
Why?
It's not because I'll be having a birthday celebration to mark my adulthood. No. It's more important than that. It's talent awakening.
A compulsory and mandatory thing every 16-year-old in this world has to go through if they want to survive.
As if on cue, a holographic AI-controlled system HUB appeared. It glowed blue, sharp, and sleek like a well-oiled machine, with the words Gaia Talent Bureau flashing at the center.
This an AI system, whatever it was, had been notifying me every four hours since yesterday, reminding me that I needed to attend the talent awakening tomorrow at 9:00 am sharp.
Failure to comply? Immediate termination. That's the official term. That's the worst-case scenario, of course.
What would really happen is that some Gaia Enforcers would come barging into my apartment, drag me off, and imprison me in some sterile, high-tech cell.
Then, they'd interrogate me.
And if I don't have an excuse for why I didn't register, I'd get fried.
They've got this whole brain-fry thing going for anyone who refuses or fails to comply. I'm not sure how it works, but from what I've gathered from the few whispers I've heard, it doesn't sound pleasant.
Anyway, enough of that. Let's focus on what's coming tomorrow.
It's hard to process that I'm even alive in this world.
I've been here for three months now, but it still feels like I'm living in someone else's body. I haven't gotten used to it, and honestly, I don't know if I ever will.
The me from my previous life—the hacker, the lonely, bitter, reclusive 35-year-old hacker—is still hanging around in my brain.
Sometimes I wonder if the whole reincarnation thing was some cosmic joke. I mean, one minute, I'm trying to patch up my poor broken laptop, and the next, I'm waking up in a teenager's body with pink hair and blue eyes, in a world governed by some all-powerful AI.
This new body? It's not terrible. In fact, it's… better than I remember.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror, staring at the pink hair—apparently, it's a natural trait—and the piercing blue eyes. The stud earring on my left ear? Definitely not my style, but hey, it's a nice touch. It's funny, though. In my past life, I was never considered good-looking.
I was just an average, geeky hacker who spent way too many hours staring at computer screens. Now, here I am, with this face that could probably win some popularity contest in high school.
But all that didn't matter. I was dead—well, the old me was—and this new me? An almost 16-year-old young adult trying to figure out the rules of a world he doesn't belong to.
My last life was… well, it wasn't exactly a masterpiece. I was an orphan, alone in a world that didn't care much for people like me. I was just a hacker, after all.
I remember the day I came home to find my modest studio apartment ransacked, my precious computers—my babies—shattered, the screens cracked like spider webs. I was devastated.
Then, just when I thought things couldn't get worse, an assassin put a bullet in my chest. Clean shot. No warning.
As I lay on the floor, my breaths growing slower, a weak chuckle escaped me, my lips curling into a faint smirk.
"So… this is how it ends, huh?" The thought drifted through my mind, laced with a pang of regret sharper than the pain searing my side.
Guess I'll never know what it's like—a normal life, settling down, actually living outside this screen. The irony hit me, and I tried to laugh, though it came out more like a choked cough.
"A 'virgin hacker,'" I murmured, almost amused. "Dying the way I lived. Alone. Obsessing over code." I'm feeling poetic right before death.
My hand fell limp by my side as my vision began to blur, a ghost of a smile still lingering.
Then, bam. I woke up here, in this new world, as Noah Adler.
And let me tell you, this new world isn't any better.
I wish I could say that I woke up in a utopia or that the people here are warm and friendly.
But no. This world is systematic.
Controlled by this all-powerful AI named Gaia. It manages everything—the economy, careers, health, society. And every person has a unique ability assigned to them once they reach the age of sixteen which they called it as talent.
It's like a giant, dystopian lottery, except the odds are stacked in favor of the AI system. You get your class, your rank, and your future in the blink of an eye. And it's all decided by Gaia.
I heard a knock on my door.
"Noah, time for dinner," came a familiar voice—Brixley, my little sister in this world.
"Yeah. I'll be there in a minute," I called back.
I opened the door and stepped out into the small living room, where my older brother Damian was sitting on the sofa, waiting for me.
Damian was a low-ranking Gaia Enforcer (GE)—that's what they called those who managed to awakened their talent, an average C-rank Military class.
He was the breadwinner of the family, sometimes he had to work odd jobs like guarding school grounds at night. I sometimes wondered how he kept it all together—life in this world was not kind to people without powerful abilities.
I was caught off guard when I walked into the dining room. There, sitting on the table, was a birthday cake—complete with flickering candles and a frosting design I couldn't quite make out at first.
My siblings as if on cue, were standing around it, grinning like they had orchestrated the entire thing. They started singing "Happy Birthday" in unison, their voices a little off-key but filled with genuine warmth.
They decided to celebrate my birthday early cause Damian won't be around tomorrow.
I couldn't help but smile, despite myself. Brixley was practically bouncing on her toes, while Damian clapped along to the rhythm.
Their enthusiasm was so… real. It hit me that for the first time in my life, I wasn't alone. I wasn't just a hacker sitting in a dark room, isolated from the world. Here, I was part of something. I was wanted.
Once the song ended, I blew out the candles and they both wished me good luck for tomorrow's talent awakening, their words sincere but carrying an undertone of anticipation.
I hadn't realized how much pressure I had been feeling about tomorrow until I saw the genuine hope in their eyes.
"You nervous about tomorrow?" Damian asked, as he began sitting down.
"Kind of," I replied, sitting down next to him. "But I'm also curious. I mean, what kind of talent will I awaken?"
Brixley tilted her head, her wide eyes fixed on me as she asked, "So, what kind of talent do you hope to get, Noah?"
I paused, thinking for a moment. "Hmm… something useful, I guess. Anything that can help us get by, make things a little easier around here," I replied, my voice surprisingly sincere. I hadn't really thought about it like that before, but now that she asked, it felt like the only answer that made sense.
Damian gave me a reassuring smile. "It's okay if you don't get something amazing. I'll still support us all."
I nodded, grateful for his words. I'd been in this world for three months now, and while it wasn't perfect, having a family to care about was a new and welcome change. In my old life, I was a solitary hacker—alone and unimportant.
Now, I had people around me, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was starting to care about them too.
Dinner was a quiet affair. We made small talk, mostly about the coming awakening tomorrow, but nothing too deep. I was trying to push the strange feelings about this world down deep into my gut, where they wouldn't bother me. I had enough to worry about.
Like what the hell I was going to awaken.
I finished eating and retreated to my room. It was late now—almost midnight. The sudden appearance of my HUD in front of me startled me, a holographic interface that always seemed to know when to pop up.
Happy Birthday, Noah Adler. The familiar voice of the system echoed in my ears.
I groaned. "Thanks, I guess," I muttered, rubbing my eyes.
A flood of notifications appeared. Birthday wishes from people I barely knew. It was part of the world's automated birthday greetings. No one cared. It was all system-generated, a mandatory message sent to everyone on their birthday.
Then, one message caught my eye. It was from an unknown ID.
"Codebreaker?" I mused aloud.
I opened the message, curious.
The moment I did, sharp, blinding pain shot through my brain. My head felt like it was being electrocuted. I gasped, clutching my temples, and for a split second, my HUD glitched, flickering erratically before shutting down entirely.
"What the hell?" I groaned, staggering back.
Then, just as suddenly as it had stopped, my HUD rebooted, the glowing blue interface reappearing in front of me.
System reboot complete.
Installing Codebreaker...
I blinked, utterly dumbfounded.
"Is that supposed to happen once you turn sixteen?" I thought aloud. But I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know the first thing about this world's awakening process. Was that suppose to happen? Should I have asked Damian about it?
I sighed, brushing off the weird incident.
"Whatever," I muttered. "I'll deal with it later."
But something in me couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't normal.
It's as if I'd awakened something. And I had a feeling it was going to change everything.
I shut down my thoughts for the night. Tomorrow would be the real test. The Gaia Talent Bureau awaited.
And tomorrow, I'd find out just how far this rabbit hole went.