A lonely 15-year-old martial arts student logs into the launch of his favorite VRMMO, *Rise of the Horizon* — a game that scans his soul and builds his avatar: **Arthur Dawn**, a boy with one night-dark eye and one gold. He wakes up *inside* the world as that character: an orphan whose parents died in a skyship storm, leaving him money that has just run out. He's a **special recommendation** — reason unknown — at the Royal Academy. He discovers **Aletheia**, a pair of glasses containing his complete knowledge of the game's previous arc and a supercomputer worn on his face. His stats are mediocre, except one strange line: **Flow: Awake**. His plan: stay boring, hide everything, survive on 500 Merit Points — and quietly find out *why* he was recommended.