The Cost of Ascension - Book 1: Breaking the Limit
Power has a price. Elias is about to pay it with his soul.
In the tiered city of Oakhaven, your worth is decided at age ten. Elias Vaelor was branded an Iron-cap: a supposedly useless Archivist class permanently locked at Level 10, destined to die forgotten in the grueling upper floors of the Guild's dungeon.
But when his younger sister contracts a terminal magical plague, Elias discovers a hidden glitch in the System's code: The Altar of Exchange. The Altar offers unlimited power, rule-breaking magic, and a way to shatter his unbreakable level cap. It doesn't want gold, though. It wants what hurts to lose. It prices its gifts in memories, senses, and human emotions.
To afford the Level 40 Elixir that will save his sister, Elias must descend into a brutal, monster-infested subterranean world. Armed with magic he shouldn't possess, Elias will have to forge a party of outcasts and carve a bloody path through the dark.
But as the dungeon bosses grow deadlier and the Altar's prices grow steeper, Elias is forced to ask himself a terrifying question: if he trades away the best parts of his humanity to survive, will the man who reaches the bottom still have the capacity to love the sister he came to save?