Ryun Nacht

Once an aimless college student, Ryun Nacht is now a powerful Cultivator and provides one of the primary viewpoints of the story. An Earth Ranker from the 7th Iteration, he has gained power extremely quickly thanks to his aptitude for cultivation, lucky encounters, and a unique outlook on life. But he is by no means a saint, and on Earth he was known as a monster unlike any other, the World Ender, causing the near extinction of humanity before transportation to the infinite realm.

Pre-framework
Before the introduction of The Framework, Ryun and Zacharia Gardner are best friends, having grown up together and now in college. They seem to bond over their love of nerd culture, which Ryun notes as regularly stopping short their attempts at dating women "once the girls found out just how geeky the two of them were".

Ryun describes himself in contrast to a character we never meet, Henry, who is "outgoing, popular, handsome, everything that Ryun was not." . This fits other remarks Ryun makes later in the story; he regularly affirms that before the framework gave him the opportunity for something different, he was aimless and didn't really feel like he fit into society. Zacharia also remarks on Ryun's somewhat uncaring nature before the framework, noting that "Ryun had always been like that. He cared little for other people. To him, this was a game." .