The world blurred around Jun as the pod's internal hiss faded into a silence deeper than before. No HUD, no interface, no immersive animation. Just his breath.
One inhale. One exhale.
Then darkness. Not the kind that frightened, but the kind that settled.
And from that silence, the world emerged.
Colors bled into focus. A wind howled through ragged trees. Stone pathways cracked with age stretched beneath Jun's feet. He had arrived.
But this wasn't the usual Heaven's Gate Online. There were no sky-high citadels, no beginner village crowds, no sparkling UI prompts. The landscape stretched in still desolation. Above, a massive red moon pulsed behind shrouds of mist.
And yet, despite the emptiness, Jun felt more connected than ever.
[Manual Mode: Engaged]
The phrase burned into the air in front of him. No fanfare. No sound. Just truth.
A Game Beyond the Interface
Jun walked forward, his steps unnaturally loud in the silence. The cracked marble path beneath his bare feet seemed to hum faintly, resonating with every exhale.
There were no system menus, no character sheet, no notifications.
The only clue that this was still a game at all came from the environment: it was too perfect. Trees swayed in rhythm with the wind, clouds moved as if dancing to a tempo he couldn't hear. This was not procedural generation.
This was designed.
He stopped at a low, ruined archway marked with strange glyphs. Touching one, he felt a vibration—like breath trapped in stone.
A sudden ripple of knowledge surged through him.
You have discovered a Forgotten Gate. Rootless Entry Point Recognized. No System Present. Manual Cultivation Route Confirmed.
No exp gain. No level-up.
Instead, his breathing deepened. His lungs adjusted to the new world's rhythm.
And the root inside his chest stirred.
Real-World Ripples
Back in the physical world, his body inside the pod shivered.
Minase watched the bio-monitors carefully. Neural activity was off the charts, but not in the chaotic way expected from unstructured input. It was… harmonic.
She sipped her tea, jaw clenched. "You really went all in, huh?"
She turned to her tablet and scrolled through illegal network logs. Breath Sync was still too new, and barely documented. Sol-ViCorp's servers had only acknowledged its existence three times in five years.
Each time, the participant disappeared.
But Jun wasn't disappearing.
He was integrating.
And that terrified her.
Echoes of the Rootless
In the game world, Jun knelt by a cairn of old weapons. Rusted swords, chipped spears, and bones half-buried in the soil.
The moment his breath aligned with the rhythm of the field, heat rose through his spine.
Technique Unlocked: Breath of Withered Iron (Unranked)
It didn't enter like a system skill. No ping, no description panel.
Just sensation.
He moved instinctively. Inhale slow. Pause. Exhale sharp.
A shimmer ran through his forearm.
When he struck the air, a crack sounded—the ghost of metal meeting metal.
His body reacted. Not with stored animations, but with genuine technique.
His breath had weight now. Shape.
The Game Beneath the Game
He ventured farther through the wilderness. Trees bent away from him. Stones rolled underfoot, repositioning like welcoming markers.
He found old shrines where flames still burned without fuel. A breath in, and he saw flashes of their creators—other Rootless. Shadows in ragged robes. No names. Only movements.
He mimicked them.
The game responded.
Not with numbers or UI—but with feedback.
His balance improved. His strikes landed faster.
Each movement was earned. Not through grinding mobs. Not through item drops.
Through practice. Through repetition. Through cultivating insight.
This was no longer an RPG.
This was cultivation.
Data Eyes Watching
Within a Sol-ViCorp command node, a cluster of administrators reviewed flagged anomalies.
"Same user again—Kawamoto, Jun."
"Rootless behavior confirmed. Manual progression spike detected."
"But no quest triggers. No zone access. He's in a null sector."
"He shouldn't even be able to enter without a registered path."
"He created his own."
Silence fell.
Then a whisper from the lead engineer:
"He's breathing in rhythm with the simulation. That shouldn't be possible."
First Combat
Jun sensed it before he saw it. A disturbance in the field.
The trees ahead leaned outward.
And then—movement.
A shadow. Thick-skinned. Heavy-jawed. A creature rendered in outdated code, unmaintained—a leftover enemy model from a forgotten alpha test.
It saw him.
And it charged.
No health bar. No damage numbers.
Just claws. Weight. Rage.
Jun exhaled, focusing. His foot grounded.
Breath of Withered Iron.
He sidestepped. His palm met the beast's flank.
A crack rang out.
The beast stumbled.
Jun turned his stance.
A second breath.
Strike.
The air split. The creature collapsed, unmoving.
No fanfare. No reward.
Only breath.
And Deeper Still
As the mist rolled in again, Jun sat beside a flowing spring that hadn't rendered until he approached. Water sang in time with his lungs.
He had unlocked no levels.
Earned no titles.
But he had begun to understand the truth:
The system wasn't the game.
The world was.
And he was learning to speak its language.
One breath at a time.