That night, Robin did not sleep. Sleep was a luxury, and he had work to do. He sat on the cold, hard floor of his dusty room, the moonlight drawing a pale silver square on the floorboards.
The castle was quiet, wrapped in the deep silence of midnight.
He had seen his enemy. He had felt the crushing weight of the Duke's indifference. He had a mission now, a goal as hard and clear as a diamond. But a goal was useless without a weapon. His body was a broken tool, and his mind, as brilliant as it was, couldn't punch through a stone wall.
He needed the other thing. The weird thing. The power that had spoken to him in the endless white void.
He closed his eyes, his small body folded into a meditation pose that Commander Justin had practiced for years. It felt ridiculous in this frail frame, like a child playing dress-up in his father's armor. He ignored the feeling.
He focused his mind, pushing past the constant ache in his chest and the weakness in his limbs. He tried to remember the exact feeling of being in that white space. It wasn't a memory of sight or sound.
It was a memory of presence. A cold, clean, mechanical presence.
Okay, whatever you are, he thought, concentrating so hard a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. System, was it? SSS-Rank something or ....? I don't care, I am calling you. I need you. Show yourself.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
The only sounds were the wind whispering outside his window and the faint thump of his own weak heart. He felt a flicker of frustration. He was a commander. When he called for a soldier, they came running. He wasn't used to being ignored.
He tried again, with more force. He wasn't asking this time. He was commanding.
I know you're there! he projected with all the mental force he could gather. You brought me here. You put me in this… this thing. The least you can do is answer me. REPORT! NOW!
PING!
The sound was so sharp and clear in the silent room that Robin's eyes flew open. It wasn't a sound that came from the hallway or outside the window. It was a sound that had happened directly inside his head.
And the room was no longer dark.
Floating in the air right in front of him, about three feet from his face, was a rectangle of light. It was a soft, translucent blue, like a pane of glass made from captured sky.
It hummed with a quiet energy, casting a gentle glow on his pale face and the dusty floor. It wasn't magic as he knew it. There were no swirling colors or strange symbols. It was clean, perfect, and completely alien.
Glowing letters, as white as fresh snow, began to appear on the blue screen. They were written in a language he had never seen, but as he looked at them, he understood them instantly.
He read the first line, and his lip curled in a bitter smirk.
[Name: Robin Tregor]
[Title: None]
[Level: 1]
He stared at that for a long time. Level 1. He, Commander Justin, the hero of a hundred battles, the man who had slain beasts that made armies run in fear, was Level 1. It was the biggest insult he had ever received.
Then came the part that truly made him want to laugh and cry at the same time.
[ Stats: ]
[ STR: 2 ]
[ AGI: 3 ]
[ END: 1 ]
[ DEX: 4 ]
He analyzed them with his commander's mind.
Strength: 2. A particularly angry goose probably had a Strength of 5. This was a number so low it was hilarious. He doubted he could win a fight with a loaf of bread.
Agility: 3. This meant he could probably move. Slowly. And trip over his own feet with a certain amount of grace.
Dexterity: 4. His highest stat! This meant he was… what, exactly? Good at threading needles? He could probably pick up a pea without squishing it. A truly fearsome skill for a future warlord.
And then his eyes fell on the last one. Endurance: 1.
The dark humor vanished, replaced by a cold understanding. That wasn't just a low number. That was a death sentence. An Endurance of 1 explained everything.
The constant weakness, the wheezing breaths, the inability to heal. This body wasn't just weak; it was actively falling apart. The system was showing him, in cold, hard numbers, just how close to death he really was.
He tore his eyes away from the depressing stats and looked lower on the screen.
[Skills:]
[[Chrono Dominion (SSS, Locked)]]
[[Weapon Mastery (Locked)]]
His breath hitched. There it is. Chrono Dominion. He broke the word down. 'Chrono' meant time. He knew that from the old texts. 'Dominion' meant absolute rule, total control. Control over time.
And it was ranked 'SSS'. He didn't know what that meant, but three S's had to be better than one. It was locked, a treasure chest he didn't have the key for, but it was there. It was real.
Next to it, Weapon Mastery gave him a spark of hope. It was a skill he understood. He was a weapon master. The skill was just locked because this pathetic body had probably never held anything heavier than a spoon.
He felt a surge of excitement. The screen shimmered, and more words appeared below the skills, as if the system knew what he was looking for. It showed him a list of the skills hidden inside Chrono Dominion.
[Locked SSS-Rank Skills: Time Echo, Void Step, Chrono Overdrive]
The names sent a shiver down his spine. They sounded powerful. They sounded dangerous. They sounded like the kind of skills that could win wars.
Void Step… did that have something to do with the abyss he fell into? Time Echo… a chance to rewind a mistake? The possibilities made his strategic mind race.
This was his weapon. This strange, floating blue box was his path to power. But how did he unlock it? How did he raise his pathetic stats ?
As if hearing his thoughts, one final line of text appeared at the very bottom of the screen. The letters glowed brighter than the rest. It was the most important information of all.
[Gain experience by overcoming trials, defeating enemies, and absorbing their life force.]
Robin read the sentence once. Then a second time. Then a third. The words burned themselves into his mind just like the messages in the void.
Overcoming trials. Defeating enemies. Absorbing their life force.
The path forward slammed into his mind with the force of a battering ram. It was a dark path, a bloody path, but it was a clear one. The system wasn't asking him to study hard or eat his vegetables. It wasn't going to reward him for good behavior.
It wanted him to fight.
It wanted him to win.
It wanted him to kill.
The weakness in his body was still there, but for the first time, it didn't feel like a permanent prison. It felt like a starting line. To get stronger, to raise his stats, to unlock those god-like powers, he had to conquer. He had to absorb the life from his foes.
A slow, cold smile spread across the face of the ten-year-old boy. It was an expression that did not belong on such a young face. It was the smile of a predator who had just been handed a new set of claws.
"So be it," he whispered to the glowing screen.
The path was clear. To heal this body and claim his revenge, he had to go hunting.