[Simulation Complete]
You died before reaching the end of the simulation.
Processing experience...
Available rewards:
1. [Advanced Endurance]
Type: Passive Physical Enhancement
Description:
Through years of intense training without awakening, your body has learned to endure, to absorb damage, and to function under prolonged fatigue.
Effects:
Reduced fatigue during extended physical exertion Increased resistance to physical pain Fewer penalties from minor injuries
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2. [Knight's Discipline]
Type: Mental Trait
Description:
Your mind has been forged through routine, failure, and mental endurance. You no longer rely on motivation — you move forward because you must.
Effects:
Increased mental resistance to distraction and doubt Reduced stress under pressure Faster learning of physical techniques through repetition
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3. [Partial Form Mastery: Forms I–III]
Type: Breathing Technique Enhancement
Description:
You did not awaken the seed, but you have mastered the first two forms of Sylvanic Breathing with near-instinctive precision, and partially the third form.
Effects:
Forms I and II are fully mastered Partial mastery of Form III is granted
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4. [Recovered Soul Stats – Simulation II]
Type: Soul Imprint – Simulated Statistics
Description:
You did not awaken the seed. But you lived ten years of martial discipline. What you failed to achieve through breath, you etched into body and mind. These traces can now be partially retrieved in the form of ghost statistics.
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The translucent screen floated before him like a silent epitaph. Ten years surviving. Fighting. Failing. A whole life — another one — lost to the oblivion of another reality.
He wasn't surprised to be dead. He was surprised to feel so calm.
Caelum inhaled slowly, hands trembling, yet his heart remained strangely steady. He scanned the four available rewards. Each carried the mark of his failure — but also the echo of his persistence. He examined them without urgency, like a man reading the last page of a book he already knew by heart.
His eyes stopped on the third one.
[Partial Form Mastery: Forms I–III]
You did not awaken the seed, but you've mastered the first two forms… and part of the third.
Yes. It was the most logical. The safest. The perfect tool to push forward. If he could replicate that level in the real world… then maybe — just maybe — he'd finally reach the fourth form. Then the fifth.
He reached out toward the option.
And stopped.
A flicker. A doubt. Barely a shiver — then a thought, sharp as a blade drawn from its sheath:
"My real body isn't ready."
He froze, hand suspended in the void.
Tension crept up his neck, coiled down his spine.
His real body — the one here — was still weak.
His muscles, underdeveloped.
His bones, his tendons, his breath: incomplete.
Nothing like the one he had forged over ten years in simulation.
Transferring the forms now would be a mistake.
He felt it with chilling clarity: if he activated this reward, his real body wouldn't be able to follow the postures of the third form. Not without injury. Not without risk. Even the first two forms, though technically accessible, would become rigid, mechanical. They wouldn't integrate — they would impose themselves.
It wouldn't be progress.
It would be a prison of memory. A burden.
Like trying to run on someone else's legs.
His hand withdrew slowly.
Then, his gaze lifted to the fourth reward.
[Recovered Soul Stats – Simulation II]
A memory. Not knowledge. Not technique.
But a physical imprint — the outline of who he had been… and who he might become again.
Not a key.
A map.
Caelum drew in another breath. Long. Centered.
"I don't need to accelerate."
"I need a stronger foundation."
He made his choice.
Reward selected: [Recovered Soul Stats – Simulation II]
[…Integration in progress…]
[…Soul fragment alignment…]
[Projection activated.]
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A blinding light burst behind his eyelids — and the pain came without warning.
It wasn't sharp. It was total.
A dry, wet crack echoed in his ribcage, as if his entire skeleton rejected what was being forced upon it. His spine arched violently, his back bent like a bow, and his body lifted from the cot like a pierced animal.
Then came the tearing.
His muscles exploded into searing cramps. He felt the fibers stretch, tear, recoil like ropes snapping under pressure. His arms twisted backward, uncontrollable. His thighs throbbed, swelled, then locked in a pain so dense it no longer had a name.
And he screamed.
A primal, broken, inhuman scream. A cry dragged from the depths — not from the heart, but from the bone.
He collapsed to the floor, convulsing.
His elbows cracked, his knees twisted, his joints dislocated in terrifying disarray, then reshaped themselves on a new scale. His ribcage split, widened by a centimeter, then shifted back into place. He felt his internal organs move slightly, as if the very space within him had changed.
Blood burst from his nose, his ears, his eyes. His skin began to sweat black. His face throbbed like a second heart. A dull pain settled behind his temples — not like a migraine, but like a fire trying to be born.
And yet…
Despite all that…
No one heard him.
He was lucky.
Indecently lucky.
Since his admission as a page, his status had changed. It wasn't much — but just enough. He had been assigned a small stone room in the east wing, far from the kitchens, far from the stables, and well above the common dormitories. A cold, isolated chamber, one no squire would envy.
But that night, the isolation had saved him.
His scream had reached no one.
And he would have been ashamed if anyone had heard it.
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Minutes — or was it hours? — passed in chaos.
He lost consciousness.
The pain didn't stop.
It changed.
It deepened.
His body burned without fire. His breath, short, turned ragged. His tongue felt too large in his mouth. His vision flickered. He thought he died a dozen times. At one point, he even hoped for it.
But his heart never gave in.
Not once.
Eventually, he opened his eyes. Slowly. As if through a cracked pane of glass.
He was lying on the stone floor. Naked, covered in dried sweat and blood. Every breath was painful — but steady. His right hand trembled. His jaw was locked in a hollow grimace. He no longer had a voice.
He didn't think. Not yet. There was no room for thought.
Only raw awareness.
A wounded animal in a body that no longer felt entirely his own.
He stayed there for a long time.
A long, long time.
The stone walls remained silent, indifferent. The world hadn't noticed.
He could die here, and no one would know until dawn.
But he didn't die.
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Finally… after what felt like an entire day, he moved a finger. Then two. Then his arm. Slowly. Fragilely. As if he were relearning the most basic movements.
And then, he felt it.
The new weight of his shoulders.
The stability in his hips.
The depth of his lungs.
His body had been broken, reforged, rebuilt.
And now… it was his.
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Ten minutes passed.
Ten minutes without screaming, without spasms, without cracking bones. Ten minutes of absolute silence, as if the world itself were holding its breath with him.
It was the absence of pain he noticed first.
Then, slowly, the return of his limbs.
A leg he could bend.
A hand he could close without shaking.
He drew a deep breath — and was surprised to find that his ribs no longer protested. His chest expanded more fully than before, without effort. His breath reached deeper, as if it were finally accessing an inner space that had long been sealed off.
Then, slowly, he sat up.
His arms still trembled, but they obeyed.
His back pulled at him, but didn't crack.
He managed to sit up, leaning against the wall, his eyes still clouded with sweat and fever.
And then he understood.
Daylight had vanished.
His room, plunged into darkness, was lit only by the pale light of a shy moon filtering through the narrow slit of the arrow loop. The air was cold. His sheets were soaked. The floor sticky with dried blood.
He had screamed.
He had bled.
And he had slept — or blacked out — for hours.
Someone else might have panicked. Might have cried.
He stayed still, just a bit longer, letting his thoughts fall back into place.
Then, without a word, he raised his hand and summoned the System.
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[SYSTEM UPDATE – ACTIVE]
[Name: Caelum Velmire]
[Biological Age: 15]
[Soul Age Estimate: 53 years]
[PHYSICAL POWER (Reference: Average adult male = 1.0)]
– Strength: 0.55 ⟶ 1.2
– Agility: 0.65 ⟶ 1.4
– Constitution: 0.7 ⟶ 1.5
– Dexterity: 0.6 ⟶ 1.3
[SPIRITUAL POWER (Reference: 1.0 at adult maturity)]
– Current Level: 1.3 ⟶ 1.31
[MASTERED TECHNIQUES]
Basic Archery (Passive Skill) Technique: Sylvanic Breathing – Level 0 (Unmastered)
Progress: 6.67%
[Somatic Awareness]
[SIMULATION TOKENS AVAILABLE: 0]
➜ (Next available in: 29 days)