The cold was the first thing he felt. A damp, earthy chill that seeped through his clothes and into his bones. It was followed by a deep, throbbing ache in his chest, a reminder of the blades that had torn into him.
Riku's eyes snapped open. He jolted upright, a gasp tearing from his throat. His hands flew to his chest, patting frantically at the rough-spun tunic. It was slashed to ribbons, stained dark with what had to be his own blood. But beneath the torn fabric… was skin. Smooth, unbroken skin. No gaping wound. No scar. Just a lingering, deep-tissue soreness, like the mother of all muscle strains.
He lay back down with a sigh of relief, staring up at the leafy canopy. He was alive. The thought was so vast and unbelievable he could barely process it.
Then his eyes shot open again.
How?
He'd felt his life pouring out onto the forest floor. That wasn't something you walked off. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his head spinning.
That's when he saw it. Hovering a few feet away, glowing with a soft, golden light, was a rectangular screen. It bobbed gently in the air, exactly like a loot box waiting to be clicked in a video game.
It displayed a simple text:
[Vitals Stabilized]
[Major Trauma: Resolved]
[Status: Recovering]
Riku stared, his mind reeling. A UI. He'd actually done it. In his final, desperate moments, he'd used his skill to create one.
A personal interface, with a health bar. And it had… what? Healed him?
The realization hit him. He'd been thinking about his power all wrong. He'd been trying to project illusions outward, to change the world around him. But influencing the outside required immense energy, fighting against the reality of everything else.
But influencing the inside - himself? His own body, his own vital signs? That was an internal system.
It was like modifying a variable in a program he was already running. It was infinitely easier. The energy required was a fraction of what it took to make a simple ball of light.
He put a hand on his forehead, a laugh escaping him. He'd been trying to code complex graphics when the real cheat code was in the debug menu for his own character stats. He was an idiot. A brilliantly lucky idiot.
The laugh died in his throat as he remembered the masked figures. The ambush. They thought he was dead. He needed to keep it that way for now.
He had to get back to Borin's shack, now and try to understand this new aspect of his power before they came back to check their work.
He tried to stand, his legs wobbly. The UI box followed him, bobbing along like a loyal, glowing pet.
A twig snapped.
Riku froze, heart leaping into his throat. He ducked low, scanning the trees. Had they returned?
Instead, a figure emerged from the path. A boy, maybe seventeen, skinny and pale, walking along with a wooden crutch tucked under one arm. In his free hand, he carried a dripping-waterskin. His eyes were fixed on the ground, careful of his footing.
Then he looked up and saw Riku.
The boy's eyes widened in sheer terror. He let out a shrill scream, threw the waterskin into the air, and collapsed onto the muddy path, his crutch clattering away. "Don't! Don't kill me! I wasn't the one! I swear! I was just getting water!"
Riku stared, utterly bewildered. He held up his hands. "Whoa. Hey. I'm not going to hurt you." He took a cautious step forward. The boy flinched, covering his head.
Seeing the genuine panic, Riku softened his approach. He slowly bent down, picked up the fallen waterskin, and offered it to the boy. "Here. I'm… I'm okay. See?" He patted his intact chest. "Thanks for the water, I think. Was for me right?"
The boy peeked through his fingers, his breathing ragged. He saw the blood-soaked tunic, then the unharmed man beneath it. Confusion mixed with fear plastered on his face. "You… you were dead. Or almost. The blood… so much blood."
Riku helped him to his feet and retrieved his crutch. "What's your name?"
"Elian," the boy mumbled, not meeting his eyes.
"I'm Riku. What happened, Elian? What brought you around here?"
Elian nodded shakily. "I use this path as a shortcut home. I found you lying here. You were… a mess. I thought you were a goner. But then I saw something strange." He looked at Riku with a kind of awe. "The cuts… they were closing. Knitting back together or so. Slowing, but closing. I had a waterskin with me, so I rushed to the river to get you some water. I thought… I don't know what I thought."
Riku looked at the boy's leg, supported by the crutch. "What happened to your leg?"
Elian's face darkened. "Tried out for the Ascendancy. Last year. I'm an Earth-Shaper. Weak one. Tier 5." He said it like a confession. "I failed the second test. A spirit got past my defense. Shattered my leg." He shifted uncomfortably. "The Ascendancy healers… they fixed it. Sort of. They used a nega manifestation to bind the bone. Told me it was good as new."
"But it wasn't?"
"Held for a few days," Elian said, bitterness creeping into his voice. "Then the manifestation dissolved. The bone never set right. Collapsed again. Now…" He gestured with the crutch. "Now I'm like this. They said it was a 'rare complication'. My fault for having a 'low-affinity constitution'." He spat the words out. "Lies they expected me to believe. They don't care about the ones who fail. Just do a false healing and send them off as fast as possible."
Riku looked from Elian's broken leg to his own miraculously healed chest. The Ascendancy's 'healing' was a temporary patch, a show of power without substance.
Something hardened inside him. Elian was proof. The ambush was proof. The Ascendancy wasn't just corrupt. It was a predatory system that used people up and threw them away.
"They care," Riku said, his voice low. "They just care that we stay broken."
He looked at his floating UI. [Status: Recovering].
He was recovering. And he was just starting to understand the rules of this game.