Awareness came more easily this time.
Not gently—but predictably, like waking into a body that had already proven it could fail him.
Anders opened his eyes to smoke and shadow, the longhouse ceiling swimming above him as firelight pulsed like a living thing. His vision was still soft at the edges, the world rounded and imprecise, but it no longer startled him. He had learned—quickly—that surprise was wasted energy.
His body ached.
Not in the sharp way of injury, but in the dull, persistent way of existence. Hunger gnawed at him, low and constant. Cold pressed in through layers of wool and fur, creeping into his skin whenever the fire dipped. His limbs felt heavy, unresponsive, as if they belonged to someone else.
Because they did.
He tried to move his hands. They twitched, clumsy and weak. The effort left him breathless.
A cry climbed up his throat on instinct alone.
He stopped it.
Not because it was easy. Because something inside him hesitated.
The sound lingered there—just behind his lips—before dissolving into a shallow breath.
That was when he felt it.
Pressure.
It wasn't pain. It wasn't fear. It was attention. A weight pressing down from nowhere, subtle but unmistakable, like the sense of being watched in a dark room.
The pressure held.
And then—very faintly—it eased.
Anders lay still, heart pounding.
So. That was how it was going to be.
The days that followed blurred into a slow rhythm. Anders learned the longhouse not by sight, but by sound. He mapped it through footsteps and voices, through the scrape of boots on packed earth and the low murmur of conversation that rose and fell like tidewater.
Morning began with smoke and movement. Men rose early, armor creaking as they strapped themselves together. Weapons were lifted from the walls. Someone always stoked the fire. Someone always cursed the cold.
Women moved with purpose, quieter but no less strong. Pots clinked. Wood cracked. A voice hummed, low and steady, the same melody each morning.
His mother.
He didn't know her name yet, but he knew the sound of her breathing. He knew the cadence of her steps. He knew the way her hands adjusted the cloth around him without ever fully waking him.
His father's presence was different—louder, heavier. When he spoke, others listened. When he laughed, the sound filled the longhouse and lingered.
Anders listened to everything.
He had nothing else to do.
The system did not return with words. There were no blue screens. No glowing prompts. No explanations.
Only pressure.
It came and went, never announcing itself, never lingering long enough to become familiar. When Anders cried without restraint, it vanished entirely, leaving him hollow and vaguely ashamed in a way that made no sense for a newborn.
When he endured—when he swallowed the instinct to wail, when he breathed shallow and slow through hunger or cold—the pressure returned.
Not heavier.
More focused.
It reminded him uncomfortably of code running in the background. Not executing commands—observing outcomes.
Input.
Response.
Adjustment.
He tested it.
At first, unconsciously. He held his breath a fraction longer before crying. He let discomfort stretch just past tolerance before giving in. Each time, the pressure tightened slightly, like a hand hovering just above his chest.
Approval was too human a word.
But measurement fit.
As days turned into weeks, Anders began to apply something he had never expected to use in a body this small: discipline.
He focused on his breathing.
Not in the way adults meditated—but in the only way available to him. Slow inhales. Controlled exhales. When hunger twisted his gut, he counted heartbeats instead of surrendering to panic.
When cold crept in at night, he imagined heat—not warmth, but resistance. The idea of not yielding.
The pressure responded every time.
No reward came. No relief. Only a faint sense that something unseen had noted the effort.
He suspected—quietly, cautiously—that something was changing.
Not visibly. Not dramatically.
But he could hold his breath a little longer now. His panic rose more slowly. The world felt… sharper, somehow. Sounds clearer. Smells more distinct. He noticed when the fire burned lower before anyone else did.
He did not feel stronger.
He felt harder to break.
One night, the test nearly took him too far.
The fire burned low, embers glowing red beneath a skin of ash. Snow rattled against the roof, wind slipping through cracks in the walls. The longhouse slept, bundled and breathing, unaware.
Anders lay awake.
Cold seeped into him, deep and insistent. His small body shuddered, muscles trembling without permission. His breath came fast, shallow.
This wasn't discomfort anymore.
This was danger.
Every instinct he had—old and new—screamed at him to cry. To demand warmth. To survive.
The pressure descended.
He felt it fully now, heavier than ever before, pressing down like a verdict waiting to be delivered.
Endure.
The word did not appear. It did not sound.
It simply was.
Anders clenched his jaw—such as it was—and focused on his breathing. Slow. Shallow. Controlled. He counted. He anchored himself to sensation, to existence, to the simple act of staying.
His vision dimmed at the edges.
Too far, a part of him warned. This is too far.
He almost gave in.
Almost.
The pressure vanished.
Warmth followed immediately—not earned, not deserved.
His mother stirred in her sleep, brow furrowing. She pulled him closer without waking, wrapping him tighter against her chest. Heat bloomed around him, real and human and overwhelming.
Anders gasped, breath shuddering back into rhythm.
For just a moment, something flickered before his eyes—so faint he almost missed it.
Daily Trial Completed.
The words dissolved before he could think.
No fanfare. No explanation.
Just acknowledgment.
As he drifted back toward sleep, wrapped in warmth that the system had not provided, Anders understood something that chilled him more than the cold ever could.
The system would test him regardless of love.
Regardless of protection.
It would not care that he was small. Or helpless. Or cherished.
It would only care whether he endured.
Outside, the snow fell thicker, burying the world in silence.
And somewhere far above, unseen and unspoken, something continued to watch.
Not kindly.
Not cruelly.
Patiently.