The runes faded into the grey static of the street, but the afterimage burned in Rem's mind.
Dormant.
He had read enough to know that word shouldn't appear. A System was either there, or it wasn't. You were either Awake, or you were asleep. But "Dormant"? It felt like a sick joke. Like receiving the demo version of a game where everyone else was playing the full release.
He tried to reach for it. He didn't know how, exactly—he just focused on that cold, heavy sensation in his chest, trying to pull it to the surface like the books described.
Immediate, sharp dizziness slammed into him. It wasn't power. It was a void.
Then came the itch.
It started low in his throat, a wet, bubbling urge that ignored his attempt to suppress it. His hand flew to his back pocket, desperate for a cloth.
Empty.
Shit. He remembered the clinic. He had thrown the last one away.
The urge spiked, turning into a jagged pain. He scanned the street, his vision swimming. He couldn't do this here, not in the middle of the crowd. He spotted a gap between the clinic and the next building—a narrow, shadowed alley.
He stumbled toward it, his hand clamped over his mouth, his breath coming in shallow, whistling gasps. He barely made it to the damp brick wall before his legs gave out.
He leaned against the bricks, sliding down until he hit his knees. The cough tore out of him. It was a dry, scraping hack at first, shaking his narrow shoulders. Then it deepened, wet and violent. He had to brace his other hand against the grime of the wall to keep from face-planting.
He retched, spitting into a dirty puddle at his feet.
Red swirled in the dark water. It mixed with the oil slick on the surface, creating a grotesque, rainbow-colored abstract art.
He wiped his mouth with the back of a trembling hand, leaving a faint crimson smear across his pale skin. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
"Here."
Rem flinched. He looked up.
Standing at the mouth of the alley was the nurse. She had changed out of her uniform into a plain yellow t-shirt and skirt, a bag slung over her shoulder. She was holding out a bottle of water.
Rem stared at it. He felt a flash of shame—caught like a dying rat in a trap—but his throat was on fire.
"I... I'm fine," he rasped, wiping his mouth again.
"You're not," she said simply. She didn't come closer. She just placed the bottle on a dry patch of concrete near him. "Rinse your mouth. You look terrible."
She looked at him for a second longer. There was no pity in her eyes, just a hard, clinical recognition. Then she turned and walked away, vanishing into the street noise.
Rem stared at the bottle. He reached out, his fingers shaking, and cracked the seal. He drank. The water was cold. It washed away the taste of iron, though the metallic smell lingered in his nose.
He stood up, using the wall for support. The dizziness had settled into a dull, rhythmic throb behind his eyes.
He wasn't dead yet.
The Trial, he thought. It's the only way to get the full version.
He moved out of the alley. He didn't go home. He knew where the nearest registration terminal was—a squat, grey pillar on the corner of the next block.
He walked up to it. It looked like an old, beat-up arcade machine, stripped of all color and joy. The screen was dark, reflecting his hollow face.
Place Your Palm.
Rem placed his hand on the cold scanner plate. It hummed. Blue light washed over his skin.
`[BIOMETRICS CONFIRMED.]`
`[SCANNING...]`
A red laser shot from a lens above, sweeping his eye. Rem didn't blink.
`[STIGMATA DETECTED. SIGNATURE: FAINT/DEGRADED.]`
`[STATUS: ELIGIBLE FOR TRIAL. COHORT: U7 ARENA.]`
`[SCHEDULE: 14 DAYS.]`
`[ACCEPT REGISTRATION?]`
Two physical buttons glowed below the screen: YES and NO.
Rem stared at the YES button. It was just a piece of plastic. Pressing it felt too easy. It should have been heavier.
He pressed it.
Thunk.
A slot opened at the base. A single, cheap plastic token slid out. It looked like a subway coin, stamped with the characters: U7-A.
He picked it up. The screen went black.
That was when it hit him.
He stood on the busy corner, people rushing past him, cars honking, the sun beating down. He looked at the token in his palm.
He had just booked his own death in two weeks' time.
---
The next fourteen days passed in a blur of grim routine.
Rem didn't bother trying to train his body. He wasn't stupid. He couldn't do a pushup without wheezing; trying to learn swordplay or martial arts in two weeks would just leave him exhausted and likely injured before the Trial even started. In a combat scenario, he was dead meat. That was a fact.
But he knew one thing from his reading: The Trials weren't always pure combat. The System tested for survival. Sometimes that meant killing, but sometimes it meant solving a puzzle, navigating a maze, or just outlasting the guy next to you.
So, he fed his brain.
He spent his days in the public archives, squinting at terminals until his eyes burned.
He continued his freelance reviewing work at night, forcing himself to type out critiques of terrible romance novels just to earn enough credits for food.
He forced himself to eat. Nutrient paste, heavy breads, protein blocks. He hated it. Every meal felt like swallowing wet cement. Half the time, he ended up kneeling over the toilet bowl, barfing it back up. But he wiped his mouth and ate again.
He needed the fuel.
He dove deep into the lore of the System. He learned that the ranks and hierarchies were strict—Dormant, Awakened, Master, Scion, Saint, Glorious, Ascendent. It was a ladder of power built on bones. There were legends of ranks only few had reached an Archetype, Demi-god and Primordial.
He also learned about Sins.
Every System, no matter how powerful, came with a flaw. A price. It was the universe's way of balancing the equation.
Rem found a digital copy of an old legend—the story of Sally Jensen, the "Love Hero" from the last century. Her Aspect granted immense power, but her Sin was a brutal literalization: she was stricken blind for a full day upon seeing any woman unclothed. Historical accounts detailed her tactical adaptations—fighting by sound, navigating battles half-sighted—and her final, documented choice: to undergo a ritual of permanent blindness to remain with the woman she loved. The files were dry, but the horror was clear.
A Sin wasn't an inconvenience. It was a fundamental rewiring of your life.
Rem closed the file. The story sat in his stomach like a stone.
A Sin.
His sickness wasn't just bad luck. It was his Sin. He was paying the price for a System he didn't even fully have yet.
If he survived the Trial, would the Sin vanish? Or would it change?
If I survive.
The days bled away. The countdown in his vision was a constant, silent companion.
`[TIME REMAINING: 48 HOURS.]`
`[TIME REMAINING: 24 HOURS.]`
His body grew heavier. The supplements stopped working entirely. He coughed more, slept less. He felt like a ghost haunting his own apartment.
On the thirteenth night, Rem lay on the bare floor of his room.
He had packed everything away. The few books he owned were stacked by the door. The room was clean. Empty.
He stared at the water stains on the ceiling. He wasn't worried. Strangely, the panic had burned itself out days ago. He had done the research. He knew the venue. He knew the odds.
Tomorrow, he would walk into the U7 Arena.
Tomorrow, he would be free.
Either he would die, and the pain in his chest would finally stop. Or he would Awaken, and the System would fix him.
Freedom was guaranteed.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. It felt foreign on his face. The grin widened, twisting into a dry, rasping laugh.
The laugh caught in his throat. His chest convulsed. He turned his head to the side and coughed, a wet, heavy sound that echoed in the empty room.
He didn't bother to wipe his mouth. He let the blood drip from his lips onto the floorboards, pooling in the dust.
He closed his eyes.
In the darkness of his mind, the grey text pulsed one final time for the night.
`[TIME REMAINING: 8 HOURS, 12 MINUTES.]`
The wait was over.