The Bookkeeper did not announce his recommendation.
He simply stopped beside Cael one morning as Cael wiped down a shelf of mid-grade manuals, watched him work in silence for several breaths, and then placed three books on the desk beside him.
"They won't bite," the elder said. "Probably."
Cael froze. "I'm… allowed?"
"Read," the Bookkeeper corrected. "Not remove. Not copy. Not attempt anything heroic. Study them while you work."
The covers were plain. No glowing sigils. No oppressive pressure. Manuals so ordinary they would have been overlooked by most awakened disciples.
Cael nodded quickly. "Thank you, Elder."
The Bookkeeper waved a hand dismissively. "Don't thank me yet. Words are cheaper than results."
Then he walked away.
Cael read in fragments.
A paragraph between shelves. A diagram while seals dried. A passage memorized while sweeping. The manuals described foundational body conditioning, breathing alignments, and intent circulation—nothing profound, nothing forbidden.
Everything was precise.
Everything was logical.
Everything did absolutely nothing for him.
He followed the instructions carefully. Held postures until his muscles burned. Repeated breathing cycles until his chest ached. Walked measured patterns through the aisles late at night, slow and deliberate.
The only results were soreness and lost time.
No warmth. No resonance. No spark.
His body remained stubbornly silent.
Days passed.
Cael adjusted. Slowed down. Tried again.
Still nothing.
The manuals agreed on one thing: breathing was the root. Breath aligned intent. Intent shaped qi. Qi shaped the body.
But the breathing described in the books—
It didn't match what the system had given him.
Not even close.
The system's breathing method was irregular where the manuals were strict. It emphasized pauses where the texts warned against them. It encouraged asymmetry, imbalance, even inefficiency.
According to the books, Cael should have collapsed weeks ago.
Instead, his stamina had quietly improved.
His recovery was faster.
His luck—small, unprovable things—had shifted.
He stopped dropping tools. Shelves stopped reacting badly to him. Even the dust seemed to settle more easily when he worked.
None of it made sense.
One evening, long after the library had emptied, Cael stood between shelves with one of the manuals open in his hands, brow furrowed.
"This says inhale for six, exhale for six," he murmured. "No pauses. No variance."
He tried it.
His chest felt tight.
Uncomfortable.
Wrong.
When he returned to the system's breathing, the discomfort eased.
But that only made the doubt worse.
If the manuals were correct—and they had been refined by generations of cultivators—then what was the system giving him?
And why?
That night, Cael stayed late, sweeping slowly, mind turning.
The Bookkeeper watched him once from across the hall, eyes unreadable, then returned to his own work.
Cael didn't ask questions.
He had learned better than that.
Instead, he focused inward.
The system had never claimed to be benevolent.
It had never claimed to be cultivation.
It only corrected probability.
It offered choices.
It rewarded outcomes.
As he extinguished the lamps and locked the doors, one thought refused to leave him.
If this breathing method wasn't meant to awaken him—
Then what was it meant to prepare him for?
And more unsettling still—
Who, exactly, had decided he should have it?
The library remained silent.
But for the first time since the system had appeared, Cael felt something colder than doubt settle into his chest.
Suspicion.