The world did not announce itself when the window appeared.
There was no sound. No blinding light.
It simply… existed.
Eren froze mid-step, instincts screaming at him to assess the threat. His gaze sharpened, body instinctively shifting into readiness—but the translucent panel hovering before his eyes remained still, indifferent to his tension.
Letters. Symbols. Order.
He recognized it immediately.
A status window.
"…So it really is that kind of world," he murmured.
The panel adjusted slightly, as if acknowledging his awareness.
===Status===
Name: Eren Veridian
Rank: F+
Strength: FSpeed: F+Stamina: EMana: FLuck: BCharm: C
Skills:
Calm Mind (C)
Arts:
★★★ Basic Sword Art — Practitioner
====================
He stared at it longer than necessary.
Not because it surprised him—but because it confirmed something far more unsettling.
I survived… but barely.
F-rank across the board. Marginal improvements so small they were almost insulting. In Ashen Crown, these numbers marked someone destined to be forgotten early. Someone who never reached the academy stage properly. Someone written off as background noise.
His eyes lingered briefly on Luck: B.
"…Interesting."
Luck was not something that could be trained.
He dismissed the window with a thought. It vanished instantly, leaving no trace behind.
Control without effort.
That, at least, felt familiar.
Eren exhaled slowly and continued walking.
The building he had awakened in revealed itself more clearly now that he was paying attention. It was a separate estate, positioned a short distance away from the Veridian main house—close enough to remain under the clan's domain, far enough to be forgotten.
A safe house.
Or a discard zone.
No servants' quarters. No patrol routes etched into the stone. No mana wards humming in the air like the ones he faintly sensed toward the main estate.
Silence lived here.
The structure itself was modest compared to the Veridian ancestral residence, but it wasn't poor. The stonework was solid. The layout deliberate. It was the kind of place meant for containment, not comfort.
A place to put something inconvenient.
Eren moved through the halls, footsteps echoing softly. Dust coated most surfaces, but not evenly—some paths were cleaner than others.
Someone had lived here.
Not recently.
But not forgotten, either.
He entered what appeared to be a study.
And stopped.
Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, packed tightly with books. Old ones. Some bound in leather cracked with age, others in simple cloth wraps marked with handwritten titles. The faint scent of ink and old paper filled the air, layered beneath the dampness of abandonment.
Eren stepped closer, fingers brushing a spine.
These weren't Veridian official manuals.
No clan seals. No amplification crests. No doctrine-laced titles about dominion and control.
Instead—
Mana Circulation: Foundational TheoryPractical Sword Forms for the UnaffiliatedElemental Response Without Lineage Bias
His pulse slowed.
Memory surfaced—not violently this time, but cooperatively.
The original Eren had come here often.
Alone.
Rejected from official instruction, barred from learning the Veridian clan's amplification arts, he had turned instead to books. To theory. To practice without pedigree.
He had learned mana not as something to command—but something to listen to.
Eren reached for a wooden rack in the corner.
A sword rested there.
Plain. Balanced. Maintained.
Not ceremonial.
A tool.
When he wrapped his fingers around the hilt, something subtle clicked into place. His stance adjusted without conscious thought. Feet positioning. Weight distribution. Breathing.
The ★★★ Basic Sword Art surfaced naturally—not explosive, not dramatic.
Clean.
Efficient.
He made a single, controlled swing.
The blade cut through the air with a soft whistle.
No mana flare. No amplification surge.
Just precision.
Eren nodded faintly.
"So this is what you left me," he said quietly—to the boy who had lived here, to the body that had endured rejection in silence.
Not power.
Foundation.
He returned the sword carefully.
This place wasn't a prison.
It was a seedbed.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, Eren felt something close to certainty.
They had isolated him because they thought he lacked control.
They were wrong.
He simply wasn't playing their game.