---
[Squad Barracks - Captain's Quarters]
His room was small, a perk of his new rank. A single bed, a desk, a heavy door that locked.
Kael lit the oil lamp. The flame flickered, casting long, dancing shadows against the stone walls.
He sat at the desk and pulled out the book Valen had given him.
*Breathing — Basic.*
The cover was worn leather, the pages thick parchment.
Kael opened it. His eyes scanned the text, devouring the information.
It was a matter of the body.
The manual detailed a precise rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, paired with controlled contractions of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles.
*...compress the stomach lining... accelerate peristalsis... force the breakdown of nutrients...*
Kael closed the book after twenty minutes. He understood it completely.
It was a technique to supercharge digestion. To make the stomach churn like a millstone, extracting every ounce of energy from food in a fraction of the time. It allowed a knight to eat massive amounts, recover stamina quickly, and build dense muscle.
"Useful." Kael murmured.
He placed a hand on his stomach and tried the rhythm. Inhale. Hold. Compress. Exhale.
He felt his gut tighten. A faint gurgle echoed in the quiet room. He could feel the heat rising in his core.
It worked.
But Kael frowned.
He felt the energy trickle in. It was steady. Reliable.
But it was... additive.
His body, infused with Aether, already did this. The Aether naturally enhanced his metabolism, his recovery, his strength. Adding this breathing technique was just adding 1 to 1.
It was 2.
What he wanted was a qualitative leap, not incremental gain.
The sense of impending danger never left him, hanging over his thoughts no matter how far he pushed it aside.
"Too slow." Kael whispered.
According to the manual, mastering the first layer took three months. Mastery took three years.
Time was short—measured in weeks, months at best.
What he needed was immediate power. A surge. A spike.
Kael lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.
Aether.
The white interface flickered into existence against the darkness of his eyelids.
[Current Aether: 17.5]
He looked at the number.
Killing the farmer had brought him to this point.
He still remember the Aether he had taken on the battlefield—back then, had accumulated to fifteen within his body. At that threshold, every movement felt weighed down, flesh lagging behind intent, as if his frame struggled to keep pace with the energy threaded through it.
Now the flow had deepened to seventeen and a half.
The pressure was gone. The Aether spread through muscle and bone with ease, seeping in rather than bearing down. Its nourishing effect had grown stronger, more efficient. As his physique hardened, his body bore the Aether more naturally. Flesh and bone grew more capable, giving the energy room to settle without strain.
He felt light.
His vessel had adapted. The previous limit was now his baseline. The burden was gone, replaced by a hunger. His body was screaming for more to fuel its rapid evolution.
"17.5." Kael thought.
It was enough.
He didn't hesitate. The reality of this world—the monsters, the wars, the missions ahead—demanded he be stronger.
[Aether: 17.5]
[World: None]
[Identity: None]
[Ability: None]
He remembered the first time.
Five points.
One into the world.
One into identity.
Three into ability.
When he arrived, he had nothing. No equipment. No supplies. No weapons. Just his body, and a strip of cloth around his waist.
He had stayed in that world for only a few days before being killed and returned to the main world.
Over the next three months, through repeated recollection and thought, a pattern began to form.
From that, he began to piece things together.
The world itself set a limit on individual strength. Once a body approached that limit, further growth became constrained by the world rather than the individual.
One point invested into the world.
Three into ability.
Enough to reach the ceiling. Enough to stand at the edge of it.
The identity result fit the same pattern.
One point had gone into identity. Three into ability.
The outcome had been a wanted man. No position. No resources. No equipment.
It aligned. Identity determined starting resources—wealth, equipment, status. A low identity score meant arriving with nothing, regardless of ability.
The conclusion made sense—but it remained a conclusion only.
He couldn't be certain yet.
It would take more trials to know for sure.
For now, testing could wait. Survival came first.
He needed strength. Immediate, overwhelming strength.
[Aether: 0]
[World: 5]
[Identity: 5]
[Ability: 7.5]
Confirm.
---
[Meanwhile - A rented room above the tavern]
The room was dark, the air thick with smoke and stale ale. Firelight from below leaked through the floorboards in dull pulses.
Two men stood near the back wall, voices kept low.
"It's done." One of them spoke quietly. "The right people have been paid."
The other gave a short nod. "Then all that's left is to wait."
He glanced toward the narrow window, where the noise of the tavern drifted up in broken bursts of laughter.
"Wait for their next assignment."
The second man hesitated, then frowned.
"Why deal with them later?" He asked. "They're drinking tonight. Loose. Distracted. We could end it clean."
The first man took his time answering.
"I heard about the weapon Kael was carrying. What kind it is, no one seems to know. Alchemy. Magic. Something else."
He shook his head once.
"Either way, I'm not interested in finding out how powerful it really is."
A pause.
"And the man himself." The first man's voice dropped lower. "Did you see him down there? A woman approached him. Young. Pretty enough. Offered herself."
"And?"
"He refused. Flat. Cold. Like she was asking him to eat rotten meat."
The second man frowned. "So?"
"So he's either a monk with a vow of chastity, or he has no taste for distractions." The first man turned away from the window.
"A man who can walk away from a warm bed the night after a fight already has discipline."
He paused.
"And that's after spending most of his life as a servant."
"People like that don't indulge easily. They watch. They measure."
His mouth curved slightly.
"Discipline, or paranoia. Either way, it makes him dangerous."
He crossed his arms.
"And he left early. Alone. While his men drank and celebrated, he walked out. I didn't like that."
The second man's expression tightened. He exhaled slowly.
"So we wait."
"Yes." The first man replied. "Let them drink. Let them laugh."
He moved to the window, looking down at the tavern below. Firelight spilled through the open door, catching raised mugs and loose laughter as the squad drank on, unaware.
The second man joined him, following his gaze to where the soldiers celebrated their survival.
After a moment, the first man stepped back.
"Next time they go out, they won't be relaxed."
The window was quietly shut.
"And neither will we."