Time did not pass normally within the castle or vault or mountaintop or whatever this place was or is.
Jack learned of this very early; his body did not yearn for sustenance, it cared little for food, water, or sleep. All that mattered was his place on the throne and the constant rewards from the book on his lap.
Books were first to be given.
History books and diaries to be specific, detailing the wars of Valyria, a superpower of Essos, the endless wars of the Rhyonar, and the plagues of the thousand islands. Some spoke of an age when dragons ruled the skies of Valyria like living gods. Others told of a broken realm, splintered by war, treachery, and the slow rot of forgotten oaths.
Jack read them all.
Books describing the rise and fall of kings whose names the world would one day curse. Books that spoke of children burned alive by wildfire, of brothers who murdered brothers, of empires undone by pride and prophecy. Futures overlapped with pasts in his mind, timelines tangling until cause and consequence lost meaning.
At first, Jack reacted.
He felt horror at the story he was given, the tales of brother slaying brother, all for greed. He read tales of incest and love, which both disgusted and intrigued him. He read about how in one book detailed account of the rise of a king, and in another, the fall and legendary status of said king.
By the two-hundredth day, Jack stopped trying to count time.
The hall did not change. The abyss beneath stayed the same. Stones continued to fall from the unseen ceiling, vanishing into the abyss as if they had never existed. Only the growing pile of books around the throne marked progress, towering stacks of leather, vellum, and stranger materials etched with runes or bound in scales.
And Jack changed.
His posture straightened unconsciously. His gaze grew steady, calculating. When memories of Earth surfaced, of glass buildings, traffic, a life without magic, they were crushed faster now, smothered before emotion could form. Something inside him no longer resisted that suppression.
He did not miss Earth.
Not anymore.
By the end of the first quarter of a thousand days, Jack knew more about the world of Westeros, Essos, and Sothroyas than any living being ever would. He knew its secrets before they were secrets. He knew its endings before its beginnings.
And still, the book in his lap continued to open.
The gifts or rewards, so to speak, changed after exactly day 250
Weapons began to appear.
The first sword arrived on the two-hundred-fifty-third day. It manifested upright beside the throne, its blade dark as smoke and rippling like liquid shadow. Valyrian steel. Jack did not need the system to tell him; the metal sang to him, humming with a heatless fire.
He lifted it easily.
The blade was light, far lighter than steel should be, yet carried a weight that pressed against his senses rather than his arms. Runes spiraled faintly along its fuller, half-forgotten words of blood and flame. When Jack swung it experimentally, the air screamed.
More followed.
Daggers, greatswords, spears, and polearms from lost Valyrian houses whose names history had erased. Some were forged for dragonlords, others for assassins or champions. Each carried echoes, whispers of battles fought, lives taken, cities burned.
Jack did not even blink at them.
He catalogued them.
By the four-hundredth day, the throne room had become an armory. Weapons rested against the stone walls or floated patiently in the air when space ran out. Jack practiced with them in the darkness, learning balance, reach, and momentum without ever drawing blood.
He did not tire.
Tools followed weapons.
Smithing hammers forged by dwarves of ancient Essos. Alchemical sets capable of refining wildfire or stranger substances. Maps etched into obsidian plates that depicted continents long sunken beneath the sea. Each reward expanded the possibility, yet Jack remained seated.
Still waiting.
By the five-hundredth day, Jack realized something unsettling.
The eggs came without ceremony.
One moment, the air beside the throne was empty. The next, it shimmered with heat as three massive dragon eggs appeared, their shells veined in crimson, black, and molten gold. Valyrian dragon eggs, alive, sleeping, ancient.
Jack stood for the first time in days.
He approached them slowly, reverently. Heat radiated from the shells, warming the stone beneath his feet. He placed a hand against one, feeling a heartbeat pulse faintly beneath the surface.
Life.
He did not smile.
Other eggs followed in later days. Stranger ones.
An egg taken from the swamps of the Rhoyne, massive, leathery, faintly twitching. The system identified it as belonging to a Torturous, a monstrous river-beast said to capsize fleets and devour cities that dared build too close to the water.
There were more.
Eggs of ice-bound creatures from the far north. Crystal-shelled entities from deserts beyond Asshai. Things that should not have been moved across worlds now rest quietly within the castle.
Jack learned restraint.
He had learned from the books given of the monsters that were born from these eggs, of the screams and horror brought by these beasts upon the average man.
By now, Jack rarely thought; he re-read a book given, trained some more, and looked at the eggs like they were behind a glass panel.
By the thousandth day, Jack no longer felt human.
Not fully.
He still remembered what humans were, how they loved, feared, dreamed, but those emotions existed at a distance, as concepts read from a book rather than experiences lived. His thoughts had slowed, deepened, stretched across what seemed decades rather than moments.
The rewards continued.
Crowns from fallen empires. Armor that could turn dragonfire to water. Seeds capable of reshaping landscapes. Each gift layered upon the last until the throne room resembled a treasury of gods rather than a prison.
And yet, Jack had not left.
He sat upon the throne as he had on the first day, surrounded by power enough to conquer worlds, waiting for something he could not name. The system did not urge him forward. The castle did not open its gates. The abyss still yawned below.
The book on his lap fluttered open once more.
— Day 1000 —— Reward Granted —— Soon to arrive —
Jack's eyes narrowed.
For the first time in a thousand days, anticipation stirred.
Whatever awaited him next would not be knowledge.
Nor tools.
Nor beasts.
It would be a choice.