The Status screen burned the truth into my retinas. Every line was a chain.
Type: Mana. The standard energy for mages. Good. Aura was for warriors, a physical enhancement I couldn't rely on with this frail body. Divine Power, Dark Power, Holy Power… those were for gods, demons, and chosen saints. Far beyond my reach.
Bloodline: Unawakened. A half-elf heritage, lying dormant. A potential source of power, locked away. Another problem for another day.
Then, the true anchor dragging me down: Potential: C.
A cold fist clenched around my heart. In this world, Potential was a ceiling. It dictated the highest Rank you could ever achieve. With C-rank Potential, my absolute limit was becoming a C-rank adventurer. With monstrous effort and priceless resources, I might scratch B-rank. But that was it.
This was why I was left to rot. Why Baron White could ignore his bastard son without a second thought. In a noble house, even a minor one, a child with only C-rank Potential wasn'tt a disappointment—he was an embarrassment. A stain best forgotten.
My attributes were all G-rank, the baseline for a healthy, untrained commoner. My Arts were the most basic forms anyone could learn.
But Skills… Skills could change everything.
They were the great dividers of Amazia. Unique and Rare Skills were innate, gifts from birth that could defy logic. A commoner with a potent Rare Skill could rise to nobility. A noble born with a weak Unique Skill could still be cast out.
My eyes lingered on the one spark in the gloom: [Rare Skill: Plant Creation (G) - Growth Type].
Growth Type.
Most innate Skills were static. A G-rank Skill stayed G-rank for life. To upgrade them required legendary S-rank items or fulfilling near-impossible conditions—quests for protagonists.
But a Growth Type Skill could evolve. It could level up through use, through understanding, through… creation. It was a seed. A tiny, fragile seed with the potential to become a world tree.
This was my secret. Not just the Traits, but this Skill. It was trash now, but it was my trash. And I would make it grow.
The rest of my skills were pathetic. Recovery (F), Swordsmanship (G), Mana Control (F). The toolkit of a servant, not a survivor. No wonder the previous Roy was bullied relentlessly by his legitimate half-siblings, encouraged by a stepmother who saw my very existence as an insult to her noble blood.
The scale of the task before me was paralyzing. The Five Protagonists were born with the Potential of monsters, destined for SS-rank or higher. I was born in the gutter with a C-rank ceiling.
I have to break that ceiling. The thought was a quiet, desperate fire in my gut. No matter what it takes. I need to raise my Potential. I need to reach at least A-rank. S-rank, ideally. Or I will die when the real monsters wake up.
First, I had to survive the next hour.
My body was a tapestry of bruises and aches. Thankfully, I had tools. The Recovery (F) skill would accelerate natural healing. And I had a spell: Healing (F).
A thrill, completely separate from the fear, shot through me. Magic. Real magic.
I was a man from modern Earth. The concept of manipulating energy, of casting spells, was the stuff of dreams. Now, it was my reality. My only weapon.
Sitting cross-legged on the hard floor, I closed my eyes. I began the Basic Mana Breathing Technique Roy had practiced, a childish exercise to feel one's mana.
At first, nothing. Then, a faint tingling on my skin. After a minute, I saw them—not with my eyes, but with my mind's eye. Tiny, shimmering motes of light, drifting in the air like luminous dust. Mana particles.
The technique pulled at them. One by one, they drifted into me. A warm, gentle sensation bloomed in my core, spreading through my limbs like drinking sunlight. It was… comforting. Invigorating.
I stopped breathing in and switched to Mana Control (F). The warm energy inside me felt like a slippery, restless fish. I focused, grasping at it with my will. It squirmed, almost escaping. I gritted my teeth, pouring all my concentration into the task.
Steady. Flow.
Slowly, reluctantly, the mana began to circulate along the pathways Roy's body remembered. A clumsy, weak current, but a current nonetheless.
Now for the test.
I held out my hands, focusing on the Healing spell. The incantation was simple, etched into Roy's memory. Green light, warm and soft as spring leaves, gathered in my palms. The sensation was incredible—a palpable weight of life in my hands.
Gently, I pressed the light to a large bruise on my arm.
The effect was instant. The angry purple and yellow faded, the pain receding to a dull throb, then to nothing. A wave of fatigue hit me immediately, my small mana pool draining rapidly. But I didn't stop. I moved to the next bruise, and the next, working until my body was merely sore and my mind was foggy with exhaustion.
The room swam. I had to stop. I'd used almost everything.
But I was healed. The immediate physical crisis was over.
Now, the social one began.
Tomorrow, I was summoned to meet my… father. Baron Boron Mark White. The man who gave me life and nothing else. The previous Roy's soul had craved that man's acknowledgment, studying and training in a futile hope for a scrap of attention.
I felt no such craving. I felt only cold calculation.
He was an obstacle. A resource. A piece on the board. I needed to extract something from him—information, permission, perhaps even a meager allowance—to begin my true journey. I couldn't stay in this servant's room, eating scraps and being used as a punching bag. I needed to move, to explore, to find the first hidden opportunity my novel-knowledge hinted at.
But to do that, I needed to pass this first test. I needed to face the Baron not as a pleading child, but as someone with… potential. Even if I had to fake it.
The fatigue was overwhelming. My body, though healed, screamed for rest. The emotional and mental whirlwind of the day had taken its toll.
I crawled into the narrow bed, the thin blanket offering little warmth. Outside the small window, the sky darkened into twilight.
Tomorrow, I would meet the man who discarded me. And I would begin the long, impossible climb from trash to survivor.
With that final thought, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.