The summoning circle hurt.
Not like fire.
Not like lightning.
It felt like pressure—like the air itself had decided he did not belong inside it.
Arun's knees hit the stone first.
Cold seeped through thin fabric, biting hard enough to steal his breath. His palms scraped against engraved lines glowing a dull white beneath him. Symbols he didn't recognize pulsed once… then faded.
The pain stopped all at once.
Sound rushed back in.
Voices echoed overhead. Excited. Sharp. Foreign in a way his ears understood but his mind rejected.
"He's alive."
"Another success."
"How many is that now?"
Arun tried to lift his head. The motion sent a spike of dizziness through his skull, forcing him back down. His stomach churned. The world tilted slightly to the left, then corrected itself, like a poorly balanced camera.
Someone stepped into his blurred vision.
A man in layered robes. Gold thread stitched into dark blue fabric. A crystal embedded at his collarbone pulsed faintly, in rhythm with Arun's heartbeat.
"Stand if you can," the man said.
Arun opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
The man frowned. "Check his status."
A translucent blue screen flickered into existence in front of Arun's eyes.
It was impossibly clear. Too sharp. Like text etched directly onto reality.
[System Initialized]
Designation: Summoned Individual
Arun sucked in a breath.
This wasn't real.
It couldn't be.
Another line appeared.
Name: Arun
Class: Archivist
Rank: F
The word F lingered.
Then—laughter.
Not cruel. Not loud.
Just… disappointed.
"Archivist?" someone repeated. "That's not combat-capable."
"Does it even qualify as a class?"
"It's a support tag at best."
Arun forced himself to sit up.
"What," he croaked, throat raw, "does that mean?"
No one answered him.
The robed man waved a hand dismissively. "He lives. That's enough."
The screen shifted.
[Personal Inventory Unlocked]
Slots: ∞
Restriction: Non-physical entries only
Arun blinked.
Inventory.
Relief flared instinctively. If this was some kind of game-like system, inventory meant safety. Storage. Resources. Weapons. Something he could use.
He focused.
Another window opened.
[Inventory Contents]
— Empty —
His chest tightened.
Empty?
He tried again. Willed it harder.
Nothing changed.
A faint ache throbbed behind his eyes. A pressure, like something pushing from the inside.
Around him, the others were celebrating.
A man nearby shouted as a sword formed in his hand out of blue light. Another laughed as numbers rapidly climbed beside her name. Flames sparked, lightning cracked, a low hum of power filled the chamber.
Arun sat on the cold stone, invisible.
Useless.
His knee twinged sharply when he tried to stand. Pain shot up his leg, stealing his breath. He hissed and grabbed it instinctively.
The blue screen flickered again.
[New Conditions Detected]
→ Fatigue (Moderate)
→ Knee Strain (Minor)
→ Fear (Suppressed)
Arun froze.
"…Conditions?"
He stared at the list.
They didn't look like items. No icons. No rarity tags. Just words. Clean. Clinical.
Fear (Suppressed).
He hadn't even realized he was afraid.
His heart was racing. His hands were shaking. Sweat dampened the back of his neck.
But the system said the fear was suppressed.
On impulse—without really understanding why—Arun reached out.
Not physically.
Mentally.
He touched the word Fear.
The world lurched.
It wasn't dramatic. No flash of light. No sound.
Just… absence.
The tightness in his chest vanished. His breathing slowed. The trembling in his hands stopped mid-shake, like someone had pressed pause.
A new line appeared.
[Condition Logged]
Fear (Suppressed)
Stored successfully.
Arun's mouth fell open.
He sat there, stunned, while the noise of the chamber faded into a dull background hum.
He tried again.
This time, he selected Fatigue (Moderate).
The heaviness in his limbs drained away in seconds. His muscles still ached, but the crushing exhaustion—gone.
He stood.
The movement felt wrong. Too easy.
Another notification blinked into existence.
[Condition Logged]
Fatigue (Moderate)
Stored successfully.
Arun's heart began to pound again—faster now, but not from fear.
From realization.
He looked down at his knee. The pain still throbbed there, sharp and insistent.
He selected Knee Strain (Minor).
The pain dulled immediately. Not healed—he could tell the damage was still there—but distant. Manageable.
[Condition Logged]
Knee Strain (Minor)
Three entries now sat in his inventory.
No weapons.
No armor.
No gold.
Just pieces of himself.
A faint line of text shimmered beneath the list, barely visible.
[Condition Compatibility: Unknown]
[Warning: Reapplication effects untested]
Reapplication?
Arun swallowed.
Carefully, he selected Fear (Suppressed) again.
A prompt appeared.
Apply Condition?
Target: Self
Status: Safe (Unverified)
He hesitated.
Then confirmed.
The fear came back.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
Cold and sharp, like ice water dumped straight into his veins. His heart slammed against his ribs. His breath hitched.
Arun staggered—
—and then it stopped.
The fear snapped off just as abruptly as it had appeared.
Another message appeared.
[Condition Reapplied Successfully]
Effect duration: 0.8 seconds
Mental Strain: Minor
Arun leaned against a pillar, chest heaving.
His head throbbed now, a dull pressure building behind his temples.
But he was smiling.
Slowly.
Quietly.
No one noticed him.
No one cared about the F-rank Archivist standing at the edge of the summoning hall.
They didn't see the inventory that couldn't store items.
They didn't see the conditions waiting to be used.
Arun opened the inventory again and stared at the three entries.
Fear.
Fatigue.
Pain.
He had been weak his entire life.
Now, at least, weakness could be… recorded.
A final line appeared at the bottom of the screen.
[System Note:]
Improper usage may result in identity destabilization.
Arun closed the interface.
He looked back at the glowing summoning circle, now dark and cracked.
For the first time since arriving, he felt something close to certainty.
"If this is useless," he murmured, barely audible,
"then I'll break it properly."