Yang stared at the cracked ceiling of Lucien's room, watching the gray morning light creep across the stained plaster. He'd been awake for hours. Sleep had become difficult lately. His mind wandered to nowhere in particular, thoughts slipping away before he could grasp them properly.

  Depression, he recognized distantly. He was depressed.

  The question was whether these feelings were his own or remnants of Lucien's final weeks. The body had been drowning in despair before its original owner gave up entirely. Those neurochemical patterns might still be embedded in the flesh, influencing Yang's emotional state without his conscious awareness. Yang leaned towards the latter explanation considering he didn’t feel the weight of misery as heavily when he was in his sea of consciousness.

  Or maybe it was just his own legitimate response to being ripped from his life and dumped into a foreign world with no clear way home and being in his sea of consciousness, the proof of his cultivation efforts, abated the worst of it.

  Probably a mix of both.

  It had been a week since he'd transmigrated here.

  Yang thought back over those days. The first few days had been spent getting used to the body and assimilating the memories left behind in Lucien's brain.

  He'd absolutely refused to leave the apartment. The language in his memories had been incomprehensible at first, like noise his ears registered but his mind couldn't parse. He'd been terrified of revealing himself as an imposter the moment he opened his mouth and gibberish came out.

  But more than that, he'd had terrible trouble controlling the body.

  After his years of munching beast cores in the forest, Yang's strength had increased considerably. He'd gotten so used to living with enhanced physical power that he didn't even notice it anymore. It had become his baseline, his normal.

  Coming here and getting stuck in Lucien's weak, malnourished body had created a massive disconnect between his mind and flesh. He was trapped in a weird state where the body's own physical reflexes and Yang's mental reflexes fought and collided constantly.

  His grip on things was too soft because he'd gotten used to holding items with lighter pressure. In his cultivation world body, a tighter grip would have broken most mundane objects. Here, that instinctive gentle touch meant he kept dropping things. Cups slipped from his fingers. Doors didn't close when he pushed them because he unconsciously held back his strength.

  The reverse happened too. Sometimes he'd forget this body was weak and try to reach for something and misjudge the distance because the arm length was different.

  The last week had been full of such struggles. Relearning how to inhabit a body. How to walk without stumbling. How to eat without biting his tongue. How to write with fingers that felt too long and clumsy.

  Once he'd assimilated the language and memories more fully, the fragments gradually sharpening into something usable, Yang realized he was in a city called Markech in the country of Reylan.

  The world felt like a version of Victorian England from his first life. Industrial revolution era, but somehow worse. The factories belched constant smoke that turned the sky into a permanent overcast haze. The buildings were cramped together, tall and narrow, blocking out what little sunlight penetrated the smog. The streets were paved with uneven cobblestones that collected refuse and waste water in stagnant pools.

  Everything smelled of coal smoke and human waste and desperation.

  The people looked worn down. Factory workers trudging to twelve-hour shifts. Street vendors calling out their wares with voices hoarse from shouting. Children in ragged clothes running errands or picking pockets or begging for coins. The wealthy moved through the streets in covered carriages, insulated from the poverty surrounding them.

  It was a world that ground people down. That crushed dreams and ambitions beneath the weight of simple survival.

  Yang hated it.

  He'd been going out for the last couple of days to the library. It was free, thankfully. One of the few resources available to anyone regardless of wealth. And Lucien had been literate, so Yang was able to read and understand the books there without additional learning.

  The library was one of the few buildings in Markech that wasn't purely utilitarian. Someone, at some point, had cared about making it beautiful. The facade was decorated with carved stone. The windows were tall and arched. The reading room had high ceilings and rows of wooden shelves that smelled of old paper.

  But even the library felt muted to Yang. The carved decorations looked worn and dirty. The windows let in dull light that made everything look washed out. The books on the shelves seemed endless and overwhelming rather than exciting.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Yang had been researching this world's power system at the library. He believed he needed to accumulate whatever energy it used if he wanted to increase the status bar in his Sea of Consciousness. That had to be the key. Fill the bar, and maybe the web would activate. Maybe it would pull him back home.

  The status bar had gradually increased over the week. From the initial 0.0001% to its current state.

  [0.0009% Energy]

  Yang was not amused. If he had to rely on this passive accumulation rate, Lucien's body would die of old age before the bar reached even ten percent, let alone the full hundred.

  He had plans to actively cultivate this world's power system. But that would require resources. Understanding. Time and effort and probably money.

  And he was lucky enough to have transmigrated into poor circumstances again.

  Yang wondered, not for the first time, why he couldn't have been the young master of some important family for once. Just once. Three consecutive lives of dirt poverty. And just when his circumstances in the cultivation world had been improving, just when he'd been making real progress, he got yanked to another life of poverty and toil.

  What kind of wonderful luck did he have to achieve this trifecta of destitution?

  Yang had been feeling down and tired since he'd arrived here. Food tasted awful. Everything did, really. This whole world felt washed out, drained of vibrancy and joy.

  He'd noticed time passing strangely. He'd sit down intending to read for an hour and look up to find three hours had vanished. Or he'd spend what felt like an entire day doing nothing and realize only an hour had actually passed.

  Even going to the library required considerable effort. It took Yang longer to convince himself to leave the apartment than he actually spent reading once he got there.

  Yang was lying in bed, trying to muster the energy to face another gray day, when something shifted in his awareness. Not a thought, exactly. More like a memory surfacing. Lucien's memory, specifically.

  The hiding place.

  Yang suddenly sat up, the fog lifting slightly from his mind. He knew where Lucien had hidden his most precious possessions. The things he'd saved for. Worked for. The tools he'd believed would help him join this world's powered class.

  Yang dropped to his knees beside the bed and shoved his arm underneath, fingers searching the floorboards.

  There. Yang knew exactly where to look. Lucien's memories guiding his hands.

  He pried up a loose floorboard to reveal a hollow space beneath. Inside were the items that represented years of Lucien's effort and sacrifice.

  Yang pulled out a thick book first. Heavy. Bound in dark leather that had seen better days. The cover was unmarked, more accurately the book was so old that the text on the cover had faded.

  His fingers traced the worn leather. Yang knew what this was. Lucien's memories provided the context, and suddenly the fog in Yang's mind cleared a bit more.

  This could work. This could actually work.

  Next came a box. Medium-sized, bigger than Yang's hands when held together. Made of plain wood but well-constructed. Heavy for its size. Something inside shifted when Yang moved it.

  Yang opened it carefully, looking at the contents. His heart, which had been heavy and sluggish for days, suddenly beat faster. These were exactly what he needed. What Lucien had scraped and saved to acquire.

  Finally, a small cloth pouch. Yang opened it to find coins. Small denominations. Copper and a few silver pieces. Lucien's remaining savings from years of work or what was left after getting the things in his hand. Not much, but enough to keep him fed for some time.

  Yang sat back on his heels, looking at the items spread before him. For the first time since arriving in this world, he felt something other than crushing depression and despair.

  Hope.

  This was it. Everything Lucien had worked for. Everything he'd saved and scraped together. Years of effort and sacrifice. All in service of joining this world's powered class.

  Lucien hadn't succeeded. Had given up in the end. But Yang wasn't Lucien.

  Yang had advantages Lucien never had. Knowledge from multiple worlds. The inner instincts that had guided him through dangerous situations before even though they remained elusive for now. And now, access to the tools and resources Lucien had gathered.

  Yang felt a pang in his chest. Not just sadness this time, but gratitude. Thank you, he thought toward the memory of the boy whose body he now wore. Thank you for not giving up until you'd gathered these things. Thank you for doing the hard work even when it seemed hopeless. I hope you’re feeling better, where ever you are.

  I'll make it count. I'll use what you built. I won't let it go to waste.

  Yang picked up the book, feeling its weight with new appreciation. He knew what was written inside. Lucien's memories showed him. This was beyond valuable to Yang, the accumulation of all of Luciens efforts.

  The contents of the box were equally precious. Yang could work with this. Could use this to start actively cultivating this world's power system instead of waiting for passive accumulation.

  For the first time in a week, Yang felt determination rising to combat the drowning feeling. He had a path forward. It would be difficult. Would require work and time and effort. But he'd done difficult things before.

  He could do this too.

  Yang carefully gathered the items. He didn't return them to the hiding place. Instead, he set them on the small table in his room where he could see them. Reminders of what was possible. Tools to build a future with.

  The misery was still there, weighing on him like a physical presence. The body's chemistry and his own despair at being separated from his home. But now there was something else too.

  Purpose.

  Yang stood up, his movements more decisive than they'd been in days. He looked at the book and the box and the coins.

  Tomorrow he would start. He'd begin learning to use what Lucien had left behind. Begin cultivating this world's power. Begin filling that status bar faster than passive accumulation ever could.

  But tonight, for the first time since arriving, Yang felt like maybe survival wasn't the best he could hope for. Maybe he could actually thrive here while he worked toward return.

  Maybe he could honor Lucien's memory by succeeding where the boy had failed.

  Yang looked at his reflection in the dirty window glass. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. A stranger's face that was slowly becoming familiar.

  I won't give up, he promised himself. Promised Lucien's memory. Promised Li San waiting in another world. I'll find a way back. However long it takes.

  The determination felt good. Felt like the fog lifting enough to see a path forward.

  Yang turned away from the window and looked at the book on the table.

  Tomorrow he would begin.

  Tonight, he would rest with something other than despair keeping him company.

  Hope was fragile. Easily crushed. But it was there.

  And that was enough for now.