Chapter 7
Raime pressed his back to the cool stone wall, exhaled, and let himself slide to the ground. The faint, pulsing glow of the vine-sap roots curled along the corners of the chamber like quiet veins of starlight. For the first time since he’d arrived, the air didn’t feel like a blade pressed against his neck.
Not totally safe. But… less deadly.
His eyes lingered on the makeshift barrier he’d formed at the room’s entrance — the thin slab of stone wedged between broken columns, reinforced with fallen bricks and the weight of his own body’s exhaustion. It wouldn’t stop something determined. But it would give him a second. That’s all he needed.
He pulled a vine to his lips and drank.
The sap was as strange as before — no flavor, just a mental clarity, like someone had scrubbed his thoughts clean with frost. Colors sharpened. His heartbeat steadied. Even the lingering soreness from the fight dulled slightly, not gone, but buried under a layer of quiet focus.
Time to check how the Quest is progressing.
He blinked, and the interface flickered to life, summoned by his thoughts.
Designation: Anomaly - Tier 0
Status: Unawakened | Rift Integration Incomplete
Region: Ithural | Local Recognition: Confirmed
Primary Objectives:
? Locate a stable water source in Ithural. (1/1 – Complete)
? Establish a secure shelter. (1/1– Complete)
? Defend yourself against a native threat. (1/1– Complete)
? Witness the manifestation of a psionic anomaly. (0/1)
? Discover a not natural structure. (1/1– Complete)
Optional Objectives:
? Attune or create a weapon suited to you. (0/1)
? Sustain uninterrupted consciousness for 19 Rift-hours. (2/19)
? Engage in meditative focus within a Rift-bound psionic locus. (0/1)
Rewards:
? Psionic Thread (Unformed)
? Unlock: [Skill: Residual trace]
? New Quest Chain Unlocked Upon Completion
New optional objective available!
Investigate the Temple’s Heart :
The System has registered the ancient structure as an instance of spiritual architecture. Unknown energies detected. Rewards upon deeper exploration.
Raime stared at the glowing text, eyes narrowing slightly as the realization settled in.
Four out of five primaries done. And I’ve barely been here a couple of hours, Rift’s hours anyway.
Progress.
He’d been fighting blind since the Rift pulled him in, improvising every step. But now there was a framework. A path, however vague. The System might be a cosmic dick, but it still has to acknowledge him.
Witness a psionic anomaly, he read again, brow furrowing. That probably won’t be subtle. And definitely won’t be safe.
His gaze dropped to the new objective, the glow a soft pulse at the bottom of the list.
The Temple’s Heart… deeper inside, he guessed. He didn’t like the idea of plunging further into a structure filled with unknown energy signatures and psychic resonance. But the System had dangled something. Rewards. A skill. A new chain of quests maybe.
So this is how they keep you going, he thought, lips twitching in a faint smirk. Progress. Power.
At least he was making some kind of progress.
Let’s see about power now. I’m sure something changed since last time.
With another thought, he brought up his Status.
Status: Raime
Race: Human
Level: 0 (Unawakened)
Attributes:
Strength: 7
Vitality: 7
Vigor: 6
Resilience: 9
Finesse: 8
Perception: 7
Insight: 9
Clarity: 9
Resolve: 10
Cognition: 11 (+1)
Available attribute points: 7
Racial Trait – Human Adaptability
A species without inherent physical supremacy or elemental heritage, yet remarkable for mental adaptability and unpredictable potential. Though their bodies are unremarkable by multiversal standards, their minds exhibit a rare plasticity — capable of abstract reasoning, emotional depth, and conscious defiance. No two humans are quite the same; some are fragile, others exceptional. Their strength lies in variance.
Effect: +12% to one mental stat (applied to Cognition), latent affinity for psionic abilities. Potency scales with willpower and individual potential.
Titles:
? Traveller of the In-Between
You crossed the void between realms Unawakened, enduring what should unmake mortal minds.
Effect: Soul structure partially unanchored. Increases resistance to spatial destabilization. Affinity with space slightly enhanced.
? Anomaly You entered a Rift without Awakening. The System recognizes you as an unpredictable variable.
Effect: Access to unique progression paths. Standard protocols bypassed. System attention focused on the bearer.
? Ithural-born You are the first human recognized by the System as a denizen of the Rift known as Ithural.
Effect: Treated as a local entity in Ithural. Passive psionic resistance and affinity increased.
? The One Who Refused
You turned down the Administrator’s offer. You declined what many would consider salvation.
Effect: The System has marked you as divergent. You are no longer eligible for external Awakening assistance. Surveillance active.
Active effects: Ichor-Touched (Lesser) — Exposure to Rift-native neural fluids has temporarily stimulated cognitive function.
Effect: +1 Cognition while the ichor remains active in your system.
[System Message]
You have slain two Rift-native creatures.
Experience awarded.
Calculating distribution…
Note: Subject lacks an active Core. Experience cannot be converted into levels.
Initiating alternate path...
Subject status: Anomaly
Soul status: Malleable (Post-Transit)
Experience infused directly into valence soul layer. Adaptive reinforcement granted.
Raime let out a low breath and leaned his head back against the stone. The cold surface grounded him again.
Well, I’ll be damned. Where should I start?
Apparently he can’t level up at all before awakening, not surprising. What was surprising was the experience infusion in his soul.
What is experience anyway?
“Hey System! Care to explain?”
He felt a tug on his mind and a new message appeared in front of his eyes.
[System Message]
Experience is the resource harvested from the outermost layer of the soul, the thinnest divide between Self and World. It is the echo left behind by struggle, awareness, and death.
When a creature perishes, this outer layer is stripped, converted, and made usable by the System. Normally, it is directed and absorbed into the slayer’s Core, to reinforce the vessel and facilitate advancement.
You lack a Core.
Your soul, however, is in a post-transit malleable state. Energy will be infused directly to reinforce it. Caution is advised — soul structures outside of Cores may respond unpredictably under prolonged pressure.
Raime read it twice.
Then slowly, very slowly, let out a breath through his teeth.
“So you’re stuffing the experience straight into my soul. Great.”
He looked down at his hands. Nothing had changed, and yet…
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
He could feel it.
Subtle, like the edge of a vibration that hadn’t quite reached him yet — something coiled deeper under his skin. A faint warmth. No, not warmth. Awareness. A presence that hadn’t been there before, responding faintly to thought and threat.
There was potential there, ready to be used, his new shiny attribute points. But was that all there was to it?
“No Core. No levels. But I get upgrades anyway. Suck it, Administrator.”
His offer seemed less and less likely to be genuine now, I don’t know what his purpose was, but for sure it wasn’t saving the multiverse. What a load of bullshit. Can’t trust a liar.
And what was that other message?
Ichor boosts my brainpower now? Great. That’s normal. What’s next? Drink spinal fluid and unlock telepathy? It wouldn’t surprise me if it was true.
His lips twisted in a half-smile. The situation was absurd, but at least he wasn’t hallucinating it. Probably.
The cognitive boost felt subtle, but real. Thoughts came faster, clicked into place easier. He remembered something his father used to say after bringing him something sweet to eat during long nights of study: “Food for brains, son. Gotta feed the neurons.” Raime had always mocked it.
Guess bug juice counts as brain food now.
He set the vine aside and turned toward the chamber of leathery eggs.
No new noise. No new threats.
But they were still there — those strange, luminescent sacs, gently pulsing, veined with soft light. Dozens of them, maybe more, he didn’t bother to count them, maybe he should have. Each one larger than his head, translucent in parts, and clearly alive.
His stomach turned. It wasn’t fear. Not exactly.
What am I supposed to do with you?
They hadn’t hatched. Yet. But they would. The thought gnawed at the edges of his hard-won calm. More creatures. Younger of course. But he saw all the Aliens movies. It could end bad.
But another voice whispered beneath the fear — one made sharper by the ichor flowing through his system. What if they’re useful?
Can I use them as a source of food?They are egg, and I already drank the ichor of their parent, they should be edible… The thought of eating them made him shudder. Especially without fire to cook them. But what if they’ll make me smarter? Raise my stats permanently? I need all the advantages I can get here.
Hah! Dad would mock me for life if it comes to that. But if I destroy them all now, I lose that opportunity. At the same time if I wait too long…
His jaw tightened.
“I need more information,” he muttered aloud. “I need time.”
He stood and walked toward the vines again. He’d have to harvest more of the sap and store it. Maybe line the wall with moisture-resistant cloth, if he could find any. He glanced at the makeshift door again.
This isn’t just a hiding spot anymore. This is a base.
But the thought of the strange tunnel below the egg chamber — the one that pulsed faintly with a sensation he couldn’t name — stayed in the back of his mind like a slow drumbeat.
First things first. How do I use all those attribute points?
Raime exhaled slowly through his nose.
Seven points.
More than just numbers. They were precious leverage — his only real currency in a place that didn’t care if he lived or dissolved.
His eyes traced the stats again, this time with sharper attention. Cognition was already his highest — and with good reason. The ichor had improved it, temporally. He could feel it still. Not just alertness or focus. Structure. His thoughts ran faster and didn’t wander as easily. The creeping haze of disorientation that had plagued him in Ithural was thinner now.
All that from a single point, and from drinking what amounts to alien spinal fluid.
He almost smirked.
That’s why I can’t just destroy the eggs like nothing.
His gaze returned to the stat sheet.
Cognition 11. Resolve 10. Clarity 9. Insight 9.
All high. His human trait gave him a boost to Cognition— explaining its lead. That trait had also implied a latent affinity for psionic or mental magic. He hadn’t consciously activated anything — yet — but the quest certainly hinted it was coming. And if that was the path ahead, he needed to be ready for it.
Psychic powers, magic… I dreamed of it so much when I was little, now they will be tools for survival, this new reality is not really that magical seeing through such a lens.
He weighed the priorities like a balance scale in his head.
He could double his Strength right away, a swing of the lever could potentially kill in one hit, and for now that was his main means of attack and defence.
That’s not really true, my main defence is thinking ahead, no amount of strength could save me if I get swarmed. But Vigor maybe… it’s my lowest stat, and the reason I still feel so tired, shoring up weaknesses is not a bad idea…
Finesse for now it’s fine, I don’t find myself in need of more finesse, I think, if only I had enough points to check the actual effect of raising all the attributes… Well beggars can’t be choosers.
Vitality is good too, even if I double it, an increment in my healing won’t save me from being torn to shreds, not that it’s useless, just not optimal. Same goes for Resilience, the creature’s claws can gouge stone, and my skin is not going to become so hard to stop that. Perception maybe? That will help me avoid trap and ambushes, useful, potentially life-saving.
He looked at the mental attributes. They were his strong suit. What if he advanced them more? This Rift was already pushing him towards power related to the mind, different from normal magic from what he could infer by the sparse information provided by the System and the Administrator. And without Core or channels, he needed another avenue to power, but he needed to survive long enough for that.
Though I’m managing for now, what if I improve what already is strong? The feeling of improving just one point is so much…What if I go all in and push it higher?
The thought was so tempting…The increase in his mental faculties was something that was really hard to explain, but undeniably real.
How better would be my capabilities if I improve Cognition with seven more points? Without considering my trait, and the beast ichor…No, I can’t put everything into it, but I will not spread myself thin too.
Raime reviewed his status again, he mentally added two points to Vigor and the remaining in Cognition, then finalized the decision and willed the points into place.
Something inside him uncoiled, like a tension he hadn’t known he was carrying finally released. The effect was almost immediate.
He sat still for a long moment after the points had sunk in — longer than he meant to. Not out of fatigue, but because something… shifted.
The world hadn't changed, not exactly. But he had.
At first it was like noticing a familiar rhythm had gone off-beat. The distant whisper of wind outside the ruin felt slower, more deliberate, as if time had thickened. His thoughts darted ahead of the noise — observing it, evaluating its source, simulating reactions — all before the sound had even finished unraveling.
A creeping dissonance unfurled in his body. His limbs moved at the same pace, but his mind had stepped beyond it — a half-beat faster. Not disjointed, just… misaligned. Like reading a sentence before the page had finished turning.
His eyes flicked to the stone wall, and before the movement completed, he was already calculating the structural points that would collapse first if the shelter gave way. His body lagged half a breath behind his thoughts.
Cognition Limit Exceeded — Incompatible Growth Detected
Designation: Human
Status: Unawakened
Classification: Anomaly
Your Cognition has surpassed the upper threshold defined by your racial template.
Such advancement without undergoing Essence Awakening is irregular.
Connection with predefined Class architectures: Unavailable.
Recalculating... Linking to latent psionic substrate… Success.
Trait Acquired: [Mind Flux]
Your cognition now operates in nonlinear, high-efficiency cycles.
Perception of time subtly decouples from external flow.
Slightly increased response to unseen or pre-conscious threats.
Spontaneous insight may emerge under psychological stress or existential risk.
Secondary Effect: +3 Resolve
A sharper mind invites dissonance.
Resolve increased to stabilize cognitive overreach.
Warning:
This level of mental activity may induce temporal dissociation, memory lag, or recursive thought spirals under prolonged stress.
Mitigation recommended: Emotional grounding, environmental anchoring, or guided psionic compression.
Note:
Your progress continues to deviate from established System paradigms.
Monitoring elevated.
Thread divergence expanding.
Raime exhaled through his nose, slowly. It felt like holding a thread between his teeth — fragile, brilliant, and strange.
There was no surge of power, no flare of light or echoing trumpet of change. Just a soft amplification. A folding inward. A sense of space opening up inside his own awareness.
A faint tension tightened the back of his skull, not painful, just coiled, like his thoughts were waiting for a signal he hadn't yet given.
He blinked — once — and noticed twenty-seven cracks in the stone across from him. Sixteen vertical, eleven jagged. His mind categorized them before he even realized what he was doing.
Too fast.
He brought his hand to his chest and felt the steady rhythm of his pulse, the anchoring weight of breath.
“I’m thinking faster than I can move.”
Not a complaint. Just a fact.
It wasn’t frightening. Not yet. But it felt like walking ahead of your shadow — like stepping out of sync with the rules you'd grown up with.
Still, his jaw set with quiet resolve.
This was power.
It was potential.
And potential — if steered right — could rewrite the board.
Not only that, he was feeling the effect of the increased Vigor too. His body wasn’t tired anymore, breath steady, the little muscles tears and burning in his arms and back faded altogether,the sensation was fantastic, he felt totally rejuvenated.
His limbs didn’t surge with strength — but they moved without drag, without that subtle resistance that fatigue lays like chains over the joints.
He felt stable. Aligned. Not powerful, exactly — just ready and refreshed.
I should have done more cardio, maybe if I did I could have used the points differently. But I have too much to do, I can’t get exhausted the first day here.
Lastly he felt the increase in Resolve.
The difference wasn’t loud — no rush of courage or blaze of confidence. It settled in like stone beneath shifting sand: unshakable, dense, and present. Where moments before his thoughts spun faster than his nerves could keep up, now there was a stillness beneath the speed. Not slowing him — stabilizing him.
His heartbeat didn’t jump when the wind stirred outside the shelter. His breath didn’t catch when he replayed the memory of the creature’s death — the way its limbs had twitched, the smell of spilled ichor. It was all still there, clear and sharp, but held at a controlled distance.
His fear hadn’t vanished.
But it settled in behind his eyes like bedrock. Unshakable.
It had structure now. Contained. Controlled.
Balanced inside a stronger frame.
Like the system hadn’t just enhanced his will — it had reinforced the walls of his mind, thickened the barriers where panic might try to break through.
He wasn’t braver. He was harder to shake.
And that, in this place, was more valuable.
Raime closed his eyes and let the moment overtake him. He could feel the edges of his thoughts now, and knew they would hold.
Not forever, but long enough. He hoped.
Damn that was a rush. Is this how they felt in that movie about unlimited mental stimulation? This is incredible, if worrying. I’m changing… so fast. The System is making me something different, and this place too. Would I be going down a different road if I entered a Rift that was all about fire magic? Or would the System still consider my “latent psionic abilities” the best way forward? Mmm… questions questions. And now my resolve is 13, maybe I can manage to overcome the limit even there and get more bonuses and if I do it for every attribute, there must be a completion bonus or something… no it can’t be, that’s game logic not reality. And anyway there are detriments in getting these kinds of traits apparently. I think I’m overstimulated at the moment, I need to think and calm down.
He sat again on the dusty floor and looked at his interface.
“System, compress my trait and titles, keep it clean.”
Status: Raime
Race: Human
Level: 0 (Unawakened)
Attributes:
Strength: 7
Vitality: 7
Vigor: 8
Resilience: 9
Finesse: 8
Perception: 7
Insight: 9
Clarity: 9
Resolve: 13
Cognition: 16 (+1)
Available attribute points: 0
Racial Trait – Human Adaptability
Acquired Trait – Mind Flux
Titles:
? Traveller of the In-Between
? Anomaly
? Ithural-born
? The One Who Refused
Active effects: Ichor-Touched (Lesser) — Exposure to Rift-native neural fluids has temporarily stimulated cognitive function.
Effect: +1 Cognition while the ichor remains active in your system.
This is much better. Let’s move on.
