Chapter 13

  He woke with a sharp breath, eyes flicking open to a ceiling of dark stone. The room of an old monk. There was no grogginess, no veil of sleep blurring thought. Awareness snapped into place like a blade seating into its hilt — immediate, clean.

  I'm awake.

  And more than that — he knew where he was. Not just in the sense of recognizing his surroundings, though that too came with unnerving clarity. No, it was deeper: a visceral, instinctive certainty. This wasn't the false comfort of waking from a nightmare, fumbling for the familiar. This was Ithural. The Rift. A place outside of Earth, outside of reason, where creatures hungered for thoughts and the air whispered of distant minds.

  Raime sat up slowly, the motion effortless, fluid. His body responded before he finished deciding to move. It was subtle — not strength, not speed, but efficiency. As if something within him had begun rewriting the laws of hesitation.

  He looked around. The stone bed he outfitted with whatever rug and scrap of cloth he could find. The room smelled of stone and closed spaces, his own body the primary source after who knows how much time the room remained sealed.

  Raime exhaled and ran a hand down his face. It was dry. No sweat. No tears. Just skin — warmer, smoother, and somehow foreign. There should’ve been a weight in his chest, a sick ache of dislocation. But instead, there was this crisp, functional stillness.

  He frowned.

  “…Am I already changing?”

  The thought should have frightened him. But instead, it hovered like an observation — something to catalog. Another thread in the impossible weave that was now his life.

  Then the weight came. Not in his chest — but behind his eyes. A slow unfurling of memory.

  Home. School. Noise. Traffic. Earth.

  The feeling of a floor beneath his feet. The quiet routine of coffee. The way time felt slow and fast all at once. Being... human. Just human.

  He curled forward, elbows on knees, and let himself breathe it out. Not sobbing. Not breaking. Just letting the pieces fall from his hands.

  There would be no return. Not for the version of him who had worried about his love story and the last exams. Not for the boy who had once dreamed of becoming a doctor.

  I didn’t even answer her before getting dragged here… haah…

  Raime stayed there a while. Quiet.

  And then, with a breath that felt like stone settling into its rightful place, he straightened his back and looked to the door beyond.

  "Alright," he murmured. "Let's see what being over the human limit means."

  A flutter of something stirred inside him — not fear, not resolve. Something stranger.

  Excitement.

  Because buried beneath the terror and dislocation, beneath the death and blood and whispers, there was a part of him — a child’s part — that wanted this.

  That had dreamed of powers. Of stories. Of strange new worlds and the ability to matter. Who didn’t? Yesterday had been chaos and panic. Survival. But now?

  Now the System had named him Anomaly. It had given him something else.

  He could still feel the thread — that strange, taut line coiled inside his skull like a sliver of alien wire. The psionic energy it held shimmered faintly at the edge of his awareness. If he focused, he could sense its shape. Not its power — not yet — but its presence. A potential waiting to be claimed.

  "Psionic Thread. One. Unformed." He whispered the words aloud, tasting their weight.

  A grin ghosted at the edge of his lips.

  He was standing in a story. His story. Not the one he'd wanted — not the comforting arcs of heroism and training montages and soft lessons. This was brutal. This was raw.

  But it was real.

  Raime rose and stretched, feeling the way his limbs moved — like pistons tuned for precision. Still human. But refined.

  His thoughts clicked into place. Tasks. Priorities. Information.

  He remembered the quest notification from the night before. Still floating somewhere in the back of his mind, as if part of him had internalized the System's cold logic like instinct. It was all terrifying, yes. But now that the initial shock had passed, it wasn’t impossible. He had time. He had warning.

  And he had power.

  Raime looked at his hand. Flexed his fingers. Then closed his eyes.

  How do I use it?

  He focused inward, toward the Psionic Thread. It was like trying to move a limb he’d never known existed — awkward, confusing. Yet... not entirely unresponsive. There was something there. He could nudge it. Like touching the surface of a pool with his thoughts.

  The feedback was strange. No sparks. No light shows. Just a subtle ripple through his cognition — a whisper of mental pressure.

  He sat back down, cross-legged on the stone bed, and closed his eyes again.

  The Rift didn't hum. It pulsed — slow and arrhythmic, like a distant heart. Raime sat still for a long time, breathing. Listening. Not to the temple, not to the air, or the echoes of beings that lived there long past.

  But of himself.

  And somewhere within the silence, he felt it again: the whisper-thread of mindstuff, coiled and waiting.

  His thoughts moved differently now. No more internal monologue spiraling into loops. There was clarity — not perfect, not superhuman, but clean. Every thought had weight. Structure. Like the gears of some invisible machine had aligned.

  He imagined the Thread extending. Shaping. Forming into something more.

  But nothing happened. Not yet.

  Still, the connection remained. A potential that wasn't fully his, but might become so — with time, with training.

  Raime opened his eyes.

  No tutorial message. No sudden skill.

  But the fire in his chest hadn't dimmed.

  There would be no mentor. No System-guided class selection. No generous loot crates.

  He was an Anomaly. Which meant whatever he became, it would be his — carved from blood, silence, and grit.

  The Rift would teach him. One way or another.

  Raime stood again, this time with a purposeful movement. He scanned the room, checked the lever he’d left near the bed. Then glanced toward the deeper recesses of the temple.

  He needed to understand what he could do.

  The childlike awe still buzzed beneath his skin. The same part of him that had once imagined controlling fire, lifting mountains, reading minds. Now it wasn’t fiction. It was possible.

  Real.

  He would mourn later. When he had the luxury of time and safety.

  For now, Raime gripped the lever in both hands and stepped outside the room, senses open, mind sharp, the memory of Earth tucked quietly behind his resolve.

  He wasn’t done grieving.

  But neither was he going to roll himself up in a ball and die.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He would fight, and he will explore this new reality and escape from here.

  First thing first, I have to control my thread better, then I have to create more of them, and I have to attune to Thunk in some way, what a dumb name…

  The corridor curved downward in a lazy spiral, the stone underfoot worn smooth by time and weathering thought. This was no place of worship — not anymore. The silence wasn’t reverent. It was expectant.

  Raime’s footsteps barely echoed, the lever cradled against his shoulder like a steel limb. His hand rested near the base — a point of contact more than utility. The weapon wasn’t just a tool anymore. Not quite. It was too familiar now. Heavy in a way that wasn’t just mass but presence.

  The descent ended in a wide chamber cut directly into the bedrock. No murals. No inscriptions. Just a hollowed heart of the temple — circular, sunken, and utterly still. At its center lay the basin. Raime didn’t step into it. He didn’t have to. The air around it pulsed with quiet potential, like the charged hush before a storm. He wasn’t sure to have what it takes to enter the center of the basin at this moment.

  In time…

  He sat cross-legged on the perimeter, the lever resting across his knees, and exhaled.

  This wasn’t instinct, not entirely. But it was close. Something in him understood that being near the basin was enough. No activation. No rituals. Just presence. Just intent.

  The Thread inside his mind stirred almost immediately.

  No flash of power. No sudden transformation. Just a loosening — as if walls had softened, letting things move where they hadn’t before.

  He closed his eyes.

  The world didn’t disappear. It changed. Sound fell away, even the rhythmic bass of his heartbeat, but sensation rose. He could feel the curve of the chamber like it was a bowl turned inside his skull. The space had shape. Texture. Thoughts — not his, not quite — brushed at the edge of awareness. Ancient echoes, half-formed ideas drifting in a sea of mental resonance.

  Impressions.

  A presence. Several. Faint as spider-silk.

  I’m being watched, maybe watched is the wrong term though.

  Not by something hostile. Just... aware. Curious, and different.

  Raime didn’t recoil. He breathed. Let them pass like wind.

  And then, he turned inward again.

  The Thread no longer felt passive. It was taut. Responsive. He reached for it, not with fingers, but with will. And this time, it moved.

  Slightly.

  Like a tendon twitching under skin, it flexed. Responded. The energy flew out of it, not a torrent, but a trickle, still not enough.

  Raime opened his eyes slowly. Nothing around him had changed.

  But something in him had.

  The Thread was responding better than before, maybe it was the temple helping him, but still progress was progress. If he needed a crutch to learn to walk with his own legs, he will use it and then build on the experience by himself. Until he could run, and then fly.

  Let’s not get ahead of ourself.

  He looked at the lever resting across his lap. The metal felt cold, even through his clothes. Heavy, yes. But now, that heaviness didn’t seem entirely external.

  He reached toward it — not physically. Just with the newly-formed limb of thought.

  The connection came like a tremor. Faint. Tenuous.

  But real.

  His breath caught.

  The weapon had presence. Not awareness. But a kind of psychic weight. A signature he could now perceive. Faintly.

  And with effort... interact with.

  Raime narrowed his eyes, focusing.

  The Thread extended — slowly, cautiously — toward that signature. There was no instruction for this, just an intuition.

  He felt the edge of the connection lock into place.

  Raime exhaled and nudged.

  The lever twitched.

  He blinked.

  Oh my fucking god. No! Focus…

  The feeling nearly escaped him.

  Again. Focus. Push. PUSH!

  The metal shifted. Lifted. Not by much — a couple of centimeters at most — and then fell.

  But it moved.

  A laugh escaped him. Quiet. Raw.

  He sat back, heart suddenly racing.

  His hands trembled — not from exhaustion, but exhilaration.

  The Thread was feeling more and more his. And more than that — he had reached outward. Connected.

  He sat for a long while, letting the feeling settle. Not trying to push further. Not chasing the next reward.

  Just thinking, reviewing and absorbing the experience.

  The Rift pulsed faintly around him, the basin still humming with psychic residue. But Raime didn’t need more right now. Not yet.

  He had taken a step. A real one.

  The power wasn’t a gift. It wasn’t sudden.

  It was earned.

  And he planned of earning much more, because for all the wonder he felt at his newfound powers, this wasn’t enough to kill even a fly, and the Rift was extremely dangerous.

  I need more, much more. I need power. Tangible power that could help me face the creature and all the bullshit that this System can throw at me.

  He refocused on improving the use of the Thread and the connection between himself and the lever.

  The lever shifted again.

  Not by mistake this time.

  Raime’s breath stayed steady, the pulse of his focus hammering in quiet rhythm against the inner walls of his skull. No laugh escaped him this time. No exclamation. Just control. Just movement.

  The metal rose from his lap, floated up to his chest, then drifted sideways. Slowly, but not unsteadily. He guided it with the Thread — no longer just a line of energy in his mind, but an extension of self. Still weak. Still new. But his.

  He drew the weapon in a wide arc through the air, rotating it like a limb through water, and then gently let it settle back into his hands.

  No physical effort.

  Only thought.

  Still seated, he rolled his shoulders. His muscles ached in strange ways — not from strain, but from holding too still, for too long. The mental effort left his skin clammy with sweat.

  He took a moment to simply breathe.

  Then he resumed his training, the mental effort wasn’t physical but was tiring him anyway, he was using a new muscle and still had to acclimatize to that. But he persisted and improved his control and his endurance in keeping the lever afloat.

  Time passed.

  He felt the throbbing of a strong headache, the novelty of his powers made him forget that his body still had limits, but he was satisfied with his progresses with the thread and was starting to feel the inkling of a connection with the weapon. That was enough, for now.

  Eventually, the pulsing hunger that had been nagging at the edges of his awareness forced him up. He climbed the steps slowly, lever resting once again against his shoulder, the air cooler outside the chamber. The temple was quiet, dimly lit by thin shafts of cold light that slipped through unseen cracks in the stone and glowing mushrooms. No wind. Just silence and stillness and the weight of unseen things watching.

  Back near the entrance, Raime found his leftover food. It smelled bad…

  Apparently even with improved attributes one could be messy. Still, in my situation is a fucking ridiculous mistake, I want to hit myself…

  He forgot to store his food in a proper way and now it was spoiled, with his limited resources this oversight was possibly the difference between a full belly and going hungry, with the added risk of underperforming. And that was lethal. The Rift didn’t feel hostile at the moment, but he wasn’t about to test that assumption.

  He prepared another alien tartar, actively avoiding the moral conundrums he felt the day before, and ate quickly, methodically. The kind of meal that was fuel, not comfort.

  Once finished, he sat again in stillness for a while. Letting the food settle. Letting his thoughts cool.

  Then he stood, stretched the soreness from his back, and returned to the hollowed heart of the temple.

  This time, he didn’t sit.

  He stood just at the basin’s edge and looked down into the stone. Still empty. Still glowing faintly with some invisible light he couldn’t name. Resonance maybe.

  He brought the Thread to the surface of his mind again. Not to move, but to feel.

  One of the objectives the System had presented in its cryptic way — "Perceive your surroundings with your mind" And given the direction his tutorial, training, was proceeding, he had to use the tool at his disposal to “see” his surrounding.

  Not sight, not sound, but perception with his mind.

  If the System made a quest out of it, it must be possible, I just have to find a way.

  He steadied his breathing and let go. His skill residual trace guided his perception like a sonar, like a bat in a cave he was hearing the whisper of the traces left behind around him, and there were many. A picture of his surrounding was gradually forming in his mind, but it wasn’t enough. He had to be able to perceive everything around himself, what if he were in a place with little to no traces, would he become blind to his new senses? He directed part of his attention towards his means of accessing his new powers, he let the thread float outward, not toward the lever, but toward the space itself. Not even the basin — just the air, the walls, the shape of the room, the echo of the traces and the hum of the Rift.

  Nothing happened at first. Not for minutes. Maybe longer.

  He stayed like that anyway. Eyes closed. Arms loose. Mind open.

  Deep in trance.

  And eventually something shifted.

  Not the air — something deeper. A texture. Like pressure under his skin, moving not on his body, but within his awareness. The room wasn’t just stone anymore. It had a contour. A pressure map. A psychic gradient.

  He felt the edges first — where the stone was thickest, where energy dulled. Then the basin — a sinkhole of presence, the way a drain pulls water in subtle spirals.

  There were currents here. Psychic ones. Still strong after eons of unuse, and real.

  Raime reached. Gently. Probing.

  Images didn’t come. But impressions did. Emotions unformed. Thoughts that weren’t his, echoing like dust motes in still air.

  He didn’t chase them.

  He just… felt.

  The room, the basin, the psychic remains, his body, the lever and everything around himself became clear for a moment before forming a shifting picture in his mind. Like an hologram of energy and matter of his surrounding that was centered around himself.

  And then…

  Optional Objective Complete:

  Perceive your surroundings with your mind. (1/1)

  You have consciously extended your awareness beyond the senses of flesh. Though faint, the mind’s touch now brushes the edges of the unseen.

  Reward Gained: +1 Insight, +1 Perception

  Psionic Perception (Nascent) unlocked.

  You have taken the first step toward true extrasensory awareness. While your range and clarity remain limited, you are now capable of forming rudimentary mental impressions of your surroundings, even in darkness or through obstacles. Further refinement may yield advanced sensory abilities.

  Further objectives unlocked.

  Raime opened his eyes and marveled at his newfound sight, his perception had improved and he could see better, feel better, the clothes on his skin, the smell of sweat and dust, the beating of his heart. All his senses improved, but there was more. He could perceive his surroundings, albeit faintly. Though the ability was incredible, he would not get surprised again like with the creature in the ruins again, maybe…

  It’s not easy to maintain focus like this though. I need more practice, this could save my life one day, I need to be able to sense my surroundings at all times.

  His legs were stiff, his back sore, and his stomach beginning to grumble again. But none of it mattered just now.

  He’d done it.

  He could feel it — not like a muscle flexed, but like an eye opened for the first time.

  The Rift wasn’t empty anymore.

  It had shape, both physical and psychical, and he could feel it all around him, no blind spot, but of limited range.

  He stepped back from the basin and sat once more — not to train, but to rest. To reflect. To begin understanding what came next.

  And to prepare.

  Because if this was only the beginning — if this was the tutorial — then whatever came next was bound to demand more than quiet meditation and psychic tricks.

  I need power. Real power.

  It was time to attune himself to his weapon and see what that would bring him.