2025-07-03 10:28:07Chapter 4: Grind
Kael gaped at the flashing status screen as though it had just slapped him in the soul. Six unallocated stat points were blinking at him, hungry and waiting. > Host. Assign every point to INT. It enhances clarity of mind and mana. The subliminal effect overshadows the others. The System's voice oozed smug certainty. Kael made no more argument. It had been correct about all the previous things, just as gravity was correct about throwing people off cliffs. He reached out to the floating interface. Six points. Right into INT. A thrill of consciousness ran through him. His eyesight was a little improved. The air was fresher. Fuzzy thoughts of a few seconds ago now came marching in tidy little columns like soldiers at drill. > MP: 155 → 185 INT: 11 17 It was... good. Dangerously good. As drinking cold water after crossing a desert of perplexity. He looked around Emergency Room 3. Empty. The beds were in a row like a line of dutiful ghosts, the smell of antiseptic still in the air. There was a single desk at the farther end, with a small mirror on it. Kael drifted across. And froze. It was the first time he saw himself in this world since he woke up. The boy in the mirror was not real. Golden eyes, keen, and unwavering, like twin crystals, melted and recast into judgment. It had jet-black hair, and a pale, underfed face. He was as beautiful as he was ugly, as though he were made of obsidian and fire. But small. Too small. His hunger of his former life still remained in his bones, a memory written in marrow. Now he recalled. He hadn't eaten properly for years. His hunger had shrunk to a pitiful murmur. Maren, no, Maren, must have seen. The cafeteria meals were enough to feed a bird. > “Time to start eating like a fucking god,” he whispered to himself. The door burst open. Two nurses, faceless and fast, wheeled in a young girl. Her arm hung limp, wrist broken, elbow purple with bruising. She sobbed through the painkillers like they were made of sugar and lies. They laid her gently on a bed, nodded at Kael, and ghosted out. Kael approached the girl. Her tears made his stomach twist. Not because she was in pain, but because he remembered that look. The helplessness. The smallness. The why me. He reached toward her shattered wrist. > “Focus Heal.” Golden light bloomed from his fingertips, warm and alive. It wrapped around her wrist, swirling with purpose. If he were a normal healer, this would have taken two casts. But Kael wasn't normal. He was something else. > [Focus Heal +15 EXP] The light faded. The pain stopped. The girl blinked once, then drifted into painless sleep. Kael stepped back and exhaled. It never stopped feeling surreal. > “Hey, System,” he said aloud, “why did my skill EXP requirement jump from 100 to 1000? That’s a stupid increase.” > Level 0 was your tutorial. Level 1 is real life. Every level needs 1000 more than the last. Skills, too — but theirs go up by 500. Kael did the mental math. Then gasped like he'd been stabbed. > “That means to reach level 10 I need to heal over 2,000 fucking people?!” > Correct. He glared at the ceiling like it owed him rent. > “Is there a shortcut? A cheat? A button labeled ‘God Mode’ I forgot to press?” > Eventually, you’ll get EXP from dungeons. Heal someone mid-fight, you get a share of their kill. But you're too weak right now. You’d die from looking at a dungeon boss. You’d evaporate from its mana alone. Kael clenched his jaw. His pride stung. His ego bled. > “Level 20 by the time I reach the Academy... that’s the goal, right?” > Correct. By then, you'll understand what it means to be a healer. Not just a medic. A force. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Hours passed. Three more patients came through. > [Focus Heal +45 EXP] Small progress. Barely a blip. But progress was progress. And Kael was learning that in this world, patience tasted like copper, but it kept you alive. He headed to the receptionist to clock out. > “Already handled,” she said, not even looking up. “Salus is watching you.” That made him pause. The head healer’s gaze was apparently everywhere. He shrugged it off and exited the center. Time for food. Or so he thought. > Host. Training field. Now. You can eat your lunch with dinner. Consider it spiritual fasting. > “What? Why?” > Running. Weightlifting. Physical stat growth. Kael narrowed his eyes. > “I thought I’d be training spells. You know, magic?” > You're weak, frail, and softer than orphanage porridge. If a squirrel mugged you right now, it’d win. Training starts with the body. > “That necessary?” > Unless you enjoy dying in one hit? Yes. Also, stat points. That part caught his attention. > “Explain.” > Physical effort yields physical stat points. Run, get AGI. Exhaust yourself, get END. Lift, get STR. INT and CHA are harder. But not impossible. Kael remembered the +1 INT he got from casting Focus Heal. > “So it was real.” > Expect pain. This will hurt. A lot. Kael shivered. > “You're a sadist.” > You're welcome. He reached the training field. A stadium loomed beside an open-air gym, the kind of place that reeked of sweat and testosterone. > Start with ten laps. Jog. Kael blinked. > “That’s four kilometers, you absolute cunt.” > Then walk 100 laps. Your choice. He sighed. Raised his middle finger. Then jogged. Lap one: gasping, dying, wheezing like an asthmatic snail. Three minutes to drag himself around once. But then— > [+1 END] It was like drinking lightning. Some of the fatigue vanished. His legs moved a little easier. Lap two. Lap three. By lap four, his knees buckled. His lungs were screaming obscenities. His shirt was soaked. Then— > [+1 AGI] [+1 END] Kael blinked. The world tilted. And then smoothed out. He jogged faster. Lap five. Six. Seven. Lap eight: he staggered, fell to his knees. > [+1 END] Lap nine. Ten. Done. Kael collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. > “I hate you.” > Love you too. Five-minute break. Then weights. He dragged himself over to the gym. A few bodybuilders glanced his way. None cared. He was a mosquito in a lion's den. > Deadlifts. Pick up the bar. Kael reached for the empty one. > What do you think you're doing? 20 kilograms on each side. > “That’s double my body weight.” > And yet you’re still talking. Curious. He loaded the bar. Lifted. Wobbled. Sweated. But succeeded. > Good. Add another 20 per side. > “I will murder you in your sleep.” > Only if you live long enough. Now lift. Kael grunted and pulled. His arms trembled. His spine screamed. But the bar rose. Once. Twice. Over and over. Until— > [+1 STR] > [+1 STR] He dropped the bar, panting. > “I. Fucking. Hate. You.” > And yet. Here you are. Stronger. Kael collapsed on the ground, face to sky. He laughed. It sounded unhinged. And perfect.
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Chapter 82: Blood That ScreamsThe frenzied Vampire continued its assault with the kind of obsessive cruelty that suggested either remarkable discipline or a deeply personal hatred for Kael’s continued breathing, as bolts of condensed force tore through the air toward him at speeds that made perception itself feel like a delayed luxury, forcing him to rely on instinct and precognition rather than sight as he twisted, stepped, and slid through the storm like a man dancing inside a guillotine factory that had just discovered rhythm.It took far too long for clarity to claw its way into the chaos, but repetition has a way of educating even the most distracted mind, and Kael finally caught the pattern hidden inside the madness, noticing that each projectile shimmered with a dark red sheen that refracted light like wet glass and pulsed with a viscosity that made his skin crawl, the color unmistakable and obscene in its familiarity.“They are using blood,” he mu
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Chapter 81: Coffin Beneath the DirtKael moved through the uneven hills with the careful irritation of a man who knew exactly where the problem was and deeply resented that it existed at all, his awareness stretched across the terrain as clusters of hostile red marks burned patiently on his mental map, all of them gathered together like idiots waiting to be scolded, and he made absolutely certain that no curious soul or well meaning hero was tailing him because this was personal, messy, and very much a one man inconvenience that he intended to finish without witnesses.The land itself seemed wrong the closer he drew, the ground rising and falling in shallow waves as if the earth had once tried to escape and failed, and when the first shapes revealed themselves, crawling out of shadow and rot, Kael felt that familiar, tired click of recognition settle into place because these things were not shadows, not truly, but imitations stitched together from death and bad dec
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Chapter 80: SimilarKael lay beside the crackling fire, his body trembling under the lingering ache of exhaustion. The System had forced him to “train” for four relentless hours, and he now looked like someone who’d wrestled with death and barely crawled back. His hair clung damply to his forehead, and his breaths came shallow, smoky in the cold air.To make matters worse, he could feel the weight of two gazes fixed on him. The longer it went on, the more uncomfortable it became.Bored and sore, Kael finally turned his attention toward Astraea. Talking seemed better than sinking further into the silence. He didn’t know much about this world, about its customs or its strange truths, but she fascinated him—too quiet, too composed, too otherworldly.He wanted to ask her something simple, something that wouldn’t sound foolish. Yet before he could, she moved first.Astraea approached the firelight and sat beside him. Her silver eyes shimm
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Chapter 79: Cold ---Kael sat in front of the fire, staring into it as if the flames could explain why the silver-haired woman across from him wouldn’t stop staring at him like a particularly interesting ghost.‘She’s still staring at me,’ he thought, trying not to meet her eyes again.The cave was quiet except for the occasional crackle of burning wood. Night had fully claimed the forest outside, leaving only the trembling halo of the campfire. Orin seemed calmer now, the madness in his eyes cooled into something that almost resembled rest.But Astraea... she was something else entirely. A presence that shouldn’t exist. A fragment of his past wearing human shape.Kael could feel the connection between them — not imagined, not metaphorical, but stitched through the soul like a needle through scar tissue. The memory she awakened in him was too vivid to dismiss, yet too incomplete to understand.When he finally looked back, sh
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Chapter 78: The Odd Woman[Kael’s POV]“How does it taste?”Kael didn’t even have the luxury of answering before his body decided to violently betray him. He bent forward and vomited everything onto the stone floor of the cave, the sound echoing wetly in the cold air. That made it the fourth monster he’d ruined today. Four steaming piles of culinary failure, each more inedible than the last.They looked edible enough—beast-like, muscular things that probably considered him a snack in another life—but once he cooked them, every bite tasted like rotten mana condensed into despair.Orin had already fallen asleep deeper in the cave, curled against the wall like an overgrown cat. The cave itself was safe, wrapped in a natural mana flow that repelled beasts. Kael should’ve been at peace. Should’ve been, if not for the yellow dot blinking on his Halo’s minimap, a few dozen meters away.The dot hadn’t moved. It just watched.“Wh
Chapter 77: Safe
Chapter 77: Safe---Kael had been walking for what felt like forever, the weight of the small, unconscious child slung across his shoulder pressing into his bones like a punishment he didn’t remember earning. Two hours. Maybe more. His map promised a stretch of grassy serenity up ahead, but right now it all felt like the same dry, corpse-colored earth, sighing under the heat of a sun that refused to die.The kid hadn’t stirred once, not even a grunt of awareness—just the occasional twitch or mumble, like he was wrestling ghosts in his dreams.Kael exhaled. “Should I just leave this kid here? My shoulder’s starting to ache.”He said it with his usual sarcasm, the kind that made it hard to tell whether he meant it or not. But the boy must have heard the words somewhere deep inside that sleeping shell, because he jerked awake so violently he almost crashed face-first into the dirt.Kael caught him mid-fall by the foot. “You c
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