Reborn to be a Hermit

Chapter 3: The Void of the Awakening

The cold, heavy oak door sealed behind Rina, plunging her into an oppressive, incense-choked darkness. This was the Awakening Chamber, a place of myth and false promises. It wasn't truly dark; a weak, phosphorescent glow emanated from the corners of the room, illuminating a single, massive slate altar carved with runes so ancient they felt like scars on the world. The altar was draped with linen woven from the silver thread of the Blessed Tree, and upon it lay a single, withered Blessed Leaf—the village's paltry investment in their children's magical futures.

Rina walked across the stone floor, her movements quiet and deliberate, the recent memory of Edam’s defiant stand a cold, sharp comfort. He was resisting. The trap had been avoided, for now. She had bought them time, a precious handful of hours before the local nobility realized they had two rebellious, 'unprofitable' children on their hands.

She lay down upon the altar, the linen cool against her skin, the Blessed Leaf crackling with dormant energy beside her head. The standard procedure was simple: relax, allow the leaf’s magic to flow into the core, and fall into a deep, revelatory sleep where one's innate magical Talent would be revealed and mapped.

In her past life, she had undergone this ritual and awakened a weak, almost useless Spatial affinity. She'd spent years thinking she was a failure, her small, one-foot-square storage space a joke compared to the vast personal domains of the nobles. This time, she would not be mapped. She would not allow her final, secret edge to be registered by the parasitic runes woven into the altar.

As the magic of the leaf began to seep into her, a deep, soporific warmth wrapping around her consciousness, she fought it. She did not resist with physical force, but with a sheer, brutal act of will. She clamped down on the connection point between the leaf’s ritualistic energy and her nascent Magic Core, transforming the smooth, welcoming flow into a violent, internal maelstrom.

I am not here to be scanned. I am here to steal.

She knew the leaf’s purpose wasn't just detection; it was a conduit. And she had her own private, devastatingly small space—her own internal, one-foot-by-one-foot Void—that was already hollow.

She wrestled with the energy, not pushing it away, but dragging it inward, forcing the vast, ambient mana that the leaf was summoning for the Awakening into the hungry vacuum of her Spatial Core. It was like trying to siphon an ocean through a drinking straw, and the immense pressure felt like her skull was about to fracture.

But the years of agony, the experience of a violent death, had given her a terrifying reservoir of endurance. She channeled the pain, the betrayal, the memory of her own execution, into a single, focused intent: Fill the Void.

The chamber’s soft, phosphorescent glow flickered violently as the ritual's energy was hijacked. When she finally felt the internal, hollow space—the Void—quiver with a satisfying fullness, she severed the connection with a painful snap, rolling off the altar before the effects could register on the outside.

She stood up, trembling, her body drenched in cold sweat, but her eyes burning with a triumph that transcended life and death.

I have a filled core.

She had stolen enough ambient, ceremonial mana to fill her meager Spatial Core to capacity, preventing the leaf’s residual energy from mapping her true, terrifying Talent.

And that talent, she realized with a cold, terrifying shudder, was not the small Spatial niche she had once known.

---

The Chasm of Nullity

She walked out of the chamber, her legs unsteady, but her posture resolute. The teacher, Master Veridian, his face still flushed with the residual anger from Edam’s earlier defiance, looked at her with a condescending sneer.

"Well? Did you feel the glory, Rina? Did you see the promise of the Royal Academy?"

"I felt nothing, Master," she replied, her voice flat, emotionless.

A wave of disappointed silence rippled through the classroom. The teacher’s face contorted, his dream of a bonus dissolving like mist. But before he could unleash his petty rage, the Principal, a self-important man named Sir Borus, bustled in, his tailored tunic straining against his considerable girth.

"Silence! What is the meaning of this commotion, Veridian? And where is the half-breed? Edam?"

Master Veridian stammered out the details of Edam’s refusal. Sir Borus listened, his face turning an alarming shade of purple. The loss of one student was bad; two, especially two who had shown the potential for high Magic Core metrics, was a catastrophic hit to his annual prestige.

He focused his venom on Rina, who was now standing at the front of the class.

“Song Rina! You, at least, are sensible! You went through the Awakening! Tell the class, what Talent did you receive? A glorious one, I trust? One that justifies your academic record?”

Rina paused, probing her core again, now that the ritual’s chaotic energy had settled. Her past knowledge had been a lie. Her ability was not simply Spatial magic; it was something far more profound and devastating.

Hollow.

Not just empty, but a true Void. Her core was a chasm of absolute Nullity, a black hole capable of sucking in anything: mana, physical objects, even the Talents of others. The pathetic one-foot space of her past life was merely the Void’s physical manifestation, a tiny, safe corner carved out of an infinite, destructive hunger.

She realized why she had died in her past life as a "mediocre" soldier. She hadn't been mediocre; her power had been so absolute, so dangerous, that the moment her true potential threatened to manifest, the system had choked her core into a manageable, useless, tiny storage box.

This is an SSS-Rank power, she thought, the realization sending a surge of cold terror and exhilaration through her veins. The ability to annihilate and contain anything. My weakness was not the small size of the space, but the massive, horrifying magnitude of the power I had to contain within it.

She looked at the Principal’s smug, expectant face, and delivered the truth in a voice loud enough to silence the room.

“I have a Void affinity, Sir. A Spatial one.”

The Principal’s face collapsed into an expression of utter disgust. "A Spatial core? You fool! The smallest, most worthless core! You can’t even hold a basket of bread in a core that size!"

He began to lecture her, a torrent of self-pitying rage. "You students! You have no ambition! Why settle for a low-grade, useless ability when you could have a life of glory? You should have sought a Zero-Level Skill!"

---

The Zero-Level Gambit

The Zero-Level Skills. A local legend, a joke only the poorest students considered. These were supposed to be the "dumpster dive" of magical artifacts: small, marble-sized orbs containing fragments of unusable or nonsensical powers, discarded by the capital. The rumor was that the local schools, unable to throw away anything of value, kept these useless items on hand as a final, cruel consolation prize for the students who flunked the Awakening.

"Sir," Rina interjected, her voice sharp with suspicion. "Zero-Level Skills are not standard issue. Does the school not have any, or did those skills get embezzled away? Are you pushing us toward the Academy simply because you’ve already pilfered the meager compensation?"

The accusation—a direct jab at his honesty and his pocketbook—sent the Principal into a fit of aristocratic sputtering.

"You insolent, ungrateful child! How dare you accuse me! I only wish you the best! Come! I will prove to you the utter worthlessness of these things!"

He barked orders, and a quivering, nervous teacher soon rushed in, carrying a large, wooden crate. The crate was full of the marble-sized Skill Orbs. They were pathetic things, most of them emitting a dull, gray light.

Rina pushed through the onlookers, her focus absolute. She knew the secret. She knew the truth that the nobility had yet to learn.

The Skill Orbs weren't useless garbage; they were simply not understood. They were fragments of powers from a Parallel Dimension, powers that would only be recognized and ranked properly ten years in the future. A hidden rating system—a subtle black border around the orb's edge and a faint orange glow at its center—indicated an SSS-Rank skill, a power of world-breaking magnitude.

She scanned the skills laid out before her, ignoring the scoffing Principal who was rattling off the ridiculous names of the skills:

[G****e Search]: Another world information finding mechanism which takes a billion mana to activate.

[A****n Shop]: Another world equivalent exchange mechanism which takes a billion mana to activate.

[Naver Miscellaneous]: Another world information finding and equivalent exchange takes a billion mana to activate.

All useless, of course, to the average Bohemian with their meager core of less than ten mana units. They were functionally locked.

But Rina didn’t care about the mana cost. She was not a commoner with a pitiful core anymore; she was an SSS-Rank Void, a bottomless pit of absolute magical potential, and she had just stolen a full core's worth of mana.

Her eyes settled on a small, unassuming orb. It had the barely perceptible black edge and the faintest hint of orange pulsing within.

"I will take this one, Sir," she announced, picking up the orb.

The Principal's face, which had been set in a triumphant, mocking sneer, suddenly faltered. He recognized the color. The local legends—the whispers of farmers who had stumbled upon ancient artifacts—claimed the strange colors meant power.

"No, wait, Rina! That one is faulty! Take one of the others!" he stammered, realizing his mistake.

But it was too late. Rina crushed the Skill Orb in her palm. The marble shattered into a thousand glittering shards that instantly dissolved and flowed into the vast hunger of her Void Core. A notification, crisp and clear, appeared only in the internal theater of her mind:

[Inch Blade] Acquired.

---

[Inch Blade]

A blade the size of an inch that could cut through anything.

---

What the—?

Inwardly, Rina was a whirlwind of agonizing disbelief. An SSS-Rank skill, a power she had gambled everything for, and it was a microscopic blade? A single, one-inch-long razor of pure energy?

Her external expression, however, remained a mask of profound, weary disappointment.

"Thank you, Sir," she said, her voice dripping with false gratitude. "I have received my Skill. I will not be attending the Royal Academy."

She moved aside, sealing her fate and securing her first strategic asset. She was no longer a failed student with a useless talent; she was a girl who had wasted her potential on a Zero-Level joke. She had successfully made herself unprofitable.

Now it was Edam’s turn. He stepped forward, his eyes burning with a dark, driven focus. He did not scan the room. He did not look for the black-and-orange markers she had taught him. His hand went straight to a specific, unremarkable gray orb that was radiating a negligible, almost invisible warmth.

He chose the skill that would make him useless to the Eleventh Prince.

He crushed it, the orb dissolving into his core, completing the final, desperate move of their immediate plan. They had rejected the system, taken the worthless prizes, and disappeared their potential. The nobles would look at them now and see only two failures, two dead ends, two unprofitable children whose magic cores were now obscured by the magical noise of two Zero-Level Skills.

The trap was shut. They were safe—for now. The great, grinding machine of the Kingdom of Bohemia was momentarily thwarted, and Rina, the returned oracle of vengeance, had just begun her war.