The alarm screamed at 5 a.m, a jagged buzz that clawed me from sleep.
My head was a mess, heavy with grief and exhaustion, like wet sand packed tight.
I lay twisted in sheets, staring at the chandelier hanging above. Why even drag myself up?
A groan slipped out, raw and weary. I rubbed my face, bruised hands stinging from even a slight touch.
Claire's scream echoed, slicing through my mind, cut off by that crash. Alaric's cold stare followed, his judgment heavy, both gnawing at me, relentless.
Getting out of bed felt like waging a war. My muscles burned from yesterday's dual, each one cursing me as I moved.
This life was a cage, its bars forged from loss. Shadows clung to me, wrapping tight around the stranger I'd become. My chest ached.
My feet hit the icy floor, the cold biting my soles, each step a jolt through my battered body. My jaw ached from Tomas's elbow, a dirty hit I'd been too slow to block.
My thigh stung under a stained bandage, the cut hot and angry. My shoulder felt ripped apart, bones scraping with every small shift, screaming for rest I couldn't give.
I limped to the bathroom, the air thick with the estate's damp chill.
I turned the faucet on, and splashed cold water on my face.
It shocked me awake, trickling down my neck, cold against my skin. The mirror showed Ethaniel Arventis, sixteen, a failure with mana that flickered like a dying spark.
His sunken eyes weren't fully mine, shadowed by someone else's weight.
Ethan Carter lurked beneath, the idiot who watched Claire die. Her laugh, soft as cotton, had slipped away in that wreck, leaving me clutching at ghosts.
Alaric was there too, a generational prodigy bleeding out fifty years ago as a silver portal split the sky,
Something had fused Alaric's shattered memories and Ethaniel's quiet, broken life with me, trapping me in this body, this place.
Weak mana, awakening years too late. Ethaniel, and now me, were nothing but a cruel joke here.
The water stung my cuts, a painful reminder of reality. It silenced any desperate wish that this was a dream.
I grabbed a towel, rubbing my face, The rough fabric grounded me, its faint lavender scent a fleeting comfort in this sterile room.
My old life was dust, scattered and gone. This family, cold as the stone walls around me, offered no warmth, only a path forward I didn't choose.
I wanted to collapse, let grief bury me. It pressed down, heavy as iron, whispering for me to quit.
But time didn't care. It marched on, pulling me with it.
The duke's voice rang in my head, sharp as a blade. Academy trials. Pass, or vanish.
Exile sounded almost sweet, a crack in this family's iron grip. But surviving alone, with no money, no name? That was a fool's hope.
The duke could erase me with a word, leaving no trace. One less shame for the Arventis legacy.
Atherian academy, the heart of "Ascension's Path", my own game, was a gamble. A maze of dangers, but also my only shot to break free, to breathe beyond these suffocating walls.
Alaric's stubborn will drove me, a piece I hated but clung to. Ethaniel's quiet strength, weathered by years of scorn, refused to let me stop. I'd make this broken body answer, somehow.
A glimmer of hope stirred in me thinking about the system window I had seen before.
A glowing screen, straight from a web novel, illusionary words I could almost touch.
I steadied my breath, the air catching in my throat, and focused on the status window I'd seen before.
It flared to life, a translucent blue panel hovering in the dim light.
[System Window]
Name: Ethaniel Arventis
Age: 16
Class: Awakened (Partial)
— Attributes —
Strength: F-
Agility: F-
Speed: F-
Intelligence: D+
Mana: G-
Mana Pathways: Underdeveloped
— Skills —
None Registered
— Titles —
Heir of the Broken Crown
[Other titles unavailable – Lacking Casuality]
— Memory Archive —
Recovered: 1 / 7
> [1] – Alaric Thorne [Partial Access]
>Memory sync: 10%
> Memory Lock: can be unlocked further by retracing the past.
> [2–7] – Locked
> Access Denied: Bound by Causality
— System Warning —
[Dimensional Instability Detected, Collapse Imminent]
>Collapse progress: 80%
The Memory Archive hit like a fist to the gut.
My mind raced, spinning through possibilities, each one a heavier weight. I bit my lip, the sharp pain anchoring me.
Alaric and Ethaniel's memories already crowded my head, their voices loud enough to drown mine. More joining them felt like erasure, like losing the last scraps of myself.
If 1/7 meant what I feared, I might not just fade. I might vanish, swallowed by lives I didn't choose.
A headache throbbed at my temples, hot and insistent. I shook it off, needing something else to grip onto.
The title, "Heir of the Broken Crown", gnawed at me. Even as the game's creator, I was blind to its meaning.
Maybe it was tied to the memories. Unlocking them could mean claiming something, power, or a curse.
But the truth stayed out of reach, a shadow I couldn't grasp. I pushed it aside.
The stats were clearer, and they were grim. Underdeveloped mana pathways, a chain holding me down.
In the game, a healthy mundane human averages G or G+. My F- stats at sixteen while awakened, with G- mana, were a cruel taunt. G- mana didn't even exist in the code I'd written.
I was in a deeper hole than I'd thought, the only thing not terrible being my intelligence stat.
Not directly related to intelligence most people first think of, but more closer to proficiency in understanding magic spells, grimoire's etc,
I had my doubts about this, the most likely cause for it being much higher than the rest should be Alaric who merged with me.
Despair curled around me, soft and seductive, urging me to give up. But I bit down harder, tasting blood, and shoved it back.
This body was a wreck, mana flickering like a candle in a storm. I pressed my temple, the headache a dull roar, and traced the problem.
My mana pathways were a disaster, leaking power, half-formed or gone. They weren't just weak, they were strangling me.
Mana pathways, invisible veins threading mana from the core through the body, were the key to distributing power throughout.
Mine were a ruin, frayed and incomplete, like a map with half the roads erased.
Alaric's memory cut through, cold and precise. Almost no one awakened with pathways this broken. Most died, their cores choking, drowning in mana their body couldn't absorb properly.
There was a fix, but it was brutal. Inject external mana, force the pathways to form, endure the agony as it burns through you.
The odds were grim. Death was more likely than survival.
Ethaniel had never tried it. Not cowardice, but the duke's pride. A dead son would stain the Arventis name, broadcast their failure to the empire.
They'd rather lock me away, a broken tool, than risk their honor.
I leaned against the sink, the cold marble under my hands. Ethaniel's face stared back from the mirror, pale and worn, but there was a fire in those eyes now.
Defiance, sharp and alive, mixed with a stubborn spark I hadn't noticed before.
The academy loomed, a crucible I couldn't and wouldn't dodge. I had to fix this body, claw my way to the chance.
The only way was repairing my pathways, even if it meant risking it all. I didn't have much left to lose.
But that needed mana stones and dozens, maybe hundreds of them at that.
They were worth more than I'd ever touch, and the duke would lock me up before before tossing me a single one.
I knew of unclaimed stones, hidden in far-off corners of the world, beyond Lumivara's gleaming spires, capital of the Eltheria Empire. But they might as well be on another planet.
No simple way out, as always.
Then a memory flickered, one of Alaric's, bright and sudden flash. A hidden base, tucked in a forest a few hours from here, shrouded in mist and thorns.
High-ranking mages kept such places, secret vaults for their wealth and power.
This one was a treasure trove, mana stones, mana potions, grimoires, artifacts humming with magic.
If I could reach it, my plan wasn't a dream. It was real, close enough to taste.
Alaric's fragment, stitched into me, had thrown me a rope. I hated leaning on him, his voice too loud in my head, but I couldn't ignore it.
He was keeping me alive.
I straightened, the ache in my shoulder a dull hum now. The base was a hope, but getting there wouldn't be easy.
The forest was a death trap, beasts with claws like knives, plants that could choke you in seconds. And slipping out of this estate, past the duke's hawk-eyed guards? That was a puzzle all its own.
But it was worth thinking about, a thread I could pull.
I glanced at the system window, its blue glow steady in the dim room. The "Heir of the Broken Crown" title mocked me, a riddle I wasn't ready to solve.
The mana stones, though they could change everything. Fix my pathways, steady my mana, give me a shot at the trials.
The academy was coming, its shadow growing longer every day. I had to be ready.
I couldn't stay Ethaniel, the failure, or Ethan, the man broken by loss. I needed to be something new, something stronger, like Alaric, the once proud headmaster of that very same academy.
Alaric's will, Ethaniel's endurance, my own jagged stubbornness, they'd have to carry me.
I set the towel down, its faint lavender scent lingering. The system window blinked out, leaving the room quiet, heavy with possibility.
One step at a time. First, the base. Then, the stones.
After that, I'd carve my own path.