Klein opened his eyes to white unknown ceilings. He blinked, his memories dissonant with his surroundings.

  Where am I?

  He thrashed, his heart sped up inside him, and it felt free. He realised that the hand which had gripped it earlier was now gone.

  “Sir, sir? Sir! Please calm down! You’re in the academy’s hospital wing. You are safe here. We know what you went through, but you’re safe here. Just relax, okay?” A female nurse stood above him, and she said words that took Klein a moment to understand.

  Academy hospital?

  He looked around himself and back at his own figure. He was in a white room, a window opened to his right, and a curtain hung in the air on his left. He wore patient garbs, the blue polka dotted apron. Klein suddenly felt very naked in front of the nurse, but it was mostly embarrassment than anything else.

  “How.. how did I get here? What about the others?” He asked. At least his voice sounded fine. Klein was relieved.

  “Mr. Besson brought you here. He had also told the academy about the story of the attack and the demise of Ms. McHonna. Rest assured that all the expenses of your medical recovery would be covered by the academy,” She assured him with a smile, as if she couldn’t see the biggest problem in her words.

  “What do you mean the demise of Ms. McHonna?”

  “Ah…,” She seemed unsure how to continue, but said anyway, “It happens. Sometimes kids go out to the forests for reasons, and sometimes not all of them return. Ms. McHonna was one of them. She was dead before Mr. Besson brought her here. We tried to look at her wounds and see if any of our potions would work, but she was far too gone and far too damaged. Whoever attacked you, took their time to desecrate her body properly,”

  She died?

  Klein recalled the memory of the attacker punching flaming arrows after arrows in her prone form. He had thought that she might still be alive, that her armour would’ve saved her. But…

  Klein felt anger rushing up to him. It overwhelmed all of his other fears and the pain which still flowed through his body at times. The fucker had killed her and then went on to disrespect her corpse.

  I did good.

  He felt this cold certainty of his actions settle on him. Like his past actions had suddenly been justified and validated. An eye for an eye. A murder for a murder.

  The nurse left him alone, seeing that he had calmed down. Klein spent his time looking out of the window. The clouds roamed outside like kids playing aimlessly. They had no form nor a plan, and he felt his own hatred settle down with them, mixing into this formless bunch of emotions inside of him.

  What’s done is done.

  He sighed, and closed his eyes.

  Ever since he had woken up, something inside of him felt different. Initially he had assumed them to be the stir of emotions, the fear of a new place, or maybe the last memories of the fight haunting him.

  But no. Something just felt… different. Something so fundamentally changed that it felt like a slap across his cheeks. Like a dog barking for his attention. And he would give it now.

  He looked inside of himself, lower and lower in the depths of his mind where only darkness existed, there was a shining star. His soul.

  Every mage was born with the ability to feel their soul. Actually, everyone could technically feel their soul. They just could never do it, because they didn’t have the connection with the extraordinary like mages did. And although he was merely a half baked mage, he was enough to feel his soul.

  It glowed purplish, burning like a star in the distance, and he got closer to it. That’s when he realised that it wasn’t a single star. There was one more, a red–much smaller–star which revolved around an imaginary centre of mass of both the stars.

  Do souls have mass?

  Was his first question. He felt incredibly stupid the next second.

  Why is there another soul in my… soul? What is the star?

  He approached it, its red brilliance blinded him, but it did not burn him. He approached its rays, and its solar flares. The solar flares flew around him, and he saw fragments of memories around them. But they were far too distant and fragmented to gather anything of meaning.

  He flew closer, his mental self almost touching the star, and then the memories rushed at him like a giant solar flare.

  He saw himself in the crater, in pain and distress, his heart clutched by some unforeseen force. He saw the piece of paper melt in his hands, and then he saw a blue coloured screen appear on his screen.

  Words appeared on it,

  Name: Klein Skyla

  Age: 18

  Class: Alchemist

  Skills: Soften Material and Thermal Reflection.

  Piece of system energy absorbed. Choice selected: Skill upgrade

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A lot of mumbo jumbo followed it, the descriptions and the name flickered in his vision. But in the end, all of it stabilised onto one single name, Material Property Transmutation, and Temperature Reflection.

  Klein was flung out of the star at that instant, for all that followed after it was darkness. He realised that those were the parts of his memories when he was unconscious.

  He opened his eyes in the real world, an unsure expression marred his face. He didn’t know what to make of all this, and whatever he had just learned horrified him. System piece? New skill?

  But how? How can the System be still around? Wasn't it destroyed all those years ago in the System war?

  He was confused, he was terrified, and yet he was also a bit excited. Had he by mistake found something he wasn’t supposed to? Mysteries of the world better left hidden?

  He mentally slapped himself for thinking such. He couldn’t get excited about it, it was serious. Much more serious than a Stiffer upgrading their skill.

  Did I really upgrade it? Wait, skill upgrade?

  The implication of it was only now settling upon him. Has he evolved his skill? But that was impossible. Stiffers were only supposed to have one skill. One skill which stayed the same with them forever. No one crossed that line.

  But no one has ever talked about the system pieces either. Could it really be?

  Klein hesitated, his hands grasped the blanket that covered him. It was made of wool, he could tell. His newly evolved skill was defined as Material Property Transmutation, and Temperature Reflection. Could he perhaps change the properties of this blanket? Make it more elastic? Or make it brittle to the touch?

  He focused on his skill, the part of it which now resided in the new star in his soul, and activated it on the tip of his fingers.

  The familiar tingle of mana flowing through his skin greeted him, and he observed the spell boundary. It was different. The change was minimal, but it was surely there. He couldn’t believe it.

  Would it really work?

  He touched the blanket with that hand, and the structure stayed. It’s not like he couldn’t make spell boundaries. He had made many, and tried many times. But for some reason, the spell never formed.

  It can’t work, can it?

  Despite everything he couldn’t help but feel pessimistic about it. Despite the existence of the second star, a second soul in his body, this was the thing he couldn’t believe at all.

  Make it more elastic. And, induce cold reflection.

  He imagined the very concept of elasticity. The feeling of stretch and compression of rubber and materials on the tip of his fingers. The waves formed on it as you stretch it, and so much more. He felt the spell take effect.

  The next second he felt the change. It was cold, very cold all of a second. He looked down at the blanket, and it was still there, and the top of it felt hot now, insulating the inside almost perfectly, while heating the outer layer.

  It was in essence the same as what he did with the ‘Thermal Reflection’ part of his skill to insulate the inside, but which had the side-effect of cooling the outside, which provided a nice experience. This one though, did the exact opposite.

  He grounded his expectations, as hard as it was to do so. Maybe it wasn’t actually hot and he was making himself believe it? So he held two points of the blankets, and stretched, and stretched, and…. stretched.

  Tears welled up in his eyes. He had really done it, hasn’t he? He had! The blanket had stretched like a piece of bubble-gum in his hands.

  “I fucking did it!” He shouted, and the nurse came running in to check on him, but he didn’t care. He cried in joy, the tears marred his blanket, but he couldn’t imagine himself happier. He had learned a new skill. He had done nobody ever could’ve. Something that nobody has ever had.

  “Sir! Please stop shouting, you need to take rest!” The nurse finally yelled at him, and Klein let go of the blanket he had cuddled himself with.

  “I’m sorry,” He apologized and the nurse went away grumbling about unruly children.

  “I still can’t believe this is really happening. How is this even working? How is any of this real? How can the system still be real!? Wasn’t it destroyed by the alliance of the three continents?”

  Those were the questions he had no answer for.

  Should I tell the academy about the skill evolution? What would they do to me? Would they kidnap me and question me how I got it? Would they even believe about the system piece?

  He decided that it was better to stay shut about these kinds of things for now. He had no clue of what might happen to him. For all he knew, he might just become the lab-rat of the government.

  No no no, with this maybe I can finally save my business. Yes!

  He saw new hope for his business. Easy way to increase the quality of his material while paying for scraps? He can pull the material capital to almost negligible. Heck he could even make blankets for summer with cold reflection?

  How does cold reflection even work? Coldness is due to the lack of heat, so how could you trap cold in places?This is too much for one day.

  He laid on the bed, suddenly out of energy. Everything felt like too much. System pieces. A new skill. Death of Riley. The attack. Everything seemed to rush at him.

  I need a break.

  It was an unknown amount of time later that the nurse returned.

  “Your friend is here to see you. Should I send him in?” The nurse came to inform him. Klein’s eyes fogged over for a second, before he realised it must be Carell. He sat up a little on his bed, and asked her to send him in.

  Carell looked devastated. He was a mess. He had bags under his eyes, his hair looked like a nest, and he walked with a hunch. Klein had never seen him like this, and it sobered him from the excitement high he was just riding.

  His eyes lit up as soon as he saw him though.

  “How are you doing, Klein?” He asked, and put down something on the bedside table. Klein noticed they were chocolates, before replying, “I’m fine. How are you? You don’t look like you have slept properly. What happened? How long have I been gone?”

  “I’m…. I’m okay. Just dealing with some things. Being the one responsible for the trip, a lot of eyes are on me. Also you’ve been out cold for two days. I almost thought you might never wake up,” His voice was hoarse.

  Two days? Klein felt shocked. Was it the trauma of the fight, or the system absorption?

  “What about Anne? Is she okay?”

  “She’s… fine. She’s also grieving a bit. She wasn’t that close with Riley, but it hit her harder than she expected it to,”

  Klein sighed a breath of relief.

  “What does the academy say about the attack? Are they gonna investigate who the attackers were?”

  “No,” Anger suddenly flared in his voice, and he threw his hands as he said, “No they fucking won’t. It was our fault after all, wasn’t it, Klein? We were dumb enough to roam around where we weren’t supposed to. So now we have to take the blame for it.”

  He calmed down a little, his shoulders once again slumped, “It… it’s nothing you need to worry about. I’ll talk with her family. It was my fault. You should rest. Eat the chocolates. They are from my hometown. See ya later, Klein.”

  Carell was gone after that, leaving Klein alone with his thoughts and the box of chocolates beside him. He looked at them. They were of liquorice flavour. He decided that he’d rather sleep for a few more hours.

  #