Stone on my cheek. Cold. Rust and sweat in the air.
No pain. Fed. Suspiciously good.
I sat up.
Hagar was already there, a brick wall with eyebrows, standing over a graveyard of crates and scrap arranged into bad ideas. Training.
He didn't say good morning. He just threw something at my head. A little too hard to be friendly.
Fine. We both knew the game. I get loud enough that the System can't pretend I don't exist.
I caught it on instinct, barely.
It was a weight harness. Straps and lead plates and something suspiciously sticky that I chose not to examine.
"Put it on," he grunted. "You're behind."
"Behind what?" I rasped.
"Everything."
I should've argued. Or laughed. Or told him to shove the harness where the sun doesn't shine.
But I didn't.
Because he wasn't wrong.
Tylen had shiny armor and a squad. I had bruises, a squirrel that hated me, and a Root that kept me standing just long enough to suffer more.
So yeah. I strapped the damn thing on.
If this world wanted to choke me out, I'd make sure it tasted blood on the way down.
I didn't remember much of the next few hours.
Just that it hurt. A lot.
The harness added at least 100 pounds to every step. The push-ups came with cracked tile. The sit-ups happened under threat of being kicked in the gut if I slowed down. And running? That wasn't running. That was a controlled death spiral around the room with Hagar barking half-insults half-technique behind me like a sadistic gym coach who'd failed ethics class.
I puked. Not metaphorically.
Twice, maybe three times. It's just a blur.
At some point I might've blacked out standing up, because I woke up on the floor with Hagar poking my ribs like he was checking if I was cooked all the way through.
He didn't say anything about it.
Just tossed me a protein brick that tasted like shame and gave me a five-minute countdown before the next set.
By the end of the day, I couldn't move.
But my stats could. And that was fucking beautiful.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: MANUAL TRAINING LOGGED]
Threshold Exceeded → Strength +1
Threshold Exceeded → Vitality +1
Fatigue Profile Recorded
I stared at the update with the hollow satisfaction of someone who just dug a tunnel with their teeth.
Hagar sat nearby, chewing on something I didn't want identified.
"You're doing fine," he said, voice flat.
"Fine?" I groaned. "I think my spine filed for divorce."
"That's progress," he grunted. "Pain is proof you're still alive. Let's keep it that way a little longer."
I groaned. "Is this how you trained back on... wherever the hell you're from?"
He nodded. "More or less. We didn't use Resonance for the basics. That was considered lazy. Dangerous, too."
"Dangerous?" I croaked.
He glanced at me like I'd just asked if fire was hot.
"You boost a weak frame with mythic power, all you get is a fragile god with snapping tendons. We trained everything manually up to twenty. Every stat. No shortcuts. No pop-up boosts."
He pointed at my hands, blistered, cracked, still twitching.
"Up to twenty, the System still logs manual growth. Real work. Real muscle. No magic excuses.
Past that, it's all resonance and symbolism, but that's the high-level stuff. You don't build anything on a shit foundation."
"And this is the one way you can close the gap to the System boys, they would never stoop to doing this."
I passed out soon after this.
I couldn't train the next day.
I wanted to, but every attempt to stand ended with my legs staging a walkout. Literally.
So instead of drills, Hagar declared it was time for what he called "an educational stroll."
Which turned out to be code for: hobble after the grey bastard while he lectured me like a drunk economics professor with chronic contempt.
We took a loop around the outer edge of the Legacy sector. Barely anyone around. Some flickering signs. One vending machine that might've once dispensed weapons but now just buzzed with disappointment.
"Alright, listen," Hagar said, hands stuffed into his coat. "You've got five inventory slots until you get tagged. Real ones. Not some magic bag of holding. Five."
I blinked. "That's... not a lot?"
"No," he grunted. "It's what you get. And if you screw it up, you die.
"You'll want a weapon, a backup, a regen item, and maybe a utility or consumable. That's four."
"And the fifth slot?"
"That's your lifeline. Or your dumbest mistake. Everyone fills it with something they regret."
He pointed toward a half-dead kiosk as we passed.
"You can use merit at a few stations like that. Real simple rules: no tag, no credit. Not many shopkeepers trade with us. Mostly hardwired vendors or legacy-run stalls."
"Merit's that number in the corner of my eye, right?"
"Yeah," he said. "That's your currency/score/bureaucratic ransom note. You'll earn it for kills, training, feats of survival, or just being loud in ways the System legally has to acknowledge. During the tutorial you will only get it for completing levels tho"
I rubbed at my shoulder. Still bruised from the harness. "You said you gave me 500 before right?"
"Yes , I frontloaded you five hundred," he said. "Legacy orientation bonus. Use it smartly."
The next three days weren't just a blur.
They were a goddamn grindstone.
I didn't just wake up sore. I woke up diffrent. Like parts of me had been shaved off in the night and replaced with rusted wire and old regrets.
My joints creaked when I moved. My skin felt like it was wearing me. Muscles I didn't know I owned screamed at me in languages I don't speak, probably war crimes in at least two.
And Hagar?
Still there. Still grunting commands like some unholy mix of gym coach and executioner. No encouragement. No sympathy. Just a fistful of pain and a promise I hadn't asked for:
"You're still meat. We build the meat."
Day Four was squats with weight plates tied to my shoulders.
Day Five was a crawl circuit that left my arms shaking so hard I couldn't lift a spoon.
Day Six was balance drills on uneven planks while Hagar threw shit at my head and called it "reaction testing."
I puked. Stopped counting after the first two times it happened that day.
At one point, I fell face-first during a sprint, caught a rib on a crate corner, and just... stayed there for a bit. Breathing through the floor.
Hagar walked over. Kicked me in the very same rib.
"Dead?"
"Working on it," I rasped.
"Not today."
Then he added more weight.
I didn't know if this was training or punishment anymore. I barely know if I'm alive.
But somewhere in that constant tearing and rebuilding, something shifted. I didn't feel stronger, not really, but I stopped breaking the same way.
And the System noticed.
[SYSTEM UPDATE – MANUAL DEVELOPMENT LOGGED]
Strength: 12 → 18
Vitality: 13 → 20
Dexterity: 7 → 10
I collapsed on the floor of the training hall, again, muscles twitching, lungs wheezing like someone had replaced them with damp cloth.
My fingers were blistered. My knuckles raw. Every joint ached like it had a personal grudge.
Hagar tossed me a towel. I didn't catch it. Just let it slap me in the face and slide to the floor.
"That'll have to do," he said, like I'd just finished mowing the lawn instead of surviving a war crime.
I managed to roll over halfway. Blinked at him through the haze.
"What?"
He cracked his neck. "Stats are decent. You won't die instantly, probably."
"That's... high praise?"
He nodded.
"You've got one day left in the hub."
I blinked. "One what?"
"One day," he said. "Tomorrow's it. Seven-day limit between tutorial stages. The System enforces it."
I stared at him.
He stared back.
I waited for the punchline.
It didn't come.
"You're telling me I've got one day to recover, shop, maybe eat real food..."
"Yup."
"... and you're just now telling me this?"
He shrugged.
"Figured you'd be too sore to panic now."
And also most Legacies don't last a week with me anyway," Hagar muttered, not elaborating
I dropped my head back to the floor.
"I hate you."
"Good," he said. "That means you've still got room for anger. You'll need that."
Hagar didn't say anything for a while after that.
Just stared past me, bottle in hand.
Then, quiet:
"Kellek thought he could handle it."
I looked up.
"He made it to Level Seven. Thought that was enough. Said he'd earned his rest."
A pause.
"He walked. Just like that. Quit the tutorial. Didn't get the Tag."
Hagar took a sip.
"He's still alive. I think."
Another pause. Longer.
"I visited his sector once. Just to check."
A dry laugh, scraped raw.
"Man's working a trash cycle in a Tier 3 transit zone. Cleans sewage valves with no hazard bonus."
My stomach turned.
"He can't get medical. System doesn't recognize his ID as viable. Tried to register for housing, got flagged as 'non-applicable.' Even food vendors? Most won't open interface windows when he walks in. Had to watch him beg a kid to order a ration bar for him."
He stared into the bottle like it might finish the story for him.
"He doesn't even get alerts anymore. No pings. No missions. Just... silence."
Then the worst part.
"And he smiles. Like it's fine. Like he's just happy he's not fighting anymore."
Hagar looked at me. Dead on.
"I trained him. Watched him bleed. Knew his story. And now?"
He shook his head.
"The System won't even let me log him as a contact..."
"By the way," Hagar said, like it was a weather update,
"You'll be back here after every tutorial level. Seven days each time. And I'll train you so hard you'll wish you hadn't decided to continue."
He took a pull from his flask.
"And no, I don't allow safewords."
A beat.
"Don't get excited. It won't be that kind of session."
Hagar made me walk.
Said it was part of recovery. Said I needed to move the soreness out. Said something about "circulation" like he suddenly had a doctorate in torture science.
So I limped across the vendor sector like a training dummy with PTSD. But I didn't mind.
Because for the first time since integration... I felt good.
Really good.
The food stall was first.
Legacy-run. No System branding. Just a scuffed metal counter, a grizzled shopkeep with one eye, and a menu that mostly consisted of "It'll keep you alive."
I stared at the caloric readout of a ration bar: 3,400.
It looked like a protein brick had mated with a hunk of tree bark and given up halfway.
I bought four.
The shopkeep raised an eyebrow.
"You planning to feed a whole squad?"
"Nope," I said. "Just me."
[500 Merit → 380 Merit remaining]
I stood there with my sad little stack of edible misery... and thought about Kellek.
The guy made it to Level Seven. Survived gods knew what. Bled through half the hellscape. Then walked.
Didn't get the Tag.
And the System had erased him like he was a typo in a legal doc.
Not dead. Not punished.
Just... unseen.
And I tried, really tried, to imagine what that meant.
Because I've been ignored before. Dismissed. Sidelined.
But never like that.
Even at my worst, the law still had to acknowledge me. Still had to log my existence, even if it was to throw me in a cell or slap a warning on my file.
I've always been loud enough. Dangerous enough. Problem enough.
But Kellek?
He's not a person anymore.
He's a smudge. A non-applicable. Something the System lets starve, because it's not technically illegal.
And gods help me...
Some part of me understood why he smiled anyway.
Why just not fighting anymore could feel like peace.
But that's not peace.
That's the kind of silence they bury you in, and call it mercy.
And if I ever end up there .
Begging kids to order me food, smiling like I'm grateful for scraps.
Fucking shoot me...
Enough fucking melodrama...
Next stop: weapons.
Not the shining System booths. Not the floating sword displays or holographic spear arrays. No, Hagar led me to a bin.
An actual bin.
Old iron, battered handles, half-rusted tags. Tools, not weapons. Things meant to do work, not look heroic.
That's where I found it.
A woodcutter's axe. Broad blade. Thick haft. No enchantment. No glow. Just weight and edge and history.
I picked it up.
It felt right.
Swords were for pretty boys. Spears were for posture. This?
This was honest.
[380 Merit → 80 Merit remaining]
I'm almost out of merits already, oh well easy come easy go. No recovery item for me, guess food and my trait will have to be enough healing, recovery items are really expensive too, I could only have afforded a one time use one and if i did I wouldn't be able to get food or a weapon. And I'm not eating corrupted squirrels and getting admonished for my etiquette again!
We kept walking, slow and heavy, and somewhere during this time, I realized something:
I felt amazing.
My limbs moved like they'd been rewired. My spine had stopped creaking. I caught a reflection in a broken panel and didn't recognize myself.
Not bulky. Not sculpted.
Just solid.
Tense.
Dangerous.
18 Strength. 20 Vitality. 10 Dexterity.
If five was human average... I wasn't just built anymore.
I was weaponized.
I grinned. Just a little.
Then I turned a corner and saw him.
Tylen.
Fucking Tylen.
Level 5 now, because of course he was.
I think I heard that warriors get +5 STR. +2 VIT and one free point per level from Hagen.
That means he at a minimum has 40 STR...
New armor. Shining again. Shoulders flared with some kind of golden lion motif like he was trying to win a lawsuit with fashion.
He had the sword. The Rogue. The Cleric.
And now?
A third girl. Mage-class. Robes cut to frame curves that felt deliberately shown. Hair like moonlight. Eyes like advertising.
They walked like they were going to a party.
Like they were halfway through a victory lap and fucking each other with their eyes between steps.
Every glance was a promise. Every smile was foreplay.
They didn't just move like winners.
They moved like the world owed them a climax.
It's a god damned harem anime.
Tylen didn't even see me.
Or worse, maybe he did. And didn't care.
I stood there, holding my axe and my protein bricks like a caveman at a spaceport.
For a second, all that strength I'd just felt?
It cracked.
Because this wasn't about stats.
It was about presentation. And infrastructure. And built-in support.
It was about who the System had already decided deserved to be a hero.
I clenched the handle of my axe.
Not from rage this time.
From hunger.
Not food-hunger. Not stat-hunger.
Something older.
Darker.
Meaner.
"Goddamn it," I muttered.
"After the next level, I'm getting a pocket cleric of my own."
[LEGACY OBSERVATION: Hagar's Thoughts]
Hagar didn't follow.
Just stood there, leaning against the rusted stall, watching the human limp off into the glowstrips, axe over one shoulder and a ration bar already half-devoured.
Didn't say anything at first.
Then, quietly, to no one:
"Hope this one comes back."
He scratched his jaw.
"Just a couple in each orientation do."
A pause. Then:
"Level Five's a real bitch... Should I have stopped him?"
Another pause,
"Eirik was his name, might be the first one i will have to remember in quite some time, he survived a root evolution before saturation."