Moonlight dripped through the canopy in broken threads, painting silver lines across the clearing where Arlen stood.
He had walked until the village lights vanished behind the trees.
Until the smell of smoke and food gave way to damp moss and cold air.
Until he stood barefoot in a large clearing, under the pale shimmer of the moon.
His eyes were fixed on the glowing panel hovering in front of him.
On that one parameter…
Circuits: 2
He exhaled, the sound cutting through the stillness.
"I've got the system now… the affinities, the gear, all that jazz," he muttered. "But without the circuits to support it…"
His words trailed off into the night.
Circuits.
The word looked simple on the screen.
But he knew better.
They weren't just numbers.
They were the invisible wiring of the soul.
The channels that decided how much mana a body could move at a time.
Born with too few circuits, even a large mana reserve only lets you produce a candle's worth of flame.
Born with too many, and the world would probably start calling you divine.
And Arlen Hale only had two.
Even if he poured everything into MP, he'd still be the magical equivalent of a flickering bulb wired to a nuclear reactor.
He clenched his jaw, staring at that glowing number as if glaring could make it change.
"There has to be some way,"
He thought of everything the system had given him. Weapons, potions, affinities,… all the shiny trinkets every Isekai protagonist got on day one.
But none of them mattered if he couldn't channel the power to use them.
Then, something in the corner of his vision flickered.
A faint tab pulsed at the edge of the interface - {Shop}.
His breath caught.
"Of course…" he muttered, his lips curling faintly. "Systems usually have everything…"
With nothing but a thought, he willed it open.
And the hum of the system deepened, spreading faintly through the air like static before lightning.
{Shop Interface Initialized}
{Buy} {Sell}
He was already on Buy.
The categories stretched out in neat lines across the screen:
{Weapons}
{Magic}
{Skills}
{Consumables}
He hovered for a second before his gaze fixed on Magic.
"Let's see what you've got…" he murmured.
A soft pulse rippled through the air as the tab expanded.
New panels slid into place, forming cascading lists that glowed faintly against the dark.
{Spells}
{Enchantments}
{Talismans}
.
.
.
He scrolled absently, eyes drifting across unfamiliar names until a small icon at the top right corner of the interface caught his attention.
A search bar.
He hesitated for half a second, then thought the word.
{Search: Circuits}
The response was instant. The entire screen reconfigured itself, and a single line of text materialized in the center.
{
Circuit
Price: 1,000,000 Credits
Description: Permanent expansion of the user's mana conduction lattice. Integrates a new active conduit into the soul-core network, increasing total circuit count by one.
Note: Subsequent Circuit purchases increase tenfold in cost.
}
Arlen stared at it for a long moment, eyes reflecting the pale blue light.
One million Credits. And that too will increase by tenfold for the next one.
He exhaled slowly, almost laughing.
"That's… steep."
The laugh wasn't amusement.
It was the sound of someone doing mental math on their own limitations.
At the moment, his balance blinked back at him: {100 Credits.
"Well, thanks to those rewards… I'm at least not sitting on 0"
Still, he couldn't stop staring.
It was there. It existed.
A number. A price. A way.
"Guess I just found my grind." He grinned, "After all, if you wanna rewrite nature… You better be ready to pay like a god."
"Now back to the affinity…" he whispered, "Since the pain and the risk of assimilation are all the same… there's nothing to wait for."
With a single thought, the inventory flared open once more.
And his eyes locked onto the faint red icon pulsing at the center of the list.
{Affinity – Red Lightning (Epic)}
[Activate.]
{Command Received: Affinity Assimilation Initiated. Please stand by.}
The system's voice hummed cold in his skull, followed by silence.
The panel flickered once, then vanished, leaving him alone under the moon.
His heart pounded faster and harder with every beat.
Arlen exhaled, fists clenching at his sides, trying to steady his breath.
The description had been clear; the process will be painful.
He braced for it.
Every muscle tensed as he stared up into the night, waiting.
But nothing happened, and a long, slow breath escaped him.
His shoulders eased. The tension bled out of his arms.
"Did I do something wrong?" he murmured.
Frowning, he tilted his head back, scanning the treetops and the night sky beyond… which looked awfully cloudy.
Then he felt it. That static before a storm, the prickling crawl along the skin, and the heavy, humming taste of ozone in the air.
His eyes widened.
A deep rumble rolled across the forest as dark clouds materialized into the night sky within seconds.
"Ah… hell."
-CRACK!
The first bolt hit him square on the top of the head, and his world turned white.
Searing pain erupted, engulfing his body in an instant.
Arlen's body stiffened as electricity roared through every nerve, while the smell of burning hair filled the air.
He couldn't even scream through the shock as his body hit the ground face-first, twitching violently.
-CRACK!
The second came faster, smashing into his back.
His shirt ignited instantly, burning away in shreds as the bolt burrowed into flesh.
-AAH!
A scream finally tore from his throat as lightning crawled across his spine.
Not fading this time, but staying, sinking into every ounce of his being.
-CRAAACK!
The third one hit so hard his vision shattered into white noise.
The dirt beneath his cheek hissed while the red glow beneath his skin pulsed brighter, spreading toward his shoulders.
His whole body convulsed as he lay locked into the ground face-first while the world spun in and out of existence.
Instinct cut through agony in a single, desperate thought.
[Potion.]
His trembling hand reached forward, and a faint shimmer appeared beside him.
The bottle flickered into existence, his fingers barely catching it by luck alone.
Between fading in and out of consciousness, he bit the cork out and swallowed.
And the potion's cool surge clashed against the lightning's fire in momentary relief, fleeting as breath.
Then the fourth strike hit.
-CRACK!
The ground buckled beneath the next lightning strike, arching Arlen off the dirt as energy ripped through him again, only to slam him back down.
The next one came even sooner.
And each strike melted into the next in one endless, blinding scream of red light and pain.
Then came the Sixth and Seventh.
Each bolt dug deeper, forcing the lightning inside him, embedding itself into muscle, bone, and blood.
His skin blistered, peeled, reformed courtesy of the potion, only to blister again.
His breath came in sharp, broken gasps.
Once, he blacked out, only for the next strike to wrench him back into consciousness with a violent jolt.
And after a few more, he no longer screamed. His voice was gone.
All that remained was the sound of crackling and the slow, wet hiss of burning flesh.
By the time the eighth strike came, he barely looked human.
A lump of charred, twitching meat lying face-down in the smoking dirt, still faintly glowing from within.
With what little strength he had left, Arlen's hand twitched, dragging across the dirt until his fingers brushed against the faint blue shimmer of his inventory.
Another bottle materialized.
He fumbled for it, shaking and half-blind, before pressing it weakly to his mouth
Half of it spilled down his chin, hissing against the burns, but enough made it through.
He exhaled, eyes rolling back, lips moving in a faint whisper.
"Ma… I'm still here."
And -
-CRAAAAAACK!
The ninth strike came down like judgment itself.
The ground split beneath the impact, earth and smoke thrown skyward as the bolt swallowed him whole.
For an instant, the entire clearing was red.
And when it finally faded, nothing moved.
Smoke curled up from the ground of the clearing now gone eerily silent.
The air reeked of ozone and blood.
The sky, once crimson with lightning, began to pale toward dawn.
{Affinity Assimilation Complete.}
And as the system's voice faded, Arlen Hale finally slipped into the quiet dark, body still twitching and sizzling.
And a heart straight up refusing to stop beating.