The silence in the small inn room was a physical presence, thick with the ghosts of spent adrenaline and the metallic tang of pain that still hung in the air. It was no longer the fragile, suffocating silence of impending doom, but the deep, hollowed-out quiet that follows a storm. Every splinter in the wooden floorboards, every dust mote dancing in the slanted afternoon sun that cut through the single window, seemed amplified. Sarah's own breathing was a ragged, too-loud thing in her ears. Her confession—a raw, whispered admission that she had felt like a "supernova"—hung between them, the only words adequate to describe the cataclysm that had torn through her body and spirit.
Kenta did not answer immediately. He was a statue carved from shadow and resolve, seated on a simple stool beside her bed. His dark eyes, usually so focused on external threats, were now turned inward, studying her with an intensity that felt surgical. He saw the fine tremor in her hands where they lay limp on the roughspun blanket, the pallor of her skin that made the dark circles under her eyes look like bruises. He saw not just a comrade, but a system pushed beyond its designed limits, a vessel cracked by the very power it sought to command.
His movement, when it came, was fluid and silent. He reached out, his calloused swordsman's hand hovering just above her chest, over the epicenter of the systemic shock that had nearly unraveled her. There was no grand gesture, no chant. A soft, cerulean light kindled in his palm, its glow gentle and diffuse, a stark contrast to the harsh, predatory silver of her System's interface or the devouring blackness of his own cursed blade.
Sarah's breath hitched. The moment the light touched the space above her, she felt it. This was nothing like the System's regeneration. That was a cold, algorithmic process, a forced reassembly of flesh and bone that felt like being put back together by an unseen, uncaring machine. This… this was different. It was a soothing, cool wave that didn't command her cells to heal, but instead seemed to sing to them, a low, resonant hum that encouraged them to remember wholeness. It seeped into her battered muscles, unknotting the tension of the violent Auto-Battle mode. It threaded through her frayed nerves, not with the brutal efficiency of a system override, but with the patience of a spring thaw. The deep, throbbing ache that had been a constant companion since the fight began began to recede, not vanishing, but softening at the edges, replaced by a profound, cellular-level relief that brought a prickle of unexpected tears to her eyes. It was the first true comfort she had known in this brutal new world.
"You…" she whispered, her voice a dry rustle. She cleared her throat, the sound unnaturally loud. "You can heal?"
His focus didn't waver from the flow of energy. "A little," Kenta replied, his voice low and even, a steady anchor in the quiet room. "It is not my primary skill. It is a… side path. Jokedone insisted. He said a blade that only knows how to cut is a blade that will eventually break its wielder." He paused, the cerulean light pulsing softly. "What you feel is not Ki. Ki is the fire in the blood, the energy of the body's own life force. It is for strengthening, for speed, for the strike." He finally looked up, meeting her gaze. "This is Mana. The energy of the spirit, and of the world itself. It is better for mending what is broken. For soothing what is frayed."
He continued for several more minutes, the light a steady, calming presence. When it finally faded, it left not a void, but a lingering warmth woven into her very being. The sharp, stabbing pains were gone, replaced by a heavy, manageable fatigue that felt earned, not inflicted.
As he sat back, the lines of concentration easing from his face, Sarah pushed herself up slightly against the lumpy pillows. A new, burning curiosity began to override the weary haze. Her mind, so accustomed to parsing data streams and skill trees, now latched onto this new variable. It was a mystery, a system outside her System.
"How?" she asked, her gaze intense, the familiar glint of a challenge returning to her eyes. "How do you use it? It's not a skill you activate, is it? There's no… menu." The word felt childish, inadequate. "Can… can I learn?"
Kenta considered her. He saw the relentless engine of her will, the same drive that had allowed her to synthesize a hundred martial arts into a single, devastating protocol. But he also saw the shadow of recent trauma, the visceral understanding of her own fragility. This question was different. It wasn't a demand for a new weapon to add to her arsenal; it was a plea for a foundation, for a deeper, more stable connection to the very fabric of this world that had rejected and then nearly consumed her.
"It is not like your System," he began, his voice taking on the patient, measured tone of an instructor. "It does not respond to commands. It does not care for data. It is about feeling. Listening. It is a conversation, not a transaction."
He held out his own hand, palm up, an empty offering. "Close your eyes."
Sarah hesitated for a fraction of a second, a lifetime of modern skepticism warring with the undeniable evidence of the warmth still spreading through her chest. Then, she complied. The visual world vanished, and her other senses rushed in to fill the void