One month later.
The figure that stepped off the Service Line mag-lev train and walked toward the apartment blocks of Sector 9 was still lean, but the gaunt, skeletal frame that had arrived a month prior was gone.
His skin had lost the pale, clammy sheen of a perpetual hangover. Though still naturally light, his complexion carried a healthier density. There was a noticeable, slight layer of new fat replacing the hollowed-out look of starvation. His movements, while still economical, lacked the jerky, uncertain spasms that had marked his first week. He walked with a smooth, heavy confidence that belonged to a man who had mastered his environment.
The gray maintenance jumpsuit he wore was now clean, pressed into sharp creases, and his boots shone with a careful, habitual polish. He wasn't smiling, but his eyes were steady—sharp, aware, and calculating.
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I keyed the lock on the apartment door.
The routine was automatic now. Clean the jumpsuit, prepare the nutrient pack, check the credit balance (up by 700 units), and immediately power down the phone to limit the risk of Aether-borne toxins.
I leaned against the cool wall of the apartment, letting the lingering hum of the Conduit Tower fade from my bones.
The last month hadn't been a waste.
Work itself—the eleven hours spent regulating superheated Aether flow alongside Gerg—had become manageable. The process was physically exhausting, certainly. A few trash mechanics, hoping to bully the weak junkie out of his station time, tried to start trouble, but Gerg stepped in every time, talking them down. His pity was a useful shield; it kept the rats off my back. However, the toughest part of this new life hadn't been the radiation-filled workplace, but the brutal, week-long grind of drug withdrawal. There were days where the headaches were so violent I thought my skull would crack, and the fever left me shaking and hallucinating.
I hadn't exercised or worked on my pathetic Grade F- Pillars. My focus had been purely on stabilizing the system—clearing the toxins, eating the necessary calories, and forcing the weak body back into basic operating condition. The small gains in strength and fat were just side effects of disciplined survival.
But while the body recovered, the mind was busy.
My Grade F- Knight status? That wasn't just a label; it was the quality control stamp on my soul's architecture. The Blueprint—the unique design for my soul's Pillars—had emerged naturally the moment I hit 5.5 SS. It was a direct reflection of my inherent spiritual density, graded A+ down to F-. Me? I got the F- design—a cheap sketch of a rickety shed made out of rotten wood. The system says I was simply born with trash materials, and that's why I'm stuck at 5.5 Soul Strength.
I knew that meant I was stuck with a rotting shed for an F-Grade Knight.
I sat on the edge of the bed, the reality of my existence slamming into me harder than any physical blow.
Anything. I squeezed the phone in my hand, watching the screen flicker. Fuck! What's the point of transmigrating to a fantasy world just to be a factory worker?
I had spent every spare credit on network access, cross-referencing pharmaceutical data with spiritual mechanics. Searching for something to break the deadlock.
That's when I found it.
The theory proposed by an unknown young researcher that by making and breaking the internal soul structure again and again, one could dramatically improve its density and quality, regardless of the blueprint's initial grade.
The logic was simple: Destruction and Renewal.
The system was designed for stability. Once the Pillars were set, the soul prioritized holding them together, no matter how bad the material. This was the ceiling. But the theory suggested that forcibly shattering the existing structure—tearing down the few, weak Pillars you had—and then immediately rebuilding them using raw, unfiltered Aether would replace the soft wood with hardened steel.
The process, however, was suicidal. Tearing down the Pillars meant severing the only stable anchor your soul had. It was a controlled explosion inside your mind. The paper estimated that the sustained psychic trauma alone would kill 99.98% of test subjects instantly.
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He closed the file, leaning his head back against the wall. Then he broke into a wild, choked laugh.
The sound was manic, sudden, and totally unlike the controlled, pragmatic individual he had forced himself to become over the last month.
He looked at his steady hands, now capable of turning the heavy valve wheel.
Phase one complete.
He grabbed the towel, his mind fixed on the new number: 0.02%.
Time to rebuild the soul.