Chapter 2: The Grind and the Whispers of Efficiency
The carriage ride, designed for speed and discretion, rattled Kaelen's bones across the rough, poorly maintained Viscount roads before hitting the better-paved Imperial thoroughfares. Kaelen sat across from two taciturn, loyal guards, who occasionally glanced at him with a mix of awe and pity. Awe that he had been selected; pity that he looked frail and exhausted even before the journey began.
They didn't know the exhaustion was self-inflicted.
Kaelen immediately initiated his regimen. The thirty-five days to the Trial of Ascension were not travel time; they were a singular, extended training session. He needed to bridge a 9.995% proficiency gap in a skill where his base rate of gain was measured in ten-thousandths of a percent.
He closed his eyes and returned to his unique mental space.
[SKILLS:]
[Basic Illusory Veil: 0.005% (Novice)]
[Mind Fortification (Passive): 1.12% (Novice)]
[Self-Optimization (Unregistered Skill): Active]
The Self-Optimization was a layered, persistent application of the Echo Affinity—an illusion layered over his internal psychological landscape.
Layer 1: Noise Suppression. Dampening physical pain, hunger, discomfort, and sensory input (the carriage noise, the smells). This allowed 99% of his focus to be directed at the task.
Layer 2: Focus Stabilization. An illusion that portrayed the feeling of perfect concentration, counteracting the natural mental drift and frustration of repetitive failure.
This alone tripled his effective practice time. But it was not enough.
Kaelen knew the system recorded progress based on repetition and the successful confirmation of a magical act. For an illusion, this meant his mind needed to confirm the intended phantasm had been mentally visualized and initiated, even if it was too weak to manifest externally.
His F-grade talent meant his attempts failed nearly instantly. To compensate, Kaelen moved to the critical, risky third layer of his technique: The Deceptive Echo.
He began forcing rapid, repeated attempts of the Basic Illusory Veil spell. Visualize a shimmering apple. Attempt projection. Failure. Visualize a shimmering apple. Attempt projection. Failure.
In the instant of failure, Kaelen inserted a micro-illusion—a cognitive lie—that his subconscious mind registered as Confirmation of Success.
He was tricking his own system into acknowledging failed efforts as successful repetitions. It was mental fraud, leveraged entirely by his Mind Affinity.
Attempt. Immediate, forced overlay of success. Attempt. Immediate, forced overlay of success.
The effect was instantaneous, but psychologically sickening.
[Basic Illusory Veil: 0.005% -> 0.015%]
The rate of gain had quadrupled! But the mental cost was severe. The human brain was not designed to process success in the face of immediate failure.
[ATTRIBUTES:]
[MIND: 12]
[—> Acute Strain Detected: Temporary Degradation (MIND: 10)]
His Mind score immediately dipped. Kaelen felt a deep, chilling ache behind his eyes, a phantom pain that signaled his psyche was fighting the self-inflicted deception. If he pushed this too hard, he could suffer irreversible cognitive damage. He immediately ceased the Deceptive Echo and shifted his focus to his passive skill.
Mind Fortification was a skill native to his Affinity, designed to protect the user against external mental attacks. Kaelen began using it internally, like a psychological suture, trying to repair the self-inflicted trauma.
Strengthen the defenses. Reinforce the inner walls. Stabilize the core.
[Mind Fortification (Passive): 1.12% -> 1.14% (Stabilizing)]
He established a rotational grind:
1. High-Intensity Phase (6 hours): Maximize Basic Illusory Veil gain using the Self-Optimization layers, until Mind degradation drops to a critical level (MIND 10).
2. Stabilization Phase (3 hours): Focus solely on Mind Fortification to repair and stabilize the psychological feedback loop.
3. Rest/Maintenance Phase (3 hours): Consume food/water, maintain minimal Self-Optimization for focus, and allow natural recovery.
He repeated this cycle throughout the first week of the journey, turning the cramped carriage into a personal, high-pressure training chamber.
Day Seven: Crossing the Barony of Eld.
The constant, focused practice began to yield results that, while minuscule by the standards of a high-talent mage, were world-changing for Kaelen.
[Basic Illusory Veil: 0.015% -> 0.45%]
[Mind Fortification (Passive): 1.14% -> 1.50%]
He was averaging nearly 0.06% gain per day. This was a miraculous acceleration, but the math remained brutally unforgiving.
"0.06% multiplied by 35 days equals 2.1% total gain," Kaelen calculated, his voice a dry whisper. "Current total: 0.45% + 2.1% = 2.55%. That is nowhere near the 10.00% needed for Apprentice Stage 1."
He needed to increase his daily gain by a factor of four. He needed to be gaining 0.28% per day.
This required a new, terrifying adaptation of his unique Affinity. Kaelen realized he couldn't just trick the system into recording success; he needed to trick the system into accelerating time.
He recalled the other branch of his Affinity: Mind.
"The perception of time is malleable," he muttered. "A minute of pain can feel like an hour; an hour of pleasure, a minute."
He began attempting the most dangerous manipulation yet: an Illusory Time-Warp.
He layered a fourth, highly unstable illusion over his focus layer. This layer was designed to convince his own cognitive processing that time was passing four times faster than reality.
Actual time: 1 second.
Perceived time (Internal Illusion): 4 seconds.
The goal was to trick the Proficiency System's recording mechanism, which logged proficiency per unit of perceived effort, not actual clock time.
He initiated the warp.
The first sensation was vertigo. The carriage's rocking became a slow, geological shift. The creak of the leather seemed to stretch into a drawn-out groan. His internal focus became razor-sharp, but the world outside felt like thick, resistant molasses. He was operating at four times the mental speed, but at four times the mental strain.
[MIND: 10 -> MIND: 8]
The degradation was immediate and severe. Kaelen fought the urge to vomit and stabilized the Self-Optimization layers. The pain was immense, like plunging his consciousness into ice water.
But the system responded.
Attempt. Success Overlay. Time-Warped Perception.
Attempt. Success Overlay. Time-Warped Perception.
[Basic Illusory Veil: 0.45% -> 0.47%]
The 0.02% gain was achieved in less than an hour. The gain rate had skyrocketed. Kaelen immediately pulled back, stabilizing at the critical Mind 8 level.
"This is the way," he choked out, forcing a dry ration down his throat. "Maximum input, maximum risk. Thirty days remaining. I can run the Time-Warp for three hours a day, before needing six hours of deep recovery."
He looked out the window. The Imperial roads were now bustling with traffic—not just caravans, but elegant, enchanted carriages carrying other novices, all heading to the capital. He could sense, even without magic, the palpable aura of confidence emanating from the high-grade talents.
Kaelen knew they wouldn't be grinding 0.02% in an hour. They would achieve Stage 1 with a single flash of inspiration, a natural breakthrough that his system forbade. But he had his own edge: the relentless, unique, and painful manipulation of his own reality.
The race for 10.00% had become a battle against his own sanity.