Electricity cracked over Joji's body. He shuddered so hard his teeth knocked together, and for one terrible instant he was sure this was how he died.
Then the black clouds began to draw back, not outward, but inward, sinking into every pore of his skin.
As the room slowly returned to him, Joji looked down at himself.
There was not a single burn on him. Not a single wound. His bald head looked freshly shaven besides.
Startled, he lashed a fist at his own shadow, then slipped into a boxing routine to test himself.
Ten hard minutes later, he felt nothing. No sweat. No shortness of breath. Energy still thrummed through him in a great, deep reserve, nothing like the exhaustion he had known when fighting those hundreds of knights.
He turned to the mirror. Nothing obvious had changed, yet somehow he looked sharper, cleaner, almost unfairly handsome.
"All that freaky work for this? Yeah, I am locked in."
To Joji, it had not even felt like a task. Daisy was like a blank canvas, and it was his hand that chose the colors.
Still, he was not foolish enough to think Sir Risqué would stop there. His thoughts drifted toward his future mother-in-law, then to the sort of shameless scenes he used to act in, where a bored son crossed lines that should have stayed untouched. A common setup in adult films.
"Damn. I got ahead of myself. Better be careful with the risqué. Haha."
Then a glow spread across his vision.
{Your flesh has been strengthened, and the changes are complete. Do you wish to examine the particulars?}
Joji nodded, and the system answered at once. Details spilled across his sight.
{Constitution: Embryonic Storm Bringer}
{Behold a body that would devour the world. Life is but its morsel, and devastation the breath it draws.}
{Yet to keep such a terror roused, one must eat as though one's very life hung upon each meal.}
Joji felt the weight of those words, yet his face still showed disappointment.
"Why make it all so vague and mysterious with me?" Joji asked.
The system gave him no answer.
With a sigh, he tapped the window again and opened the next reward tab.
This time, there was no ominous darkness and no punishing surge of electricity.
{Sir Engine unseals an expansion package... Wait for a few breaths...}
Joji waited. The interface remained still for a breath, then changed.
Above the two mission boards, something new appeared where before there had been only empty space.
{(NEW) Status Window}
{Sir Honorable}
{Sir Risqué}
It showed his famous photo from back on Earth. A bald, muscular man with light skin, a broad smile, and the sort of confident, playful expression.
He wore a fitted blue scrub top and held his hands together as if savoring some private amusement.
Joji could not help but chuckle, but just as he was about to sink into pointless reminiscence, Sir Engine prompted him to pay attention.
{Tutorial: The Status Window displays all your attributes and the skills you have acquired throughout your life. It may be summoned without speech, by intent alone. It may also be called by other names, for its purpose is to reveal, with some measure of flexibility, the options that reside within you.}
{Attribute Points: A single unit answers to the measure of one sound and healthy man in this world.}
{Notice: Some part of your station in your former life has endured into this one, lending yet greater strength to your frame.}
{Name: Joji of Sins Crossroad} {Age: 21}
{Constitution: Embryonic Storm Bringer}
{First Job: (Rank 3) Knight}
{Aura: 13.1}
{Mana: 2.2}
{Brawn: 5.4}
{Quickness: 5.1}
{Wisdom: 19.2} {15 Merits Borne Forward from Your Former Life.}
{Stamina: 16.1} {10 Merits Borne Forward from Your Former Life.}
{Charisma: 17.9} {12 Merits Borne Forward from Your Former Life.}
{Fortune: 27.5} {25 Merits Borne Forward from Your Former Life.}
{PROGRESS OF ARTS AND TRAINING}
{Fundamental Level of Swordsmanship}
{Measure of Proficiency: 65.4%}
{Intermediate Level of Swordsmanship}
{Measure of Proficiency: 12.2%}
{TITLES AND ACHIEVEMENTS}
{Everyman - Can do, learn, and master pretty much any kind of job.}
{A Passive Skill Borne Forward from Your Former Life.}
He stared at it, backed out of the status window, then opened it again. When the same lines greeted him unchanged, a sharp laugh burst out of him.
"Yo what? Wait, I got that too?" Joji said, genuinely surprised.
The sound came half amazed and half disbelief. When the laughter faded, he drew a breath and let his expression settle. He shaped the next question with more care.
"Sir Engine, I have a few questions about this Everyman title. Does it mean I can train in any art and master as many as I can handle?"
{In theory, you may acquire more than one kind of power. Sir Engine may record the craft and lend clarity to your understanding.}
{As for mastery, that must still be earned through your own training.}
In Primeria, the knight's path began at rank one with Guard, followed by Squire, with Knight itself standing at rank three.
After that, the most orthodox road rose through Elite Knight, Great Knight, Master Knight, and Grandmaster Knight.
At rank eight stood the Lord of Knights.
Myths spoke of heights beyond even that, but those were tales for another day. For now, these were the ranks that mattered to Joji.
"All right. Fair. Still pretty damn good, if you ask me," Joji muttered.
Then he remembered all the arts the original Joji had ignored out of pride. Wanting to test the system's new feature, he went to find Head Knight Gregorius.
By the time he reached the drill yard, the man was already there, his sword cutting the air in steady, practiced arcs. Gregorius glanced over, looked Joji up and down, and narrowed his eyes with curiosity.
"You have the look of a man remade. Did you find enlightenment somewhere?" Head Knight Gregorius asked.
Joji of Earth had never been a prideful man. If he had been, he would have kept a plain nine to five instead of becoming an adult actor.
If something could be had for free, he would kneel for it gladly. So he leaned on the Head Knight's chivalrous heart, dropped to one knee, and let his mind reach for every grand speech he had ever seen men perform.
"I, Joji, have made a fool of myself, spurning the benevolence you once offered me," he said. "I ask for your guidance in the Everhart Tempest Arts. Forgive my lapse in judgment, I beg you. Grant me one more chance."
The other knights, still at their drills, noticed at once. Some frowned. Most looked away.
Still, all of them saw it. Joji had changed.
In an age of knights and magic, men did not bow easily, not even when death stood over them. They had watched him suffer alone before, training in his own corner without complaint.
To them, it could only mean one thing. He wished to protect the Duchy of Everhart as they did.
Gregorius reached down at once, meaning to pull him up. It was shameful for a man to kneel like this before another. Joji did not budge.
"No. What is one knee to me? I will grovel if I must," Joji said, even puckering his lips as if he meant to kiss the Head Knight's shoes.
Gregorius had watched the man's perseverance for a long time now, and before Joji could shame himself further, he caught him beneath the arms and hauled him up as though he were still a child.
To Gregorius, none of this was needed, but it was plain Joji wished to show his sincerity more than anything else.
"I am no Pinnacler to be bowed before," Head Knight Gregorius said, sounding more exasperated than pleased by this new turn in Joji's character.
"Come with me. We will start right away." With that, Gregorius led Joji toward the armory.
Inside, weapons lined the walls in ordered ranks. Swords. Bows. Spears. Shields.
At the far end, the family crest stood mounted like a relic, a sword wrapped in a tornado, with blades of wind circling around it. Each blade grew larger and darker the closer it came to the hilt.
A faint barrier clung to the crest, more felt on the skin than seen by the eye. Head Knight Gregorius stepped forward and drove his sword into one of the crest's slots.
As Head Knight Gregorius circulated his art, a sharp click sounded, and three of the nine tornado marks pushed outward as though the crest itself had exhaled.
He took the three volumes revealed within and placed them in Joji's hands.
The First Three Levels of the Everhart Tempest Arts.
They looked like books, yet when Joji opened the first one, the pages turned transparent and layered over one another, forming a hovering map with true depth.
The first art showed the anatomy of a man, with green illustrations shining through the limbs, the arms and legs lit like flowing channels.
Lightness of the Wind Art.
It allowed a man to move and strike like the wind itself. The second volume showed wind circulating through the entire body.
As Joji turned to the second book, the figure gathered that same energy and drove it into a single concentrated point.
This was the art that pierced shields through the force of arrows alone, and when paired with Lightness of the Wind, it was what let Theobald blur into a green afterimage.
Emerald Blade Wind Art. A piercing strike meant to shatter an enemy's defenses.
The third book returned once more to the whole body, but this time the energy burst outward in every direction, shaping itself into a warding sphere that could be molded into whatever form was needed within a two meter radius of the user.
Protectorate Wind Barrier Arts. A barrier that pushed enemies back and guarded the user against projectiles.
Gregorius watched the glimmer in Joji's eyes. Even so, doubt still held one corner of his heart, so he spoke the cost aloud.
"Once you learn these arts, your aura may no longer tread other paths," Head Knight Gregorius reminded him. "When you reach Rank 4, Elite Knight, that elemental power will settle in you for good and shape the very knight core you forge. Are you certain this is the path you choose?"
Joji nodded, his eyes still fixed on the workings of the Everhart Tempest Arts.
Seeing how readily he accepted it, something in the Head Knight finally settled. Joji had not only changed, he had matured.
Even so, a touch of melancholy showed on the Head Knight's face as he looked at a man who seemed to have swallowed his pride whole for the sake of what truly mattered.
Joji could only apologize in his heart for deceiving him and making him worry, since he could not reveal the existence of Sir Engine.
A few hours passed. Joji was so absorbed that he did not notice the System chime until it sounded again and pulled him from the books. He opened the status window and saw it plainly. His reading had led to real progress.
{PROGRESS OF ARTS AND TRAINING}
{Everhart Tempest Arts Series: 3/10}
{Lightness of the Wind} {Measure of Proficiency: 2.4%}
{Emerald Blade Wind} {Measure of Proficiency: 1.9%}
{Protectorate Barrier Wind} {Measure of Proficiency: 1.7%}
With the statuses laid out before him, plans began turning in Joji's mind.
Head Knight Gregorius was a kind man. More than once, Joji thought of asking for further help, and in the same breath swore to himself that he would repay it someday.
First, he chose to display what he had learned.
He began with Lightness of the Wind Art, moving through the armory in quick, careful steps while he set disordered weapons back into place, as though the air itself had guided his hands.
Then he shifted into Emerald Blade Wind Art, gathered the wind into a single clean line, and flicked it upward at a cobweb clinging high above.
At last, he stepped near Head Knight Gregorius and raised Protectorate Wind Barrier Arts, shaping it only above them like a small roof so that not even a speck of dust could fall upon the Head Knight's shoulders.
Gregorius was plainly impressed. He gave several short nods of approval, a man not much given to praise.
Joji stepped forward and returned the three books.
As Gregorius began locking the arts away again, Joji spoke up.
"Head Knight Gregorius, I know it is shameless of me to ask, but may I have your notes on these arts?"
Joji had a simple theory. He had only read the arts and already gained proficiency from them. If notes existed on those same techniques, then surely they might deepen that gain even further.
He looked at the Head Knight with open expectation.
Rather than take offense, the man's face broke into a smile, and then he laughed from the chest, as if he had been waiting a long time for that very question.
"You truly are Hedrick's son," Gregorius murmured, his face softened by nostalgia.
He crossed the room and pulled aside a hanging cloth. Behind it were several chests. He unlocked one with a key, then drew out two sets of notes and placed them in Joji's hands.
One had been handled so often that its wear showed plain at a glance. The other bore only a coat of dust, as though it had gone untouched for years.
"One set is mine. The other belonged to your father," he said. "He was the one who taught me to keep notes whenever enlightenment came. Take them. It is the least I can do to repay him."