**Chapter 8**
~~
Some content in this chapter might make some readers uncomfortable. If you think it’s too much, I can remove it for you, but it’s important for the storyline.
~~
[AP: 28]
[Strength: 20]
[Agility: 20]
[Stamina: 20]
[Intelligence: 0]
[Charm: 7]
Other than my Charm, which had grown naturally, none of my other stats could be raised through regular training. With twenty-eight stat points available, I decided to invest ten into Intelligence for now.
[Would you like to invest in the ‘Intelligence stat’?]
[This process is irreversible]
[Once initiated, the awakening process will render the user immobile for a designated period of time]
I hesitated, but I knew I had to do it eventually. It was risky with so many people in the house, but I couldn’t keep putting it off.
‘Yes.’
I had no idea how long it would take, but I hoped it wouldn’t be more than an hour or two—the usual length of a nap.
[Awakening has commenced]
[Goodnight to the user]
A sudden wave of sleepiness washed over me, and before I knew it, I was out.
~~
“It’s a boy!” a woman exclaimed happily as she looked down at me. Of course, I was a boy. Why wouldn’t I be?
But for some reason, I couldn’t speak. No matter how hard I tried, all I could do after a while was raise my tiny hands. They were small, foreign, yet somehow familiar at the same time.
The woman holding me looked at me with pure motherly love. Everything felt incredibly real.
So real that I almost couldn’t tell it was a dream.
“I name him Rox Everhiem,” a man said in a condescending tone.
I looked at him and instantly disliked him.
The scene shifted again.
“Stand up! How can you call yourself a member of the Everhiem family with only this much prowess?!” A man in golden armor shouted while I held a sword in my hands.
It felt both amazing and awkward at the same time. I had never held a sword before, yet it felt like I had been wielding one my entire life.
The visions kept changing—body training, exercises, archery, different weapons, martial arts, endless routines. I was learning them while already knowing them. My mind felt split in two: one part living this life, the other watching it like a distant dream.
“Haaa… Haaa…”
The body I inhabited was panting heavily, yet I didn’t feel tired.
“You’re amazing, young master Rox. To defeat a dragon at such a young age… You will definitely be the next king,” a young woman said, blushing with pure admiration.
I didn’t feel anything for her. Rox didn’t feel anything for her.
He couldn’t feel anything.
His emotions were dead.
His life was empty.
There was no purpose. Nothing to live or die for.
“What kind of life is this?” I heard an emotionless voice say—the voice I had grown familiar with through all these experiences.
I turned to see Rox, a young and handsome man with a cold, blank expression.
“What kind of life have I lived?” he asked, his smooth British accent carrying an ethereal quality.
“Meaningless,” I replied. I didn’t even know how the word left my mouth.
“Haha.” His chuckle sounded hollow and unnatural.
He looked straight at me. “And what do you think of yours by comparison?”
I had envied many things in my life, but mostly I only had wealth. My looks were average at best. Everything I had came from money. Deep down, I enjoyed the attention it brought me, even when I pretended it was a hassle.
But this guy… Rox was the definition of talent. Perfect in every way—looks, ability, everything. And he used it all to its fullest.
For the first time, I felt envy over something I never expected.
“It’s how powerful I was,” he finished my thought for me.
The power to slice an orc in half with one swing. Killing an S-class monster at fifteen. When I was furiously jacking off, this guy was slaying monsters that could destroy entire nations. At eighteen, he killed a dragon. At eighteen, I am only just starting my life.
All because he had power, and I didn’t.
“Well, not everyone has the same starting point,” he said. “Besides, it’s just my power you envy, don’t you?”
Yes, the power. But his life itself was another story. That was why I called it meaningless.
He had no goals. No desires. Everything—power, fame, status—was forced upon him. He never had a single wish of his own.
“But does that make your life any better?” he asked.
“It does,” I answered without hesitation. I got good grades, not to be great, but because it made my mom smile. Rox’s mother only pushed him so he wouldn’t fall behind in the race for the throne.
His life was dictated. Mine was free.
“Is that what you have chosen?” he asked. Something appeared in his hand.
He raised it.
A beating heart.
“The choice was made from the beginning, wasn’t it?” I said. The system’s path had been set since day one.
“The heart of the Lust Dragon,” he said. “Will you be able to resist the corruption that comes with it?”
The Lust Dragon—Zekariah, the Demon King that Rox had defeated after a brutal battle. The heart pulsed in his hands.
“I defeated the Dragon of Lust, but at a great cost,” he continued.
“What did you have to lose?” I asked. He had nothing.
“And that’s what I lost. My nothingness,” he replied.
The scene shifted again, and what I saw terrified me.
Rox was having sex, his face twisted in deranged pleasure as he fucked his own mother. But she was dead—her eyes lifeless. The girl who had admired him earlier was there too, her body covered in cum.
“This is what the power of the Lust Dragon did to me,” Rox said. “It gave me the power everyone wanted… but I lost myself in it.”
“I won’t,” I said resolutely.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “It is very easy to lose yourself in lust.”
“Have you ever loved?” I countered.
“Haha.” He laughed. “All my life, the only emotion I knew was lust. Nothing else.”
“And that’s why you lost,” I replied. “I shouldn’t be the one envying you, Rox. You should envy me. Your emotions weren’t dead—you killed them. You made yourself that way.”
“You think such meaningless things will let you succeed in life?” he asked.
“Isn’t that what life is about?” I stepped forward. The beating heart was now in my hands.
“You do have a choice,” he said.
I knew what it was—the chance to erase the system completely and return to a normal life.
But why would I?
Desire.
The one thing Rox never had. The most basic drive of a man.
I had it in spades.
I wanted everything, and this system was my way of getting it. Why give up something so incredible?
“It was a curse to you, Rox,” I said as the dragon’s heart dissolved into red particles and flowed into me. The same warm rush I felt earlier spread through my body, and my eyes grew heavy.
With my final words to him, I said, “But to me, this is an opportunity. See you in hell after I’ve lived my life to… the… full…est.”