The first thing I did the following morning was test the bracelet.
I had barely slept the night before.
My mind kept running through everything that had happened—the confrontation with Dante, Niel lying in a hospital bed, the battery deal with Daniel Villareal, and finally the artifact sitting on my desk.
It looked almost disappointingly ordinary.
The bracelet was made from a simple metal alloy I had managed to acquire without attracting attention.
The Mana Crystal was embedded in the center, surrounded by the rune circuit I had carefully engraved around it.
To anyone else, it would have looked like a handmade piece of jewelry.
To me, it was the beginning of something much bigger.
I slipped it around my wrist and activated the first rune.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then I felt a faint warmth spread through my arm.
I clenched my hand and flexed my fingers, noticing that every small movement seemed slightly sharper.
My fingers responded more quickly, my balance felt more precise, and there was an unusual sense of awareness throughout my body.
I stood up and stretched my arms.
“Let’s see what you can actually do.”
I started with something simple: push-ups.
Twenty were easy.
Thirty followed without much difficulty, and I continued until I reached fifty.
I stopped there, not because I couldn’t continue, but because I wanted to compare the result with what my body could normally do.
The difference was noticeable.
The bracelet wasn’t magically giving me the strength of an adult soldier.
Instead, it seemed to enhance the output of my muscles and improve the efficiency of my movements.
I could feel myself using my body more effectively, but there was still a very obvious limit.
My fourteen-year-old body was still my fourteen-year-old body.
I moved on to running.
I jogged through the neighborhood early enough that there weren’t many people outside.
At first, I deliberately kept my pace moderate, but once I activated the bracelet more fully, my legs responded almost immediately.
My stride became smoother, my balance improved, and my feet seemed to land exactly where I wanted them to.
I accelerated.
For several seconds, I felt almost weightless.
Then my lungs reminded me of reality.
I slowed down and leaned against a wall, breathing heavily as I wiped the sweat from my forehead.
“Okay.
Definitely not invincible.”
That was actually a good thing.
The artifact wasn’t replacing my body.
It was enhancing it, and that distinction mattered.
If I wanted to become stronger, I would still need to train.
If I wanted better endurance, I would have to build it.
If I wanted to fight effectively, I would need to learn how to combine the artifact with my existing skills rather than relying on it to solve everything for me.
But physical enhancement wasn’t the only thing I needed to test.
There was another limitation I was particularly interested in.
My mind.
I had already experienced the bracelet enhancing my physical abilities, but the mental enhancement was something I needed to understand much more carefully.
Especially because there was something unusual about my own brain.
HEMS.
In my previous life, I had spent years studying the condition because I had never been able to accept that my memory worked the way it did without understanding why.
It wasn’t simply that I remembered things well.
My brain preserved details with abnormal precision—sounds, images, movements, numbers, textures, and even conversations I had heard years ago could remain almost perfectly intact.
But there was another aspect of HEMS that I had never been able to explain properly.
Under intense concentration, my perception of time seemed to change.
Not literally.
Time continued moving at the same speed.
My brain simply processed more information within each moment, making everything around me appear slower.
I had experienced it countless times in my first life.
During experiments, engineering work, and especially combat, whenever something required my complete attention, the world seemed to slow down around me.
I had always considered it a natural limitation of HEMS.
Now I had a way to test it properly.
I deactivated the bracelet completely and stood in the middle of the room, looking at the clock on my desk.
08:21:14.
I took a slow breath.
“Let’s establish a baseline.”
I focused on the second hand.
At first, nothing seemed different.
Then I concentrated harder, and my perception gradually shifted.
The ticking of the clock seemed to stretch farther apart, and the movement of the second hand became easier to follow.
I shifted my attention to the electric fan.
The blades were spinning rapidly, but instead of seeing them as a continuous blur, I could begin following their individual movements.
One blade passed through my field of vision, followed by another, and then another.
I looked back at the clock.
08:21:19.
Five seconds had passed.
I turned toward the window just as a motorcycle passed outside.
I listened to the engine while keeping part of my attention on the fan behind me.
Somewhere farther down the street, a dog barked.
As I shifted my focus between the different sounds and movements, the familiar sensation became stronger.
The world seemed to stretch.
The motorcycle’s movement became easier to follow.
The engine separated itself from the other noises around me.
The fan blades became distinct, while the second hand of the clock seemed almost leisurely.
I smiled.
There it was.
My natural state.
The world hadn’t actually slowed down.
My brain had simply increased the amount of information it could process within each moment.
I continued for another thirty seconds before stopping.
A faint pressure had begun forming behind my eyes.
It wasn’t painful yet, but I recognized the warning.
I exhaled and relaxed my focus.
“That’s about my natural limit.”
I already knew that pushing beyond it for too long would eventually leave me exhausted.
Now I wanted to see what the bracelet would change.
I put it back around my wrist and activated the mental enhancement.
The difference was immediate.
I focused on the clock, then the fan, then the window, and finally the sounds outside.
The same phenomenon appeared, but this time it was much stronger.
The movement of the fan blades became almost ridiculously easy to follow.
I could track individual blades while simultaneously reading the clock.
When I shifted my attention toward the window, I noticed a bird flying across the street and followed its movement without losing awareness of the clock.
Then I switched to the sound of a passing jeepney.
I could isolate its engine from the footsteps outside while still keeping track of the fan and clock.
My eyes widened.
“This isn’t just faster processing.”
I finally understood the difference.
Without the bracelet, focusing intensely on one thing naturally caused everything else to fade into the background.
It was almost like narrowing a camera lens until only one subject remained clear.
The bracelet changed that.
It allowed me to maintain a high level of processing while shifting my attention between multiple things.
It wasn’t simply making my brain faster.
It was increasing my mental bandwidth.
I decided to test that theory.
I picked up my phone and opened the stopwatch before placing it beside the clock.
That gave me two moving sources of information.
I started the stopwatch.
00:01.
08:22:17.
I shifted my eyes between the two displays.
00:02.
08:22:18.
I continued until I was comfortable, then added the fan.
I tracked the movement of the blades while monitoring both displays, maintaining awareness of all three at once.
My thoughts remained clear.
So I added another source of information: the sound of footsteps outside.
I listened carefully and followed their direction.
Someone was approaching from the left, getting closer, then moving farther away.
At the same time, I could still track the clock, stopwatch, and fan.
Four separate streams of information.
My breathing remained steady.
I decided to push further.
I began mentally calculating the approximate interval between the fan blades while simultaneously watching the stopwatch.
Numbers appeared in my mind almost automatically, mixing with patterns, movement, sound, and time.
Everything became incredibly clear.
For a moment, it felt as if I had stepped outside normal time.
Then a sharp pressure suddenly formed behind my eyes.
I immediately deactivated the bracelet.
Everything snapped back to normal.
I grabbed the edge of the desk and closed my eyes, waiting for the pressure to subside.
“Too much.”
After several seconds, I opened my eyes again.
The room was normal.
The fan was just a fan, the clock was just a clock, and my phone was just a phone.
I looked down at the bracelet.
“So that’s the real limitation.”
The artifact wasn’t capable of giving me unlimited mental processing.
It was amplifying what was already there, but my brain still had a physical limit.
That was actually more interesting than simply making me smarter.
Without the bracelet, HEMS allowed me to enter a heightened state of perception where the world seemed slower.
With the bracelet, that same ability became significantly stronger.
More importantly, I could maintain awareness of multiple sources of information without completely losing the clarity of my primary focus.
The difference was enormous.
But so was the strain.
The bracelet could increase the amount of information I processed, but it couldn’t completely eliminate the consequences of processing too much.
If anything, it made the importance of mental endurance even clearer.
I sat down and rubbed my temples.
A better rune circuit might reduce the strain.
A stronger Mana Crystal could provide more energy.
Perhaps I could even design a system that dynamically adjusted the enhancement based on my brain’s condition.
But that was a problem for another day.
For now, I had learned something important.
The bracelet wasn’t giving me a new ability.
And if I could train my mind to handle that increased processing load, I might be able to push it much further.
I looked at the bracelet again.
For the first time since I had created it, I wasn’t thinking about what it could do today.
I was thinking about what it could become.
After breakfast, I went to school.
I tried to behave normally, but my mind kept returning to Dante.
The confrontation from yesterday had changed something.
Before, Dante had been an annoyance—a bully who had taken an interest in Rosalie and decided that I was in his way.
Now I knew he was willing to hurt other people to get to me.
Niel was proof of that.
I couldn’t simply wait for him to make another move, but I also couldn’t rush into another confrontation.
I had already nearly made that mistake.
If I had punched Dante in front of everyone yesterday, he would have gotten exactly what he wanted.
He could have turned the situation around, made himself look like the victim, and used the witnesses to make me look like the aggressor.
That wasn’t going to happen again.
This time, I needed information.
I spent the morning quietly observing.
Dante wasn’t in my class, but I knew where he usually spent his breaks.
I also recognized several of the boys who followed him.
Four of them had been involved in the attack on Niel, so I made a mental note of their faces, names, builds, and habits.
I paid attention to who they talked to, where they went during lunch, which teachers they avoided, and which older students they seemed comfortable approaching.
With HEMS, remembering those details wasn’t difficult.
The difficult part was figuring out what they meant.
By lunch, I had already noticed something interesting.
Dante rarely stayed alone.
There were always older students around him.
Some were simply acquaintances, while others seemed to treat him differently.
Not like a leader.
More like someone who had connections.
That confirmed something I had already suspected.
Dante wasn’t the biggest problem.
He was just the part I could see.
I needed to know who stood behind him.
Before I could investigate further, I heard someone call my name.
“Rafael.”
I turned and saw Rosalie standing near the classroom door.
She gave me a small smile.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Sure.”
She glanced toward the hallway.
“Are you going to see Niel?”
I nodded.
“After class.”
She hesitated for a moment before asking, “Can I come with you?”
I wasn’t expecting that.
“Of course.”
Her expression softened.
“I want to see how he’s doing.”
I smiled.
“Then we’ll go together.”
The rest of the school day passed slowly.
As soon as classes ended, Rosalie and I headed toward the hospital.
Neither of us talked much during the trip, but I wasn’t uncomfortable with the silence.
Actually, I liked it.
There was something strangely peaceful about walking beside her without needing to fill every second with conversation.
When we reached the hospital, we found Niel’s room after asking at the front desk.
He looked considerably better than I had expected.
There was still a bandage around his side, and his face had several bruises, but he was sitting upright on the bed.
The moment he saw us, his eyes widened before he broke into a grin.
“You two came together?”
Rosalie immediately turned red.
I sighed.
“You’re in a hospital bed and that’s the first thing you say?”
“I’m injured, not dead.”
I couldn’t help laughing, and Rosalie covered her mouth as she tried not to laugh as well.
For a few moments, the room felt normal.
Just three students joking around, almost like nothing had happened.
Then I looked at the bruises on Niel’s face, and my smile disappeared.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.
The doctor said I should be able to go home soon.”
I nodded.
“Good.”
There was a brief silence before I asked the question I had been waiting to ask.
“What happened?”
Niel looked toward Rosalie before answering.
“They were waiting for me.”
My expression hardened.
“Dante?”
Niel nodded.
“Yeah.
Dante and the others.”
He explained what had happened.
They had approached him after school and started asking questions about me—where I lived, where I usually went, and whether I was still walking Rosalie home.
Niel hadn’t answered them.
That was when they started pushing him around.
Then things got worse.
“They kept asking why I was still hanging around you,” Niel said.
“I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about.”
“You should have told me.”
Niel looked at me.
“And then what?
You’d go fight them again yourself?”
I didn’t answer because he wasn’t wrong.
Niel gave me a tired smile.
“That’s what I thought.”
Rosalie looked between us.
“They really did this because of you?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“They did it because they chose to.”
Rosalie lowered her eyes.
Niel shifted in his bed.
“Anyway, I’m okay.
Just don’t do anything stupid, Rafael.”
I smiled faintly.
“I’ll try.”
“That’s not convincing.”
“It’s the best I can do.”
Niel laughed.
We stayed for a while longer.
Rosalie talked about school, Jessa, and some of the things we’d missed while visiting him.
Niel complained about being stuck in the hospital and joked that he was going to demand everyone’s notes when he returned.
Eventually, it was time to leave.
We said goodbye and promised to visit again.
As we stepped outside the hospital, the sun was already beginning to lower.
Rosalie walked beside me, and for several minutes neither of us said anything.
Then she spoke.
“Rafael.”
“Hmm?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
She looked down at the sidewalk.
“What happened with Dante yesterday?”
I knew this was coming.
“Someone told you?”
“People at school were talking.”
Of course they were.
News traveled faster than anything else in school.
“They said you almost hit him.”
I sighed.
“I did.”
Rosalie looked at me.
“Why?”
I thought about giving her a simple answer.
Because he threatened me.
Because he attacked Niel.
Because he was trying to control who I could spend time with.
All of those were true, but they weren’t the whole truth.
“I was angry.”
She waited.
I continued.
“He hurt Niel because he wanted to get to me.
When I saw him yesterday, I wanted to hit him.”
Rosalie was quiet.
“You really were going to?”
“Yes.”
She looked troubled.
“Why?”
I didn’t understand the question.
“Because he hurt my friend.”
“And if he hurt me?”
I stopped walking, and Rosalie stopped too.
For a moment, we just looked at each other.
“I would have stopped him,” I said.
She frowned.
“Even if you got hurt?”
The truth was obvious.
I had spent years fighting things far worse than Dante.
Getting hurt wasn’t something that scared me anymore.
But Rosalie didn’t need to know that.
“I don’t know,” I finally said.
She looked surprised.
“You don’t?”
“I know what I want to do.
That doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing to do.”
She seemed to think about that before saying quietly, “You shouldn’t fight because of me.”
“I’m not fighting because of you.”
“Everyone thinks you are.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“They’re saying Dante was angry because you’ve been walking me home.”
I shook my head.
“That’s not your fault.”
“But if I wasn’t—”
“Rosalie.”
She stopped.
I spoke more gently.
“Dante made his own choices.
You didn’t tell him to hurt Niel.
You didn’t tell him to threaten me.
You didn’t make him do any of it.”
She didn’t respond, and I could tell she was still blaming herself anyway.
I understood that feeling.
People often blamed themselves for things they couldn’t control.
I had done the same thing for years in my first life.
“None of this is your fault,” I repeated.
Rosalie finally looked at me.
“You’re different.”
The words caught me off guard.
“What?”
“You weren’t like this before.”
I smiled awkwardly.
“I guess I’ve changed.”
“You have.”
She looked at me carefully.
“You talk differently now.
You’re more confident.
You don’t seem scared of anything.”
I almost laughed.
If only she knew.
I had been scared more times than I could count.
I survived Word War III.
I had fought soldiers who could manipulate Mana.
I had stood beneath skies filled with monsters.
I had watched people die.
And I had died myself.
But none of that was something I could tell her.
“I think I realized something,” I said.
“What?”
I looked ahead.
“That things can disappear very quickly.”
Rosalie was quiet.
“People.
Opportunities.
Even ordinary days.”
I swallowed.
“You think you’ll always have tomorrow, so you tell yourself you’ll do something later.
You’ll say something later.
You’ll spend time with someone later.”
My voice became quieter.
“Then sometimes, later never comes.”
Rosalie looked at me.
“Did something happen to you?”
I felt my chest tighten.
Yes.
Everything happened to me.
An entire lifetime.
But all I could give her was a small piece of it.
“I lost people.”
She waited.
“A lot of people.”
I didn’t elaborate because I didn’t need to.
The memories were already there: faces, voices, names, people I had promised to protect, people I had failed, and people I had watched disappear.
HEMS had preserved every one of them.
I could still remember their voices as clearly as if they were standing beside me.
Rosalie’s expression softened.
“Is that why you’re always trying to help everyone?”
I looked at her.
“Maybe.”
“You can’t protect everyone, Rafael.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you keep trying?”
I looked down at my hands.
Because I knew what it felt like when you couldn’t.
That was the answer, but I wasn’t sure I could say it without revealing too much.
So I simply said, “Because I know what it feels like when you can’t.”
Rosalie didn’t ask me to explain.
She just stood beside me, and for some reason, that made it easier to breathe.
After a few seconds, I felt her hand gently touch mine.
I looked down.
She was holding my hand.
This time, she had been the one to reach for it.
“Promise me something,” she said.
“What?”
“Don’t get hurt because of me.”
I smiled faintly.
“I’ll be careful.”
“That’s not a promise.”
I laughed.
“Okay.
I promise.”
She looked satisfied.
Then she smiled.
“Good.”
We continued walking.
The sun was almost gone by the time we reached the street leading toward her house.
After a few more minutes, Rosalie suddenly spoke again.
“Rafael?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you start talking to me?”
I knew exactly what she meant.
Before, I had avoided her.
Now I walked her home almost every day.
I bought her fish balls, talked to her, held her hand, and looked for excuses to spend time with her.
The answer was simple.
Because I had already lost her once.
But I couldn’t tell her that.
So I gave her the closest answer I could.
“Because I realized I didn’t want to keep waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
I looked at her.
“The right time.”
She smiled softly.
“Was there a right time?”
I thought about it.
“Maybe not.”
We reached her gate.
Rosalie let go of my hand, but she didn’t immediately walk inside.
She looked at me for a moment before speaking.
“I’m glad you didn’t wait.”
My heart skipped.
“Me too.”
She smiled and finally turned toward her house.
I watched until she disappeared inside before continuing toward home.
The evening air felt strangely light.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t thinking about my previous life.
I wasn’t thinking about the rifts, the aliens, or even Dante.
I was thinking about a shy girl who had held my hand because she was worried about me.
I smiled.
Maybe this was what I had forgotten how to do in my first life.
Not surviving.
Living.
But the moment I reached home, reality returned.
The bracelet was only the first step.
Dante was still out there, the runes were still primitive, my Mana supply was tiny, and my body was still fourteen years old.
More importantly, the future was moving.
I had already changed things.
That meant the future I remembered could no longer be treated as something guaranteed.
Every change created another possibility, and every possibility created another uncertainty.
I looked down at the bracelet.
I had spent my first life trying to save a world that was already collapsing.
This time, I would build one that was ready.
And before I could do that, I needed to learn exactly what this little artifact could become.
Tomorrow, the real testing would begin.