Alex opened his eyes and felt a soft warmth pressed against his side, and a blanket lay over his body like a second skin.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, the blanket slid down to his waist.
’Is this my room?’
He frowned and looked around. Everything was exactly where it had been.
’What happened... my head is fuzzy?’
He stared around for a moment longer, then everything poured back into his head all at once.
"Lena."
He said it out loud, almost without meaning to. Then he turned his head, she was right there.
Lena lay beside him with her cheek resting on her folded arm and her chestnut hair scattered across the pillow in a soft, tangled mess.
She was fast asleep.
Alex looked at her for a long time. She looked like a girl who had finally put down something heavy.
A slow smile spread across his face.
’That was...’
He searched for the right word.
’...incredible.’
He had not known it could feel like that.
’And she enjoyed it too.’
He was fairly sure of that.
Alex reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. She sighed in her sleep and pressed closer.
He stayed like that for a while, watching her breathe.
Then another memory surfaced, the last thing he had seen before passing out.
’The system notification.’
He sat up fully now, drawing the blanket across his lap, and stared into the empty air in front of him.
"How do I even call out the goddamn system?"
He glanced sideways at Lena, who slept on peacefully. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper and said the simplest thing he could think of.
"System."
As he said the words, the system panel appeared right in front of his face. A single notification written at it’s center.
[KEY TO 1/3 OF MANA SEAL RECEIVED]
[DOES USER WISH TO UNLOCK THE SEAL?]
Two blinking options sat beneath the text. YES. NO.
’Unlock the seal? I thought I had to sleep with three women to break it.’
’So what does it mean, unlock?’
He glanced back at the screen.
"System."
His voice was low.
"Explain what you mean by unlock the seal."
[THE HOST’S SEAL IS NOT A SINGLE LOCK]
[IT IS COMPOSED OF THREE SEPARATE LAYERS, EACH BOUND TO A DIFFERENT KEY]
Alex raised an eyebrow.
[EACH KEY IS OBTAINED THROUGH UNION WITH A WOMAN WHO POSSESSES MANA]
’I see... That’s why three women. One key for each layer.’
The next line appeared before he could finish the thought.
[THE HOST’S NATURAL MANA CAPACITY IS EXTREMELY HIGH]
[OPENING EVEN THE OUTERMOST LAYER WILL ALLOW MANA TO FLOW]
’That means I don’t have to wait... This body isa actually insane.’
A laugh escaped him, and he covered his mouth with his hand, glancing at Lena. She murmured something in her sleep and shifted slightly, but did not wake.
’I was wrong.’
’The whole time I’ve been thinking about this the wrong way.’
He wiped the grin from his face, sat up straight, and looked into the blue glow.
"Unlock it."
The text trembled.
[CONFIRMED]
[UNLOCKING SEAL...]
[0%...17%...49%...74%...96%...]
[100%]
[SEAL UNLOCKED]
Crack.
He heard it. A single, clean snap deep inside his body. Then the world exploded.
A wave of pressure burst out of him in every direction.
It slammed outward with a soundless thump that rippled across the room, moving everything away from it’s current position.
’Wow... What the hell was that. My mana?’
Beside him, Lena had curled deeper into the pillow. She mumbled something soft and sleepy and tugged the blanket higher over her shoulder.
Alex let out a shaky breath.
"Sorry."
He didn’t get to feel embarrassed for long. Because something was moving inside him.
It started in his lower belly, just beneath his navel, where the heartbeat had been.
A thin stream of heat rose from it, trickling outward. It slid up along his spine, curled down through his hips and into his legs.
A small, gentle, clear river, flowing from his belly out into every corner of his body.
He could feel his heartbeat in his fingers.
He could feel the air against his skin, every thread of the sheet, every grain in the wood of the bed.
And at the edge of it all, faintly, there was something else. A warm, small glow, right beside him.
He turned his head, Lena’s mana.
He could feel it. A tiny, steady flame, moving softly in the center of her chest. It was gentle and golden and calm, and it was breathing in rhythm with her.
’I can sense mana now.’
He opened and closed his hand slowly, staring at it.
"My life in this world... Alex Vance’s life, it starts now."
His fists clenched.
He wanted to shout. He wanted to leap out of the bed and run through the corridors. Instead he just sat there with his heart thudding and his lips pulled wide, shaking with a joy so large that it had nowhere to go.
Then the blue screen appeared in front of him.
He looked up.
[NEW FEATURE UNLOCKED]
The letters pulsed softly.
[STATUS WINDOW]
[ALLOWS THE HOST TO VIEW ALL OF HIS STATS]
Alex’s eyes lit up.
’Here it is.’
He knew exactly what this was.
Every story he had ever read about systems had one. A clean white panel with a list of numbers. Strength. Agility. Endurance. Intelligence. An orderly ranking of everything a person was and could become.
’Let’s see what I’m made of.’
Below the text, a small button appeared.
[OPEN]
He reached out with a trembling finger and tapped it.
The screen shivered.
It stretched, widened, and shimmered into a tall, glowing panel that filled the air in front of him. A long dropdown list slid slowly downward from the top.
Alex’s eyes moved across the first line, his mouth fell open.
And for a long moment, he could only stare.
"What the hell are these stats?!"