Aiden pushed himself up from the cold floor, his arms trembling as he completed his five-hundredth push-up.
Drops of sweat dripped from his chin, pooling on the concrete ground of his subterranean room.
He didn’t stop there.
Moving fluidly into core exercises, leg drills, and simulated sword movements, he drove his new sixteen-year-old body to the absolute brink of exhaustion.
His new body was naturally agile and surprisingly resilient, but it lacked the ingrained muscle memory and raw endurance he had spent decades developing in his previous life.
If he was going to survive the meat grinder of the Dream Realm, sheer reliance on Aspect abilities and Memories wasn’t enough.
Flesh and blood had to be forged into an unyielding weapon.
Finally, his muscles gave out.
Aiden collapsed onto the floor, resting his back against the base of his bed.
His chest heaved heavily as he drew in cold air, his heart pounding like a war drum in his ears.
He sat there in the quiet dimness, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and stared at the ceiling, exhausted but calculating.
Tomorrow was the Winter Solstice.
Tomorrow, every Sleeper confined within the fortress-like walls of the Academy would be forcibly drawn into the Dream Realm, thrown into an unforgiving world where survival was the only way to pass.
His four weeks at the facility hadn’t been entirely wasted.
Aiden had absorbed critical operational intelligence, the most important lesson being a fundamental military truth: in high-stress environments, humans under pressure were entirely unpredictable.
When cornered or motivated by self-preservation, people would commit atrocities without hesitation.
In the Dream Realm, fellow Sleepers could pose a threat equal to–or even greater than that of the Nightmare Creatures themselves.
He had also spent the last few weeks observing how his peers coped with the situation.
Realizing that these might be their final days on Earth, many teenagers had thrown caution to the wind, indulging in whatever pleasures or distractions they could find.
A few girls had even attempted to approach Aiden, misreading his quiet demeanor.
Naturally, he had rejected every attempt.
To them, he was merely a sixteen-year-old boy, but in reality, he had decades of experience behind him.
Sitting up on the floor, Aiden wiped the remaining sweat from his face and summoned his soul runes to review his Innate Ability details once more.
Innate Ability: [Emotional State]
The stronger an emotion becomes, the more power it grants you.
Each emotion affects your body, mind, and abilities differently.
Reaching certain thresholds will unlock Skills associated with that emotion]
Aiden stared at the shimmering text, rereading the description for the hundredth time.
No matter how he analyzed it from a tactical perspective, the mechanic seemed absurdly impractical for combat.
“How in the world are emotions supposed to serve as a reliable source of power?” he muttered quietly to the empty room.
“How does that make any sense in combat?
And what does ‘The Perfect Vessel’ have to do with emotional states anyway?
What does Emotional State even mean…?”
The moment those specific words left his mouth, the floating runes shivered and reconfigured before his eyes.
A brand-new interface materialized beneath the description.
[Current Emotional State:]
[Happiness: 5%]
[Anger: 9%]
[Sadness: 70%]
[Fear: 10%]
[Anxiety: 18%]
[Love: 1%]
Aiden blinked rapidly, his analytical mind grinding to a halt.
For weeks, he had studied his runes without realizing that a simple verbal command uttering the exact name of his ability was enough to reveal its real-time diagnostic breakdown.
‘Reaching certain thresholds will unlock Skills associated with that emotion.’
The mechanism suddenly clicked into place.
His Aspect wasn’t as passive as he had initially assumed.
He currently possessed no active Skills, which likely meant that his emotions had yet to reach whatever thresholds were required.
Once he entered the life-or-death environment of the Dream Realm, intense psychological pressure might push his emotions high enough to unlock them.
Aiden let out a low, weary breath.
Discovering this mechanism one day before of his departure was far from ideal, but better now than in the heat of battle.
However, one specific entry on the menu demanded his immediate attention.
Sadness: 70%.
A bitter smile touched his lips.
Despite his relentless efforts to compartmentalize the failures of his past life, the psychological weight remained staggering.
He had led his forces into a catastrophic collapse, sealing the fate of millions under his command.
He might never know the full extent of the aftermath in his original world, but he knew the casualties were counted in the millions.
Forgiving himself was an impossibility.
He scanned the other metrics, inwardly questioning how an abstract psychological concept like human emotion could be quantified into precise mathematical percentages.
Yet he quickly dismissed his own skepticism.
The Nightmare Spell operated on principles that defied human science and logic.
Whether he liked admitting his internal state or not, the Spell offered an objective, unvarnished mirror of his mind.
With a thought, he dismissed the glowing runes.
Today was his final buffer day, the last chance he had to secure a solid night of rest before the forced transportation tomorrow.
He needed to finalize his logistical preparations, utilizing the endless volume of the Bottomless Pouch to pack non-perishable rations, medical supplies, and clean water containers.
Aiden stood up, stretching his sore shoulders, and headed toward the small bathroom to wash away the sweat from his morning drill.
“Right then,” he muttered, turning on the warm tap.
“No more time to waste.”