Turning back to see the tour guide, Milah's mouth gaped open in disbelief.
"Your skill is now Stage 5? It seems you've progressed by accident. I didn't realize that giving you a job that didn't exist would elevate you to this rank," he said, sighing as he rubbed his temples, trying to process the unexpected development.
"Your attachment skill seems..." He trailed off, glancing at the text that materialized out of nothing and floated aimlessly:
[Adaptive Evolution]
Leonardo blinked, unsure if what he saw was real. The words hovered—foreign, and yet deeply intimate—as if they belonged to him long before he had a name for them.
A quiet chill passed through his spine. This wasn't just an upgrade. It was a shift, a rewriting of what he was allowed to be.
The air around them seemed to shimmer slightly as the text materialized, drawing Leonardo's attention.
Milah's eyes flickered with a hint of curiosity. "Well then, that seems brilliant for your new job," he practically snickered, though his voice betrayed a hint of nervousness.
"How does your body feel? It shouldn't start changing unless you feel stimuli in whatever way," Milah asked, intrigued.
For a moment, the world felt quiet. The air was still. He wasn't dying—at least not in the same way. His hair seemed to lose its white strands, and so did the green streaks under his neck.
Something was changing. The sickness hadn't vanished, but it wasn't winning either.
He looked at his hands, half-wondering if they belonged to someone else now.
"Can I adapt to dying?" Leonardo asked, blushing at his newfound skill. His heart raced with a mix of excitement and apprehension.
The thought of evolving to avoid death felt like an overwhelming paradox, one that challenged his understanding of life and mortality.
The tour guide looked at Leonardo flatly. "No," he said, his tone brusque. "Everyone has to die at one point; a story has to end. And a new one takes its place." He stood up from the chair, and as he did, the world around them began to shift.
And then it hit him.
Like something deep within his organs had been waiting to detonate, his whole body tensed. A strange metallic taste flooded his tongue, and his knees buckled slightly. His breath caught in his throat.
Leonardo started puking, black bile rushing from his mouth as he fell to the floor, Milah standing over him.
"The stimuli was already in your body. It seems you need to develop new traits to compensate for years of radiation sickness," Milah declared.
Leonardo's head ached, his hand hurt, and steam-like air radiated from his body. His cells were working overtime.
"You didn't tell me—" His words dissolved into a guttural shriek as his spine arched off the floor.
Black veins pulsed like live wires beneath his skin. Milah watched, impassive. "Evolution isn't a gift, boy. It's survival."
His "healing" was grotesque—veins pulsed with blue Agnite light, and obsidian tears bled from his eyes as his body adapted.
When the agony finally receded, Leonardo lay on the floor, his chest heaving. His veins still pulsed with residual Agnite light, eyes bleeding obsidian tears, and his fingertips trembled as he pressed them to his throat—smooth, no longer streaked with green.
"I'm alive," he whispered, half-laughing, half-sobbing. The relief lasted only a moment.
A new text flickered: [Kinetic Resonance Amplification (minimal)]. He stared at it, exhaustion warring with dread. What else would this skill demand?
The dim colors of the dead tree and the grainy rustling of leaves faded away.
Leonardo watched the dead tree, its presence emphasizing what Milah had said.
"If death was beatable, the world would be more unfair," he declared to himself, nodding in agreement.
The space was replaced and changed into the opulent surroundings of Milah's office.
The transition felt like being gently pulled through a veil, with the scent of heated iron giving way to the dull aroma of polished wood.
Milah's eyes stared past Leonardo, who shuddered at the sight. "Starting today, I'll teach you how to be a guide," Milah said, though more to himself than to Leonardo, as the sound didn't travel as they shifted.
They found themselves back in the office, with Leonardo slumped in the armchair.
"Well then, these are your current skills," Milah said, his voice echoing slightly in the grand room adorned with ancient artifacts and intricate tapestries.
---
Leonardo Salvius Nox - Status
- Age: 16
- Story Skill: Tour Guide Practical Officer (Stage 5)
- Attachment Skill: Adaptive Evolution
- Title: [Uninvited Guest], Champion Stage
- Rasvian Control Rank: Adept
---
Leonardo looked at this in disbelief, his story skill shocking him even more. Each skill description seemed to glow faintly, their significance slowly sinking in.
"You didn't explain Rasvian. What is that?" he asked, confusion evident while still barely seeing straight.
"How much of this was always there?" he wondered. "And how much, as a person, did I change?"
Milah's expression shifted, his eyes narrowing slightly. "It's a long story," he replied, dripping with sarcasm.
"You explained my story—explain this," Leonardo said.
Milah stayed in silence for a second before replying, "Rasvian isn't just energy. It's the ink that writes reality..."
Leonardo's breath hitched. Ink? Reality? The words felt like stones dropped into his gut.
"...Here, Rasvian is blood, soul, and the space between realms." Milah leaned back, savoring Leonardo's stunned silence. "But I'll tell you later." He waved a dismissive hand.
"You're acting—"
"I'm acting?"
"No!—but could you at least tell me anything?"
"How about you do a quick tutorial, per se," Tour Guide Milah said, smirking a bit.
"You'll reach a city soon. It's big, so don't die from shock."
"City?"
"It's a district. I can't teach you directly. You'll have to figure it out."
"Why? Why can't you send me back home—or the era, as you call it?" Leonardo protested.
"Sending one to an era is a much easier task, if they didn't originally belong there. But sending you back—who belonged—is like putting a paper into an already full book, which began rewriting your existence. It doesn't work."
Leonardo opened his mouth to protest. It was always like this with Milah—questions met with riddles, answers buried under sarcasm. Was this what guidance looked like here?
"Anyway, it will take time before the big boss," Milah pointed upwards, "will accept my complaint." Dragging Leonardo out of the room, he said,
"Go do your job before it's too late," smiling as he closed the door.
"What does he mean 'do my job'!" Leonardo cried out to the door—which was no longer there.
One second he was in Milah's world of velvet and riddles; the next, he stood in the cold, echoing vastness of the museum. The quiet hum returned, like the whisper of a thousand forgotten voices. It welcomed him—not kindly, but knowingly.
Leonardo wandered for a while, not knowing how to use anything in this space. He felt a profound sense of isolation. "I miss Ronald," he said softly, his voice barely a whisper in the vast emptiness.
A sudden wave of destruction expanded, transforming the entire space around him into chaos. "Not another one," he muttered, clutching his stomach as the world spun around him.
The ground liquefied beneath his feet. Leonardo gasped as the museum's sterile air morphed into the stench of exhaust and ozone, its silence shattered.
Smog burned his lungs. Neon lights stabbed his eyes—[Ghent]—as he vomited into a gutter. "Adapt," he snarled at the bile.
"Like everything else."
His boots hit pavement—real, solid—but his vision swam, overlapped: one heartbeat, crumbling museum walls; the next, skyscrapers clawing at a smog-choked sky. He staggered, bracing himself against a graffiti-strewn alley wall.
[A City in the 21st Realm] the text announced, as neon signs flickered to life above him. "Yeah," he croaked, wiping bile from his lips. "I see it."
The letters hovered for a moment longer before fading away, leaving Leonardo to take in his new surroundings.
The city was unlike anything he had ever seen—a bloated mass of advanced technology and architecture.
[Understood] it responded, vanishing the next moment.
---
[January 16th RH 9840]
Leonardo's eyes flicked to it as it tilted its gaze upward.
Buildings devoured the sky. One tower dominated: [The Stem]. Its apex vanished into a storm of fog.
"Why do I feel he wants me to go there..." he realized, the phantom ache in his marrow confirming it.
He shook his head and tried to avoid it. A train hovered in the sky, leaving a purple trail, with most of the cars suspended above the ground.
He walked around aimlessly, observing the [crossroads] and [stoplights]. "Uh, thank you, text," he said, embarrassed it had to explain everything for him.
He saw the way a car drifted by, a blur, not stopping.
[A Car]
Leonardo stared. No wheels. No horse. No... anything. It just was. A solid block of metal gliding on nothing. His mind scrabbled for purchase, clawing at the familiar.
"It must spread air," he muttered finally, hand rising to scratch his chin, a desperate anchor in logic. "Like... like displacing water? A carriage without a beast..."
"Are there any more types of that Text?" Leonardo called out to the mysterious text that answered his questions. A response came.
[Yes]
Leonardo stood in front of the alleyway, eyes darting across the endless streams of people and vehicles.
A woman passed by him, long incognito hair and extremely white skin. She looked about for a minute before passing by the alleyway he stood in front of.
He stared, her white eyes locking with his, and a sudden fear gripped him. For a moment, he was almost entranced—but he shook his head.
He had been so lost in the sight of the metal carriages—cars, they called them—that he hadn't noticed he was stepping into a street glowing red.
[Adaptive Evolution Taking Effect]
"Again?" Leonardo blinked at the floating words, confusion turning to dread.
Then came the screech. A high, metallic wail that tore through the air.
A blaring horn split his skull in two.
Light. Motion. Noise. A roaring blur lunged forward—a car. The vehicle came fast, faster than anything he'd ever known, a slab of metal surging through the air like judgment itself.
Time slowed. He turned. The eyes of the driver—wide, panicked. The shape of the hood—gleaming, cruel. And Leonardo—trapped between motion and mortality.
A heat surged through his neck, a molten ribbon laced with panic.
[Impact Tolerance (Minor)]
"What?" he whispered—but the answer came not in words, but in force.
The world folded. Air fled his lungs. He saw sky, ground, then sky again—his body ragdolled into the air like a puppet with its strings slashed.
He hovered. Just for a second.
Just long enough to feel his ribs scream, his blood glow, and his cells rewire themselves mid-flight.
And then gravity pulled the plug.
He hit the pavement hard. Bone met concrete. A sickening thud echoed into silence.
Gasps. A scream. Someone dropped their phone. A child cried. Leonardo lay still, staring up at a sky smeared with smog and static. His breath came in broken, jagged pulls. His fingers twitched.
"I…" he croaked, tasting blood and ozone.
A laugh slipped from his cracked lips. "I'm alive."
The pain was real—but distant. Like an echo instead of a roar.
His chest ached, his arms shook, but nothing was broken.
He blinked as the pain dulled into information.
People crowded the edge of the sidewalk, filming, murmuring.
One man whispered, "He should be dead."
Another said, "Did you see the glow? His veins—"
Leonardo rolled to his side, coughing hard. A few drops of blood splattered on the street.
He pulled off his gloves. Skin bruised but not torn. The trembling in his fingers was not fear—it was power. Unstable. Ugly. Alive.
He grinned, wild and unhinged.
"Ronald would call this madness," he muttered. "And he'd be right."
A sharp voice snapped the air.
"You! Stand still! A Third Rank Officer orders you!"
"Guards…" he spat. The word felt familiar. And unwelcome.
He stumbled to his feet, ignoring the wobble in his knees.
"I was never good with guards anyway," he frowned, as he was stopped by two girls who interrupted his escape.
He stared at her, then at the guards, then back at her.
"Anna de Meaux. Of The Stem." The brown-haired girl's voice cut through the clamor, cool and precise.
The lead guard froze. His eyes flicked from Leonardo to the girl, then to her companion. They tried to refute, but Anna tilted her head. "You wouldn't want to be demoted, would you?"
The Stem. The word hung like a command. His jaw tightened, a flicker of unease crossing his face before he snapped a stiff nod. "Understood." They turned on their heels and vanished into the crowd.
"Thank you!" he screamed, rushing past.
They both turned to watch him, but ultimately decided not to respond.
He stepped beside the stop sign, blending into the crowd of waiting pedestrians.
No one seemed to pay him any mind, their faces a blur of indifference. Only the cars, sleek and varied, held his attention.
"Must be mad," someone muttered nearby.
"Yeah," another voice agreed.
Leonardo then instinctively stepped back. He was used to being of average height, even tall for his era, but here… these people towered over him like giants. He craned his neck slightly to look at them properly, feeling utterly small in comparison.
"What are those?" he blurted out, pointing vaguely at them, his words a desperate attempt to cover up his bewilderment.
[Humans living in the city]
"I know they are humans but..." he said nervously. His voice was barely above a whisper.
"They're even more diverse than Moerlan."
He stumbled into an open square, where a grand fountain sprayed water in intricate patterns.
He could see flying vehicles zipping through the air above, and holographic advertisements of a woman with brown hair talking about a new idea floated in mid-air, displaying everything from fashion to technology.
He then stopped to ask the text, "How am I understanding them?"
[Immediate language translator]
"Who's the king of this place?" Leonardo asked, his gaze fixed on the floating cars.
[There is no current king. Unofficial head being the Church and Rolls-worth]
"Church?" Leonardo muttered, his eyes widening as he tried to understand the institutions.
The words hung in the air, dense with implications he hadn't considered before. There isn't a kingdom or empire—just a church.
"Curse you, Milah," he mused while smiling a bit. The atmosphere changed, reminiscent of when he had been in his earlier world, staring at the moon.
He sighed, walking towards the enormous tower at the edge of the district. [The Stem]
"Welcome to the Skyway Hub," the conductor said cheerfully through a microphone to the crowd waiting to enter the train. Most people were on their phones, not paying attention to the speech.
On the other hand, Leonardo paid attention to every possible detail. "You'll need to get through here to reach the floors of The Stem," the conductor finally said.
Leonardo listened intently, his ears absorbing every word.