The mountain was screaming.
Not with sound—there was no air left for screams—but with the slow, grinding death rattle of collapsing tunnels and splitting rock.
Seven days after the sky turned red, the world wasn't just dying.
It was rotting from the inside out.
Deep beneath the Blackspine Mine, where the air tasted like rust and the walls wept blood-colored mist, Kael swung his pickaxe in a numb, mechanical rhythm.
His arms burned.
His lungs ached.
His vision swam with dark spots.
Thirty-six hours straight without rest.
All for half a nutrient bar—barely enough to keep his little sister breathing back in the slum camp.
Above him, Rask, the overseer with eyes like cracked glass, barked through a respirator.
"Move your carcass, worm! We need two more tons before shift ends!"
Kael didn't answer.
He never did.
Words cost oxygen.
And strength.
And sanity.
Then—BOOM.
The explosion came from deep within the mountain's core.
A shockwave ripped through the tunnel like a serpent uncoiling.
Rock shattered.
Lights died.
The blood-fog surged inward, thick and pulsing, like it had a heartbeat.
Men started screaming.
One miner clutched his throat, veins bulging black beneath his skin.
Another fell to his knees, bones cracking as spines erupted from his back like jagged spears.
Their eyes turned milky, then red, then empty.
Within seconds, they weren't men anymore.
They were things—twisted, shrieking horrors with claws and too many teeth.
"Evac! Evac now!" Rask shrieked, turning to flee—straight into a collapsing support beam.
He vanished under rubble, still screaming.
Chaos.
Darkness.
The stench of burning flesh and wet stone.
Borin, the old foreman with a limp and a spine of iron, grabbed Kael's shoulder.
"Side tunnel! Go! Now!"
"I can't leave—"
"GO!" Borin shoved him hard.
"I'm done. You're not."
Kael stumbled forward just as the ceiling above Borin gave way.
A single, wet crunch echoed behind him.
Then silence.
He ran—or crawled—into the narrow fissure, rocks tearing at his clothes, his skin.
The air thinned.
His breath came in shallow gasps.
Behind him, something inhuman howled, then gurgled, then fell quiet.
Deeper. Darker.
His fingers scraped damp stone.
His vision tunneled.
Oxygen starved his brain.
He could feel death creeping in, cold and patient.
Then—light.
Faint.
Pulsing.
Like a heartbeat buried in the rock.
At the end of the passage, embedded in the wall, was a crystal.
Dark red, almost black, glowing with a slow, rhythmic throb.
It looked ancient.
Alien.
Wrong.
Kael reached for it—slipped—cut his palm on a shard of rock.
Blood dripped.
It fell onto the crystal.
For a heartbeat—nothing.
Then—flash.
A blinding crimson light erupted, swallowing the cave.
Kael screamed, but no sound came out.
His body locked.
Every nerve lit on fire.
His bones vibrated.
His blood boiled.
And then—silence.
A voice, cold and mechanical, echoed inside his skull.
[Lazy Temple System – Activation Confirmed.
]
[Host Vital Signs: Critical.
Initiating Emergency Enlightenment Protocol.
]
[Welcome, Kael.
Your path to power begins not with effort… but with rest.
]
Warmth flooded him.
Not fire.
Not pain.
Peace.
The exhaustion that had crushed him for days—the ache in his muscles, the weight behind his eyes—it began to melt away.
His breathing slowed.
His heartbeat steadied.
He collapsed against the wall, trembling.
The world was gone.
The mine.
The monsters.
The hunger.
The fear.
All of it… fading.
And in that moment, as his body finally let go, something inside him clicked.
Like a door opening in a place he'd never known existed.
The cave returned to stillness.
But Kael didn't move.
He lay there, half-conscious, wrapped in a warmth that didn't belong to this world.
The darkness no longer pressed against Kael's eyes.
Instead, it cradled him.
He lay on cold stone, yet felt warmth pooling beneath his skin—like sunlight stored in bone.
His breath came slow and deep, each inhale filling him not just with air, but with something more.
Something quiet.
Unshakable.
The cave was silent now.
No screams.
No crumbling rock.
Just the soft, rhythmic hum of the dark red crystal embedded in the wall—its pulse slower, fainter, as if it had given part of itself to him.
Then, the voice returned.
[Lazy Temple System – Online]
[Host Status: Stabilized]
[Current Zone: Primitive Sanctum (Lv.
1)]
[Area: 15m radius around host]
[Passive Effect: The more relaxed the host is within the Sanctum, the faster Enlightenment Points (EP) accumulate.
]
[Enlightenment Trigger: At threshold, automatic breakthrough or skill acquisition occurs.
]
[Current EP: 87/100]
A translucent blue interface flickered in Kael's mind, simple and cold, like frost on glass.
He blinked.
Breakthrough?
Skill acquisition?
He tried to sit up.
His body responded—but differently.
Lighter.
Stronger.
The aches of thirty-six hours of labor, the bruised ribs, the blistered hands—they were gone.
Not healed.
Erased.
He flexed his fingers.
Felt energy coil in his tendons like coiled springs.
And then—
[EP Reached Threshold: 100/100]
[Triggering Enlightenment: Minor Qi Circulation – Complete]
[Host has passively mastered foundational Qi absorption and channeling.
]
[Physical Enhancement: +300% baseline vitality]
[New Status: Peak-level Qi Body (surpasses standard Cultivation Stage: Qi Refinement)]
[Warning: Host remains untrained in combat application.
]
A surge of clarity flooded his mind.
Knowledge poured in—not through study, not through pain—but like remembering a dream he'd never forgotten.
He could feel the thin threads of ambient energy around him, drifting through the air like dust in sunlight.
The corrupted red mist still lingered, but now, he instinctively repelled it.
His body rejected the poison.
He wasn't just healed.
He had evolved.
And he hadn't lifted a finger.
Kael let out a slow breath, then—against all logic—laughed.
A low, disbelieving chuckle that echoed off the damp stone.
"So… I get stronger… when I rest?"
He looked at the crystal.
His blood still stained its surface, dried like ink.
"And this thing… is my temple?"
[Sanctum Upgrade Path: Absorb 3x Grade-1 Monster Cores to unlock Lv.
2 – Expands range, increases EP gain, unlocks defensive barrier.
]
As if on cue, a low growl echoed from deeper in the fissure.
Kael turned.
From the shadows, two red eyes blinked open.
Then another pair.
Then another.
Twisted shapes emerged—low to the ground, limbs bent backward, jaws unhinged.
Former miners.
Now Crimson Tainted.
Their flesh pulsed with the same red energy that had seeped from the sky.
One sniffed the air, twitching, then locked onto him.
They lunged.
Kael didn't fight.
He moved.
His body acted before his mind could catch up—sidestepping with impossible grace, ducking under a clawed swipe, driving a palm into the creature's chest.
Not with force.
With precision.
There was a wet crack.
The beast flew back, ribs shattered, and hit the wall like a ragdoll.
Another came.
He twisted, grabbed its arm, and fl