A haze of gray dust clung to the silver mirror, blurring the face reflected in its surface.
Finn Adler rubbed at it hard with his sleeve, the chill of cold metal seeping from his knuckles all the way into his chest. The glass cleared a little, and the stranger's face sharpened into focus.
Pale lips. Shadows bruised beneath hollowed eyes. High cheekbones that made those eyes look even larger, emptier. A mess of black hair hung over his brow like dead straw.
That wasn't him.
He—Finn Adler—an ordinary office drone who had bled his youth dry on coffee and spreadsheets inside a cubicle, should have had a face washed pale by monitor light, with black-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose. But the reflection staring back was a gaunt young man, seventeen… maybe eighteen at most, with the weary, hollow gaze of someone who'd already lived too long.
The stench of damp lime and burnt lamp oil seeped into his nostrils, making his stomach roil. He braced himself against the coarse stone wall, feeling grit grind beneath his fingertips as he steadied his weak, trembling body. His eyes swept the cramped chamber: a hard plank bed with a musty straw mat, a rickety wooden table, and on it a clay bowl of dark dregs still reeking of bitter medicine.
He closed his eyes. Memories crashed against him like startled crows, scattering and colliding in his skull.
Blackwind Keep… one of the eighteen strongholds of the Gryphon's Roost Mountains…The Aerthos Imperium… the Savage Reach…
The flood broke. Memories poured in, laced with feelings that weren't his own. The boy he had replaced was also named Finn—the son of Blackwind's lord. His father, old Adler, had ridden out a month ago with half the keep's fighting men on a raid and had yet to return. The boy had wasted away after a "fever," until one bitter draught carried off his soul and left the shell for another to inhabit.
Bandits.
Finn's lips twisted into something uglier than a sob. From the nine-to-five safety of a civilized world, he had tumbled headlong into a brutal wilderness, his new life that of a bandit chief barely clinging to power. What kind of joke was this? Out of one pit, only to land in an abyss?
A sharp pain stabbed through his skull. He sagged against the wall, breath ragged. More memories flared. A brutish face surfaced—Hagen, the deputy lord—his wolfish eyes fixed greedily on the chieftain's seat. A phantom scent rose, the faint, sweet tang hidden beneath the heavy herbs of every "medicinal broth" Hagen had sent.
It hadn't been a fever.
The thought froze his blood. Poison. Slow, insidious, near-impossible to detect.
His father vanished. He himself poisoned. The truth was etched into the shadows on the wall: Hagen was reaching for the keep.
Despair closed in. Finn's fingers clawed at the damp mortar between the stones, nails packed with grime, his heart hammering like a trapped hare beneath his ribs. In this frail, wasted body, he couldn't stand against a deputy who commanded men-at-arms. Memory told him Hagen's fists could split an oak shield with a single blow. He—barely able to hold a knife steady—was nothing but a walking coffin.
Run? The Gryphon's Roost teemed with beasts and venomous things; in this condition he wouldn't survive ten miles before becoming carrion. Stay? Then wait for Hagen's patience to snap, and for the next bowl of medicine to finish the job.
Helplessness pressed in like the weight of the sea, threatening to crush his bones to dust. His life—both the one before and this one now—seemed written with the same words: not his own to command.
And then, in that suffocating dark, a thread of light kindled before his eyes.
It wasn't from any lamp. It bloomed in his vision, lines of blue light edged with a familiar texture of pixels and code. A translucent interface hovered, sleek and sharp, utterly alien to this rough-hewn cell.
[Strong survival will detected… Binding soul…][Binding complete.][The Warlord's Legacy, initializing.]
Finn froze. His breath caught, his heartbeat skipping. This—this was the interface from that pay-to-win strategy game he'd played before crossing over. A game built around raising armies, conquering lands.
He reached for it instinctively. His fingers passed straight through the glowing panel. It wasn't there—it was inside his mind.
At the center spun a great wheel, its rim divided into countless slots. Within each shimmered faces, weapons, trinkets. A teal-glowing general's portrait flashed past—Cassian Vex. Elsewhere, the faint gleam of common blades.
The lottery system.
Finn's pulse surged—not with fear this time, but with desperate hope. His eyes darted to the corner. A single gold coin icon glared back at him, followed by a pitiful "0." In the game, five coins bought a basic draw. And here, according to the boy's memories, five coins could feed a family of four for a year.
No recharge button.
That realization cooled him. So—no conjured currency. Every spin would cost real gold, hard-earned in this world.
[First activation detected. Issuing novice rewards.][Gained: 3× Basic Draws][Gained: 1× Novice's Starter Pack (unopened)]
Three lifelines.
Finn didn't hesitate. He focused his will on the "Draw" button beneath the wheel.
"Use one."
The wheel whirled, lights spinning until it slowed, clattering to a halt.
[Reward: The Iron Skin Discipline (Common)]
Warmth surged up his spine, flooding through his limbs. How to describe it? Like a riverbed dry for years suddenly brimming with spring floodwaters. He could hear the hum of his muscle fibers knitting, stretching, hardening. Loose skin tightened, draped now over corded strength. The frailty that had shackled him was swept away like cobwebs in a storm.
A line of text glimmered across the interface: [Discipline has been cultivated to Mastery automatically.]
Finn clenched his fists, knuckles cracking in a staccato rhythm. Power. Solid, undeniable power throbbed in his palms.
He didn't linger. "Again."
The wheel spun once more.
[Reward: The Adamant Skull Art (Common)]
This time the warmth rushed to his head. Skull bones tingled—frontal, parietal, occipital—buzzing as if countless ants were weaving unseen reinforcements into the bone. His skull felt sealed within living granite.
One last chance. His breath quickened. Two defensive boons already—but what he needed now was a weapon to strike back.
"Last one."
The wheel slowed. The pointer landed on a long blade's icon.
[Reward: The Hundred-Forged Blade (Common)]
With a flash, something heavy crashed onto the floorboards, kicking up dust.
Finn stooped, lifting it. The blade was cold and weighty, a ripple of water-bright steel flashing in the dim room, throwing sparks into his eyes. The edge was razor keen, the grip wrapped in coarse hemp cord that bit comfortingly into his palm.
Strength surged in him, pushing against some unseen barrier. He could feel it—an invisible film holding him back, the very edge of a threshold. He knew the name of this bottleneck: the peak of Initiate. Beyond it lay the Mortal rank, where Aura was guided by proper disciplines into a cycle that transformed flesh and spirit alike.
And that, he lacked. A true cultivation art.
As if in answer, the corner of the interface shimmered. The unopened icon—the [Novice's Starter Pack]—began to glow with gentle gold light.