The impact with the water was brutal.
Nam plunged through the churning surface like a stone fired from a catapult, the waterfall swallowing him whole. The world became pressure, darkness, and icy shock. His lungs snapped tight, and the cold bit into him with teeth sharper than any monster's.
He twisted in the powerful current, dragged deeper by the relentless pull of the falls.
Then the stone inside him burst to life.
A violent surge of mana exploded through his body, ripping a soundless scream from his throat as lightning writhed beneath his skin. Every nerve lit up in agony. It felt like his bones were being filled with molten metal.
His thoughts scattered—until pure instinct forced them back into place.
Focus. Focus, damn it! This was your idea!
Just before he jumped, he had clung to a tiny, insane thread of strategy—a desperate gambler's logic sparked in the middle of panic.
The shaman's lightning…
The stone reacts to it…
If I swallow it now, at the moment of peak activation… maybe… maybe it'll force a resonance.
Truthfully, it hadn't been a plan.
It was a last roll of the dice from someone cornered by death.
And he knew—very, very well—that this was not how he was meant to obtain the stone.
I wasn't supposed to take the core shard now… not yet. Not like this.
In the original route he remembered—whether from the game, intuition, or fate—there were preparations to make first. Things he needed:
Meditation to build mana tolerance.
A ritual bath with herbs to stabilize the body.
A catalyst to prevent the mana from rampaging.
A controlled environment.
Support.
A healer nearby for when things inevitably went wrong.
He had none of that.
He had a waterfall, cracked ribs, and goblins trying to turn him into forest jerky.
There were steps, preparations… I skipped everything. I'm literally speedrunning my own death flag.
His chest tightened sharply, a spike of searing mana stabbing through his heart.
If I fail to control this, I might die right now.
No—no "might." I will die. Instantly.
More lightning escaped, tearing into the surrounding water in bright, flickering arcs. The river lit up around him like a storm trapped underwater. Stones cracked from the pressure. The roaring current itself vibrated as if afraid of him.
Nam clamped down on his panic.
Think. Condense it. Form a core. Bottle it before it rips me apart from the inside.
He forced the rampaging energy inward, mentally shaping a sphere to contain it. But the mana resisted violently, flooding into his limbs and skull with wild fury. His vision whitened as the pressure inside him skyrocketed.
His lungs begged for air.
The cold bit deeper.
The world began to blur.
Still, he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
I jumped off a cliff for this, so I'm not dying before it pays off! Come on! Condense—!
The mana slammed against him.
He compressed it.
It surged again.
He forced it inward.
Slowly—painfully—the chaotic flow coiled, tightening into something dense and molten at his center.
A small, blazing core.
Once it stabilized, the pain dulled from "universe-ending" to merely "please-let-me-die-a-little-bit."
Nam floated numbly, drifting deeper into the dark as flickers of lightning pulsed across his skin.
His thoughts slowed.
His eyelids grew heavy.
His awareness dimmed.
…I really… might not… make it…
The last thing he felt was the faint, rhythmic thrum of the newborn core inside him—like the heartbeat of something ancient and powerful.
Then everything went dark.
And Nam finally lost consciousness.
***
Nam surfaced from unconsciousness slowly, as if his mind were clawing its way back from the bottom of the river. His eyelids fluttered, letting in blurred fragments of sky—blue and pale, streaked with soft clouds drifting lazily overhead. A cool breeze brushed across his cheek, carrying the smell of wet earth and river mist.
He blinked again, vision sharpening enough to make sense of his surroundings.
He was lying on a riverbank: half sunk in mud, half sprawled across flattened reeds. His clothes were soaked, his boots felt like lead, and his sword—miraculously—still clung to his waist as though refusing to abandon him, even if he had clearly abandoned good judgment.
Water gurgled somewhere to his left. His lungs spasmed, and he coughed violently, forcing out a mouthful of river.
Every muscle protested.
But he was breathing.
Alive.
Nam stared at his trembling hands, turning them slowly. His fingers responded. His toes wiggled beneath the wet fabric of his socks.
No goblin cries echoing behind him. No shaman looming with lightning in his palms. No cliff screaming for his funeral.
Only a quiet riverside, morning air, and birds that were far too cheerful for someone who had just defied the odds.
A small breath escaped him—shaky, unsure whether to sob or laugh. Relief hit him like a delayed blow, loosening something tight in his chest.
I lived…
The thought pulsed with disbelief.
I lived.
He leaned back against the earth, eyes closing for a moment. The trembling in his limbs wasn't just exhaustion—it was the body trying to catch up with the miracle his mind had already understood.
Then a sharp pain streaked across his core, dragging him fully to the present.
Nam hissed and pressed a hand to his chest.
There—beneath his ribs—a warmth pulsed. Quiet. Heavy. Dormant.
Not gone.
His eyes narrowed, breath slowing.
The core… it didn't disperse. It fused.
A strange shiver ran through him. Not of fear—something more complicated, sitting between awe and dread. He looked down into the clear river. His reflection was ghastly: pale, bruised, exhausted.
But undeniably alive.
He dragged himself to his feet on unsteady legs. The forest stretched ahead, peaceful and wide. It should have been calming.
Instead, it felt like a world holding its breath—watching him.
---
Nam stripped off his soaked outerwear and wrung the water from it with slow, deliberate motions. The fabric clung stubbornly, refusing to release the river it had just saved him from. He laid his clothes across a sun-warmed rock, steam rising faintly.
The morning breeze chilled his skin, but it helped clear the fog in his mind. He lowered himself into a seated, cross-legged position—not out of habit, but out of necessity. He needed stability. He needed to understand what was now inside him.
When he closed his eyes, the sensation hit instantly.
A presence.
Heavy, dense, coiled tightly near his heart—a sphere of energy the size of a clenched fist, radiating a steady molten warmth.
Nam's breath paused as he recognized it not with logic, but instinct.
The core is real.
And it's not dormant.
It's breathing.
He focused inward—not an action he had ever practiced seriously, but the basics weren't foreign to him. He had spent years playing a game built around mana perception, flow control, and internal pathways. Theory and simulation weren't experience, but they created frameworks, mental models.
He reached for those models now.
Anchor your breath.
Locate the source.
Observe its flow without interfering.
His breathing steadied. His heartbeat slowed. Beneath it, the core pulsed—once, twice—echoing faintly like a second heart learning its rhythm.
Then sound sharpened.
He heard the river's flow not as noise, but as layered currents. Insects scuttling beneath leaves became distinct. Even the minute tremble of his own muscles registered as tiny vibrations.
His sense of smell sharpened next—earth, moss, wet stone, and the faint metallic trace of blood on his torn sleeve.
Nam swallowed hard.
These aren't senses. They're readings. Mana readings.
He reached further, deeper.
The forest responded like a hidden map unfolding in his mind.
The river was a slow surge of gentle energy. The trees were steady, deep reservoirs. The small animals flickered—bright sparks in motion. Everything had a presence—soft or vivid, steady or trembling.
Nam's throat tightened.
This is what only high-ranked scouts could do in the game. Mana signature perception… instinctively.
His hand rose to his chest.
The core pulsed again.
I wasn't supposed to take this now…
I wasn't ready.
There were preparations. Stabilization rituals. Gradual absorption—days, weeks… not a leap off a cliff.
A bitter breath escaped him.
I might've died back there. I might still die.
His palms steadied on his knees.
"There's no going back," he whispered.
He dove inward, toward the core.
The moment his intent brushed it, the core reacted.
Not violently—instinctively.
A soft hum vibrated through his bones, like a great beast shifting in sleep. The warmth spread through his chest, rising in a slow wave.
Nam visualized it: a sphere swirling with gold and silver hues, lightning dancing in thin fractures across its surface. It felt ancient—older than him, older than anything he should ever have touched.
"Alright," he murmured. "Just… move a thread. Slowly."
He guided a single strand of energy outward—thin, delicate, hardly a thread at all.
The core responded with curiosity, not resistance.
Warm mana peeled away, sliding through him like a drop of heated liquid traveling down a narrow path. It passed beneath his collarbone, toward his shoulder.
Nam gritted his teeth.
His body wasn't shaped for this. Mana carved its own channels through unused pathways, making his muscles twitch.
He steadied his breath and guided it further.
Just to the arm. That's all.
But the core, sensing movement, surged—overflowing with enthusiasm or instinct.
"Wait—stop—hold—!"
The mana shot through his arm like lightning.
Pain cracked through him. His fingers jerked open. His entire arm shuddered violently.
He forced his focus into a razor-thin line.
Stop. Now.
The core obeyed.
The flow halted instantly.
Nam gasped for breath, clutching his arm. Heat throbbed beneath the skin, mixed with a cold numbness—a limb caught between two worlds.
But he hadn't burned. He hadn't ruptured anything. The fact alone felt unreal.
He let the pain settle before speaking.
"…I'm still here."
His voice was hoarse.
"I actually… did it."
He looked down at his trembling hand—not with pride, but with quiet, stunned acceptance.
He'd taken a step. A reckless, dangerous, necessary step.
And the core… did not reject him.
It didn't try to hurt him. It reacted like a creature still learning what he wanted.
Nam inhaled—slow, steady.
"I have to learn this. No matter how long it takes."
A faint pulse answered from his chest.
Not warm. Not cold.
Just present. Listening.
Nam opened his eyes to a quiet forest painted in morning light. The river shimmered. The world felt sharper, deeper, more alive than ever.
But layered beneath it all…
He felt it.
The core.
Waiting.
Breathing.
Changing him.
"Whatever I'm becoming…" Nam whispered, "I have to make sure I survive long enough to see it."
He rose slowly, steadied his breath, and faced the forest.
A new world.
A new body.
A new threat coiled beside his heart.
***
His stomach growled—an ugly, hollow sound that echoed through the quiet forest like a creature in its final hour.
Nam winced and pressed a hand against his abdomen.
"…Food. I need food."
No matter how transcendent his mana sense felt earlier, it did absolutely nothing to stop the creeping dizziness or the subtle shake in his legs. Surviving a divine core was impressive, but starvation would kill him before magical overload ever got the chance.
He stood, brushed dirt from his damp pants, and headed into the trees.
An hour passed.
Then two.
Nam found nothing.
Every time he thought he heard rustling—an animal, a bird, anything he might hunt—he sprinted toward it with hope clawing inside his chest.
But the moment he arrived, silence.
No birds perched on branches.
No rabbits darted through bushes.
No deer prints.
Not even insects large enough to make a proper snack.
The forest felt… cautious.
Watchful.
Like every living creature had made a unanimous decision to stay the hell away from him.
Nam crouched beside a pile of overturned leaves, brow furrowed.
"Is it because I jumped into a river with a divine core in my chest?" he muttered. "Do animals… smell that? Or sense mana? Or do I just have terrible luck?"
His stomach growled back at him as if mocking the question.
"Not helpful."
He kept searching, stepping over roots and ducking beneath branches, until he stumbled across something—finally—at the edge of a patch of sunlight.
A cluster of pale-blue flowers glowing faintly in the shade.
Nam blinked.
"…Moonglow?"
The petals shimmered with a gentle luminescence—just like the herbal material used in mid-tier mana potions in E.F.O. He knelt, touching a flower lightly. It felt cool, silky.
In the game, this plant restored mana.
Here, it just reminded him how desperately he needed actual calories.
Still, he carefully plucked a few and tied them with a strip of string.
He walked further until another plant caught his eye—fiery red petals wrapped tightly around a milky stem.
"Dandelily… red-rooted variety."
Rare. Valuable. A potent accelerant for healing brews in-game. In real life, though? It didn't smell poisonous, which was the best endorsement he could give at the moment.
He pocketed it.
Not long after, he found something else—a squat green sprout poking from the soil, its roots dark and knotted.
"Carco root," Nam muttered, exhaling in relief. "Finally, something edible."
Carco root was a survival staple in the game—bitter, but safe to eat when roasted. Here, it was earthy, fibrous, and not particularly refreshing, but it wouldn't kill him. Probably.
He dug it out with a stick and wiped it on his pants.
His stomach roared again as if demanding immediate tribute.
"Calm down," he whispered. "I'm working on it."
He scanned the forest again.
Still no animals.
Not even a shadow.
The absence was beginning to bother him.
"This whole forest is avoiding me," he muttered. "Either they know something I don't… or they all have better survival instincts than I do."
He finally returned to the riverbank, dropped his meager collection of herbs and roots onto a rock, and stared at it in disappointment.
Moonglow.
Dandelily.
Carco root.
And some questionable grass he'd already regretted tasting.
"This looks less like food and more like ingredients for a summoning ritual," he sighed.
Hunger forced him to try the butter-grass again. It was still awful—like chewing wet socks dipped in melancholy—but at least it gave his jaw something to do.
He bit into the Carco root next.
Hard.
Fibrous.
Dry.
His face twisted slowly.
"…Tastes like mud pretending to be food."
He chewed anyway.
Alone by the riverside, Nam sat with his knees pulled close, staring at his pitiful feast. His hunger gnawed at him mercilessly, his limbs heavy, his head buzzing faintly.
Hours ago, he had fought for his life.
Now he was fighting to not collapse from lack of calories.
For a long moment, the world was silent save for the river's slow, steady flow.
Nam exhaled shakily.
"This is ridiculous," he whispered. "I survived goblins, lightning, a shaman, and a waterfall. Am I really going to lose to lunch?"
The river didn't answer.
But somehow, that felt like judgment.
***
✦ End of Chapter.