The unit was already flooded with morning light. It slipped through the narrow gap between the curtain and the wall, cutting across the floor in a pale band before climbing the side of the bed.
Mario's eyes opened slowly. He remained lying there, unmoving, staring at the ceiling with vacant eyes. Seconds passed. Then minutes. His breathing stayed shallow, measured, as though his body was awake while something else lagged behind.
Growl.
His stomach twisted in hunger, but Mario didn't react, as though he hadn't noticed it, and simply remained lying in the bed.
Almost ten minutes had passed before he forced himself upright.
He placed his right hand on the center of his chest, where he had felt the cooling sensation when he first received his unique skill.
He took a shallow breath.
"I feel… tired," he muttered, before his gaze wandered over the surroundings. '...Where am I?'
For a moment confusion lingered in his eyes as he looked at the unfamiliar yet familiar room, then slowly his eyes fell to his young and thin hands.
'Right. All of it was just a simulation.' Mario's eyes stayed on the palm of his left hand—it was also calloused and scarred, but the callouses and scars were from holding a knife and accidentally getting cut sometimes while cleaning fish, not from holding and training with a sword.
Mario let out a long sigh. 'The dream this time was far too vivid compared to the first one...'
He massaged his temple before inhaling and exhaling in an attempt to settle his thoughts.
Compared to the first simulation, where the memories were fragmented and vague, the second simulation—though he couldn't remember everything—left those he did remember too clear, as if everything had happened just a few years back.
"Would I perhaps lose myself one day?" He muttered, asking himself.
However unsettling the question was, Mario didn't truly feel a certain resistance toward it. Instead, what he found unsettling was the strange exhaustion he was feeling.
The first simulation had left him with a heavy feeling in his heart that slowly vanished as time passed, but the second simulation...
He shook his head and took a deep breath in an attempt to settle the unexplainable exhaustion within. 'I want to sleep more…'
But instead of disappearing, he only felt sleepier.
Mario tried for a few more minutes, but it didn't do anything. Eventually he could only lie down again and let himself be carried back to sleep.
Two hours passed...
Mario was woken by intense hunger. He immediately stood up, walked to the button on the wall, and pressed it.
He ordered the same food before taking spare clothes and heading to the bathroom to wash up.
While washing his hair, Mario paid attention to himself.
'It's gone...?' He stopped for a moment, analyzing himself.
There was no exhaustion nor heaviness lingering in his chest—instead, it was the familiar emptiness.
Although the emptiness didn't bother him as he was already used to it, Mario had a feeling that the emptiness this time was deeper.
He set the thought aside, knowing he couldn't change it despite being aware of it.
'...Maybe time would slowly remove it.'
After washing, he ate his food and walked out of the room, then headed to the library.
---
Mario wandered around the library for fifteen minutes before taking out a random book, then approached the librarian and put the book down in front of her.
"I'll take this book and return it tomorrow," he said. His voice was calm and neutral, but he didn't notice it.
After the book was listed, he headed out of the library and proceeded to the shop where pills were sold.
He lined up behind other youths, and after a few minutes, it was his turn.
"Give me support pills for muscle and bones, and also a recovery pill," he said in the same neutral tone before swiping his card to pay.
Mario looked at the three bottles in his hand, each containing round pills of different colors. '...Three months left.'
After buying the pills, he took the elevator and headed back to his unit.
He took out a chair from the kitchen, approached the balcony, and sat down.
The warm light of the midday sun bathed his skin as he slowly flipped through the pages of the book.
Although he was looking at the book, his attention wasn't on it as he thought about everything that had happened in the simulation.
'So even in cultivation a person would still need to face a choice, huh...'
Choosing a path might not be harder for others, but for Mario a path was an act of commitment—something he couldn't help but think deeply about, always getting stuck on the thought.
'Should I choose a different cultivation?' Mario shook his head, rejecting the thought outright. '...Maybe this is for the better.'
Although there was a possibility he might end up stuck like his simulated self, at worst he could simply return home after saving enough money.
'Director... Is this what you wanted me to consider?'
He remained seated on the balcony, letting the sun bathe him in its light, looking at the book, eyes passing over letters while his mind wandered elsewhere.
Eventually, after half an hour, he closed the book, stood up, and leaned his body on the railing of the balcony.
He looked at the Elyndor Academy in the distance.
Like always, he didn't feel any excitement toward it, nor toward the power he could someday possess.
After looking at it for an entire minute, he shook his head then returned inside, placing the book on the bedside table before leaving with the bottles of pills.
He returned to the underground elevator and pressed the (3) button, leading to the floor where the training rooms were.
Ding~
After a few minutes, the elevator door opened and Mario was greeted by a long hallway containing doors side by side.
He walked the hallway, passing each room with a red light above the door. Even after a few minutes of walking, all doors had red lights above them.
He turned aside and continued walking. For nearly half an hour, Mario wandered through the different hallways until one door suddenly turned green and opened.
A sweating young man in training clothes stepped out.
They passed each other, but Mario didn't immediately enter and waited for the light above the training door to turn yellow—a sign it was undergoing a deep cleaning.
A few minutes later... the light above the door turned green. He scanned his golden card at the scanner beside the door and entered.
Inside was the familiar white room his simulated self had often used. Weapon racks lined the walls, each holding a different type of weapon.
Mario paid them no attention. Instead, he opened the bottle containing the red pill and swallowed it.
A cooling sensation spread through every part of his body, especially his limbs. He did not stop. Opening another bottle, he took out a gray pill and swallowed it as well.
This time, a mild heat emerged and slowly spread through his bones.
He grimaced slightly as the strange mix of heat and cold clashed within his body.
Mario exhaled a cool breath before delving into his memories and experiences from the simulation. Slowly, he began manipulating the muscles responsible for speed.
The muscles in his lower body gradually tightened as his weight shifted. Then he began bouncing on the balls of his feet, attempting to reproduce the footwork skill from the simulation.
Then, with a single burst of movement, he vanished.
However, before the movement was completed, his left leg coiled around his right, causing him to trip.
Bam~
Mario supported himself with both hands and stopped his complete fall, then slowly sat down on the floor. 'It seems I could use the skills from the simulation.'
At first, he had thought it would only work for his fish-cleaning skill, as it was a skill that worked simply by repetition.
"...But to fully use a skill, my body needs to adapt to it." He muttered, glancing at his thin legs and feeling a faint numbness. Fortunately, he had already taken the pills; otherwise, forcing the skill without proper preparation could have caused severe muscle tears.
Because he understood the skill deeply, he could avoid serious injury—damage that would normally require days of recovery, stronger healing pills, and nutrient-rich food like wilderness beast meat.
He rested his legs for a full minute. When the numbness faded, he walked to the weapon rack and took out a slightly heavy iron training sword.
Returning to the center of the room, he held the still-sheathed sword with both hands and lowered himself into a horse stance. Extending his arms forward, he used the weight of the iron blade as resistance, training his arms and shoulders while maintaining the stance.
Fifteen minutes passed...
Normally, this would have been harder for him, as his body was far weaker, but because of the pills, which allowed his body to bear more pressure than it originally could, he was able to maintain the stance.
Three hours slowly passed as Mario maintained the horse stance. His face remained calm and didn't even show any boredom despite the long hours.
The cold and mild heat in his body gradually faded. But before they could disappear completely, Mario immediately sat down, placing the iron sword beside him.
Once the sensations were gone, he gritted his teeth as a wave of deep muscular pain surged through his legs and arms at once. The strain from forcing the skill and maintaining the weighted stance settled heavily into his body.
The pain lasted for fifteen minutes before slowly subsiding.
Huff… Huff… Huff…
He lay down on the training room floor, breathing hard from exhaustion.