Chương 4: What the system would not show me

Ch 4: What the system would not show me Darkness, for a long time. No body. No pain. No sound at all, except once, far away, a voice I knew.

"... Fan'er. Please... wake up." Mother. The first thing that reached me after that was the smell of medicine — bitter, faint, threaded through with warm sunlight and the distant chime of wind bells stirring outside a paper window. My eyes opened on the same wooden ceiling as before. I stared at it for a while before the pain arrived. When I tried to lift my right arm, nothing happened.

My heart lurched, and I turned my head to find the whole arm wrapped from shoulder to fingertip in thick bandages, a wooden splint holding the shattered bones beneath in place. So it hadn't been a dream. Dragon Slayer had taken its price in full.

"I survived," I murmured, and beside the bed, someone stirred.

"... Fan'er?" Mother had fallen asleep sitting in the chair next to me, her hair coming loose from its tie, dark circles under both eyes — she clearly hadn't slept properly in days. The moment she saw I was awake, her eyes filled.

"Fan'er!" She was on her feet at once.

"Don't move — the physician says your injuries are still unstable."

"... How long?"

"Three days," she said, before I'd even finished asking.

"You've been unconscious for three whole days." Three days. Long enough for the academy season to have already started somewhere far from here, though that thought barely registered next to the one sitting behind it, unspoken between us both. Neither of us said Father's name. Neither of us had the courage yet. She smoothed the blanket over me instead, the same way she must have done a thousand times through Len Fan's childhood.

"... You're hungry, aren't you? I'll bring something." Before she could turn, I caught her sleeve.

"... Mother." She stopped.

"... I'm sorry." For a moment she didn't answer. Then she laid her hand on my head, exactly the way the memories said she always had.

"You have nothing to apologize for," she said.

"If anyone should, it's me. I couldn't protect your father."

"No." I shook my head.

"He protected all of us. He fulfilled his duty until his very last breath." She was quiet for a moment, and then, through the tears she was trying not to let fall, she managed something close to a smile.

"... You sound just like him." She left the room after that, the door clicking shut behind her, and the silence that followed it pulled my eyes toward the window. Stolen novel; please report. White cloth fluttered outside — dozens of banners hung from every rooftop I could see, one for every disciple who'd died defending the mountain. And at the center of them all, taller than the rest, one banner stood alone. Father's. His funeral had already come and gone while I lay unconscious.

The disciples had stopped training. No laughter carried on the wind anymore, not even birdsong. The whole sect was grieving, and it would keep grieving long after I was strong enough to walk again.

"I promise," I said quietly, to the mountains beyond the glass.

"I won't let your sacrifice be meaningless. I'll rebuild this sect. I'll protect Mother. And one day, I'll find everyone responsible — the Blood Moon Sect, and whatever force stands behind them. I'll cut them all down. No matter how long it takes. Even if it costs me another lifetime." That oath wasn't going to change, no matter what shape this new life took from here. Ding. A blue window gathered itself in front of me, steadier now than it had been in days.

EMERGENCY MISSION COMPLETED Mission: Protect Your Mother Status: SUCCESS Calculating Rewards... A second window replaced it almost at once. Synchronization 5% → 10% Authority Restoration Beginning... A warm emerald light bloomed in the air above the blanket, condensing slowly into a crystal vial no larger than my palm. Liquid jade shimmered inside it, radiating a gentle warmth I could feel before I'd even touched the glass. DIVINE TOTEM OF HEALING Grade: Unknown A sacred blessing born from the World Tree.

Restores all physical injuries. Repairs broken meridians. Regenerates shattered bones. Reconstructs damaged organs. Returns the body to perfect condition. Restriction: Cannot revive the dead and is not effective another time. My fingers stilled on the last line. Cannot revive the dead. No miracle. No divine treasure. No legendary relic in this entire System could undo what a hidden blade had already done. Death, apparently, was the one debt nothing here could pay back.

"If only I'd had this sooner," I said, half to myself, and let the thought go before it could finish forming. Regret didn't put anyone back on their feet. Only the living got to keep walking. I closed my hand around the vial and set it aside for later, and another notification unfolded in its place. Legacy Recovery Successful. Recovered Legacy Technique: Dragon Slayer Art Synchronization: 10% Accessible Technique: First Verse Remaining Sword Forms: Locked Requirement: Increase Synchronization.

The moment those words settled, the memories came with them — a sword cleaving through black cloud, mountains splitting under a single swing, the roar of the Abyssal Dragon as its scales gave way. Decades of training I'd once spent a lifetime building. Only the First Verse had come back so far. That was enough. I didn't need everything at once. I'd climbed this mountain before. I could climb it again. One more tab waited beneath the rest. Avatar Information — Updating... The screen convulsed instead of settling.

Symbols flashed too fast to read, then vanished, then flashed again, and beneath them the same warning I'd already seen once before crawled back to the surface: Unknown Authority Detected. Previous World Records Found. Reevaluating Host... ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. I frowned at it.

"... Still no answer?" The screen held there a moment longer, refusing to resolve one way or the other, and then quietly folded itself back down into something simpler and safer to look at. Avatar: Kromitos Realm: Mortal — First Leaf Potential: ∞ Evolution Status: Upgradeable Simpler. Not simple. Infinite potential wasn't an answer — it was a door the System clearly wasn't ready to open yet, no matter how many times I knocked on it.

Whatever Kromitos actually was, it sat behind something even the Ephora Legacy System didn't have full authority over. I let the window close and lay back against the pillow, turning the vial of jade-green liquid slowly in my remaining good hand. Far beyond the mountain, beyond the sky, beyond anything a ten-year-old boy in a Sect ruined by war had any right to sense — something ancient opened its eyes, very slowly, in a place with no name at all. It had noticed me. I didn't know that yet.

I only knew that the arm the System had marked destroyed wasn't going to heal itself, and that I had a promise to keep. I broke the seal on the vial. The scent that spread through the room smelled like spring rain over an untouched forest — like something that had never once needed a name to be alive. I drank it in one motion, and let whatever came next come.