The light of the screen pulsed, a faint blue glow, illuminating the shadows, his gaze flitting across the numbers, the categories— Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence. He hadn't thought about it before, not really. Had just impulsively chosen the options that felt right, that seemed to offer the best chance of survival.

“I should put them into…” He hesitated, his voice fading into silence. Every point allocated felt like a risk now, a decision that could either save them or lead them further down a path of destruction.

“How about we do this together? You tell me what it means. About your strengths. About… all of it,” He needed help with this. To navigate it. To… maybe even learn from it?

She nodded, a small, hesitant movement. But the spark was there, the determination, a reflection of his own, of their shared need to adapt.

"This one, Force Efficiency," she said, pointing a claw. “It's low, weak. You struggle. You need to use your energy wisely. The Blightmaw… You could have killed it sooner if you’d hit harder. Wasted effort. Wasted lives." Her voice was sharp, a reminder of what they’d lost. Her pain was a tangible presence in the room. But the accusation felt different. Not harsh. Honest.

He nodded, a surge of shame, mixed with an unfamiliar feeling. Relief, maybe. That she cared. That she was… guiding him.

“Two there. Another one to Agility. And this one,” she paused, her gaze lingering on Vitality for a moment. “I can see it, the way the poison drained you. You heal quickly now. The system grants that gift. But the weakness remains.” She nodded toward the screen. "The final one in Endurance. This will help. Trust me."

He watched as the System screens reflected his choices. Two Force Efficiency. One Agility, two Vitality, one Endurance. He could feel a warmth spreading through him, not from the Shard’s presence, but from a simpler, more grounding sense of… control, maybe, of mastery.

"And these? The Skills.” She gestured, anticipation replacing her grief for a moment, a brief spark.

"Oh, right, I have six.”

He allocated one point into Shattering Impact, two more points to Blunt Weapon, pleased to see that he'd reached Apprentice tier, and the small qualitative change that it reflected.

He wasn’t just a Mudtown boy with a club. He was a warrior, a…

No. He couldn't let those fantasies take hold. He was still just Kael—a pawn, a player in a game with rules he didn't fully understand, but he was learning. He was adapting.

One point into Opportunistic Fighter. That one felt good. It represented everything he'd learned in the slums, every instinct honed by a lifetime of dodging blows. “Six, now.” he muttered. He liked those numbers, they promised a subtle advantage in a world that seemed determined to crush him beneath the weight of its chaos.

Finally, with a quick glance at her, a silent plea for approval, two more into Regeneration.

He looked up at her, meeting her gaze, the intensity of it. It was as if she’d seen through the façade he’d carefully built. It wasn’t about strength, not really. It was about…

“…Survival?" He finished the thought aloud, realizing as he spoke, that those words, once a hollow mantra, a shield against the chaos, now carried a different weight, a new meaning.

He closed his eyes, the System’s screens a distant thought, and took a deep breath. The basement’s scent, familiar—musk, dust, and a faint hint of metal, a symphony he was learning to understand. Her scent, almost floral, mixed with a subtle earthiness. Her world, a phantom whisper, a ghost of a world he had destroyed.

He opened his eyes.

He took a breath, exhaled slowly. There was a tightness in his chest, a fear that he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise.

---

“So the first step is opening a new portal, right? Finding another realm to… harvest.” She tilted her head, studying his system screen, and he felt a strange sense of gratitude. The guilt lingered, yes, but sharing this burden, this journey, felt less like a weight dragging him down and more like…

He glanced up at her, a flicker of warmth displacing the anxiety in his chest. “I like the way you think, Yareeth.”

Kael moved through the menu, a sense of anticipation building as he selected Realms, his finger hovering over the Lead tier, picturing those fractured worlds - the twisting jungle paths, the desolate wastelands, the towering cliffs that seemed to pierce the very sky. But as he clicked, a red message flashed, stark and unforgiving:

[Access Denied]

No Free Slots Remaining.

Use Void Energy to Access Tin-Tier Realms? Y/N

“No Free Slots Remaining.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Damn!” Kael slammed his fist on the ground, his outburst a jarring contrast to the basement’s usual silence. The frustration surged within him, a hot wave of anger and disappointment, amplified by the ache in his muscles. His gaze flickered to Yareeth, her scales a dull glimmer in the weak candlelight, her tail twitching nervously as he swore.

He’d thought they were finally making progress. Finally starting to understand the tangled mess of his new reality. And hers. But now, faced with the System's blunt pronouncement, a red warning message that seemed to mock their fragile hope, he felt the weight of it all—of his betrayal, his failure— crashing down on him once more.

“What happened?” She took a step towards him, the movement instinctive, concern softening her features, her words bridging the chasm he'd inadvertently created. He couldn’t even protect them from this. The System.

He pointed to the red message on his screen. “The realms. I’m barred from another one. The… the higher level one.” His voice was strained, the words a bitter pill he had to swallow. He navigated through the menus, the blue light highlighting his hands. “I can still use Void Energy, to open up a Tin-tier realm.".

"Because you failed?" she said, her voice flat, a statement, not a question. The memory of her lost village, the Blightmaw’s monstrous form, hung between them. Her village. Because of him.

"Because I failed.” He echoed, not looking at her.

"Why do you think it failed? The creature, it’s… you killed it, didn't you?"

He flinched. How could he explain that killing a monster, that fulfilling the system's objective, didn't always mean… success? That sometimes, survival, itself, wasn't enough?

“Yes, I… I killed the Blightmaw, but not before… well, it devastated the village. Killed most of your…the...” The word ‘lizardfolk’ felt like a stone in his throat, a reminder of the life he’d stolen from her. “The System deemed it a failure. The...Quest. I… failed.”

She hissed, her tail whipping back and forth, the scales along its length clattering softly against the floor, the sound a sharp, staccato counterpoint to the silence. “Your system,” her voice was cold, clipped, “It measures lives in… failure or success? There was no choice, for the village, for my people. Only survival."

Her accusations were barbed, a reminder of the cost of his arrogance, but for once, the anger, the bitterness, felt… justified. His gaze dropped. He wanted to shout. To argue. To find someone else to blame, a deflection, a denial. But even in his anger, he couldn’t escape the truth.

“You were weak." She said it softly, calmly, as if stating a fact. But the implications cut deeper than any claw, any poisoned bite. It was a truth he'd known, a truth he'd been trying to bury beneath the System's rewards, beneath the hollow promises of strength. “And now we’re… stuck. With only Tin Tier. You brought us to this.”

He didn’t argue.

“Tin tier is fine. It’s what you should have chosen in the first place. It’s what you can handle.” Yareeth’s voice. Sharp, a snap that jolted him back to the present moment, to the urgency of their situation, of her need to make sense of this new reality. There was anger in her words, frustration.

“We can still gather those things you spoke of. Maybe learn something,” she continued, her gaze flickering to his System screen, her curiosity overriding the anger for a moment.

“What do we need for the lead tier? How do we unlock that… slot?” Her questions, a lifeline thrown in the face of his despair, a thread to pull himself back from the abyss of his failure.

He could do this. He had to.

"I don't know,” Kael said, echoing her thoughts, the logic finally connecting. “This is all so new to me. But the weaker ones, they’re… accessible?”

He could feel her gaze on him, the pressure of her expectations, the shadow of her judgment. He looked up at her, her eyes dark and intense, but the anger was gone. Replaced by a quiet, almost… detached curiosity.

“It’s all right, Kael.” She said it calmly, “Tin is where you need to be, right now.”

She'd seen the strength the System had awakened within him, but she'd also witnessed his recklessness, his near defeat, the agonizing slowness of his recovery. It was as if she were seeing through him, dissecting his actions, analyzing his potential.

Kael let out a shuddering breath, the air tasting of dust and the ever-present metallic tang, a reminder of the forces at play. Yareeth’s acceptance, her pragmatic assessment of the situation, her understanding… it was… comforting. But even more, it was a challenge. He was being… nurtured? Or schooled? He’d never had anyone… No.

He pushed aside the emotions, the thoughts that swirled around her.

“Yes. Yes, Tin is what we need to focus on, right now,” He cleared his throat, opening his system screen again, relieved to have a plan, grateful for the direction she'd provided, but even more for her… belief in him?

“The Tin-tier realm… the one with the scrags, and the other…” He’d been so eager to push forward, so focused on gaining power. That was his way. It had always been his way. But she was different.

Her expression softened slightly. She reached out, her hand resting on his arm, her touch, the coolness of her scales an unexpected comfort against the burning anger. “You've already accomplished a lot in the past few days. You were sick. We needed food, a firestarter. Things… you’ve been ignoring. Not that those excuses are acceptable.”

“But she’s right,” he thought, surprised by the realization, her assessment mirroring his own, the harsh truths echoing in the silence. He hadn’t given himself time to recover, to truly grasp the power he’d gained, to even think.

“It had something,” Yareeth said, her voice firm, “something beyond just the creatures you killed. Resources, something valuable.” He could see her thoughts working, her mind a quicksilver blade dissecting the situation. This was her strength.

“There’s a way to turn this around.”

“Maybe she’s right, again?” The thoughts echoed his guilt. But they were a team now, in this, too.

He felt a flicker of… admiration, yes, for the way she’d adapted, the way she’d taken control. He was beginning to understand that her strengths were different from his, but no less valuable.

He couldn’t help but feel a warmth spreading through him, a hope, a flickering ember amidst the darkness. He was a fool, an idiot.

They were still stuck here, yes. In this basement, in Mudtown. But it wasn’t the same. “We’re in this together. It’s not… it’s just you, anymore. It’s… it’s both of us.”

He took a breath. It felt… good to share the weight of it. “You know how to trade. You saw the market. You…” he trailed off, remembering those moments, her quick words, her sharp eyes that saw value where he only saw junk, her confidence as she navigated the crowds. He had never been able to do that.

“Let’s go back to the tin-tier realms.” She looked at him then, a question in her eyes, the flicker of excitement, of a challenge embraced. This new, shared goal.

A smile tugged at his lips. It was a spark in the ashes. Maybe, together, they could…

He reached out, finding the hand on his arm, the coldness of her scales somehow reassuring against his own trembling flesh. This time, she didn't flinch. This time, his touch didn’t evoke fear, only a warmth, a grounding presence, as if she’d known what he was thinking, as if their destinies had, somehow, been woven together the moment he’d stumbled into her world.

Yareeth watched him, her tail now a rapid back-and-forth, a sharp, impatient cadence. He could see it, the worry, and the need. Her world was gone. His was fracturing.

And he, of all creatures, was all she had to cling to.