“Uuugh.” Nathan groaned and put a hand to his face. His head and chest feel like they got hit by ballista bolts. Couldn’t have been that. I am still alive after all.

Nathan pushed himself up. Why am I sitting on grass? Nathan spun his head around, and got his first good look at his surroundings.

He was sitting in the middle of a field of rolling grass covered hills dotted with the occasional patch of shrub that extended as far as his eyes could see. He had absolutely no memories of how he had gotten there.

That's odd. Maybe I got in a fight with the wrong person and got dumped in one of the less active blood fields as vengeance. It wouldn't have been the first time that that had happened to him. Except for the blood fields part. Last time they had just beaten him up a bit. Who the hell did I mess with?

I think I have a concussion. He had gotten concussed twice before, once when he had fallen off of his hut’s roof while trying to repair the thatching, and once when he had been shaken down particularly violently, so he knew what it felt like. It would fit with the memory loss

He stood up and brushed off his undyed wool pants. Maybe if I try to remember, something will come back to me. Nathan furrowed his brow in concentration as he tried to recall how he had gotten to the blood field.

Where was I before I came here? Suddenly the memories crashed through his mind.

Nathan staggered. One he had finished comprehending what had happened, he gazed up at the sky in disbelief.

“Was that voice one of the Grand Cryptalborn?” The thrice heard and witnessed bit would fit with the stories Nathan had heard about the Grand Cryptborn. “Did it send me here?”

Nathan’s eyes shot open even wider, as he remembered something far more important than those questions. Was that a spren that it put into my chest?!

He sat down, crossed legged, and turned his soul perception inwards, finding it far easier than it had ever been before. He saw a version of himself in his soul perception, sitting cross legged in a meditative pose. It was made of the exact same material that the statue had been And sure enough, in the soul wound, surrounded by semi fused together soul shards, was an orb of distinct energy. It was a spren.

A goofy grin, his first real smile since his parents had died, crossed his face. No matter what he had told himself in his bitterness, he had always wanted to awaken. Who wouldn't want to be able to bend the laws of reality?

A tiny corner of his mind that wasn’t overwhelmed with elation frowned in confusion. Why is the spren perfectly spherical? Isn't it supposed to be- But that train of thought was stopped, dead on its tracks.

Interface

Personal:

Name: Nathan Holbrich

Age: Fifteen Years, three months

Hight: 5’6

Species: Sapiens

Genus: Homo

Physical State:

Strength: Average

Endurance: Good

Perception: Good

Reflex: Average

Willpower: Peak

Condition(s): Soul wound (healing)

Existential Tier:

Awakened Mortal: You have awakened and have gained an Ability. You have gained one rank in all attributes.

Ability:

Prodigy: If you activate this Ability during an action, you experience yourself doing the action twice. This allows you to grasp the principles behind actions much faster. If you activate this Ability while doing an action that gathers knowledge, you experience two fold time dilation. This allows you to comprehend knowledge twice as quickly as you would have otherwise. This Ability can not be activated during combat.

Type: Master

Secondary Types: Knowledge, Mind, Time

He could see his Interface! For the first time in his life he could see the lines of text. The Interface was in his soul perception so it didn’t impede his physical sight.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Hell yes!” Nathan pumped his fist into the air, grinning. Nathan’s grin dimmed slightly, as he realized that the ability couldn't be activated in combat. This Ability is still great, though. He chided himself internally. If I properly leverage it-

Alert

Congratulations: You have gained multiple attribute increases.

Strength has been upgraded one rank. Strength: Average >> Strength: Good

Endurance has been upgraded one rank. Endurance: Good >> Endurance: Great

Perception has been upgraded one rank. Perception: Average >> Perception: Good

Reflex has been upgraded one rank. Reflex: Average >> Reflex: Good

Willpower has failed to upgrade. Willpower has reached maximum for your Existential Tier. Willpower: Peak >> Willpower: Peak

Nathan whooped as he felt his body shifting. Looking down at himself, he now had quite a bit more muscle definition than he had had before. “I feel like I could run forever!” he exclaimed in wonder, as he noticed the effects of the endurance increase.

Nathan slammed his bare footed heel into the ground and activated his Ability. Now that he had Prodigy, it was almost as easy as breathing to activate it.

Nathan’s foot stomped down. Then, right after the action had been completed, he found himself back, right before his foot had begun moving downwards. It was a very disconcerting feeling to have made an action and then to be returned to the start of the action again. Nathan subconsciously readjusted his foot when the action had looped back to the beginning, causing him to trip and fall flat on his face..

“It's gonna be hard to get the hang of this,” Nathan said to himself. “ But that’s a good problem to have!”

////

Nathan had a problem. Three really.

One, it was raining and he had no shelter. Not the nice warm kind of rain that washes you off, either. The cold kind of rain that drenches you and steals almost, but not quite, enough of your body heat to numb you.

Even after it stops raining, you're still just as cold for the next few hours until your clothes dry off. This was lessened a bit by the fact that Nathan was wearing wool, but he was still freezing because the sun was beginning to go down.

Two was that he had no food. When the Voice had sent him here, wherever here was, it had sent him with nothing except his now drenched worn wool shirt and pants. He could get water from the rain, but last time he checked, he couldn’t eat wool.

There had been times when he wouldn't get food for two or three days in the first few years after his parents had died though. Nathan shouldn’t need food for the next day or two.

////

Nathan jolted awake from his sleeping spot in the rain proof shrub-hut he had constructed with the help of Prodigy. He had finally completed it last night, and was grateful for the night spent out of the rain after the last two days of being soaked.

It was a lot easier to build a structure when he could see when placing something would cause the structure to collapse. Nathan had activated Prodigy each time he Had put down a branch or moved something in the structure. If he had seen that it was collapsing the structure, then when Prodigy looped the action, Nathan hadn't done whatever had caused the collapse.

It was just after dawn on the third night he had been in the grassland, and now he was really starting to feel the hunger. The only thing that he could find to eat was grass. The only wildlife that he had seen were mosquitoes and grasshoppers.

He had seen many tracks and animal trails during his search for food, but all of them were quite old. All but one.

“Graaaaaur!” The roar that had awoken him rang out in the distance, splitting the gray dawn once more. The fresh tracks were the same general size and shape as the tracks of a lion that he had seen in one of the ancient paintings adorning the walls of the the sixth Archspire. But it wasn’t a lion. It couldn't have been, because lions didn’t have quills in the painting’s.

When he had first found the tracks yesterday evening, Nathan had followed them for a little ways to assure himself that the beast didn’t know where he was. It was apparently shedding, because he had found several tufts of golden hair, along with three quills. Each was the length of his forearm.

“Graaaaaur!” The beast’s cry echoed out once more, across the lifeless grassland.

You know, now that I think about it, the beast probably ate everything else here. It's probably just as hungry as I am. Nathan chuckled, then froze, realizing the implications of his statement.

“GRAAAAAUR!” The beast sounded a lot closer now.

“Damnit, it's probably hunting me!” Nathan cursed, already jumping up and grabbing the spear he had partly made yesterday. He had made it by stabbing a hole in the top of a branch with one of the quills and shoving the quill into the hole like a peg. I was planning to secure this with some cloth today but I pray to the Sprenfather that it holds if I have to use it.

////

Nathan felt ready to collapse with exhaustion, even with his great Endurance score.

Nathan turned back in to the noise of his surroundings, the Beasts footfalls echoing out across the grass “Tha-thud tha-thud tha-thud tha-thud.”

The Beast just wouldn't quit. The sun was beginning to set now but it just kept going, and going, and going. It was about a thousand feet behind Nathan, too tired to do anything but match his exhausted jog.

I can't keep going like this, Nathan’s panic and terror was now replaced with exhaustion and numbness. I’m going to collapse before it does. I probably only have one more mile left in me. Nathan tightened his grip on the base of the quill, having abandoned the spear shaft after about fifteen minutes of terrified sprinting.

There! Nathan began sprinting diagonally, having found a final bit of energy. The Beast veered off to the left to follow him, also accelerating.

Fifty feet. Forty feet. Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five feet. Right before Nathan would’ve run to the stone side of a hill, he threw himself to the side.

Unfortunately, instead of running into the cliff like Nathan had hoped, the beast managed to arrest its motion.

“GRAAAAAUR!” It roared so loudly that Nathan thought his eardrums were going to burst, and pounced, crossing the ten feet between them in a flash.

Time seemed to slow down as Nathan sprung up with a shout, fueled more by terror than by anything else. He collided with the Beast in midair. Nathan shoved the quill upwards in an attempt to use it to block his impending doom.

By some stroke of luck, Nathan had thrust the quill straight towards the Beast's throat in his attempt to use it as a shield. The Beast began twisting away from Nathan in midair, but it was too late, as the quill in Nathan’s hand stabbed into the beast's mane.

On any other creature it might have worked, but Nathan realized that in his panic he had made a crucial miscalculation. This wasn't a lion. Its mane was made of quills, like the one he had in his hand.

Fuck! Was all that Nathan had time to think as his improvised weapon skated off of the beast's mane and he and the beast crashed to the ground. The beast fell on its side, unable to correct for its midair twist, crushing Nathan’s torso underneath it.

“AAAAHHG!” Nathan’s watery scream gave the beast’s roar a run for its money. Blood sprayed out of his mouth as he felt several of his ribs break and pierce his internal organs. A sickening snapping sensation came from just below his shoulder blades as Nathan felt his spine break.

The beast righted itself and jumped backwards, unsure if the fight was still on. Seeing Nathan’s condition the beast began padding towards him triumphantly.

“N-no.” Nathan managed to gurgle out before the beast’s jaws snapped down on his leg and Nathan let loose another ear piercing scream.

As Nathan’s lay there, his life drained out of him and the beast worked on his severed leg. The Voice boomed from the sky, rattling off a string of metrics in an automatic tone.

Pre-ascension Survival Statistics: Level one. Day three. Hour twenty. Minute thirty two. Killing blow dealt by manticore.

Pre-ascension Power Appraisal: 1.1

Nathan's vision constricted down to a single point as he passed out. It was only due to his peak Willpower that he had not lost consciousness earlier. A minute or two later, Nathan’s unconscious form breathed out in a long gurgling sigh as his body deflated with finality.

Nathan died.