The rafters loomed above in the darkness. Beams of thick and ancient wood criss crossed back and forth. They were hidden behind a veil of absolute black that pressed down on him like a thick blanket. It should have at least, and yet he was seeing perfectly fine. Then there was the head covering he had on, metal by the sound of its shifting. It afforded him nothing but slits to see the outside world. Like a helmet.

Adrian blinked. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet, of any kind, when he had gone to sleep. A stark feeling and sensation of foreign alien’ness’ hinted that his face was no longer his own. He hadn’t attempted to move in the past few moments, terrified that he may have been kidnapped or worse, woken up on a surgical table of some sort to be tortured. Facial structure too large, forehead too big, cheeks too square, jaw too sharp.

He shifted. The sound of heavy metal followed, groaning hinges, and his own grunt of effort. Hay fell off of him. At least that confirmed the barn theory.

Armor? Adrian looked down at the thick breastplate on his chest.

Rats scurried in the room and his ears perked up. Catching the minute bits of sound. He looked around the barn, the musty scent of hay slamming into his nostrils a moment later. Large square bales surrounded him like a fort, or maybe a casket. Loose bales with their straps cut had sprawled over him and covered him. The more he looked, the more it seemed intentional. As If someone had tried to hide his massive body here.

"Well," he whispered. "This definitely isn't my bedroom.”

It was currently the middle of a long summer semester at his local university. The buildings were mostly empty, restaurants without long lines, courts empty for him to get some cardio in, and the weight rooms were empty just how he liked it. He lived with three other roommates who were all at their parents' homes around the country. Leaving him by himself.

His head throbbed with a peculiar double-vision of memories. Late nights hunched over engineering textbooks warring with centuries of martial tradition. Adrian grabbed his head with both hands, they too were covered in thick metal without any issue bending and forming like normal hands. He closed his eyes in hopes it would help relieve the sudden pain. Both sets of memories felt real, yet fundamentally incompatible.

There were overlapping parts but even then it was too stark a difference. He had googled and watched many youtube videos on ancient war tactics, and the new set of memories had searched scrolls and parchments on the engineering of trebuchets and ballistas.

Something skittered in the darkness above him. His ears caught it as quickly as the rat before it. His eyes searched for what was up there only to find a bat hanging upside down and staring at him. He could have sworn it was laughing at him. Mocking him for another failure–

Failure…? B’s and C’s get you degrees–

Again he grunted in pain as more memories of a certain Adrian Sterkhander. His failures. The disappointment of noble lineages and more.

“Agh!” he shouted. Banishing the depressed thoughts. They suffocated him, and he was too bright and lively to allow it to consume him. The massive plate armor encasing his transformed body creaked softly as he shifted, the sound absurdly loud in the midnight quiet. He had wondered what it felt like being depressed or filled with sorrow. And the taste he got was something he never wanted to experience again.

It was hopeless. Lifeless. It terrified him.

Instead of delving deeper into the original’s memories he let his hands search under the hay. His fingers curled around a familiar weapon. A source of comfort and peace for Adrian Sterkhander, but also the source of his greatest failures. His fingers tightened around the pommel as he lifted it from its own casket. A longsword that mocked any form of classification rose up weightless.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Adrian knew it was half his height in length. As wide as two palms of his generous hands. Compared to a regular human, he was a giant. Eight-feet tall and as wide as a door. Equally absurd amounts of strength filled his limbs, even among the knights that were like him.

His other hand found a thick shield, fingers barely wide enough to grip its edge. He pulled it out the hay and marveled at how light it was in his hands, struggling to imagine how much it should have weighed. It too was the color of his faded armor. Dark faded green that bore testament to countless battles. Covered in dents, scratches, and a surprising diagonal tear a few inches wide near the top right.

Something had been both sharp enough and heavy enough to cut through it.

"This can’t be right," Adrian muttered. His voice resonated strangely in the confines of his helm. Again his memories clashed causing him pain. Last night's memories clashed violently with present reality. The last thing he remembered was getting into a soft bed in his apartment and bundling in a thick blanket like a cocoon. And now it was replaced by cold metal and hay. The gentle hum of his laptop fan transformed into–

“Fuck!” he shouted again. Fingers found the helm's release catches in practiced movements he could have sworn to have never done. And yet it was muscle memory.

The helm's removal released a cascade of stark black hair. Long and luscious. He had no beard. Cold air rushed down into his lungs as he took a deep breath, it cooled his overheating mind. But that didn’t help his racing heart, it beat louder every second.

A lancing pain blossomed on his right side. He looked down at his armor and found a deep dent that marred the beat up armor even more. He couldn’t imagine the sheer power and momentum required to deform metal this thick. But it explained why he felt like he had a broken rib.

Adrian imagined a strike, strong enough to cut a man in half, barely doing anything at all to his incredulous armor.

[CONGRATULATIONS! SYSTEM UNLOCKED]

[STATUS:]

[MARK LEVEL: Mid-Copper 3 - Level 13]

[PROGRESS: 434/2000]

[STRENGTH: 17]

[AGILITY: 15]

[VITALITY: 16]

[CONSTITUTION: 19]

[ENDURANCE: 14]

[INTELLIGENCE: 6 (10)]

[MARK: 12]

[MARK ENERGY: 354/1300]

[AVAILABLE STAT POINTS: ]

[SKILLS TAB: SELECT TO EXPAND]

[COMBAT SKILLS]

[Swordsmanship [Intermediate]: 423/1000

Mounted Combat [Intermediate]: 287/500

Formation Fighting [Intermediate]: 467/1000

Tactical Command [Basic]: 156/300

Spearmanship [Basic]: 133/500]

[MARK SKILLS]

[Shadow Step [Basic]: 378/500

Shadow Strike [Intermediate]: 143/1200

Shadow Sense [Basic]: 467/500

Shadows [Intermediate]: 392/1200

Strengthen [Basic]: 33/500

Strengthened Strike [Basic]: 174/500

Fortified Body [Basic]: 89/500]

[ADDITIONAL STAT TYPES UNAVAILABLE CURRENTLY]

Adrian jumped in his seat. The words were a stark difference and shone far too bright in the darkness. It took a few moments just for his eyes not to struggle at seeing the words in front of him. But once he could read it, he was left reading it without much knowledge of what any of it signified. Of course he could make educated guesses, but this wasn’t some game. This was real life. Everything is connected to everything else in obtuse ways. Nothing was as it seemed until you fully understood it, and even then there was still more to learn.

His eyes flitted by it all. A strange sense of disappointment filled his veins. Again, instinctually he knew the average human had seven’s across the board. The greatest in their fields could only realistically reach ten. And here he was sitting with seventeens, nineteens, fifteens, and sixteens bolstered by skills and powers that sounded fantastical. Shadow step? Fortified Body? Shadow Strike?

The application of something like this already passing his mind in unique ways, separately, or even paired together. He played far too many games to not instantly attempt to either min/max or take advantage of what he had to its fullest potential. This was a good start if anything.

And still the disgusted feeling permeated his senses. He could taste it.