“What the…” When he beat his head against a wall, Aki recoiled in slight pain and a lot of confusion. Before he could notice more than the fact that he was now in a dark cavern illuminated by torches and candles, his world started to burn. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…….”

[Uninitiated entity detected. Lessermost power denomination detected. Starter integration began. Basic class assigned. *ERROR!]*

He screamed and contorted into himself, and if he stopped screaming, he stopped being able to tell at some point. There were some impressions of being touched and sucking in breath when he went too long without breathing, mind blissfully going blank every few moments.

*[Bloodline activation detected. New integration protocol necessary for assimilation. New integration protocol selected. Integration interface modified to better fit bloodline.*

*[You have unlocked a new profession - Novice mage Lv 1

+1 intelligence

+2 free points

+1 talent point

You have gained new abilities -

Basic arcane affinity Lv 1

Infuse Lv 1

Detect magic Lv 1]*

The words somehow made it through to his unstable consciousness, but he couldn’t focus on them. Like hearing a rap and knowing the words used but not being able to focus enough to follow the lyrics on it while also screaming your lungs out as your body melted from the inside out.

His fucking teeth were moving around! His bones were on fire! His skin had fallen off more than once already, and it just wouldn't stop!

He couldn't move and he could barely think outside of bursts of lucidity forced by panic and whatever chemicals were coursing through his body. Adrenaline could hardly do such a good job as far as he knew, and even if it could, it shouldn't last this much no matter how much his perception of time had been slowed by suffering.

When it all faded away and the pain receded though, he passed out cold.

…………..

Waking up to half light was a rare thing for him, but it did happen, so that wasn't what sent him jolting from the ground. Rather, it was the fact that his teeth felt weird when he tried to move his jaw.

As both his tongue and hands quickly told him, they were now much sharper, perfectly fitting against each other inside his mouth and without bracers.

And his skin was now a metallic gray.

His first reaction to that information was, of course, to think it all a dream. Why else would he be in a bare stone cell with his wrists chained to the ground like some kind of beast?

Then his thumping heart remembered him of what'd happened before he'd gone to sleep. 

'That makes the chance of it all bring a dream slightly lower.' He tensed while reliving the moments of excruciating pain with some detachment, but not nearly enough to outright dismiss the memories as some exaggeration from his sadistic mind.

He was just a nobody with too much pride and anger, how could, and why would he live through such torture?

The best way to shorten all of this would be to just find something to read. If he couldn't hold onto the same structure or even 'lost consciousness' upon attempting to read the same thing several times, then the incrogunities would help him speed through the nightmare. With less context he'd suffer less for less time when waking up.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

*Chink*

"Fuck you too." He spat in a voice that was mostly his own, anger building up with his need. Despair was weakness so long as he could not use it, and if these chains started growing back then it'd be…

The door opened with a bang as he pulled on his chains again, this time as he was standing on his feet, the people that came into the room taking his attention.

They were blue, short humans, one of them a brunette and the other sporting purple hair that made him think of some rather terrifying clown creatures that liked to sing and dance over the death of little children. The visage stopped him silly as he made his best impression of the Gloria Pires meme.

'Since when have my nightmares been this silly?' And this was definitely a nightmare, since he was hardly into bdsm, and control play would not be done with some random hottie he could imagine, nevermind that the chains were hella uncomfortable.

And the not-a-hunk had just stabbed him while saying gibberish.

He swallowed a scream, almost instinctively using his chains to get the blade on his shoulder stuck and wrestling control of it from the stronger man by using his body as leverage. And that hurt. A fuck ton more than the burning dealing of a bleeding shoulder did.

The blade and chains were now slick with blood and he didn't have time to reposition so as to block the other guard's attack but he could still attack with his uninjured arm, so he did a half assed swing with a handle at the middle of the already small polearm targeting his attacker's weapon.

That bought him a few moments of respite as both attacks had now missed. Hopefully he wouldn't bleed out before he could kill asshole number 1, but he sure as fuck wasn't standing still just because he didn't know how to use the weird hooked blade on a stick.

Breathing deep, he reassessed the surroundings and spread his feet for better stability. Mind going faster than ever, he took in the reinforced leather armor of his captors, he saw the fear and surprise on the one whose spear he'd taken and the dogged resignation of the other one.

Were they afraid of their boss? Did they fuck up by coming inside alone or by striking him? He could hardly tell how bad the wound was, he'd never been cut up like this, but even a first aid would take a steady hand and clean materials, otherwise he was better off dying in battle.

'Sounds good and useful to me.' Dream or not, the cut was now a burning trob on his mind. His anger and desire for violence were already superseding his fear. Snarling a grin, he growled and started to charge, fully intending to take another cut so he could compensate for his restraints by attacking with the polearm.

And then he was promptly hauled onto his ass due to the chains in his manacles retreating into the ground. Which made little sense because even now as he gave them a second, accusatory look, the links didn’t go into a hole in the floor and instead just started out of a metal panel he’d woken up on. It also wasn’t a problem of misremembering the size of his restraints either, as there’d previously been enough slack for him to move, while now he’d be unable to raise his arms were he to stand up to his one eighty something centimeters. 

For once, being almost six feet tall was a foot in the ass.

Perhaps (most likely) due to his distraction, the weapon that’d been knocked out of his hold with the sudden tug of his chains was even taken out of reach with the hook in the armed guard’s polearm. Probably not the reason they had the strange weapons to begin with, but it did the trick.

Either way, he was fucked. And an actual, muscle bound hunk had just walked into the room. The man paid no attention to him and was right in the fact that even with a weapon and without chains, his untrained ass would be useless against the plate armor, spiked gauntlets and veritable arsenal of close combat weapons. Nevermind the strength necessary to haul all of that around, he had no doubts this… woman knew how to use everything on her. Why she was taking off her helmet and frowning at him he could not tell, but he was starting to wish this was an actual dream.

Suicidal tendencies and personal taste asside, having a female goliath destroy his neck after she’d broken his every bone was not something he wanted to experience.

She said something while looking at him, but he didn’t speak their language and tried to convey his confusion, to which she sighed and turned towards the guards to bark an order.

When she approached him, he noted that she didn’t smell like sweat despite the heavy armor and that her skin tone was more akin to dark purple instead of dark blue, though her features could be from anywhere of the old world if he was asked to describe her. The next thing he noted was that she was a bitch with no delicacy, as she lifted his shirt (those were not the clothes he’d gone to sleep in) and spread his wound open with her fingers. He bit down a curse and didn’t try to move away, but still it hurt. More so as he could no longer fight at all to distract himself.

He heard mutters in his ears and thought she was assessing his biology and wound, but then the pain went away. Looking down and actually examining the wound, he noted that the bloodied wound was closed and the armored woman was getting up again, talking with someone he wasn’t paying attention to.

Did that bitch just use magic?!