Crawling into every fibre of my being, pain was everywhere, masterfully orchestrating each mind-rending attack on my sanity to break it in the fastest way possible. It felt like my last conscious thought was eons ago, lost to the annals of time and torment. When feeling and sentience returned for a fleeting moment, taking advantage of a lull in the endless assault, I choked out what I should've done in the first place.

"...-ACCEPT!"

[]

[]

Any sense of loss or strength I would've felt from adapting the Skill was drowned out by the agony restarting its attack, the only brief respite I was allowed to have before this used to start focusing on my new Skill and channelling it. It was a strange feeling, channelling [], more so than how it felt like with []. It provided me with an instinctual sense of right, that what I was about to do was something I had always being doing for many years. In a way, I had been doing this for all my life, naturally converting the ambient mana around me into a more liveable form. Only now, it had been formalised and transformed into something far more advanced than I had ever even thought possible. The proper way of doing things, the way I should've been doing all along, I recognised.

Taking one shaky breath in, my mind blanked from the intensifying suffering, distilled pain burrowing deeper into my psyche. Holding that single, small breath in was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, the pain only growing and growing with every moment. Reaching an unbearable peak, I was forced to exhale at the wrong time, providing me with a fleeting second of rest, before the pain returned worse than it had left. Desperately going for another attempt, I repeated the agonising motions of the Skill again and was rewarded with the same result; I was unable to hold the breath in and the pain, somehow, worsened even more.

Again and again, the result never changed, the pain intensifying until it felt like my body and mind were boiling. I almost resigned to my fate in that moment, begging for a release from the pain, wondering if it was the Monarchy System that was causing me to exhale early to kill me, when my mind wondered to a Skill that I had never touched or thought about before that could help me. [].

As a hastily done test, I channelled both [] and [], finding that I could indeed channel two Skills at once. However, what [] was telling me about my own body... I should be dead. It gave me no assistance on how to help the pain, only that anything I could do would be pointless. With a sharp spike of pain ridding me of those thoughts, I resolved myself once more and reached for both Skills at once.

Breathing in, I tried to complete my first proper cycle of [], begging for a different result. Channelling my Level 3 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

Beginning my first proper cycle of [], I found that I was already holding a breath so I continued onwards, begging for a different result. Channelling my Level 3 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

Finishing my first proper cycle of [], I was surprised to find the pain dulling for a moment before I had even begun to channel both Skills at the same time. I continued onwards though, and began my second proper cycle. Channelling my Level 4 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

Breathing in, I tried to complete my first proper cycle of [], begging for a different result. Channelling my Level 4 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 4 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 5 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 5 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 5 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 5 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 5 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 6 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 6 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 6 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 6 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...

...

...Channelling my Level 24 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 24 [] too, in one moment the pain was there, and in the other, it was-

...Channelling my Level 24 []- What?

The pain... was gone? Opening my eyes in shock, I wasn't met with the blue sky I had expected, thinking that not much time had passed since the onslaught began, no, I was met with night. A dangerously beautiful dark sky, painted in all the wonderfully new colours of this caged world. Looking to my notifications for information, my attention was drawn to an incredibly long list of [] level ups, including a couple unique ones at the bottom.

[]

[ Critically Damaged>]

I couldn't believe my eyes. It had to be a trick of the system. Even when I rubbed away the tears clouding my vision that had began to accumulate, the sight in front of me, more mesmerising than anything this new plane could offer, never changed. When I checked my eyes for the third time, I finally let myself cry. Sobbing loudly into sky, I was half tempted to just start screaming, wanting any kind of the release that I was barred from previously, the pain being so overwhelming that I couldn't do anything. However that thought was squashed the instant I spotted demons still swarming the sky, only noticeable due to their bodies occasionally blocking out the stars. My breathing stopped for an instant when I saw them, an instant that was enough for pain to invade my body once more, taking advantage of something that had stopped when I ceased my regular breathing. My regular breathing. Fuck!

Realising that I had to probably keep channelling [] for as long as I was in this plane, I restarted my channelling of the Skill instantly, thinking it best to ponder about it later. Scanning the surroundings, I realised that no actual wounds had appeared on my body during my mana... poisoning? I'll take that as the right word. It seemed that all the damage had been done to my internal organs, frying them due to an inability to process the mana well enough.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I shortly found a small side room lower down in the ruins that sprawled from the chamber, hidden well by growing vines, looking closest to purple in my new world of colour. I made my way down as carefully as I could, scaling down a half-collapsed set of stone stairs, keeping to the shadows. With a small ding, which was strange since I had thought I had switched to the fully visual form of the system, I was given an offer for a stealth Skill which I accepted immediately, coming with a very small sense of loss this time, probably due to my utter inexperience with trying to hide properly outside of hide-and-seek. Shifting my focus to [], while also keeping a conscious channel of [], my movements become lither and smoother and my body felt attracted to certain places more than others, places where I would be more well hidden from detection. When I did reach my selected hiding space, my [] practically dragged my body into the space, the brief moment I had spent in the open making my way to it feeling incredibly unconformable.

[]

Finally feeling at rest, I focused all my channelling onto [] once more, sliding down one of the walls of the alcove and taking a seat on the mossy stone floor. The almost complete absence of pain couldn't have been more jarring to me as I held in the breath of my first cycle since sitting down, exhaling it slowly after it had reached the perfect time held. Now I wasn't actively dying - something I imagine I'm going to be saying a lot from now on - I could actually feel what the Skill was doing to my body. As the mana consumed air entered my lungs, it poisoned the pores inside my body, blocking up the proper circulation of my own lifeforce somehow, similar to what one would experience if they inhale too much smoke near a fire. Then as I held the breath in, the channels I had never been able to sense my entire life, dormant due to my lack of talent, erupted with life, smouldering with the practically unlimited mana granted by the air around him.

It wasn't as if I had finally been able to use or access them, no, it was purely the result of the mana concentration; the infinite mass of mana in the air, so large that it could actually be seen by someone like me, pried open the channels, unblocking their constricted vessels and running free. While I kept the breath in for the exact amount of time it took for the mana to circulate my channels only once, I exhaled, constricting both my lungs and channels in a way that did something to the air that completely rid it of the mana that had saturated it moments before.

This newly absorbed mana forced my channels to stay open even when the air left my body, spurring them on into a state of overdrive, circulating the mana so many times and so quickly, that even with my abysmal rate of purification and absorption, at least half of the mana was consumed each time, infusing my body with its power. The untapped mana then exited my channels, leaving my body with the air, at a concentration no longer dangerous for me.

When my channels had first been opened, the mana was unregulated, tearing them open, not even completing a circulation, and then leaving, causing irreparable damage to them. My channels couldn't even heal themselves, the mana they would need to do so only available after a circulation is completed, the process somehow requiring it. That's why when I had initially tried to hold a breath in, it hurt so much. Those channels, unopened and untouched for many years, were now being tore open without proper care, which then caused me to recoil and exhale in response, causing even more hurt. Only when I had properly trained my channels using [] did they respond properly, doing what they should've been doing all my life. Pulsing through my body was the infused mana, permeating every muscle, bone and organ in my body, and enhancing them. Out of interest, I checked my Status just to see if my Mana Resource had changed. And, to my surprise, it had.

[]

[]

  Name: Thanren of Aldfield

  Pure Sin: Envy

  Alignment: 100%

  Body: Critically Damaged

    Stamina: 0/3

  Mind: Severely Disarrayed

    Mana: 2/0

  Soul: Normal Condition

    Will: 0/6

  Skills: Entries Collapsed

[]

Just to make sure I was seeing correctly, I rubbed my eyes and blinked them back open, laying my gaze on the 2/0 next to my Mana. I... Could I use magic now? No, I didn't even know the proper practise of it, just what I had seen watching her. It would be too risky to try at the moment. Drawing my mind away from the promise of a life-long dream being fulfilled, I attempted to offer up the Mana points to repair my disarrayed mind but was met with an unexpected failure.

[]

[ Severely Disarrayed>]

[]

It... it made no sense! It said it right there on my Status! I had the two points needed, and exactly two points too! Was it because this wasn't truly my mana? Just something I had absorbed, not actually integrated into myself? Frustrated at the lack of explaination, I shooed the notifications away, focusing on my breathing once more, not willing to make the same mistake as last time and allow the pain to return.

[]

That was another thing; [] levelled up incredibly slow. It makes sense in a way that a Skill I had to use constantly wouldn't level up from little use, only growing when I became better practised with it. Nothing more to be said on that front I think. As I was on the topic of levels, my thoughts naturally drifted to []. The last time I had checked, which I couldn't remember to be honest, it was certainly not this high of a level. I would've definitely noticed if I had a level 24 Skill available to me, even if I didn't know what it did. Double checking my past Monarchy System notifications, I realised that all of the level ups had been during my first attempts at using []. Thinking it through, I came to the realisation that there was no other way to describe the Skill other than a way to somehow endure pain better, or if not that, then definitely persevere through it better than outright resisting or pacifying it. The only time it had properly levelled was during the longest period of severe pain I had ever experienced, pain so agonising it had made me teeter on the edge of unconsciousness for half a day, blanking that period of time out entirely. It was an extremely useful Skill, especially for someone in my position, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something sinister about it. In the face of knowing that I could accidentally lose entire days of my life if I used the Skill just to ease my suffering for a moment, the boons it provided me with, including the fact it most likely helped assuage my building insanity in the face of that pain by keeping my mind at only severely disarrayed, they didn't seem enough.

Strangely finding myself unwilling to open up the proper description of the Skill by that same sinister sense, I let myself relax at long last, closing my eyes and letting my thoughts drift off. The only thing that kept me awake in that moment was the constant need to breath, scared that if I nodded off, the Skill would stop and the suffering, return. It was only then that I truly comprehend what this new plane meant for me. Not only was there the idea that there was an entirely other world nobody had known about, at least in Aldfield, but this was going to be my life from now on: barely surviving, forever living life on the edge, and constantly channelling my Skill to keep myself from dying. No one would be here for me, not my parents, not my sister, not even the Saviours. I would be here, alone, in pain, and hating every second of it.

I wouldn't be living at all, would I?

I would live a life of torment, inflicting it upon others, even the terribly frightening demons, in my path for strength, and bringing it upon myself by forcing my way into this dangerous new realm, forever hostile to me no matter what I would do.

In that lull of thought, contemplating my new existence, yet another impulsive thought entered my head. It was definitely stupid, as was the one which had led me to chopping my hand off. Yet I was drawn to it. And so, for the first time since I entered this new plane, I stopped channelling [] and took my first proper breath.

It hurt. Oh, the pain was utterly indescribable. But I did it. I spent long, agonising seconds inhaling that poisoned air, trapping it inside me and letting it cause havoc, before letting it loose in a rushed torrent of impure mana. I leaned into that pain, a pain that reminded me that yes, I was still alive, not just living life on the edge, only focusing on survival and nothing else. And, as I re-channelled the Skill calmly and started to cry uncontrollably from my bottled-up sorrow finally being unleashed, I came to another realisation. This had to be a joke.

A silly, stupid joke. That must be what this all is. Someone, maybe even the Saviours, had thought it would be funny to slip me something that has made me hallucinate all of this. That had to be it. This is all too hilarious to be anything but a cruel joke gone wrong. Too hilarious, too funny... too...

"...I don't get it."