Chapter 190 Volume IV - Chapter 35: Flawed Awakening
I quickly headed for the other exit of the library and Paul headed in the opposite direction. He turned around and waved to me before turning the corner, then we parted ways.
As I always do, after leaving school, I only walked half an hour and reached home.
It was an ordinary day, except that I was really tired... both physically and mentally. So, as soon as I changed my clothes, I went to bed. My mind went back to what I had seen before I woke up this morning, and my eye twitched for a moment.
"I don't understand..."
I raised my hand and held it up to the light, looking at the rays of the lamp's light shining through my fingers.
The more I try to figure things out, the more meaningless things emerge... The more I try to let things go, the more things insert themselves into my life.
I took a deep breath, lowered my hand and closed my eyes, turning off the light in the room.
I really need to sleep... At least let me sleep properly today.
Seconds passed, minutes, without moving a bit and without making a sound. Finally, my eyes slowly opened, once again... and I sighed, looking at the ceiling in the dark room.
I went to the kitchen, poured cold water from the fridge over my head. Then I sat in the chair in front of the table and waited again.
I can't sleep... I just can't.
I put my hands under my eyes, they were slightly puffy. So I opened my watch and looked at myself in the camera app.
My eyes were red, the swelling I had just felt under my eyes was even more visible on the camera. The image made me realize how little sleep I had gotten in the last few days.
I turned off the camera and focused on the silence in the room, I tried to think but I wasn't sure what to think about.
Well... what do I know that I can even think about, in the beginning...
With this thought, everything suddenly seemed meaningless.
What am I doing? I'm not looking at my watch or anything... I'm just waiting in silence.
Why is that?
If I talk to my brother, will he give me some advice?
Oh, he was away somewhere... right. And he told me not to text him for two weeks. So, I can't do something like that.
Still... I hope he's okay.
I leaned back in the chair, closed my eyes again. I tried to concentrate, tried to focus on the tiredness that was over me.
I feel so tired... then why can't I sleep?
I opened my eyes again, and this time I didn't just stand there or get up.
Instead, when I opened my eyes, what I saw made my eyes widen and I froze in place.
There was something blue in front of me. Something I was used to seeing, but different from anything I had ever seen.
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The mana in your body is awakening!
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What the hell is this?
Is this... what they call system? B- but I'm not seventeen yet... W- what's going on?
I jumped up quickly, reaching for this strange notification in front of me, but my hand went right through it. Yet the holographic screen and the message on it remained intact, not even slightly changed when I withdrew my hand.
As if it had been waiting for this moment, the notification suddenly disappeared, and then another one appeared in front of me.
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Your awakening has been interrupted for an unknown reason!
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What...?
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Your awakening has been interrupted for an unknown reason!
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First my vision blurred slightly, then my world spun wildly. I felt something strange swirling inside me, something slowly spreading through my whole body... Then I heard voices, as if... thousands of different notifications were surrounding me all at once.
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Your awakening has been interrupted for an unknown reason!
Your awakening has been interrupted for an unknown reason!
Your awakening has been interrupted for an unknown reason!
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More blue-colored system notifications kept coming out, more than I could count, and I covered my ears. The sounds were loud enough to make my ears ring, maybe even burst my eardrums. It was also frightening, my head was spinning like crazy and I could feel the heat coming from my nose.
Yet in the midst of all this chaos, all this meaninglessness, suddenly something else caught my attention.
A sound, a sound different from the sound of hundreds of notifications popping up. A... cracking, breaking sound.
Then another and another and another.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself not in my room, but in the nothingness where I had been last time in my dream... in front of the gray sphere with cracks all over it.
The cracks on it had widened and spread. On top of that, the darkness visible through the cracks... was now more pronounced, more frightening.
I reflexively put my hand on the sphere, just like last time, but this time something different happened. I felt something being pulled out of my body, something I had felt before in the atmosphere, in my surroundings, but could never use...
Mana.
My mana flowed from my body into the sphere, some of the runes that surrounded it with dark cracks faded. They vanished into thin air, though not all of it was gone. Only about a quarter of it was erased. Nevertheless, the cracks on the sphere trembled. It was as if the sphere was trying to contain the darkness it hid behind it.
Yet, it failed.
As some of the writing supporting the cracks disappeared, darkness began to seep through them. Like smoke, like fog, it covered the whole place.
And then a notification appeared in front of me again.
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Your awakening continues!
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The notifications did not stop here.
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You have been identified as having a special condition.
Analyzing the situation... 11%...39%...67%...98%...100%
Analysis completed.
The situation has been assessed.
Awakening cannot be performed.
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The darkness that was seeping through the cracks at the time this notification came out suddenly paused, stopped spreading and suddenly surrounded my whole body.
I stepped back in fear, trying to escape the intense darkness, but I couldn't. The darkness entered my body, literally absorbed by it.
At the same time, an intense pain suddenly enveloped my whole body, I could not make any sound as my vocal cords refused to work because of the pain. My vision went completely black, and then my world went silent.
Still, I did not find peace. It hurt, I felt like I was melting as if the blood was being removed from my body and replaced with new one. The flame that burned in my heart was always there. It never stopped.
I woke up, I suffered, I fainted.
I woke up, I suffered, I fainted.
Again and again, without stopping.
I scraped my fingernails on the floor, I struggled, but nothing worked. My screams echoed inside myself, I couldn't see anything because of the tears in my eyes.
Minutes passed, maybe hours. I tried to crawl toward the bathroom, hoping that going under the water would ease the pain a little. Just then the pain began to recede slowly, not as suddenly as it had come... Slowly, as if trying to leave a mark on me.
I paused, finally able to focus my thoughts on something other than the pain.
The first thing that crossed my mind was something simple.
Why?
My whole body trembled violently, the pain continued to diminish slowly, but it was still so intense that I couldn't stop struggling.
Why is this happening?
I banged my head on the floor, trying to pass out so I wouldn't wake up.
It too didn't work.
I did everything I could to faint, I even bit my tongue, but nothing was working.
Stop it already...
After a while, the pain finally subsided to a level I could bear. Still, I didn't get up, I just closed my eyes, which had dried up, but I didn't lose consciousness, and another series of notifications fell in front of me.
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Congratulations! You have successfully completed your awakening.
You can now see your status window and start exceeding your limits.
With the help of the system, you can now sign Mana Contracts with other people.
Your mind has been connected to the rune dimension of the system, now you can freely use your skills and mastery.
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Notifications did not stop.
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Based on your life experiences, your way of thinking, your experiences and your personality, you have obtained a suitable active skill, [Memory Travel(A-)].
Thanks to the unexpected situation that occurred during your awakening, you received a passive skill, [Clairvoyance(A)].
Xaevirea's Blood has awakened.
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A few more notifications flashed in front of my eyes, but I couldn't make out what they were, they said something about statistics.
My vision quickly darkened. Then the connection between me and the world was really lost this time.
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