Chapter 349: Chapter 348- Waste
"Haah... so this is it."
The early morning Time Chamber was cool and still, like a page waiting to be written on. Adrian stood at the center, his eyes quietly scanning the empty hall.
He had no classes today. Surprising, maybe, but true. From this morning onward, the academy had declared study leave for five days.
If students had questions, they could always visit the staff room after class hours, but that hardly needed Adrian’s presence. So, he had taken a sick leave instead—an excuse, really—to come here.
Now he sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of the Time Chamber, a small pouch resting in his hand. His thumb rubbed along its edge as he took a slow, measured breath.
This moment had been building for hours now.
If the herb Eros had given him worked as promised, Adrian might finally push through the first two steps of the Fifth Thread—today itself, if luck stayed with him. After that, of course, he would need long, uninterrupted rest.
Excitement bubbled under his calm expression.
He’d already told Annabelle and Ariana about his plan. Annabelle had assured him she would keep watch during his deep recovery sleep, and Ariana—though clearly worried—had calmed down after he explained everything.
"Let’s see now," he murmured to himself.
He emptied the pouch into a glass of lukewarm water. The powder swirled like faint smoke before dissolving. Eros had told him the full dose was only for sessions longer than four hours. Adrian didn’t hesitate; he poured every grain into the water and gave it a quick stir.
Then he raised the glass and drank it all in one breath.
"Fuaa..." He lowered the empty glass to the ground, his hand still trembling slightly.
At first, nothing. No shift in his senses, no rush of energy.
Then it came—like a tide breaking through a barrier.
His shoulders felt lighter. His chest loosened with every breath. Even his sight sharpened; the dim room seemed clearer. He removed his glasses and blinked. Everything had an edge now, a sharpness he hadn’t realized he was missing.
But his mind... his mind was restless. It hummed like a wire under tension, urging him to move, to speak, to do something. Sitting still felt unbearable.
He clenched his fists, forcing himself to focus. This was exactly why he was here.
"System," he said quietly, "mark the experiment number and keep a close watch on me. If there’s any risk, pull me out immediately."
[Understood. Trial #61: Begins.]
Adrian exhaled slowly, the sound echoing faintly against the chamber’s walls. His finger hovered above the doll’s head for a moment, then pressed gently against it.
A pulse of his consciousness slipped into the doll, threading itself through the foreign vessel.
At once, the world shifted.
His mana locked onto the subject’s, resonating in strange patterns that rippled like sound waves across still water. A narrow route opened—fragile, yet unmistakable—leading him deeper, past the surface shell of imitation flesh and into the core of its nervous system.
Information surged.
Thoughts, instincts, and fragmented memories cascaded around him in flashes. A distorted hub of signals churned—endless and overwhelming. Every twitch of a limb, every false heartbeat, every function the body mimicked ran through this place like a thousand lanterns lit all at once.
Normally, reaching this depth would have been a grueling task, his mind dragging behind every step, burdened by stray thoughts and the chaos of the subject’s memories. But today was different. The herb had sharpened him into a blade.
He was clean. Clear and focused.
The storm of scattered memories tried to pull him under—shouts, blood, laughter, fragments of faces—but his consciousness remained untouched. He slipped between them like a fish through reeds, weaving deeper, always deeper.
The signals grew heavier. The air—or what felt like air—thickened, the hum of energy around him vibrating with a strange, primal weight.
And then he found it.
The hub narrowed into a single point, a knot of shadow that swallowed light itself. No memory could pass it. No thought returned from it.
The Abyss.
It pulsed in the dark, vast and endless, like a wound stitched into the very fabric of the subject’s mind.
Adrian jumped right into it, weaving through the darkness with utmost calmness.
The herb did help him. He didn’t feel any strain on his mind and before he knew it, he could see it.
The source of illumination.
A blue, tranquil source in the distance.
Humming with energy.
The stream of magic was the most concentrated here.
A moment of lack of concentration and Adrian would lose his subject.
He pushed forward, nearing the door that connects two parts of the mind.
His heart rate elevated but his mind remained calm.
He saw it for the first time. The Gate.
And the first word that came to his mind was—beautiful.
The fifth thread is so sacred and hard to reach that people don’t have much information about the Gate.
There are so few, or just one, Runesmith in this world who can reach this gate that’s why there aren’t many books about the fifth thread.
That’s why, the Gate was new to him. Truly. And he was happy that he didn’t know anything about it. It feels like he has discovered something new.
[Congratulations host,]
He heard the mechanical voice.
Adrian didn’t panic.
He slowly pulled back, the part consciousness stepped out of the subject and he found himself back in the Time Chamber.
The system soon added,
[You have achieved the first two steps of the Fifth Thread.]
[You have unlocked Cross-dimension transfer feature.]
Adrian smiled, "It was so easy."
He leaned back, his weight on his hands.
He can finally visit the others without needing to ask the system for favors.
He finally can learn more about Independent Magic.
"Now that I think about it...System, if I sleep now, how long will it take for me to recover?"
[Around six hours, host.]
Adrian hummed
If he sleeps now, by the Time Chamber’s time limit hits, he would be back to himself.
But, "Won’t that be a waste?"