Gale’s fingers traced the edge of the captain’s chair. It was soft, plush, like water, clouds, and memory foam all existing at the same time. A foreign material that he’d never seen before on Earth. His fingers reached the metal, cold to the touch. That was the only material that felt familiar about this object.

[Captain’s Terminal]

[Status: Offline]

[Last login: 35:120:667]

[Power: Auxiliary only]

He slid into the seat, jumping on the cushy material that felt way more comfortable than anything he’d ever sat in. Then again, everything he’d ever sat in was just a wooden chair made of a random tree in the wild or a flimsy wooden chair that was donated to the local orphanage for kids like him. A sigh escaped his lips as he didn’t have anything to compare it to.

Upon looking directly at the displays around him, the monitors came to life, showing him the same symbols and patterns from the wall as they moved up the screen. The scrolling stopped, and now an image rendered on the screen, one he was intimately familiar with.

Billions of points of light dotted the screen from one end to the other. A star map. The same one that dad always called just a poster even though he told Gale to stare and memorize it every night.

Gale’s hands reached on to the screen. They didn’t have to not tell him anything. He was a good boy. Did things as he was told. No questions asked. His fingers touched the monitor, it zoomed in to a large barred spiral galaxy, containing billions of stars.

[System Owned By: OCUN]

[System Specialty: Minerals, Water]

[Last Contact: 35:54:223]

None of it made sense. The interface had no buttons anywhere.

‘What even is this?’ he whispered. A new panel appeared right in the centre of the monitor.

[Navigation System v3.2]

[Current location: Unknown]

[Last known coordinates: Unknown]

[Systems mapped: 2.3×10^15]

Gale never liked voice controlled devices. However, thinking to control was a completely different vibe. He reached his hand out to everywhere on the captain’s desk, nudging a black box out of place just beside the terminal.

The box contained circuitry, also similar to the ship’s walls. This whole race had a thing for them, I guess.

Gale again willed analysis while staring at the box.

[Storage Box RS28]

[Description: A storage box that can contain a single type of item in each slot.]

[Brand: Rumi]

[Charge: 0/50]

[Available Slots: 26/28]

[Items: Lobster, Compressed Origin Dust Vial]

[Currently out of charge. Insert 50 Essence to charge.]

Rumi? Wasn’t that a luggage company back on Earth? They had this really annoyingly catchy jingle. It can’t be totally a coincidence, right? This one also said it’s a storage box. A luggage company and now whatever storage this is. There were 2 items inside already.

[Compressed Origin Dust Vial]

[Description: Now with extra potent formulation by Weber Labs. Post side effects may include slight nausea for 1 minute. Please do not use more than 3 times a day.]

[Consumable]

[Effects: Efficiency base+60×200%, Max Load base+60×200%, restores essence to full.]

[Duration: 300 seconds.]

Holy shit. A temporary boost that big could change the outcome of his fight. He could probably even beat that stupid knight, but the duration was short. The fight would need to end fast if he wanted a change. A fight like the one in the meadows surely lasted more than 5 minutes. The side effect of ‘slight’ nausea for the people who made this probably was more than what it said.

Gale’s stomach growled, and his eyes immediately caught the other item. A fully cooked lobster in a storage box? Convenient as hell, he laughed out loud.

[Essence: 76/100]

The box needed 50 essence to charge, which was about two days’ worth of his essence. No point in saving it up though. Gale placed his hand on the box and channeled essence into it. The drain of the essence onto the box made him light headed.

The box illuminated its circuits to life, its surface growing warm. A light at the top of the box where circuits connected lit up.

Ding.

A stream of data flowed into him, telling him the same contents as what his analyze had told him.

[Essence transferred: 50]

[Storage Box RS28 now charging]

[Essence: 26/100]

[Ownership transfer complete]

[Owner: Gale Hathie]

“So this would be what people would see if they had injected it with essence huh. Interesting.” Gale muttered to himself.

Focusing his attention on the storage box, there were no openings to it. He turned it over, rotated it, and banged it on the desk. It was just a solid black box with fancy lines going all around it.

Then just like the terminal, he shouldn’t examine the box. Instead, he should just will it to do something.

Suddenly, a perfectly cooked lobster, thrice or maybe even five times larger than the size of his head, now sat on his hands.

It was huge. The biggest lobster he’d ever saw. Bigger than the ones he saw in documentaries.

His stomach growled again, mouth drooled. How often did he get a chance to eat lobster with the ship’s deck acting as the fancy mood lighting of a restaurant? Never, that’s when.

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He cracked open the shell, the meat inside hot and tender. The first bite nearly made his eyes roll back. Butter, garlic, some herb he couldn’t name. Never even had lobster before, but whoever had stored this knew their seafood. In the span of 15 minutes, he’d devoured everything in the lobster, and a burp escaped his throat.

Next was the other thing in the box.

Materializing the vial from the storage box, he held the object in front of him. Its contents shifted like liquid starlight. Deep as the darkest space with thousands of swirling stars. Five minutes of a power boost. He’d need to use it wisely. Probably best not to use it on that stupid knight.

Gale slumped back in the captain’s chair, willing the Dainv OS to show him his status.

[Name: Gale Hathie]

[Race: Dainv]

The ‘Dainv’ word made his fist ball up. If he could punch the words out of the system, he would. All those years in the forest, learning to hunt rabbits and gather berries, when he could have been mastering abilities beyond imagination. His parents, both Dainv themselves, had chosen to teach him survival skills. For what purpose? To eat dirt every day until he lived to however many years? Bullshit.

[Core Class: Awakened]

[Core Density: 10/12]

Ten out of twelve. His fist slammed against the armrest. The impact sent a jolt of pain through his arm. How far would he be if he had just trained for real since he was a child? He could’ve been ready for all of this. He wouldn’t have to experience losing them.

[Core Attributes:]

[Max Load: 25]

[Efficiency: 4]

[Essence: 38/100]

[Skills:]

[Phase Touch Lv.3][Alter Lv.2][Distort Lv.2]

[Passives:]

[Breath of the Void Lv.2][Dainv Spear Arts Lv.1][Essence Control Lv.1]

“Stay low, blend in, survive.” He spat out the words like poison. “That’s all you ever taught me.”

“Dainv Spear Arts. It was a skill that was taught to him by the knight, forcefully. A skill that should have been taught to him at an earlier age rather than mundane human weapon masteries that were useless against monstrosities in this forest.

“Was it fear?!” he shouted, looking up at the ceiling. “Were you both so scared of standing out that you’d cripple your own son?”

Something caught his eye. It was a bunch of colours against the metallic surface of the platform beside the captain’s seat. He leaned forward, brushing away years of dust with his sleeve.

Photographs. Old ones. Their edges worn and colours already faded. They showed people standing tall together. Swords and guns on their hilts and shoulders. Their eyes held no fear as they stared into the camera. Shoulders squared as they held onto one another. All of them smiling with not a care in the world.

In one image, a group stood before what looked like the very bridge he was in, their uniforms crisp and clean. Their backs straight, chins held high. No cowering, no blending in.

“You could have taught me this,” he whispered, tracing the edge of a photo showing what must have been people like him training. “Instead, you taught me to run.”

His parents could have thought they were protecting him. So what? Even if protection was their goal, they’d turned their own son into a shadow dweller, always looking for the next shadow to escape to.

After everything he’d been through, even now, all he wanted to do was just live in the small world of the forest, waiting for the corruption to take over the whole world. Someone would probably fix it. Not him. He wasn’t someone great. Never was.

“Protection,” he said, grinning bitterly. “You protected me right into uselessness.”

Another photo showed children meditating. Their small hands glowed with what looked like the familiar appearance of essence. All the children had their brows furrowed.

His fingers brushed against another photograph, this one showing a ceremony of some kind. Graduates, maybe, receiving recognition for mastering their abilities. Their families stood behind them, proud and strong.

“I could have been more,” he said to the empty bridge. “Should have been more.”

At the corner of his eyes, he saw the system interface.

[Essence: 26/100]

Such a simple thing, yet it represented everything he missed. Every skill, ability, and every chance to grow, all out the window. All sacrificed in the name of staying hidden for no fucking reason.

Gale pushed away from the captain’s chair, then stretching his muscles tight from sitting. The blade’s weight felt different from his bone saber. It was lighter and more balanced. His silhouette reflected in the dusty deck.

The bridge’s cool air brushed his skin as he took his first stance. Dad’s voice echoed in his mind: “Control your centre. The weapon is just another form of your arm.”

Gale swung the sword, noticing the slight quiver in his stance. It was as if he had forgotten how to even hold a sword. Remembering his fights against the knight in the meadow, remembering the way he killed all those beasts, it was the same. His swings were rough, uninspired. Comparing it to the new way he held the spear, it was the difference between heaven and earth.

“Damn it,” he reset his stance. Dad had spent years teaching him the exact angle of each strike, the precise footwork needed for a clean kill. But those were human techniques, designed for human limits.

He tried again, this time letting the blade’s tip trace the same arc the knight’s spear had carved. His muscles refused, muscle memory warring against this new pattern. The sword felt wrong, too short for the sweeping movements.

[Analyzing movement pattern…]

[Compatibility with current skill set: 47%]

Another strike, another failure. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he forced his body to move differently. His dad’s words came back: “A spear and sword are brothers. Same principles, different reach.”

He closed his eyes, remembering how the knight had moved. Each breath and round from the way the knight moved his giant sword had meaning while his had none. The way he was taught the spear was to be the spear rather than it being an extension. Flow like water, yet can either be soft, hard, violent, and warm. It had no form.

Dad’s footwork training suddenly clicked into place. Those stances he’d been forced to learn as a child… were supposed to be impossible for children. Yet those stances themselves carried clues.

“You were preparing me,” he whispered. “All those years…”

His next movement came smoother. Instead of fighting against the sword’s shorter reach, he let it guide him. The blade cut faster patterns through the air, essence flowing through his arms like a raging tide.

[Movement efficiency increased by 13%]

Memories surfaced. Dad corrected his grip on a practice sword, showing him how to shift his weight just so. Those weren’t just survival skills. They were foundations, building blocks for something greater. Even in the forest with monstrous odds, it was those very skills that led him to thrive against the very real monsters in this forest.

The lights of the circuits reflected off the blade as Gale spun through another form. This time, he didn’t try to match the spear’s reach. Instead, he compressed the movement, letting the sword’s natural length dictate the flow.

His feet found positions, no longer caring about the physical limitations and definitions of orientation. Applying what he had learned from the spear to the sword.

The stances his dad had drilled into him weren’t just about staying low; they were about maintaining perfect balance while moving in ways physics shouldn’t allow.

[New skill formation detected…]

The blade’s whistle became softer and weaker. It no longer cut and made a void in the air. It simply cut.

Slashes and strikes flowed into the next. Essence pulsed through his muscles when he needed it and receded when the movement finished. Dust all over the room blew away from each movement. The bridge’s metal surfaces caught fragments of his movement, dozens of reflections showing a fighter transforming with each pass.

“The weapon is just a tool. The real power comes from understanding how to move,” Gale mumbled dad’s words.

Those lessons took on new meaning now. They hadn’t been teaching him to stay hidden. They’d been teaching him the fundamentals of something greater.

It was to survive against all odds.

The blade blurred as Gale increased his speed. No human could track these movements, let alone execute them. His footwork, once restricted by humane physics, now carried him through what would be impossible angles.

[Essence pathway flow optimization in progress…]

[Combat effectiveness increased by 22%]

He remembered dad showing him how to spin a spear, the movements similar yet fundamentally different from human techniques. Now he understood why.

Those lessons had been watered-down versions of Dainv arts, taught in a way that wouldn’t draw attention. With Rachel, Ollie, and Annett all talking about Aur, such arts would’ve caught attention. Humans were always against something unknown to themselves.

It was dangerous to draw attention.

The sword cut new patterns through the air, similar to the ones the knight took at each round. The difference between spear and sword vanished.

[New skill formation complete.]

[Dainv Sword Arts Lv.1 unlocked]

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep