Neo woke only when his body had finally had enough sleep to drag him back up from it.

The room was darker than before, though not fully dark. Sunset had already reached the window, throwing a tired orange across the walls and the edge of the bed. He stayed there a little longer, staring at the ceiling, letting his body remember where it was. A real room. A real mattress.

He had slept far more than he expected.

Neo reached for his phone and checked the screen.

There were a few messages waiting for him.

One was from Snot.

How are you feeling? Want to meet one of these days? We need to talk about what we’re doing now that Max and Marika are out.

Neo read that one twice before moving on.

The next was from Richards.

Hey, Neo. We didn’t get to talk the other day. Come by my apartment when you can.

Cedric had left one too.

Thank you for what you told me. If you find anything interesting out there, I hope you’ll let me know.

Neo lowered the phone for a moment, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the folded paper he had kept there. Just nine digits. Nothing else. He knew exactly whose they were.

’Why did she even give me this?’

His thumb rubbed once across the paper before he unfolded it properly.

’Last time Snot said she wanted to talk to me, but why? A girl like that doesn’t just hand her number to someone for nothing. Is she trying to recruit me into her family? If that’s it, I’m not interested. I’m not putting myself under someone.’

He opened the contacts app, entered the number, and saved it without any nickname.

Vivienne Mourne.

That was enough.

He put the phone down on the table beside the bed and leaned back for a breath before calling up his status.

The Soul Window unfolded in front of him.

[Soul-Window]

Name: Neo

Age: 16

Soul Core: Vein

[200/2500 Vein]

Primary Class: Soul Reaver

Rank: Divine

Description: A divine class that can steal and store the classes of people, Soul Beasts, and even gods.

[Extra Info!]

Secondary Classes:

Duskmane Beast - Ascendant

Mastery: Mid

Abilities:

Beast Regeneration - Unlocked

Beast Strength - Unlocked

Soul Reader - Legendary

Mastery: Low

Abilities:

Soul Window Reading through physical contact - Unlocked

Soul Window Reading without physical contact - More mastery required

Thoughts and emotions reading - More mastery required

Glassbrood Spider - Ascendant

Abilities:

High Poison Resistance - Unlocked

Metal Threads - More mastery required

Berserk Swordsman - Saint

Abilities:

Frenzy: In a frenzied state, your senses dull, but Strength and Agility increase by 50%.

Relentless Pursuit - More mastery required

Iron Hunger - More mastery required

Soul Relics:

The Thousand-Form Relic - Divine

Stored Forms:

Sword - Rare

Gravebite - Ascendant

Attribute Enhanced:

Bleed -> Endless Bleeding

Twin Fangs of the Mourning Executioner - Saint

Description: A paired set of blades once carried by the six-armed guardian of the throne.

Venomfang:

Spreads a deep-acting poison with every cut.

Gravefang:

Rips wounds wider and worsens blood loss.

Paired Effect:

When both blades wound the same target in close succession, the target’s movement slows and the body begins to fail from within.

Vagabond’s Rag - Common

Description: Minor protection against physical blows.

Neo read through it all without blinking.

Four secondary classes.

For someone who had awakened not long ago, it was absurd. Even he had to admit that. Plenty of people would kill for one good class and spend years trying to squeeze something respectable out of it. He already had four stacked behind a Divine primary, a Divine relic, and enough growth in one month to make most awakeneds sound like a joke beside him.

’Not bad.’

That thought stayed for less than a breath.

Something else had already pulled his attention.

[Extra Info!]

That was new.

Neo focused on it, and the window shifted.

A new line appeared.

[(...) He could no longer endure the feelings and impulses that piled up as his power increased. By taking in more power than he could control, he began to lose his mind. He had to learn to contain himself.]

Neo frowned.

’Feelings? Impulses? What is that supposed to mean? Nothing like that’s happened to me.’

The Soul Window answered him again, this time more directly.

[Each time you obtain a new class, a fragment of that soul remains with you.]

[Its impulses, desires, instincts, and emotional residue do not vanish.]

[Your soul stores more than power.]

[It stores fragments.]

[Those fragments remain within you.]

[Obtaining a class is not the same as obtaining an item.]

Neo stayed still after reading that.

That explanation took a moment to sink in properly, and when it did, it left behind something cold.

So that was the cost.

Not pain or some some obvious corruption spreading over his body. Not a simple limit like soul essence consumption or a cooldown he could measure. Every class he took left something behind. A residue. An instinct. A hunger. A way of seeing things that had once belonged to someone else or something else. That meant he was not only stacking abilities inside himself. He was storing traces of lives, creatures, urges, and half-buried compulsions that had nowhere else to go.

’That’s bad.’

He thought of the boss in the tower. The shifting faces. The violent changes in mood. He thought of the Duskmane and the raw pull of violence that came with Beast Strength when he pushed it hard enough. He thought of the spider class, the poison, the threads, the patient predatory way those creatures had built nests and rationed food.

’So if I keep taking classes carelessly, I could end up carrying every piece of filth that came with them.’

That was a real problem.

Soul Reaver was still absurdly powerful. It let him grow in a way that should not have been possible. It made the rest of the world look slow. But that same path had a rot built into it. Not immediate, not loud, not the kind of thing that announced itself before it was already wrapped around your throat.

Neo let out a breath and dragged a hand down his face.

He would have to pay attention from now on. Not only to what a class could do, but to what kind of thing it had belonged to. Some classes might be strong enough to tempt him and filthy enough to make the price worse than the gain. That meant he could not keep consuming everything just because he could.

Even with that, he could not deny the truth.

He had grown enormously in a ridiculous amount of time. That part felt good. Dangerous, but good.

Neo let the Soul Window fade and reached for the phone again. His thumb hovered for a moment over the contact list before finding the name he had added just minutes earlier.

Vivienne Mourne.

He opened the chat and stared at the empty space waiting for a message.

’What am I even supposed to write?’

A dozen bad options crossed his mind and died there. Anything too formal sounded stupid. Anything relaxed sounded even worse. In the end, he went with the simplest thing he could think of.

hello?

The reply came so quickly it looked as if she had been waiting with the screen open.

finally you speak to me, white-haired boy

Neo stared at the message, expression flattening as the warmth of the sunset stretched across the room behind him.

’She really was waiting.’