SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 208: The Dream Beneath the Waves

Darkness. Not the kind born of night or closed eyes, but something deeper—a weightless void where time seemed to pool rather than pass. Then, the pull began.

I wasn’t falling. I was being drawn.

The world came into focus in slow, uneven pieces—cold wind cutting through my clothes, the damp, musky scent of earth and moss, and the rich undertone of meat cooking over open flame. I stood at the edge of a forest clearing, surrounded by towering trees that swayed as if whispering secrets to one another. The shadows danced across my skin from the firelight, flickering in erratic rhythms that should have been extinguished by the biting wind.

In the center of the clearing, three figures crouched near a fire. They were lean, all sinew and instinct, dressed in hides and fur. Primitive in a way that wasn’t just about appearance—it was in their movement, their posture, the sharpness of their eyes. Survival carved into every line of their bodies. Two men and one woman, weathered and focused, their faces painted with ash and intent.

They were communicating, though not with words I recognized. Their language was a series of guttural grunts, layered with clicks and gestures. Every sound was purposeful, every signal honed over repetition and trust. There was no System window, no digital overlay guiding them. And yet, as I observed, something shimmered.

Above the younger man’s head, a faint flicker hung in the air like a dying ember refusing to go out.

[Skill: Tracking Lv. 1]

He rose suddenly, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the wind. His hand pointed sharply toward the trees, a gesture so decisive that the other two followed without question. The woman, older and likely their leader, made a series of hand signals. Orders. Intent. Strategy. And then they moved, their bodies low and silent, vanishing into the forest with barely a sound.

I moved with them, unseen.

Branches snapped underfoot, but not theirs. They moved like shadows given shape—intent made flesh. The younger man’s movements were fluid, eyes scanning the underbrush, every sense engaged. He knelt beside a small stream, pressed his hand into the mud, and studied it.

A small pulse glowed above him.

[Tracking Lv. 1] → [Tracking Lv. 2]

The upgrade was subtle, almost reluctant, as if the world itself was hesitating to give this moment too much weight. But it was undeniable. Progress.

Not through data. Not through systems.

Through experience.

They found their prey half a mile beyond the stream—a deer, thin and trembling, its sides shivering from the cold. The woman gave another signal. The men moved. A flurry of motion, then silence. The deer collapsed. It had been swift. Respectful. No cheers followed. No celebration.

Instead, the woman knelt beside the creature, whispered something to it in their harsh, unshaped tongue, and touched its cooling body. A ritual, not for show but for balance. They offered thanks to the forest.

And then, as they began to cut into the animal, the younger man turned his head.

His gaze passed over the trees, narrowed, then landed on me.

He said nothing at first. Just stared.

The woman looked up next. Her eyes sharpened, her hand reaching for a blade made of stone and bone. Her posture turned guarded. She muttered something to the others.

I stepped forward, slowly. Not threatening. Just curious.

The man furrowed his brow, his expression a mixture of confusion and awe. He took one hesitant step in my direction.

"Who... you?" he asked, or something close to it. The language wasn’t perfect, but I understood the intention.

I opened my mouth, but the wind surged, swirling with a force that wasn’t natural. The clearing blurred. Time pulled.

And before I could answer, before I could explain—I was gone.

Before finding myself in a scent of parchment and ink that hit me hard. Old, rich, almost sour—like time itself had soaked into the fibers of the room. A creaking chair shifted, wood groaning beneath age and weight. Candles guttered in iron sconces, their flames flickering against the breeze slipping through the warped windowpanes. I was in a study, small and overburdened, every flat surface buried under drifts of paper, cracked books, and brass instruments. Ink pots sat beside polished lenses, compass needles, and crumpled drafts torn from a restless hand.

At the center of it all, hunched forward over a heavy desk, sat a man whose silhouette I knew before he turned. The powdered wig, the heavy cloak draped over narrow shoulders, the hunched posture of obsession. Isaac Newton. I didn’t need the faint shimmer of a name hovering above him to recognize the gravity in the room.

There were no level tags. No floating indicators. Yet the air itself buzzed with anticipation, like it knew what I was witnessing.

He muttered to himself, voice dry and low. Latin scribbled in long strokes across the parchment. Curves and arcs danced beneath his fingers. He scratched out terms with a sound of frustration, mumbled about mass and void, about the motion of spheres. He wasn’t inventing gravity—not exactly. He was translating it, decoding it from a language the world had never learned to speak.

Then he paused.

A sound outside—soft, almost insignificant. The thump of something falling onto soft grass.

I followed his gaze to the narrow, rain-streaked window just beside the desk.

An apple.

It had fallen from a crooked branch, bouncing once on the roots below.

Newton rose slowly, as if pulled by invisible cords. He walked to the window and opened it, letting in a gust of sharp, damp air. Reaching through the frame, he retrieved the fruit, then turned it over in his hand, studying its weight.

There—then—I saw it.

A shimmer. Faint but unmistakable.

[Observation Skill Recognized: Gravity — Theoretical Foundation skill acquired]

The tag appeared and blinked once before fading into the dim air. He didn’t see it. Couldn’t. But something deep in his expression changed. His lips parted. His breath caught.

"It all pulls," he whispered, almost reverently. "Even this."

He brought the apple back inside, set it gently on the desk, and returned to his papers with a fever in his eyes. Quill in hand, he drew a perfect arc, then broke the line and wrote: centripetum.

I moved closer, unable to stop myself. Just a single step. The floorboard creaked beneath my weight.

Newton froze.

His quill hovered mid-air. Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned his head toward me.

"Who—?"

His eyes locked on mine. Blue-gray. Sharp with fatigue, yet shining with the thrill of discovery.

He stood straighter. "Are you a student? From the Royal Society?"

I opened my mouth, unsure of what to say. I wasn’t supposed to be seen. Not here. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel-com

But he didn’t wait for an answer. "You saw it, didn’t you? The way it fell. The angle." His hand gestured toward the window. "It must be proportional to the square of the distance. There is order to it. A symmetry."

"I know," I said, softly. "And you’re right."

His breath hitched.

"I’ve spent months trying to grasp this," he murmured, almost to himself. "And you speak of it as if it’s already understood."

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. The moment was already unraveling. The room shimmered at the edges, as if reality were water and someone had cast a stone into it.

Newton took a half-step forward. "Tell me—are you from Cambridge? You don’t look like a man from London. That accent—"

He never finished the question.

The floor vanished.

The room stretched out like ink across paper, drawn into a single, blinding point.

And then I was gone once again.

The air reeked of salt, cordite, and blood. I was flat on my stomach now, boots half-sunken in black mud. The ground shook beneath me like a dying creature, trembling under the relentless pounding of artillery fire. Around me: chaos. Shouts in a dozen languages tore through the smoke. Explosions stitched fire across the sky. Somewhere to my left, a man screamed—not in pain, but in fury—and then fell silent.

This was war.

A trench sprawled ahead, gaping like the mouth of some buried god. Soldiers moved through it like phantoms, faces painted with grime and panic. Yet they moved. Some carrying others. Some dragging rifles. Some just running.

One of them caught my eye.

A boy. No older than twenty. Maybe younger. His fingers were trembling where they clutched the rifle too tight, knuckles white against rusted metal. His helmet was crooked, his coat too large. He didn’t belong here.

And yet—

The tag hovered faintly over his head.

[Survival Instinct’s recognized - Adaptive Skill Learning acquired]

He flinched as a shell screamed down nearby, shrapnel ripping the air. Dirt and blood erupted around him. He didn’t scream. He didn’t freeze.

He moved.

He lunged forward, scrambled over the lip of the trench, slipped into cover, dragging another man down with him—a soldier whose eyes had already glazed over, body too limp to survive the next barrage.

He didn’t stop to think. His body was learning.

And as the thunder of war surged around us, I saw it update.

[Combat Reflex Lv. 1] → [Combat Reflex Lv. 2]

I moved with him—just outside reality. A ghost trailing the living. My boots left no mark. My coat never caught mud. They couldn’t see me. Not really.

Except...

He did.

The boy looked up from the wounded man’s side, face smeared with ash and fear and stubborn life. And somehow, through the layers of firelight and dust, his eyes met mine.

He didn’t recoil.

He blinked. Confused. Still breathing hard. Still clutching his rifle like it was his last tether to the world.

"You’re doing good," I said.

My voice cut through the dream like a wire pulled tight. I didn’t know why I said it. Maybe because someone should’ve told me that once. Maybe because he needed to hear it.

He stared at me, stunned.

"...Am I dead?" he asked, his voice cracking like dry wood.

"No," I said gently. "But you’re surviving. Don’t stop."

And then the light behind him changed.

The smoke peeled away.

The world bent like glass under heat.

Someone was calling my name.

The battlefield dissolved into static. The trench, the boy, the screams—all of it disintegrated like ash on the wind. And just before I vanished, I saw him again, crawling forward.

Everything fell away for a moment.

Until I landed in fire again—but this time it wasn’t a dream.

It was my own body.

Pain bloomed across my spine like a flare. My lungs felt like they were breathing sand.

"Reynard!"

Alexis’s voice.

The real one.

I blinked hard. The sky was blue—too blue. Harsh sun beat down through gaps in a forest canopy. Leaves rustled nearby, and the salty bite of ocean air mixed with the scent of char and cloth and blood.

I turned my head slowly.

We were on an island. The life raft had been dragged to shore. The others lay nearby, wrapped in makeshift blankets.

And Alexis was leaning over me, pressing cool fingers against my pulse.

Her eyes were red. But she smiled.

"Welcome back."

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