Morning arrived.

I was still in that room.

The night had been sleepless.

The only thought that had stayed with me was simple: how do I survive this world?

I had even considered taking the money and running. Find a quiet corner of the empire, live comfortably, and wait until the catastrophe arrives on its own schedule. Let someone else be the hero.

But then I remembered the pain.

I never wanted to feel that again.

So... I made a rough plan. Nothing detailed. Just enough to move forward.

According to Kael’s memories, Aria Ardyn was currently away visiting the capital for treatment. Excessive cold mana accumulating in her body. A side effect of her talent, apparently.

She will return in two weeks.

That gave me time.

I called for Luna.

She didn’t appear. Instead the blue screen flickered to life in her place.

[Lady Luna is unavailable. The System is here to assist with any queries she cannot answer.]

"Lady Luna," I whispered, almost amused. "She makes a twelve-year-old girl sound like royalty."

I shook it off and focused.

"Okay. Is there a side quest available for physical training?"

[No.]

"...Why?"

[The System does not provide tasks for mundane activities.]

"Mundane...?"

[Running. Exercising. Training the body. These are expected actions.] [Expected actions are not entertaining.]

I stared at the screen for a moment.

"So..." I whispered slowly, piecing it together. "My title is Trash but honestly, that title belongs to you a lot."

A pause.

"So what you’re saying is... if I do something completely unhinged, you’ll reward me?"

I let out a quiet laugh.

"Pft. What a system."

[Warning: Insulting the System may result in a penalty.]

The blood drained from my face.

"No. No. Wait..."

[Calm your tone, Host.]

I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

Slowly. Carefully. I sat back down on the bed.

Note to self, I thought. Do not insult the System.

A knock at the door.

"Young Master."

I waited a moment, then responded.

"Come in."

The door opened without a sound.

He was young, composed, dressed impeccably, carrying himself with the kind of stillness that most people spent years trying to fake. My father had assigned him as my personal butler recently.

But I knew what he really was.

An assassin.

His name was Sebastian Crowe.

"Young Master, your bath is ready," he said, his voice perfectly polite. Smooth. Giving absolutely nothing away.

I stood without a word and walked out.

The hallway was enormous, wide enough to comfortably fit a football match, with room left over for the spectators. Marble floors, high arched ceilings, the kind of architecture that existed purely to remind you how insignificant you were.

I walked.

Sebastian followed me quietly, precisely, not even the sound of a footstep betraying his presence.

An assassin playing butler, I thought, keeping my expression perfectly blank.

Interesting.

I wasn’t prepared for the bath.

The tub was built from stone and brick, decorated with gold trim, filled with rose water that steamed faintly in the cool morning air. The kind of thing that existed in period dramas and fever dreams.

I closed the door behind me.

Undressed slowly.

And made the mistake of looking down.

My stomach blocked the view entirely. Not partially. Entirely. I couldn’t see my feet. I couldn’t see anything below the equator of this miserable body.

Pathetic, I thought. Absolutely pathetic.

I lowered myself into the tub anyway.

Half an hour later, I stepped out. Sebastian was exactly where I had left him standing by the door, perfectly still, perfectly composed. As if he had spent the last thirty minutes doing absolutely nothing and found it completely acceptable.

"Young Master. Breakfast is prepared."

I considered it for a moment.

"I don’t want to eat."

My voice came out colder than I intended. Sebastian’s expression didn’t flicker.

The body was already carrying enough weight. The last thing I needed was to add more to it. And it wasn’t as if I could request a salad in a medieval fantasy mansion without raising every eyebrow in the building.

Baby steps, I thought. Start with not making it worse.

Sebastian watched him go.

The Young Master hadn’t shouted once this morning. Hadn’t demanded anything. Hadn’t looked at a single servant the way the original Kael used to like they were furniture that had inconvenienced him by existing.

He had simply walked. Quietly. Like someone who had somewhere to be and didn’t need anyone to know where.

Is he really the same person?

Sebastian filed the thought away and said nothing.

***

I made it back to my room quickly. The system had been flickering insistently the entire walk, like a notification I couldn’t swipe away.

"System."

[You have been awarded 5 Power Stones.]

"...Huh."

I stared at the screen.

"What did I do?"

[Host has earned their first Power Stones.] [Reason: Refusing breakfast despite having no prior discipline in this body. The higher beings found it unexpectedly entertaining.] [New Feature Unlocked: Shop]

I looked at the screen for a long moment.

So that was how it worked.

They weren’t rewarding grand gestures or heroic moments. They were rewarding the unexpected. A trash noble refusing food. A boy with every F-stat choosing discipline over comfort at seven in the morning.

Interesting.

A slow smile crossed my face, the first real one since waking up in this body.

If that’s all it takes to entertain them...

...this might be easier than I thought.

I opened the shop.

My mouth fell open.

Skills. Magic books. Equipment. Consumables. The shelves, if you could call them that stretched further than made any logical sense, were stacked with things I didn’t even have words for yet.

And then I spotted the other features.

Monthly. Premium Spin. A dozen other tabs I hadn’t even opened yet.

I clicked Monthly Spin without hesitating.

Luna appeared instantly and immediately began singing.

"Round and round the wheel goes! Where it stops, nobody knows~!"

The wheel was enormous. Prizes packed into every segment, more options than I could read before it blurred into motion. It spun for what felt like an eternity, colors bleeding together, and then

A flash of bright light.

"Congratulations~!" Luna announced, with entirely too much enthusiasm for someone who had recently introduced themselves by torturing me. "You have won Infinity Mana Breathing!"

I pulled up the description and read it carefully.

"So I can absorb natural mana just by breathing. Passively."

Luna nodded.

"Alright. How do I use it?"

She stared at me. That familiar, withering stare.

"Are you an idiot? Can you not see that you don’t even have a mana heart or a mana circle? You have nothing to channel it through."

"Then let’s make one."

Luna blinked. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked genuinely caught off guard.

I didn’t wait for her response.

I sat down on the floor, crossed my legs into a lotus position, closed my eyes

And began searching for it. The mana that Luna said I didn’t have the means to use.

She was right, technically. But that had never stopped me before.

I focused. Reached outward with something I didn’t have a name for yet. And slowly, like static resolving into a signal, I felt it.

Mana.

It was everywhere. Woven into the air, the walls, the floor beneath me. Faint, ambient, patient just waiting to be noticed.

It shocked me, honestly. Not that the mana existed I had expected that. What shocked me was Kael himself. A duke’s son. Born into one of the most powerful families in the empire, raised in a household ruled by the tenth Swordmaster.

And he had never done this. Not once.

No mana heart. No mana circle. Nothing.

In the novel, the difference had been explained. A mana heart was the foundation used by mages, a core that stored and processed magical energy. A mana circle served the same purpose for knights, structured differently to channel mana through the body rather than project it outward. Two paths, same starting point.

Both considered basic. Both considered essential.

Kael had neither.

I kept breathing. Keep pulling. Keep focusing.

And then something shifted deep in my chest. Something small and fragile and entirely new, like an ember catching for the first time.

[Congratulations.] [Mana Heart successfully created.]

[Mana Heart: Bronze Grade]

I opened my eyes.

Bronze, I thought. Bottom of the ladder.

That’s fine. Everything starts somewhere.

Luna stops smiling for the first time.

Name: Kael Ardyn

Title: Trash of Family, Fat Pig

Level: 1

Class: [NONE]

Strength: F

Dexterity: F

Agility: F

Endurance: F

Magic: F

Mana Heart: Bronze Grade

Active Abilities: None

Passive Abilities: None

Traits: None

Title Effect: [Fat Pig: Stamina drains at an accelerated rate.]