The first days after Kaiden woke were quiet, punctuated only by the soft rustle of healer robes and the low chanting of restorative incantations. He drifted in and out of sleep, weak as a paper lantern in the rain. The physicians said it would take time — that whatever had surged through him had taxed something deeper than the body. The soul, perhaps.
Nik remained at his side.
But Kaiden was not idle. Not completely. On the third day, his fingers moved. On the fourth, he whispered a question.
[ Kaiden ]
"Where's my card, Pops?"
Nik hesitated, then handed over the Ki Card, darker now, almost reluctant to shine. Kaiden held it, the surface cool to his touch.
The word, Skill: Analyze pulsed faintly at the bottom.
He didn't know what it meant.
Not yet.
When Kaiden could stand, he was taken outside in a wheeled cot. The air was cold and sharp, but he welcomed it like an old friend.
That's when he saw them.
Rangers returning from a snow wyvern cull. They bore sacks of loot — talons, cracked scales, fangs dulled by age. Worthless to most. Valuable only when pristine.
But something tugged at Kaiden.
A strange… instinct.
Like a whisper in the back of his mind.
He reached for one of the cracked scales. The ranger, bemused, gave it to him.
As Kaiden touched it, something awakened.
A flicker of light danced over his eyes, barely noticeable. Then a ghostly window appeared before him, floating just above the scale.
[ HEART ]
[ Wyvern Scale - Cracked ]
Durability: 3/50
Market Value: 2 Copper
He gasped.
Nik noticed. So did the ranger.
[ Kaiden ]
"I saw something…"
[ Ranger Owen ]
"What are you talking about, kid?"
Kaiden blinked. The window had vanished. But the truth remained.
[ Kaiden ]
"This isn't just junk."
Nik's brow furrowed.
That evening, back at the infirmary, Kaiden held the scale again. Concentrated. Willed the vision to return.
And it did.
Slowly, over the next few days, he tried it with other scraps — a torn troll hide, a rusted fang, even a piece of dried slime. The Analyze skill worked. But inconsistently. Erratically. Sometimes it wouldn't trigger. Sometimes it would overload him with information that left him dizzy.
But always — always — it revealed something others could not see.
Not long after, he asked the Concordium healers for monster remains. "Useless ones," he said. "Stuff you'd throw away."
The staff laughed at first. Then, curious, they complied.
And Kaiden began to catalog.
He learned that Analyze had tiers. He could feel it. The more he used it, the clearer the visions became. The more detail he could extract. Not just base properties, but hidden data, embedded deep within the spiritual essence of each item.
One night, alone, he touched a fragment of bone and nearly fainted as the window flared to life:
[ HEART ]
[ Bone Shard - Damaged ]
Durability: 8/25
Market Value: 1 Copper
Hidden Attribute: +0.000001 STR (Locked)
Note: Unlock condition requires continuous physical contact for 3 hours.
Kaiden's eyes widened. It wasn't just treasure. It was potential. That night, Nik found him asleep with the bone shard clutched in both hands.
And the next morning, when he awoke, his Ki Card flashed a subtle change.
Analyze: Tier 1 → Tier 1.5
He was growing.
Slowly.
In secret.
Quiet as the mist before dawn.
◈◈◈
The next few weeks passed in a hush, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Kaiden no longer asked about swords or spells. He asked for garbage.
[ Kaiden ]
"Scraps."
"Leftovers."
"The stuff nobody wants..."
Kaiden was pointing at bins outside the village forge or pestering adventurers unloading their loot.
"I'll take it."
It didn't matter how small the item was. If it came from a monster, he wanted it. Nik, of course, watched this with equal parts curiosity and concern.
[ Niklaus ]
"Kaiden, you know those bits won't get you stronger, right?"
"If it's stats you want, you'll need to train your body too."
Kaiden nodded, but didn't answer. Not directly.
He was too busy organizing.
Under his cot, he kept a wooden crate filled with his "finds." Notebooks filled with scribbles. Charts drawn by shaky, childish hands. Tally marks. Arrows. Questions like:
"How many touches to unlock a bone shard?"
"Do teeth give different stats than claws?"
"Can a cracked horn still evolve if I keep it close?"
He had no answers yet.
But the flickers were becoming more frequent.
Each night, when the healers dimmed the lanterns and silence fell, Kaiden would line up his items, one by one, and press his palms against them until sleep stole him away.
Sometimes nothing happened.
Other times…
[ HEART ]
[ Sludge Fang – Worn ]
Durability: 4/16
Market Value: 3 Copper
Hidden Attribute: +0.000001 AGI (Locked)
Note: Stat bonus only applies if kept within arm's reach for a week.
It was ridiculous. Insignificant. Who cared about a +0.000001 boost?
But Kaiden understood.
If one fang could give a fraction… then what about a hundred? A thousand? What if he collected them all?
He began to stack them.
Beneath his pillow. Inside his robes. Hidden in secret pouches sewn into his blanket.
And then, one day, it happened.
He picked up a shard of slime core and saw something new:
[ HEART ]
[ Slime Core Fragment – Dull ]
Durability: 2/10
Market Value: 1 Copper
Hidden Attribute: +0.000001 INT
[ PASSIVE ]
Instinctual Resonance – Reduces Analyze fatigue by 0.5%.
[ Kaiden ]
"…Passive?"
His hand trembled.
It was the first time an item had offered anything beyond a flat stat. It had changed something inside him. Made the skill easier to use. Smoothed the edges of the visions.
Analyze no longer made his head pound quite as much.
[ Kaiden ]
"So... the loot talks back now?"
He laughed.
He was five years old. Frail. Cursed. Forgotten.
But in his little world of scraps and whispers, Kaiden felt like a god.
One morning, the head healer, Sister Elenya, stopped by his cot. She held a dust-smeared marble between gloved fingers.
[ Sister Elenya ]
"Found this rolling around the storage hall."
"Monster loot, apparently."
"Want it?"
Kaiden took it gently.
[ Kaiden ]
"It's… warm?"
As his fingers closed around the smooth stone, the window appeared instantly—no hesitation, no delay.
[ HEART ]
[ Stone Marble – Pristine ]
Durability: 9/9
Market Value: 1 Silver
Hidden Attribute: +0.000002 STR
Note: Bonus attributes are only detectable via Tier 2+ Analyze.
But Kaiden could see it.
His heart raced.
[ Kaiden ]
"It changed again…"
He flipped his Ki Card open.
[ HEART STATUS ]
Name: Kaiden Stagin
Health: 17/50
Energy: 23/50
Attributes: [ STR: 1 | AGI: 1 | INT: 1 ]
Traits: Void of Aena
Skills: Analyze – Tier 1.5 (Progress: 74%)
He smiled.
[ Kaiden ]
"I'm close."
When the staff looked at him, they saw a quiet boy recovering from a magical collapse. But Nik saw it too now — there was a fire in Kaiden's eyes. Something relentless. Something terrifying.
He didn't want to be strong. He wanted to understand. And soon, he would.
◈◈◈
The next time Kaiden saw the marble, it wasn't under his pillow or in his crate — it was floating. Just slightly. Just enough to make him blink.
At first, he thought he was dreaming. Sleep had become a strange place lately.
Half vision, half memory. Shapes formed from scattered loot, dancing in spirals around his bed like a slow, silent storm. But this wasn't a dream.
The marble hovered. His fingers tingled.
[ Kaiden ]
"…Did I do that?"
Nik didn't answer — he was asleep nearby, arms crossed, mouth agape. A thread of snore vibrated the air. Kaiden stared harder. The marble lowered slightly.
Then again, he felt it. Not just tingling — pulling. A resonance, faint but unmistakable. Not from the item, but through it.
The connection wasn't physical. It was… systemic.
Like the marble knew him.
[ HEART ]
[ Connection Detected – Void Affinity Sync: 2.01% ]
Kaiden's breath caught.
[ Kaiden ]
"…Void Affinity?"
No explanation followed. The system didn't explain things — it revealed. It whispered. And Kaiden had learned: the whisper was always truer than the roar.
He placed the marble back in the crate and slid out his Ki Card again.
Still the same.
Still Tier 1.5.
Still 74%.
He exhaled and leaned back, looking up at the wood-beamed ceiling of the Concordium ward.
[ Kaiden ]
"Just a little more…"
The next few days were spent testing the phenomenon. Sometimes, items responded to him with strange effects — vibrations, light pulses, faint glows only he could see. Sometimes nothing happened at all.
But Kaiden kept notes. More than notes — experiments.
He no longer cataloged just what items were.
He began cataloging what they did to him.
Did the rusted fang improve his reflexes slightly? Or was it just adrenaline? Did the skeleton's bone shard let him lift a heavier satchel? Or was it his imagination?
He didn't know.
But he documented it all.
Under the cot, his museum of almost-nothings grew, like a shrine to forgotten scraps.
And then came the spider silk.
A Concordium apprentice delivered it with a wrinkled nose and a muttered complaint about "training refuse." It was light grey, frayed at the ends, knotted with old blood.
Kaiden thanked her with a smile.
He laid it flat across his lap. Waited.
Nothing.
No flicker. No window.
But something… else.
A feeling of tension in the air. Like the silence before a harp string snapped.
He blinked. Focused.
[ HEART ]
[ Widowthread Strand – Brittle ]
Durability: 2/7
Market Value: 2 Copper
Hidden Attribute: +0.000001 AGI
[ TRIGGERED EFFECT ]
Thread Memory – Grants +1% Analyze Tier Progression upon successful detection of similar-grade material. (Cooldown: 24hr)
Kaiden's heart skipped.
[ Kaiden ]
"Progress boost…?"
He pressed his palm against the silk again. The strand felt dry, almost like paper.
And yet, as he breathed and let the connection form, the tier bar shifted.
Analyze: Tier 1.5 → Tier 1.6 (Progress: 1%)
It was working.
And for the first time, Kaiden laughed — not a childish giggle, but a wild, breathless release. A sound that cracked in the throat from holding too much back for too long.
Nik stirred.
[ Niklaus ]
"…What now?"
[ Kaiden ]
"I leveled up Analyze with a string, Pops."
"A rotten string."
Nik blinked blearily.
[ Niklaus ]
"…You need sleep."
Kaiden shook his head.
[ Kaiden ]
"If junk makes me stronger…"
"Then I need a mountain of it!"