[Breathing]

His consciousness swam up from a deep pool, and Richard slowly opened his eyes.

A ceiling, white plaster, with an impossibly thin crack near the corner.

He stared at the crack for about ten seconds, his mind blank, like a computer that had just booted up and was still loading its software.

Memories began to pour in.

One set belonged to Earth: on his ride home on a shared bike, there was an uphill stretch he had to cross, and every time he reached the steepest part, he had to get off and push.

His body was in terrible shape. The doctor had said he was constitutionally weak; catching colds and running fevers was routine. His roommates often called him a "scrawny runt."

After work, he liked to spend time on folklore forums, browsing those half-true, half-fabricated field research posts.

He knew the witchcraft traditions, folk spirit-medium rituals, and shamanic cultures of various regions like the back of his hand.

He had written a few amateurish research pieces and was somewhat well-known in those circles.

The other set belonged to this world: Briston winters, cobbled streets, the smell of pipe tobacco in his father's study.

In the memories of the boy named Richard Williams, about ten days earlier, his mother's family had held a gathering in the Imperial Capital.

The Williams family rarely accepted invitations, and the cost of the round-trip tickets had pained his father for quite some time.

But his mother had insisted on going, saying her father had specifically asked for them.

At the gathering, his cousin had pulled him aside and taken a small object from his pocket.

"Here, it's for you. They say it's an old trinket from the Eastern Continent. Wear it for fun."

It was a thumb-sized copper pendant, tarnished on the surface, with incomprehensible symbols carved on the front.

The original Richard had thought it was interesting and hung it around his neck.

From that day on, his health had grown worse by the day.

At first, he had only felt tired, as if he could never get enough sleep.

Later, his hands and feet had gone cold, and no matter how close he sat to the fire, he couldn't warm up.

On the fifth day, he had started coughing and developed a low fever.

His mother had made him ginger soup and called the local doctor, who said it was just an ordinary chill and prescribed a few doses of medicine.

But after taking it, he had burned with a blazing fever that night and never woken up again.

The memories collided here, like wet clay seeping into itself, merging together.

Their boundaries grew more and more blurred until they became one person.

Richard accepted the situation quickly.

He was alive, and this was another world. First, he would figure out what was going on.

He turned his head to look out the window.

Across the street, more than a dozen chimneys crowded the rooftops, each belching a column of black-gray smoke into the sky.

Somewhere in the distance, a large machine was running. Its low-frequency vibrations traveled through the foundations and reached him.

This was Briston. Richard rolled the name around in his mind.

Briston was a manufacturing city in the Northern Industrial Zone of the Albion Empire, on the Western Continent, with a population of around two hundred thousand.

In terms of the previous life's concepts, civilian technology was at a pre-World War II level, except that this world had a few... other things.

As he bent down to feel around beneath the bed for a sock, a panel of information hovered at the edge of his vision:

[Physique]

Breathing Lv.-- Experience: -/-

Sleeping Lv.-- Experience: -/-

Walking Lv.-- Experience: -/-

Eating Lv.-- Experience: -/-

[Intellect]

Scholarship Lv.-- Experience: -/-

Reasoning Lv.-- Experience: -/-

Perception Lv.-- Experience: -/-

[Spirit] (Locked)

As expected, he had a cheat!

Richard hurriedly began exploring it, feeling a little excited.

He could see the branches under the two main categories, "Physique" and "Intellect," but whenever he touched one, it bounced back, as if it hadn't been activated yet.

The "Spirit" category showed only a blurry lock symbol. He tried touching it with his thoughts, but nothing happened.

When he tried again, a smaller line of text appeared beneath the lock:

[All Four Aspects of Physique must be unlocked before this gate can open]

The requirement was clear: unlock all four aspects under "Physique"—breathing, sleeping, walking, and eating—and then "Spirit" would become available.

As for what was inside "Spirit"... He drew back his attention and decided not to think about it yet.

[Available Points: 0]

Having nothing at all felt a little frustrating.

His gaze swept over the bedside table, where the pendant lay.

His mother had probably taken it off while caring for him after his fever and set it there.

Richard reached out and picked it up, intending to put it away somewhere and throw it out later.

But the instant his fingertips touched the copper, the panel changed.

[Available Points: 0.1]

He froze.

It had been zero just a moment ago, but now it was 0.1.

His fingers stayed on the pendant, and the number kept climbing.

0.45... 0.63... 0.71... Something was seeping out of the pendant.

Richard turned it over, rolling it between his fingers.

0.82... 0.91...

The last wisp of energy seeped from the copper, so faint he could barely feel it.

[Available Points: 1]

The number stopped.

Richard set the pendant back in his palm and waited a while, but it didn't rise any further.

He had grown weaker each day while wearing this thing, then died after coming down with a fever.

Richard put the pendant back on the bedside table.

Did his cousin Vincent know there was something wrong with it?

He wouldn't jump to conclusions, but he needed to remember this.

He looked back at the panel: [Available Points: 1].

He tried focusing on each branch under "Physique" and "Intellect."

He could invest in any of them, but he had only one point, enough for just one.

He went over the options in his mind.

The three under "Intellect"—Scholarship, Reasoning, and Perception—were all useful.

But they shared one trait: they all required deliberate action to accumulate experience.

Reading would raise Scholarship, thinking would raise Reasoning, and observing would raise Perception.

The rate depended on how much effort he put in, and his energy was limited by his body.

To put it plainly, this body was a busted old pot.

Fix the pot before filling it. That meant looking at "Physique."

Sleeping: while asleep, he was unconscious and had the weakest bodily awareness. Besides, he could sleep ten hours a day at most.

Walking: walking took energy, and this body was out of breath whenever he tried to walk quickly.

Eating: eating was limited by the food available, and this family's situation...

He remembered the unconscious calculations his mother made whenever she cooked.

How many more days the butter could last, whether she could water down the meat broth and heat it up for another meal.

The prospects for eating well were clearly bleak.

Breathing: it happened every moment, required no conscious effort, consumed no extra energy, and depended on no outside resources.

Logically, this wasn't a difficult choice.

He focused on the word "Breathing" and gently nudged it with his mind.

A line of text appeared: "Confirm?"

Richard thought for about half a second, then pressed it.

The gray faded faster than he'd expected.

[Breathing] Lv.1 Experience: 0/200

At first, a faint warmth spread from deep in his chest, as if a narrow tube inside him had gently been cleared.

Richard instinctively drew in a breath.

In this industrial age, the city air was full of coal smoke, sulfur, rust, and ash.

Most adults here suffered from breathing problems. The mild cases coughed in autumn and winter, while the severe ones carried it with them for the rest of their lives.

His own lungs had grown up steeped in that smoke. It always felt as if a lump of damp cotton lived in his chest, and he'd long since forgotten that this wasn't normal.

But after spending a point, he felt for the first time that breathing could be so wonderful.

He glanced at the number:

[Breathing] Lv.1 Experience: 1/200

It had gone up by one, as subtly as blood flowing through a capillary, but it was moving.

He estimated it in his head:

At a normal rate of about fifteen breaths per minute, that was nine hundred an hour and more than twenty thousand a day.

At this rate, he'd probably max it out in about two weeks.

He was looking forward to seeing what would change once he reached the maximum experience.

Tucking that thought away in a corner of his mind, Richard pulled on his other sock, got up, and went to look for a shirt.

The smell of bread on the grill floated up from downstairs.

After getting dressed, he carefully examined himself in the mirror on the wardrobe.

The person in the mirror had brown hair and gray eyes, with slightly prominent cheekbones and collarbones.

The shirt hung loosely on him, and he had to roll the cuffs twice so they wouldn't cover his fingers.

This one was a scrawny runt, too.

He straightened his collar and headed downstairs.

The dining room was small but tidy.

His father, Rogers, was already seated at the table.

He sipped his tea as he read the Briston Post.

"You're up." His father turned a page of the newspaper, greeting him in his usual fashion.

"Mm." Richard sat down.

"Does your throat still hurt?"

"No."

"Be careful at school today. Don't catch a chill."

"I know."

From the kitchen, his mother called, "Richard, how many slices of bread can you eat today?"

"Two will be enough."

"Two won't be enough. Look how thin you are." His mother chattered on. "I'll add an egg."

When his mother, Margaret, came out of the kitchen with a plate, Richard glanced at her.

She had delicate features and pale skin.

Her steps were light and slow, and every so often she unconsciously pressed a hand to her chest.

The old trouble with her breathing gave her a rather fragile beauty.

There weren't many fragments he could piece together from his memories:

His mother came from the Ashford Family in the Imperial Capital, but she didn't seem to hold a high position there.

Whenever she mentioned her father's family, her tone was always indifferent.

His younger sister, Evelyn, was the last one downstairs.

Her hair half-covered her face, and her ribbon was only half tied, with the other end dangling loose.

Evelyn was a year younger than him and had the same brown hair and gray eyes.

She had inherited their mother's beauty, and the vitality of her fifteen years made it bloom, full and bright.

Richard had inherited another side of their mother—the frail constitution that couldn't withstand a gust of wind.

"Sit up straight," his father said, as usual without looking up.

Evelyn glanced at Richard, a little puzzled.

She noticed that her brother seemed a little different today.

His mother brought the food over and set it on the table:

Toast and butter, a small dish of marmalade, two cups of tea, and the extra egg she had added for Richard.

Richard looked at the egg that only he had been given and sighed inwardly. This family's situation wasn't exactly good either.

His father put down the newspaper. "Greenwood's tuition is twenty percent higher this year than last."

Unlike before, Richard didn't lower his head and pretend not to hear. "I've been thinking about getting a part-time job."

Even Evelyn looked up at him.

"What part-time job?"

"I'm still looking," Richard said. "The library might have an assistant position, or I could help people transcribe things. It shouldn't interfere with classes."

Her father frowned. "Bring your grades up first. We'll talk about a part-time job after that."

Evelyn stirred her tea with a spoon and murmured, "I could help, too..."

"Just focus on your studies."

The girl hunched her shoulders and lowered her face, concentrating on the slice of bread.