Breathing

As his consciousness drifted upward from a deep pool of water, Richard slowly opened his eyes.

The ceiling was white plaster, with a long, thin crack running along the corner of the wall.

He stared at that crack for about ten seconds, his mind blank, much like a computer that had just booted up and hadn't finished loading its software.

Memories began to flood in.

One set belonged to Earth: riding a shared bike home involved an uphill stretch, and he had to get off and push during the most strenuous part every single time.

His physique was poor; the doctor said he was congenitally weak, and colds and fevers were a daily occurrence, leading his roommates to often call him a "skinny dog."

After work, he liked to hang out on folklore forums, scrolling through posts about field research that were half-true and half-false.

He was well-versed in the witchcraft traditions, folk spiritual rituals, and shamanic cultures of various regions.

He had written a few amateur research papers and was considered somewhat well-known in those circles.

The other set belonged to this place: the winter in Briston, the cobblestone streets, and the smell of tobacco in his father's study.

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

The Williams family had rarely attended such appointments, and the cost of the round-trip tickets had made his father wince in pain for quite a while.

But his mother had insisted on going, saying that his grandfather had specifically requested their presence.

At the gathering, his cousin had pulled him aside and fished a small object out of his pocket to hand to him:

"A gift for you. They say it's an old artifact from the Eastern Continent. Just hang it on yourself for fun."

It was a thumb-sized copper pendant with a patina on its surface, engraved with symbols he couldn't understand.

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

From that day on, his health had deteriorated day by day.

At first, it was just fatigue, a constant feeling of not having slept enough.

Later, his hands and feet turned cold, and no amount of sitting by the fire could warm them up.

By the fifth day, he started coughing and developed a low-grade fever.

His mother brewed ginger soup and called the neighborhood doctor, who said it was just a common cold and prescribed a few doses of medicine.

But after taking the medicine, his fever spiked to a scorching heat in the night, and he never woke up again.

The memories collided here, seeping into each other like wet mud, merging together.

The boundaries blurred more and more until they finally became the same person.

Richard quickly accepted the status quo.

He was alive, and this was another world, so he would just have to figure out the situation first.

He turned his head to look out the window.

On the rooftops across the street, there were dozens of chimneys, each spitting columns of black, gray smoke into the sky.

In the distance, some kind of large machine was running, and its low-frequency vibrations traveled through the foundation and into the room.

This was Briston; Richard rolled the name over in his mind.

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

Using concepts from his previous life, the civilian technology was roughly pre-World War II, except this world had a few... other things.

Just as he bent down to feel for his socks under the bed, an information slot hovered at the edge of his vision:

[Physique]

Breathing Lv.-- Exp: -/-

Sleeping Lv.-- Exp: -/-

Walking Lv.-- Exp: -/-

Eating Lv.-- Exp: -/-

[Intellect]

Scholarship Lv.-- Exp: -/-

Reasoning Lv.-- Exp: -/-

Perception Lv.-- Exp: -/-

[Spirit] (Locked)

Sure enough, he had a golden finger!

Richard hurriedly began to explore with a sense of excitement.

The branches under the two major categories of "Physique" and "Intellect" were visible, but they bounced back whenever he touched them, as if they hadn't been activated yet.

The "Spirit" category only showed a blurry lock symbol; he tried to touch the lock with his consciousness, but there was no reaction at all.

He touched it once more, and another, smaller prompt appeared beneath the lock:

[All four Physique attributes must be unlocked for this gate to open]

The condition was clear: unlock all four items under Physique—Breathing, Sleeping, Walking, and Eating—and Spirit would open.

As for what was actually inside Spirit... he withdrew his focus, deciding not to think about it for now.

[Available points: 0]

Having nothing felt rather uncomfortable.

His gaze swept over the nightstand, where the pendant lay.

His mother must have taken it off and set it there while caring for him after the fever.

Richard reached out to pick it up, intending to put it away and find a place to throw it out later.

Yet, the moment his fingertips touched the copper surface, the panel shifted.

[Available points: 0.1]

He froze.

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

He did not let go, and the number continued to climb.

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

Richard flipped the pendant over, turning it between his fingers.

0.82... 0.91...

The last wisp of energy seeped out from the copper surface, so thin it was almost imperceptible.

[Available points: 1]

The number stopped.

Richard placed the pendant back in his palm and waited a while longer, but it did not rise again.

He had grown weaker every day while wearing this thing, and after the fever, he had died.

Richard put the pendant back on the nightstand.

Did his cousin Vincent know there was something wrong with this thing?

He would not jump to conclusions yet, but he had to keep this in mind.

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

He tried focusing his attention on the various branches of Physique and Intellect.

He could invest in any of them, but with only one point, he could only choose one.

He ran through the options in his mind.

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

But these three shared a common trait: they all required active effort to accumulate experience.

One had to read to increase Scholarship, think to increase Reasoning, and observe to increase Perception.

Efficiency depended on how much energy he invested, and energy itself was limited by his body.

The current state of this body was, frankly, a broken pot.

If he wanted to fix the pot before filling it, he had to look at Physique.

Sleeping: one was unconscious while sleeping, the physical sensation was weakest, and ten hours a day was the limit.

Walking: walking consumed energy, and this body panted just from walking quickly.

Eating: eating was limited by food supply, and given the situation in this household...

In his memories, his mother would subconsciously calculate every time she cooked.

How many more days could this butter last, could the broth be watered down and reheated for another meal.

Eating well was clearly not a realistic prospect.

Breathing: it happened every moment, required no active intervention, consumed no extra energy, and relied on no external resources.

Logically, this was not a difficult choice.

He focused his attention on the word "Breathing" and pushed his consciousness toward it.

A line of text appeared: "Confirm?"

Richard thought for about half a second and pressed it.

The gray color faded faster than he had expected.

[Breathing] Lv.1 Experience: 0/200

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

Richard subconsciously took a breath.

In this industrial age, the city air was filled with coal smoke, sulfur, rust, and furnace ash.

Most of the adults here suffered from asthma; the mild cases coughed through autumn and winter, while the severe ones carried it until the day they died.

His own lungs had been soaked in this smog since he was a child, and a piece of damp cotton always seemed to reside in his chest, to the point that he had long forgotten that it wasn't a normal sensation.

Yet, after adding the point, he felt for the first time that breathing was such a wonderful thing.

He glanced at the numbers:

[Breathing] Lv.1 Experience: 1/200

It had increased by one point, as subtle as the blood flow in a capillary, but it was moving.

He estimated in his mind:

A normal breathing rate was about fifteen times a minute, nine hundred times an hour, and over twenty thousand times a day.

At the current rate, he would likely max out the experience in about two weeks.

He felt a sense of anticipation regarding what changes would occur once the experience was maxed out.

Tucking this matter into a corner of his mind, Richard pulled on his other sock and stood up to find his shirt.

The scent of toasted bread drifted all the way up from downstairs.

Dressed, he examined himself carefully in the wardrobe mirror.

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

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

He was a scrawny kid, too.

He thought this to himself, adjusted his collar, pushed open the door, and headed downstairs.

The dining room was small but kept clean.

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

He was sipping black tea while reading the Briston Post.

"You're up." His father turned a page of the newspaper, which served as his greeting.

"Yeah." Richard sat down in his chair.

"Is your throat still hurting?"

"It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Be careful at school today, don't let the wind hit you."

"I know."

From the kitchen, his mother's voice drifted out: "Richard, how many slices of bread can you eat today?"

"Two slices are enough."

"Two slices aren't nearly enough, look how thin you are." His mother nagged: "I'll add an egg for you."

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

Her features were delicate, her skin pale.

Her gait was light and slow, and she would occasionally press her chest unconsciously.

The old habit of poor breathing, when seen in a beautiful woman, carried a certain fragile aesthetic.

The fragments he could piece together from his memory were few:

His mother came from the Ashford Family in the Imperial Capital, but her status there seemed low.

Every time she mentioned her father's house, her tone was always indifferent.

His younger sister, Evelyn, was the last to come downstairs.

Her hair was half-hidden, and her ribbon was only half-tied, with the other end drooping.

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

She had inherited their mother's beauty, and her fifteen-year-old vitality filled that beauty with fullness and life.

What Richard had inherited was the other side of his mother—that frail constitution that couldn't withstand a gust of wind.

"Sit properly." His father didn't look up, as usual.

Evelyn glanced at Richard, looking a bit confused.

She noticed that her brother was a little different today.

His mother brought the items out and set them on the table:

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

Richard looked at the egg that only he had received and sighed inwardly; the situation in this household was not exactly optimistic.

His father put down the newspaper: "The tuition for Greenwood this year is twenty percent higher than last year."

Richard did not lower his head and pretend not to hear, as he had in the past: "I've been thinking about finding a part-time job lately."

At this, even Evelyn looked up at him.

"What kind of part-time job?"

"I'm still looking," Richard said. "The library might have an assistant position, or maybe something like transcribing documents. It shouldn't interfere with my classes."

His father frowned. "Get your grades up first, then we can talk about part-time work."

Evelyn stirred her tea with a spoon and whispered, "I could also..."

"You just focus on your classes."

The girl hunched her shoulders, lowered her head, and concentrated on her piece of bread.