Tristan stood in the dim corridor just outside Alaric's study, his fingers trembling as he tapped the translucent blue air.
Elara was already walking back toward her father, the heavy genealogical scroll tucked under her arm, her hips swaying with a confident, satisfied rhythm.
Tristan needed a moment.
He needed to be more than a panicked NEET.
[ CURRENT UNALLOCATED POINTS: 100 ]
He didn't hesitate. He had seen what a 1st Circle existence got him—beaten, robbed, and humiliated.
He looked at the stats.
[ STRENGTH: 10 ]
[ MANA: 10 ]
[ IQ: 15 ]
[ DURABILITY: 10 ]
[ ESCHATON LEVEL: 10 ]
IQ, he thought. I need to be able to see the world for what it is.
I need to understand the magic, the politics, and the lies.
He poured 85 points into IQ and the remaining 15 into his weapon.
[ ALLOCATING... ]
[ STRENGTH: 10 / 1000 ]
[ MANA: 10 / 1000 ]
[ IQ: 100 / 1000 ]
[ DURABILITY: 10 / 1000 ]
[ ESCHATON LEVEL: 25 / 1000 ]
The change wasn't a ripple this time; it was a thunderclap inside his skull.
The world didn't just get clearer; it became structured.
As he stepped back into Alaric's study, Tristan noticed things he had been blind to minutes before.
He saw the precise angle of the dust motes dancing in the afternoon sun.
He recognized the specific chemical scent of the ink Alaric used—a mix of gallnut and iron sulfate.
He could suddenly parse the complex rhythm of Alaric's breathing, noting a slight wheeze that suggested a mild heart condition.
His brain, which had previously felt like a cluttered, disorganized hard drive, was suddenly defragmented.
Information didn't just sit there; it connected.
He felt… competent.
For the first time in his life, he felt like he was actually "present" in the room.
"Ah, you've returned," Alaric said, looking up from his tea.
His eyes darted from Tristan's flushed face to Elara's slightly disheveled hair and the missing lace at the top of her bodice.
A slow, mischievous grin spread across the scholar's face.
"The vault is a dangerous place for a young man, Tristan. One can get lost in the dark for quite some time. I trust you found... everything you were looking for?"
"Father," Elara said, her voice sharp but her eyes twinkling as she slapped the heavy scroll onto the table.
"Don't be a lecher. It took time because the silver seal was buried under the records of the Third Dynasty."
Alaric cleared his throat, though he didn't look particularly chastened.
He pulled the scroll toward him, his expression turning professional as he broke the ancient wax seal.
"Let us see the ghosts of your past, Lord Silverbrook."
Tristan sat down, leaning forward.
His new IQ allowed him to track the text as Alaric unrolled it.
The script was a dead language, yet Tristan's brain was already starting to identify recurring phonemes and syntax structures.
"Silverbrooks appear at massive intervals," Alaric explained, his finger tracing a line of gold-leaf text.
"It makes recording their lives difficult. Before you, there was Mordecai, five centuries ago. But before him..."
Alaric's finger stopped.
"Lucian Silverbrook. He appeared roughly eight hundred years ago. A fascinating figure. Unlike the artists and dreamers of other eras, Lucian was a man of cold, hard steel. His primary interests were military mastery, horsemanship, and statecraft. He didn't care for painting or mechanical toys. He spent his days practicing the 'three manly sports': wrestling, archery, and horse riding."
Tristan's mind clicked into gear.
Wrestling.
Archery.
Horse riding.
The three manly sports of the Steppe.
"He organized an empire that spanned half the known world," Alaric continued.
"He implemented a code of law so strict that it was said a woman could carry a sack of gold from one end of his territory to the other without fear of being touched. He was a conqueror who rebuilt the world in his image."
Genghis Khan, Tristan thought, his heart sinking.
Temujin was a Silverbrook?
Alaric rolled the scroll further back, his eyes widening.
"And here... Eldric Silverbrook. Fifteen hundred years ago. A man of quiet, intense brilliance. His passions were advancing mathematics—arithmetic, algebra, and the study of triangles. He was obsessed with the movement of the planets and developed shadow instruments to measure the earth itself. They say he was the first to suggest that the world was a sphere that rotated on an axis."
Aryabhatta, Tristan's brain supplied instantly.
The father of Indian mathematics. Another one.
Alaric was breathing harder now, caught up in the sheer weight of the history.
"And the last one on this specific record... Rowan Silverbrook. Two thousand years ago. A man whose play was more dangerous than most men's work. He built innovative war machines that could pluck ships from the sea. He studied the buoyancy of water and the geometry of the spheres. He was famous for running through the streets of the capital naked because he'd solved a mathematical problem in his bath."
Archimedes.
Tristan put his hands to his face, his elbows resting on his knees.
He felt a wave of nausea. This wasn't just a list of heroes; it was a list of the foundational pillars of human civilization.
Da Vinci, Genghis Khan, Aryabhatta, Archimedes. These were the men who had defined art, war, mathematics, and science for the human race.
And then there was him.
Kobayashi Masaru.
A man who had spent a decade in a room filled with piss bottles.
A man whose greatest contribution to society was a high-level character in an MMO.
A "gooner" who was only standing here because he'd gotten lucky with a prompt.
I am a mistake, he thought, the imposter syndrome clawing at his throat. The System pulled the wrong soul.
I'm the 'Silverbrook' of the age of decay. I'm the successor to Archimedes, and I'm just trying not to have a panic attack because a girl touched me.
Alaric looked at him, noticing the way Tristan flinched. "Each Silverbrook had his own passion, Tristan. His own unique set of skills. But there was one constant. According to the records, every single one of them was at least a 9th or 10th Circle mage by the time they reached their zenith. They weren't just men; they were forces of nature."
Tristan felt like he was suffocating. He looked at his system.
[ TOTAL POINTS ALLOCATED: 150 / 5000 ]
[ RANK: 1ST CIRCLE ]
He needed 250 points just to reach the 2nd Circle. He was sitting at 150. He was a flea standing in the shadow of giants. He couldn't be a savior.
He couldn't lead an army or invent calculus. He was just a survivor who had traded a few hours of intimacy for a bit of brainpower.
"I... I need to go," Tristan whispered, standing up. "I need some air."
"Tristan?" Elara called out, her voice concerned, but he was already out the door.
Somewhere Else
The horizon was an endless, rolling sea of golden grassland.
There were no mountains, no cities, no landmarks—just a vast expanse of green and gold under a sky that remained a perpetual, soft twilight.
In the middle of this infinite plain, two men sat at a simple low table.
The first man had unruly brown hair and wore a simple, loose-fitting tunic.
He looked relaxed, almost bored, as he sipped from a delicate porcelain tea cup.
Across from him sat a man with jet-black hair and eyes that seemed to contain the depth of a starless night.
He was dressed in a dark, structured robe that looked both ancient and timeless.
The black-haired man set a scroll down on the table.
"Valdoria just reported a Silverbrook," he said, his voice calm.
The brown-haired man's eyes widened for a split second, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his features.
Then, he leaned back, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his face. He picked up his tea, looking out over the endless grass.
"A Silverbrook?" the brown-haired man mused.
"After five hundred years? I thought the local mana-pool had dried up too much for an import."
He took a sip of tea, his smile turning into something more intrigued, more expectant.
He looked at his companion, his gaze sharp.
"So," the brown-haired man asked.
"He did the thing again?"
The black-haired man didn't answer.
He simply looked at the horizon, where the wind was beginning to pick up, rippling through the grass like a coming storm.
The game had begun. Again.