That night, I did not sleep, even though my body was fatigued from exhaustion. I was not only exhausted from muscle soreness, but from being bone tired. I think this was true for me because I had a broken Aether Core that was vibrating at less than 5% of its capacity, like a phone with a low battery. The main reason that I did not sleep was that if I went to bed and slept, I would have to close my eyes. Sleeping with my eyes closed means that I am trusting that I will wake up when I open my eyes.
At that moment, I was not ready to trust anything about the world around me.
Therefore, I sat in my bedroom on the floor with my legs crossed, in poor fitting sleepwear that cost more than my monthly rent on my apartment in Chicago. And I reverted back to my usual coping mechanism when my entire world is crumbling down.
I began making a list.
I made my list mentally. Since I did not trust any medium of paper in a place where the Duke and his associates would undoubtedly have documented each word I wrote with their quills, I made my list using the same organizational method I had once used to prepare for a raid. I organized information in clean categories, ranked priorities and was brutally honest about what I did not know.
The first category of my list was labeled "Things that will kill me."
I closed my eyes for a moment, just for that one brief second, and I accessed and opened The Villain's Ledger.
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[Death Flag Registry – Active Flags: 47]
*List Displays Flags in Chronological Order*
! Flag #1 (The Entrance Exam) Trigger: Public Loss to Aiden Crest results in a ripple effect of public humiliation and political vulnerability. Time Frame: 24 Days Lethality Level: C (Non-direct – triggers other flags)Flag #2 indicates that Cedric is ranked as "below Adept (D)" in House Valdrake. Thus, enemies of House Valdrake take advantage of the fact that Cedric has been revealed to be the weakest member of House Valdrake, leading to lawmakers assassinating Cedric and continuing the stereotype of the weak House Valdrake.
I also have to complete 28 days before that flag is complete.
Flag #3 indicates that during Cedric's first week on campus, a Valdrake household servant was bribed by agents of House Seraphel and poisoned Cedric's tea prior to him drinking it. He will die within hours of drinking as a result of the poisoning if he isn't detected. The time to complete this flag is approximately 28 days from when Cedric drank the poisoned tea.
Flag #4 indicates that Cedric will die as a result of being expelled from the Academy after losing to a commoner swordswoman in ranking battles. His failure to win represents a loss of House Valdrake's protection. Therefore, the timeframe to complete flag #4 is approximately 45 days from when the duel happens and then the Academy closes for summer vacation.
Flag #8 indicates that House Drakeveil is behind a public confrontation between Cedric and Lucien Drakeveil. Lucien Drakeveil's actions will have a lasting impact on House Valdrake and determine whether Cedric's actions will align him with either House Drakeveil or House Seraphel, and he will have to decide how to act in the next year. The timeframe for completing flag #8 is approximately 35 days from when the public confrontation happens.
I will now scroll through the remaining 42 flags to know how to prepare for future actions, but I won't post this information until I have the actual game knowledge to review it against and confirm the meaning of each flag and whether there are any changes in the characteristics of that flag based on the actions Cedric takes.In summary, Flag #1 (Entrance Exam humiliation) had a drastic effect on Cedric's reputation as it triggered Flag #2 (Reputation Collapse). With his reputation at risk, House Seraphel's agents felt empowered, which contributed to Flag #3 (Servant's Poison). Once Flag #3 was overcome, the political factions within the school became attentive to Cedric, leading to Flag #8 (Drakeveil Provocation). Flag #8 determined whether Lucien became a temporary ally or immediate enemy. The outcome of Lucien's status impacted the conditions for Flag #12 (Dungeon Break) when it occurred over one month later.
Pulling one thread made the three other threads' knots tighter. I grouped them as follows:
- Immediate Threats (First 30 Days) — Flag #1, Flag #2, Flag #3, Flag #8 — This was the entrance gauntlet. Survive these and have some breathing room, but failing at any of these would mean I died before the first semester completed.
- Medium-Term Threats (Days 30-90) — Flag #5, Flag #7, Flag #9, Flag #12, Flag #14, Flag #18 — The First Wave of the Academy — Ranking Battles, Faction Conflicts, Dungeon Break, First Assassination Attempts. Each of these is manageable alone, but together they form a minefield.
- Long-Term Threats (90+ Days) — everything else — The Tournament, Political Crises, Wars, Increased Conflict with the Cult of the Abyss and the Final Confrontation at the Abyssal Seal (Flag #47, where Cedric Valdrake made his last stand, dying in every version of the tale).
I was not thinking about Flag #47, as that would only lead to madness.I have to get through the first thirty days in one piece.
Doomed Flag #1 - Entrance Exam
In the game, the Entrance Exam is a combat assessment to establish the basic class rank of incoming students. Students are matched up against each other in supervised duels and the outcome of these matches will determine the tier the student will end up in. Cedric Valdrake, with his D-rank core and Valdrake bloodline authority, was expected to defeat everyone in his tier, but instead he was matched up against Aiden Crest and lost publicly when Aiden activated his Starfire Legacy mid-fight thanks to plot convenience for a protagonist.
The loss was not only humiliating to Cedric personally but it also shattered the illusion of Valdrake invincibility. The other predators in the academy smelled blood in the water and it was at that point that the downward spiral began and continued to spiral downward.
This entire scenario was beyond humiliating in my case. Cedric Valdrake was supposed to be D-rank as per the game. I am F-ranked. Cedric Valdrake lost to Aiden Crest who was also D-rank. Based on that logic if I am F-rank and I fight Aiden Crest I am not going to lose a match.
I will be slaughtered.
So there is no way I can win and that is obvious. The question is how do I correctly lose?
I thought long and hard about this problem.
In every game I have played that has a strategy element, there is a concept of a "controlled loss". A controlled loss is when you deliberately give away a position for strategic reasons rather than for inability to defend it. The important part of a controlled loss is to take control over the story associated with how you lost and portray it as a strategic decision rather than being a failure.
Based on how the game portrays him, Cedric Valdrake would never accept a public defeat.He put forth full effort and failed badly. The only thing that resulted was an angry outburst of emotion which made him seem weak and pathetic; thus, he was seen as a double failure. What if Cedric did not put forth all his efforts when fighting, but rather cashed in a sufficient amount of effort to look dangerous – enough for Aiden to sweat over the fact that he could have lost the match. A close loss would be survivable; however, a humiliating loss could not be overcome.
Thus, the idea relied upon establishing a way for me to look good fighting in the F-rank category while performing at a D-rank standard. There could be a huge difference between the two.
Category two of my thoughts related to what my body could produce.
As I stood up off the ground, the room was darkened by the Void sigil lanterns glowing very low and silent with only a constant sound of Aether from the surrounding walls. My location had been cleared out in a circle. There was an opening to use as a training area and the training dummy I had seen before. Beside the dummy there was a rack that also contained a wooden sword for practice.
So, this system of testing was about to determine how badly I was broken.
I picked up the practice sword, but there was something odd about the way it felt when I picked it up. While it was heavy enough to be awkward to hold, my arms were more than strong enough to hold it, so it was not heavy per se; rather it was wrong for me.However, there was a lag between the time that the nervous system told the muscles to respond (by swinging a sword) and the time they actually did so. The connection between intent and action was slow, as if there were a half-second delay between when my brain said "swing" and when my muscles responded.
Cedric was fully aware of how to hold the sword, and all of his many years of practice with the Valdrake had imprinted muscle memory onto him.
Unfortunately, the Aether that provided the energy for movements and increased my reaction time, was nothing more than a trickle.
When I swung the sword, I was able to get it through the air. While it did swing, it was not powerful; it cut through the air with adequate momentum and little to no effort (meaning I was not able to use Aether) to swing with power. Any well-trained human could have done the same.
Next, I concentrated on circulating Aether through my body.
Circulating Aether is the primary technique that allows practitioners to collect ambient energy and send it to their core. In the game version of the technique, it can be activated by using the menu option. However, while I tried to do the same thing in real life, the result was not the same — it was painful.
It was not an intense pain; instead, it was a dull, deep pain and grinding feeling that I felt radiating through the area of the chest. The pain was the result of my Aether Core attempting to generate energy for the body's meridians and extremities. I was able to feel the Aether Core as a fist-sized crystal lodged behind my sternum and the fractures that ran through the Aether Core were as prominent as cracks in thin ice.Upon entering my Core, Aether immediately leaked from the cracks in my body; it dissipated before I could process it.
I pushed harder.
The pain multiplied. The vision became blurry and caused blood to trickle from my nose. I touched the blood to see it was dark purple and almost black. Void-tainted Aether.
I immediately stopped.
Now that I knew the baseline, it was evident that the Core is not only weak but broken. Forcing Aether through a broken Core acts like trying to pour a liquid into a broken glass. Most of the Aether energy leaks away, leaving behind the Void residue bleeding from the bloodline permeating the Core itself.
I wiped the blood on my sleeve and sat down.
The Villain's Ledger, which probably sensed my distress with all of the empathy of a parking meter, provided its report.
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[ CORE DIAGNOSTIC ]
Fractures: 23
Aether Retained: 8.2%
Circulation Efficiency: 4.7%
Void Contamination: 31.6%
Diagnosis: You have a wet paper structural integrity. Any attempted aggressive cultivation will accelerate the fracture type propagation. A moderate cultivation session has a 40% chance of producing an additional fracture. Gentle cultivation is recommended if you want to take approximately six to eight years to get to the Acolyte (E) rank.
You have 24 days.
The system wishes you good luck. This is a lie.
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Twenty-three fractures. 8.2% Aether retention rate. Six to eight years of gentle cultivation to get to E-rank which was still two whole ranks below where I needed to be.
I stared at the report until the numbers stopped having meaning, then stared some more.
In the game, there was an undocumented mechanic - a technique that was hidden in a side quest that 99% of players never unlocked, known as Void Meridian Reversal: Instead of pushing Aether through your damaged Aether Core, pull Void Aether directly from the bloodline into your meridians, bypassing the Aether Core. In the game's coding this was called "retired cultivation method" because it was far too strong at low ranks and had severe side effects at high ranks.
The side effects were listed as: chronic pain, accelerated bloodline awakening, and unknown long-term effects.
In-game, the unknown long-term effect was 'flavor text.' Here, it could mean something much worse.
However, this was the only method I was aware of that could work for a broken Aether Core.
The question was if the physical mechanic that existed in the game's code could also exist as a mechanic in our world's reality and if the developer's design as a mechanic could translate into a real-life process that I could manage to execute with this body.
We would see soon enough.