And he needed it for this.
The vials of his blood sat lined up in a row beside him, thickening slowly. The top layers were already darkening, skinning over. He turned one slowly in his hand. Clotted.
Of course it was.
Blood wasn’t meant to be ink. It dried too fast, spread too unevenly. It welled in some places, vanished in others. Even now, his fingers were sticky where the liquid had seeped through the corks.
This was going to be brutal.
Still, he reached for the first quill—roughly cut, uneven, barely serviceable. It was more claw than pen. But he’d made it himself, and it would have to do.
He dipped the jagged tip into the vial. It clung to the shaft, a thick glob that refused to fall. He scraped it on the rim, tried again. This time, the blood crept reluctantly down the nib.
Richter exhaled through his nose, steadying his hand. The first stroke came out jagged, clumsy.
Too wet.
He adjusted the angle. Second stroke—better. Still rough, but legible. Not art. Not beauty. But function.
He could work with that.
He copied everything. Every symbol. No assumptions, no shortcuts. That was Rule One: record everything before forming conclusions. It was how he’d trained. How he’d survived academia, labs, and now—whatever the hell this was.
Ten rows, etched deep into the stone. Some short, some long. At first glance, it was chaos.
So he counted.
“Two in the first row,” he muttered, dragging his finger along the parchment. “Three in the second. Five… Seven…”
His breath caught.
He sat up straighter.
“Eleven. Thirteen.”
He blinked. Counted again. “Seventeen.”
He looked at the next row. Twenty-three symbols.
“No way.”
One by one, the numbers aligned. Every row held a prime number of glyphs. He felt the heat behind his eyes—exhaustion mixing with something else. Something like awe.
It wasn’t language.
It was math.
A pattern. A filter.
Richter stared at the rows again, slower this time. As he scanned the glyphs, something deeper stirred.
The second row blurred into memory—the way the world had gone silent right after the countdown ended. That dizzying drop into the void.
Fear.
The fifth row… the sound of Dave’s body hitting the dirt.
Despair.
And the seventh... the soulbound dagger, slick with Jason’s blood.
Determination? No. Guilt.
He blinked. No. The rows weren’t just numbers.
They were feelings.
Memories.
A psychological map. Etched in stone. Waiting for someone who had lived it.
It didn’t come easy. He broke two quills trying to copy the eleventh row—each crack of feather under pressure fraying his nerves a little more. Bark parchment filled up fast, the early sheets so blood-blotted and smudged they were almost useless. His pile of usable bark was running low, and the remaining sheets curled from the fire’s constant heat.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
His fingers cramped around the third quill, knuckles pale, wrist aching from repetition. His eyes burned from hours of staring into shifting shadows, the smoke biting and blurring the fine edges of each glyph. The fire popped behind him, startling him, and he nearly threw the parchment in frustration.
He cursed under his breath. Then steadied his breathing. Again. Focus.
He glanced toward his firewood pile—it was shrinking. He’d been at this for hours.
Outside, the faintest light began filtering through the cave’s entrance—soft and cold, the beginning of dawn. Morning birds chirped faintly from the trees. The forest was waking up.
And he was still here.
One more row.
But the final row—twenty-nine symbols—was wrong. The spacing was fractured, the symbols malformed, as if half-remembered by a dying machine. It didn’t pulse like the others. It felt empty. Incomplete.
He approached it slowly, blood-covered quill in hand, then stopped.
This wasn’t about copying. This was about completion.
Richter stared at his hand. Fresh blood still welled along the cut in his palm. He pressed it to the jagged line of the final row. The glyphs didn’t shift. Not yet. He closed his eyes.
And let himself remember.
Not the death. Not the pain.
The choice.
The moment he decided to live. Not just to survive—but to face what he’d done. To carry it. To move forward.
Resolve.
His blood soaked the final row. And the stone pulsed.
One by one, the glyphs shifted, reorganized, aligning into the final pattern.
A notification blinked softly into his vision:
Memory Seal Completed
Prime Emotional Signature Verified
With a slow rumble, the back of the tablet trembled—then slid inward with a grinding groan. A hidden compartment revealed itself, stone plates folding like ancient origami.
Inside, nestled in a velvet-lined niche, was a small, metallic chest marked with glowing blue runes.
[You have discovered: Uncommon System Cache]: containing a System-generated reward of Uncommon rarity. The item inside is dynamically attuned to the traits, skills, and psychological profile of whoever opens the cache—crafted not just for their role, but their journey.
Richter stared, chest heaving. He reached forward, and for the first time in hours, let himself smile.
A loot box.
Behind all that pain, all that calculation—there was still reward.
The System was brutal.
But it never wasted effort.
The next notification blinked into view, catching him off guard.
Profession Unlocked: [Blood Scribe – Beginner-Level 1]
Your persistence in recording, decoding, and offering your very essence has been acknowledged. The System offers this profession as a reflection of your will to understand—and survive.
Level-Up Bonus Gained:
- Intellect: +3
? Wisdom: +3
? Vitality: +3
? Perception: +3
? +2 Free Stat Points
Updated Attributes:
- Strength: 10→ 10(+0)
? Agility: 10→ 10(+0)
? Intellect: 14 → 17(+3)
? Wisdom: 14→ 17(+3)
? Vitality: 14 → 17(+3)
? Endurance: 8→ 8(+0)
? Toughness: 6→ 6(+0)
? Perception: 13→ 16(+3)
? Free Stat Points: +2
Skills Acquired
Quillshaper (Inferior): Channel a small amount of mana to shape an organic material—bone, feather, wood—into a refined writing instrument. The resulting quill is attuned to your mana signature, enhancing durability and precision. Quill quality is capped at Inferior but gains minor durability scaling with Wisdom.
Parchmentbind (Inferior): Infuse mana into raw organic materials—bark, hide, fibrous plants—to compress, dry, and treat them into usable parchment. The process stabilizes the material for recording glyphs or rituals. Parchment quality is capped at Inferior but gains minor durability scaling with Wisdom.
Bloodscribe Ink (Common): Transmute a portion of your own blood—or a fresh sample—into ink imbued with trace emotional resonance. This ink is compatible with ritual glyphs, memory seals, and emotion-bound inscriptions. Effects scale with Intellect and Wisdom. Ink creation consumes a small amount of HP.
Richter studied the notification, eyes flicking over the details. He hadn’t expected this—certainly not a profession like this—but it wasn’t unwelcome. Some people might’ve scoffed at it. Called it weak, pointless, non-combat. But he saw something else.
The System had acknowledged what he’d done—what he’d bled to create. Not a class born of brute force or flashy spells, but one rooted in observation, precision, memory. A scribe who wrote in blood and memory, not ink.
The stat bonuses weren’t flashy, but they landed exactly where he needed them. Intellect. Wisdom. Perception. Not filler. Focus.
And the tools? They weren’t weapons, no. But they were his. The ability to write, sketch, plan—maybe even chart this world in ways no one else could.
He smiled faintly to himself.
"I guess this place rewards obsession, too," he murmured, voice hoarse. "Time for the real reward."
He opened the box. No glowing light. No grand fanfare. Just the soft click of old metal, and the slow creak of a lid lifting. Inside, resting on dark velvet, was a square glass inkwell with a polished golden lid. Black inlays curled like vines around the base, framing small, ruby-like gems embedded at each corner. It was empty.
Yet it felt full of intent—waiting to be filled, not just with ink, but with purpose. A tool made with eerie precision—for him, and him alone. Richter identified it.
Inkwell of Resonant Binding (Uncommon)
Effect: Bloodscribe Ink stored in this inkwell gains heightened emotional resonance, amplifying the potency of glyphs, seals, and inscriptions. Increases the success rate of emotion-linked rituals and memory-based scripting. Also slightly enhances ink preservation, preventing degradation over time.
Richter stared at the inkwell—ornate, precise, and undeniably tailored to him. Its effect was useful, no doubt about that. But still, a flicker of disappointment stirred in his chest. He had expected… something else. He wasn’t even sure what. A weapon, maybe. Some armor. Anything that screamed survival, not subtlety.
Instead, he got a container.
A beautiful one. A powerful one. But still—just a place to make his ink stronger.
Then again, maybe that was the point.
The System didn’t just reward strength. It rewarded function. And this? This was a tool that could outlast any blade.
He ran a finger along the glass edge, thoughtful.
"Guess I’ll just have to show them what ink can do."