I darted through the steel-shadowed maze, my steps uneven, as if the very ground beneath me was playing tricks—refusing to guide me straight. Artificial sunlight bounced off the tight cluster of skyscrapers, flickering across glass facades and casting an eerie, fractured glow over the nearly lifeless streets.
Erin, as usual, never ran out of words.
"What do you mean you failed to get into the System of Mysticism? What really happened when you were gathering the ingredients?" His voice cut through the morning air—sharp, impatient, impossible to ignore.
"Nothing," I snapped, terse and clipped. My pace quickened, as if I could outrun his questions and leave them scattered behind me like loose change.
"I don't buy that it was Lon's fault. I've never brewed a potion with him, but I know my brother's stubborn streak when it comes to alchemy." His tone was thick with conviction, each word a pebble in my shoe.
"Could you just—zip it? It's too early for this, and my head feels like it's been hammered with a sledgehammer. I don't need your running commentary right now." My voice came out rough, ragged like torn cloth.
"Maybe that's because I just gave your brain a good whack," Erin shot back, "Need I remind you? Even if this is your body, you're borrowing my identity—wearing my face. If you turn into a monster, I'm along for the ride. If you die, I'm toast too."
What if I am losing my mind? The thought drifted through my head like smoke. If I snapped, wouldn't Erin just take over—slide into my skin like slipping on a coat? Then again, he'd only last so long. He needs his sleep after all.
"What are you doing?" he demanded suddenly, his voice echoing at the edge of my hearing.
"You messed up the recipe, didn't you?"
"No." The word danced off my lips, nimble and slippery, dodging suspicion.
"Not exactly."
"Go on."
"A drop of blood got in."
"Huh?" Erin froze, his voice shifting in an instant, a question hanging thick in the air.
"There was blood. It got into the mix halfway through."
I could practically hear a slap to the forehead echoing inside my skull—loud, sharp, as if Erin were standing right behind me, barely holding back an explosion of frustration.
"You do realize blood isn't just some red liquid, right? It's a archive of your biological information. There are all kinds of potions—some overwrite your body's data, some change it for good, some repair, some scramble everything. But all of that only happens after the potion enters your body. It only figures out who you are once it's flowing through your body, not a second before."
Erin's words spun circles in my mind. How ridiculous. I'd never imagined a single drop of blood could throw everything into such a mess.
"With your blood in there, the ingredients adapted upfront. The effect is tailored to you. And don't forget, this body—it's a copy of my original, sure, but you're the one living in it. It's not entirely me anymore."
I stopped suddenly in front of a door that felt strangely familiar, as if memories clung to the handle like old cobwebs. "So the potion's tuned to me?"
"Yeah, so what's the damage? You haven't lost your mind or grown a tail—at least, not so far. But who's to say what'll happen next?"
I kept my mouth shut, letting the question evaporate between us, unanswered.
With an uneven rhythm, I knocked on the door—not too hard, but enough to send a subtle shiver through the whole house.
Moments later, the door swung open. A familiar man stood in the doorway, his hair just as wild as I remembered, but the scruffy beard and mustache that once made him look like a hobo were gone. His face was clean-shaven now, almost unrecognizable.
"I already drank the potion," I said casually, stepping past him as if the house belonged to me.
"Wait—you made the potion? Without telling me first?" His voice caught, disbelief.
I strolled in and dropped myself into the dining chair—the only chair in this cramped room, the spot where I'd first sat when I came here. The chair creaked beneath me, as if welcoming me back with a familiar, weary sigh.
"Where'd you get all the ingredients? You realize one error could turn the whole thing into a disaster, right? Never underestimate what it takes to walk the path of an Archiveliner," Hozi's voice rumbled, heavy with warning.
"I didn't have a choice. My hands were tied at the time," I replied, bitterness creeping into my tone. Sure, I could've refused Lon, but if I had, he would've suspected the potion was dangerous. What if he found the other recipe in my room? If I told him to stay out of it, that would've only made him more suspicious.
"You were never supposed to get caught in the first place," Erin slipped in, his jab pricking like a thorn beneath my skin.
"So, did you get the notification?" Hozi asked, stepping aside to let me pass before closing the door with deliberate care.
"I did, but… something's off." I held my breath, weighing my words before letting them spill.
Hozi just stood there, arms folded across his chest, his stare sharp as a blade—waiting for my answer. His face was all seriousness, but I couldn't help it; every time I looked at him, I pictured a monkey.
"There are only four systems, right? Like Mozi said?" I recalled it clearly—Mozi himself had insisted, there were only four. But what I'd seen yesterday, floating in that message box before my eyes, was no glitch. Those words were real, undeniable.
"Yeah—System of War, System of Specialist, System of Creature, and System of Mysticism."
"I brewed a potion for the System of Mysticism yesterday. Had every ingredient right—I even went to a graveyard just to find Mythical Cerebrospinal Fluid."
I could practically see Hozi fighting back laughter, his lips twitching, ready to burst.
"So… you dug up someone's grave?"
"Not someone—a cat," I replied flatly.
Hozi's laughter finally broke free, echoing through the cramped room. "You dug up a cat's grave? Where—behind your house?"
The bastard. He'd quit laughing if he knew whose cat it was.
"Wetlands Cemetery," I said, quiet but firm.
"Why not just behind your house?"
"Because there aren't any cats behind my house. The point is, I got the cerebrospinal fluid. That stuff—"
"Doesn't last long outside a living body," Hozi cut in.
"That's right. We followed the procedure, then—"
"Wait, we?" Hozi interrupted again, one eyebrow shooting up as his head tilted slightly, as if his brain refused to process what he was hearing. His tone dripped with skepticism.
"This is why I said I didn't have a choice. I brewed the potion with my brother." I caught the protest bubbling in his eyes, so I hurried to head it off before it could erupt.
"I know you're probably itching to yell at me, but listen—he's a potion-making prodigy. He had no idea what the recipe was for, and, yeah, I got all the ingredients from him."
Hozi finally ran out of questions. He let out a long sigh, then dragged out a chair and sat down, as if his bones had suddenly lost all their strength.
"And then?" he asked quietly, as though waiting for a judge's verdict.
"And then I—accidentally—got blood in the pre-mix, and—" I spoke quickly, but Hozi was quicker, cutting me off mid-sentence.
"Wait, wait. What did you just say?"
"My brother and I brewed the potion, we went to the cemetery, then made the mixture," I repeated, retracing the hazy steps of yesterday's memories.
"Don't skip around. The blood part—why?"
"It was an accident," I confessed, my words barely above a whisper. "I cut my hand, and somehow the blood ended up in the mix."
Hozi rubbed his temples, as if trying to chase away the storm clouds gathering in his mind. But what was done couldn't be undone.
"After that, everything went sideways. Hallucinations hit me in waves—first voices, then my body started acting up, until even reality itself felt like it was slipping."
"And then the message appeared," I finished, my voice trembling, half in disbelief.
"A notification, right?" Hozi pressed, his gaze sharp as a hawk's. "That'll keep popping up. I suppose it's normal—other Archiveliners get them too. I was about to lose my temper over your recklessness, but if the notification showed up, that means you pulled it off."
I let out a long breath, letting my words sink into the hush that filled the room.
"The story's not over yet."