"Urgh…"

Amidst the tremendous pain that continued to wreak chaos inside him, Lucien\'s senses gradually began to return.

Even before his still tired and weary eyelids parted, the bloodied dreary letters were already actively blocking his visual receptors.

Serving as the header, the first information that Lucien\'s still awakening mind processed were his most important details: his supposed health and energy.

[…::: Health: 2.089 / 10 ::: Energy: 7.74 / 10 :::…]

\'Well, that explains why I feel like this…\' He muttered inwardly noticing the laughably amount of health pool he had. He was so tired that even forcing himself to fully wake up still proved to be too much effort.

Below the status bar, the system had several messages saved up for him.

[…::: Host has received critical damage! As a result, the remaining energy had been used up to shield the host from fatality. :::…]

[…::: Holy Essence absorbed! Damages are being slowly healed. :::…]

[…::: Holy Essence absorbed! 1 Point of Entropy have been awarded! :::…]

[…::: Holy Essence absorbed! 1 Point of Entropy have been awarded! :::…]

The line kept repeating several times, summing up the total gains to 5 EP. Funny though, this was also tracked via the far left side of his vision in a small, compact little box-like transparent window.

[…::: Task 1: Gather Entropy Points ( 5 / 10 ) :::…]

However, all of these seemed to be nothing compared to the last two lines that instead of the bloody red text, were glowing with a platinum shine.

[…::: Power Gained! Rank 1 - 1% :::…]

[…::: System Awakening Progress: Version 1 - 1% :::…]

After reading through the lines, they slowly faded one by one, looking as if they were sentient and were only waiting for their master to acknowledge them.

As the screen completely cleared, Lucien was about to dismiss the text, but before he could do so, the letters appeared once again, rapidly forming themselves into a new set of lines, spelling out another notification.

[…::: Your actions have increased the synchronization rate with ђภгєเєฬ. :::…]

[…::: Your current progress: Synchronization: 11.53% :::…]

\'What is all this?\' Confused about the continuous slew of updates and the fact that although he horribly failed, he still seemed to have come out as the victor, Lucien mentally voiced a question to the system, hoping that it could shed some light to this mystery.

Just as he had hoped, the letters quickly flew around the screen, whilst other, new ones appeared one by one, formulating an answer with rapid fashion.

[…::: Host shouldn\'t be too surprised. Only through constant hardship can one progress forward and push through their limits. :::…]

Before Lucien could complain about the ridiculous response, the system continued.

[…::: You have been healed with the usage of Holy Energy. Through this, the system managed to stabilize the host and also got to slightly strengthen itself, thus the increased stability both with the Synchronization and the System Progress. :::…]

The system\'s response raised another question in Lucien. Just what did \'System Awakening\' mean? What was that?

As usual, before he was even able to state the question in his mind, the answer was already being formed by the mysterious body most likely communicating behind these text screens.

\'[…::: Host\'s current progress is too low for the System to be able to answer that question. Apologies to the host. :::…]

\'Will I get anything from achieving that goal?\' Not satisfied with such an answer, Lucien pushed a bit more. How was he supposed to care about it if he weren\'t even explained the very basics?!

\'[…::: Each time the threshold is reached, a System Upgrade will be available for the host. Each Upgrade will provide new features and enhancement for the Host to use. :::…]

Lucien could only sigh and move on, there was nothing more to be gained from the System in regards to this, that was obvious.

\'And what about the EP? How did I gain so much? Didn\'t you say earlier that I would need to absorb the flesh of others to gain them?\'

[…::: That is correct, host. :::…]

The vague response stunned Lucien. How did he gain the EP? Did the monster inside him woke up and did something horrible again?

Luckily, before his thoughts could trail further into the depths of despair, the system answered.

[…::: Host should not worry. Whilst he was unconscious the Appointed Guardian has used her own energy to heal the host. As a result, holy Essence was directly injected into the system, allowing it to transform it into new strands and form the resulting EP. :::…]

\'I don\'t understand any of that…\' Lucien helplessly sighed, forcing his mind to completely wake up, and return to reality from this current, trance-like state.

Lucien groaned again, as his eyes fluttered, slowly peeling themselves openly. His dark brown eyes popped open, only to be met with the warm, kindly smiling face of the blonde woman, Sera.

"Good Morning, sleepyhead." She greeted with a calm, gentle tone. Unlike before, she was no longer wearing the business suit she had. She was wearing a milky white apron over a light green, long-sleeved shirt and light blue farmer jeans. Her golden, blonde hair was tied into a bun at the back of her head.

As his senses came back to the land of the living one by one, the smell and the sound of sizzling bacon hit Lucien\'s nose and ears.

Noticing as his ears and nose perked up suddenly, Sera chuckled lightly, before she gently pushed him back down.

"You must be hungry after sleeping for so long. Don\'t worry breakfast is almost ready. Once you are ready, come out and eat your fill. Take your time, I will answer all of your questions by then. Just know that right now you are safe."

She turned around and was about to leave, but before she could do so, she felt a hand pulling her back lightly.

"Are… Are they… fine?" The weak, faint voice of the boy reached her ears. From the initial surprise the previous gentle, familial warmth settled once again on Sera\'s face. She did not face him but only turned her head to the side as she answered with a reassuring tone in her voice.

"Both of them are fine. I told you, don\'t worry Lucien."

With that she resumed her trek and left the room, leaving the still confused boy with his thoughts.

Although not knowing much about this mysterious woman, from his observation he could understand that she did not mean harm. From all her actions, speech, and body language so far, Lucien could understand that she was honestly here to help him.

Lucien watched silently as Sera left the room and closed the door behind herself. She was very kind, forthcoming all the while. Even as he tried his best to remain distant, she didn\'t seem to mind, nor did she ever show any signs of hostility.

On the contrary, the more he tried, the kinder, gentler she became. Yes, at first when they were speeding away from the time to the opposite direction of where the Lewis family was, he thought that she finally showed her true colors, but even then, she acquiesced to his demands almost instantly and only shown worry and concern in her actions.

Lucien also had a suspicion that even if she wasn\'t the one, at the very least she had some sort of hand in his healing.

"Just who is she? What does she truly want?" He muttered, leaving his gaze on the closed wooden door for a while longer.

Taking a long sigh, he cleared his head. There was no point in lingering on it. She said that she will explain everything after breakfast; he could only hope that she will be true to her words.

Taking an extra minute of rest, Lucien slowly sat up on his bed, taking his time to take in the room he suddenly found himself in.

Judging from the wooden walls, the ceiling, the wooden beams… and the sound of the distant chirping of birds… He guessed he was in some sort of wooden cottage. Was he back in the woods that he just escaped from?

\'No, that can\'t be, she was quite adamant on leaving that area as fast as possible…\' He lamented.

The pain although lessened with time, was still incredibly torturous as he forced his body to move. Looking at himself as he finally left the protective cover of the blanket, he saw for the first time how much damage he must have received.

His chest was wrapped up in bandages, along with most of his left upper arm.

Strangely, his right arm, or to be more precise the viral appendage that was masking as his right arm seemed completely fine. Not even a bruise could be seen on it.

Letting out one last groan, he finally gathered enough strength to push himself up from the bed, and by leaning against the nearest wall, slowly push himself towards the door.

He wasn\'t bothered by the fact that he was bare-chested, he was more focused on finding answers to all the burning questions he had.

What happened? Where is this place exactly? How much time had passed after he passed out?

How was he defeated so quickly? Who were those guys, that small man that should have been the leader and that dozen-strong group of black-masked warriors?

How did they know he was there? Why did they attack innocent civilians? Shouldn\'t they be with the government?

Or the most important, most burning question that tormented him ever since he woke up: Just what is going on?!