The pale-yellow sheet of sheepskin lay spread across the rough wooden table, its edges already brittle with age. A few simple lines sketched a stick-figure pose, accompanied by a scrawled note: “Basic Sword Stance · First Form: Straight Thrust.”
Del brushed the surface lightly with his fingertip. It felt rough, cool with the dampness of mountain air, and carried the faint smoky scent left from drying over. It felt rough, cool with the dampness of mountain air, and carried the faint smoky scent left from drying over last night’s fire pit.
He withdrew his hand and rubbed his aching shoulders.
He had practiced for two full hours the night before, gripping a sharpened wooden stick and thrusting it repeatedly into empty air, then pulling it back. When he woke this morning, his arms felt heavy, as though filled with cold mountain spring water.
The wooden cabin was dimly lit. Sunlight filtered through gaps in the plank walls, casting thin beams across the table where motes of dust drifted slowly.
Del sat motionless, eyes fixed on the sheet of sheepskin.
His father had pulled it from the bottom of an old chest the previous night, saying only that it had been passed down through the family. He offered no further explanation beyond: “The mountains haven’t been peaceful lately. Learn something that might save your life.”
Del already knew where it came from.
After the memories merged, everything felt as natural as if it had always been his own.
He was Del now—eighteen years old, the only son of Garrett’s family in Greyrock Village.
Greyrock Village lay nestled at the northern foot of the Broken Blade Mountains. Its thirty-odd households survived by cutting firewood, hunting, and growing a few acres of hardy oats. From time to time, rumors drifted in of far-off wizards who could summon fire or of ghouls that gnawed corpses in the depths of the Blackwood at night, but such things felt distant, like tales that belonged to someone else’s life.
The Garrett family counted for little in the village. Their ancestors were said to have followed some lord into battle long ago, earning a patch of mountain forest before the family slowly declined. All that remained now was this weathered wooden cabin, a handful of hunting knives, and this single page of sword technique—supposedly unearthed from an ancestral grave.
His father, Garrett, was just past forty, with a slight limp from a ghoul’s claw ten years earlier during a trip into the mountains. His mother had died long ago; only father and son were left.
A faint rustle came from the corner of the room.
Del turned to look.
A girl of sixteen or seventeen sat curled against the wall, arms wrapped around her knees, flaxen hair falling over half her face. She wore a coarse skirt washed pale from countless scrubbings, her skin tanned from work in the sun, her eyes red and swollen from crying the night before.
Memory supplied her name: Lily, daughter of Widow Mara from the east end of the village. Her family owed money for oat seed and had sent her to “work off the debt” for three years.
The original Del had nursed vague feelings for her but never acted on them. The current Del simply saw her as a complication.
He said nothing at first, only glanced at her before returning his attention to the sheepskin.
Lily waited a long while before speaking in a small voice. “Del… Widow Mara said I’m to do whatever you tell me. Is there any work you need done?”
Her voice was soft and timid, the kind common among mountain village girls.
Del paused, then answered evenly. “No work right now. Go boil a pot of water in the kitchen. I’d like something hot to drink.”
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Lily blinked, surprised, then stood slowly, brushed the dust from her skirt, and headed toward the kitchen with her head lowered.
The door closed with a creak, and the room fell silent again.
Del let out a slow breath.
He needed time to sort everything out.
This was a cold-weapon world. Bows and arrows were the only ranged weapons; gunpowder was unknown. Personal strength decided much of life here. Down-and-out mercenaries sometimes passed through the village, carrying scars and stories, but truly powerful wizards and knights belonged to distant royal capitals and fortified strongholds.
Ghouls were the most common danger in these mountains. Corpses sometimes rose, moving slowly yet with great strength, feeling no pain and fearing only decapitation or fire. When villagers met one, a few armed with pitchforks and torches could usually deal with it.
Greyrock Village remained relatively safe—far from the main roads, with few bandits and hunters who regularly cleared the ghouls. People preferred to endure hard lives here rather than risk the journey over the mountains; the odds of dying on the way were simply too high.
Del lifted the wooden cup from the table. Its rim was chipped, the surface rough against his fingers.
He studied the stick-figure pose on the sheepskin again, trying to fix the movements in his mind.
In his modern memories, he had been used to scanning text and images with the chip for instant storage and analysis. But now…
He silently tried in his mind: Record current image.
Nothing happened.
He tried again: Store page.
Still nothing.
Del frowned slightly.
Perhaps the chip hadn’t come with him. Given the explosion, it would be normal for everything to have been destroyed.
Just as he was about to give up, a faint coolness passed through the depths of his mind, like a gentle electric current brushing across his nerves.
Then a flat, mechanical voice spoke—no gender, no inflection:
“Neural link confirmed. Biological auxiliary module binding complete. Host gene sequence match rate 100%. Storage and analysis functions ready.”
No advertisement, no extra greeting—just immediate activation.
Del froze in his chair.
His breath caught for a moment.
It had come with him.
Not the older startup sequence, but the latest silent mode—the final batch he had debugged in the lab, designed to skip all guidance and activate instantly upon binding.
He remembered the functions clearly: only two. Perfect storage of all sensory information, images, text, and movement trajectories; real-time analysis of mechanics, materials, and logic, with results fed directly to the brain.
No intelligence, no voice interface unless manually invoked.
Del sat still.
His heartbeat quickened for a few beats, then settled again.
He knew exactly what this meant.
But not yet.
For now, he was just a mountain-village youth holding a damaged sword manual in a drafty wooden cabin, with a lame-legged father and an uncertain future.
He tried invoking it silently: Analyze current image—sheepskin sword stance.
Instantly, a stream of data appeared in his vision: line angles, force vectors, center-of-gravity shifts, optimal points of exertion—like a transparent overlay across his retinas.
Clear. Precise.
Del blinked; the overlay vanished.
He did not call it again.
Footsteps sounded outside.
His father Garrett pushed open the door, carrying two skinned mountain hares, his face weathered by years of wind and frost.
“Practiced yet?”
“I did.” Del rolled up the sheepskin and tucked it inside his clothes.
Garrett grunted, set the hares on the cutting board, and began gutting them; the knife made a faint tearing sound.
“This afternoon, come into the mountains with me. There was ghoul sign farther off last night. We need to check.”
Del nodded without questions.
After breakfast—hot oat porridge mixed with rabbit meat, which Lily ate quickly with her head down—the father and son took up hunting knives and wooden sticks and set off into the mountains.
The mountain path was damp; fallen leaves gave softly underfoot. The air carried the scent of pine resin and wet earth, broken now and then by the chirp of unseen insects deep in the grass.
Garrett walked steadily ahead, speaking in a low voice. “The key to a straight thrust is in the hips and waist, not just the arm. Push out steady, pull back fast.”
Del listened, practicing a couple of swings with his wooden stick—still awkward, but earnest.
After more than an hour, they reached a shallow valley.
Garrett stopped abruptly and raised a hand for silence.
A stench of rot drifted from the grass ahead.
They crouched low and moved forward cautiously.
A wild boar lay dead in the grass, belly ripped open, entrails missing, the edges of the wounds blackened, flies buzzing in circles.
“Ghoul work,” Garrett said, frowning. “Fresh.”
Del crouched to examine it.
The wounds were ragged, marked by clear bites.
He did not invoke the chip again.
He simply stood, brushed the dirt from his hands.
Far off, two moons—one larger, one smaller—hung above the ridge, bathing the mountains in cold white light.
A mountain breeze passed through; leaves rustled overhead.
His father had already lit a torch; the flame danced faintly in the wind.
Del tightened his grip on the wooden stick.
First, master this sword manual.
Then, one step at a time.
