CH 22.1 Thirteen Minutes

The next morning, Mergehold’s lights snapped me awake like they were punishing me for daring to dream.

Everything hurt.

The blueprint crack-fix from yesterday had left a lingering static behind my eyes, the kind that made blinking feel like rebooting a failing computer. But I pushed myself up anyway. Roan existed. That meant I couldn’t afford to be fragile.

I needed control.

I needed strength.

Or at least… the illusion of it.

---

Taylor unlocked the door at exactly 06:13:59.

Always precise. Always tired.

“Thirteen minutes, Rin,” she said, the same softness again, like she hated saying it.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I know the number.”

Her sword caught my eye before I stepped out.

I’d always noticed the hilt, but never the whole thing. Today though… the sun hit the scabbard perfectly, and something in my vision snapped into blueprint-mode automatically.

I froze.

Because suddenly—

I could see inside it.

The curvature of the blade.

The alloy density.

The exact pattern of hammer strikes used to fold the metal.

The microfractures near the guard.

The grip’s tightly wrapped synthetic fiber.

Even the weight distribution.

All of it unfolded in glowing, shifting blue lines.

Taylor glanced back.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Just… stretching.”

I pushed up my glasses and looked away before she saw the panic in my eyes.

I wasn’t stretching.

I was replicating.

My fingers twitched.

The air vibrated.

For half a heartbeat, something began to form — a faint outline, shimmering blue — a blade made of intention.

But before it fully took shape, something in my spine crackled, and the construct flickered violently.

[Warning: Structural Integrity < 12%]

The sword vanished before even existing.

I sucked in a breath, pretending nothing happened.

Roan wasn’t here today, but that didn’t make the air safer.

Danger didn’t need to be visible to be real.

I scanned the yard again.

Dead grass.

Silent walls.

The tree watching me with tired bark.

I stepped into the center and dropped to the ground, palms pressing into the cold earth.

Time to do something stupid.

Push-ups.

---

My arms trembled immediately.

Every press felt like someone had poured sand into my joints.

But I needed to move.

I needed to be something other than a soft target Roan could kill between blinks.

“Twenty… twenty-one… twenty—”

At push-up twenty-eight, my arms shook.

At thirty-one, my spine popped.

At thirty-four, the system chimed.

[Achievement Unlocked: PSYCHOLOGICAL RESONANCE]

Action Logged: 100 Consecutive Push-Ups (Projected)

Reward: +0.001 INTENSITY MANA SIDE

Time Remaining: 59:42

I face-planted in the grass.

“Projected?” I wheezed. “What do you mean projected—?”

“See? I told you. You’re predictable.”

Lyra’s voice slid into my mind like someone scraping silverware inside my skull.

“I didn’t do a hundred,” I muttered between breaths.

“Yet.”

“But—”

“Better get moving. Timer’s running, genius.”

I glared at the dead grass.

“You’re insane.”

“And you’re slow.”

I pushed myself up again.

Because I wasn’t stupid.

The system had rewards.

Rewards meant progression.

Progression meant survival.

So I pushed.

Forty.

Fifty.

Sixty.

By seventy, sweat dripped into my eyes and everything was shaking.

By ninety, my chest felt like collapsing cardboard.

By ninety-nine, I was making noises only dying animals should make.

One hundred.

The world rang like someone struck a bell inside my skull.

[Intensity Mana Updated: +0.001]

[Neural Resistance +0.002]

[Muscle Fiber Recoil Efficiency +0.005]

“I’m… actually leveling up,” I gasped.

The numbers were small — tiny — laughable even.

But power wasn’t about the size of the numbers.

It was about the direction they were moving.

I stayed on the ground, breathing hard, and listened to my heart thud like a dying generator.

Taylor glanced at me from the doorway, her expression flickering — surprise? Concern? Maybe guilt?

She didn’t speak.

And I didn’t tell her.

---

As I walked back to my cell after the thirteen minutes ended, the system clicked softly at the edge of my vision.

Neutral.

Cold.

Formulaic.

Lyra was none of those things.

Lyra laughed.

She teased.

She got bored.

She felt too human in the worst possible way.

Two separate presences.

One machine.

One… something else.

Sometimes when the system talked, Lyra stayed silent.

Sometimes when Lyra talked, the system dimmed.

Like they were fighting.

Or layered.

I couldn’t prove it.

And I would never say it out loud.

Not even in a whisper.

If Lyra heard me call her a virus—

I didn’t know what she could do.

And that was the terrifying part.

---

Back in my cell, I pulled off my shirt.

My stomach had softene over the months adding to the deformation the original Rin had done.

Stress eating.

Ration imbalance.

Lack of exercise.

Now, after push-ups, it hung slightly, like a reminder of how far I had fallen.

“I’ll fix this,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” Lyra said. “Sure you will.”

I ignored her.

For once.

I stared in the mirror.

And then—

Something blue sparked behind my reflection.

A flash.

Not bright — sharp, like a needle of color piercing the air.

I whipped around.

Nothing.

But the mirror—

It flickered again.

Then a notification slammed across my vision like a fist:

[TIME DILATION: BEGIN]

The faucet dripped—

And the droplet hung mid-air, suspended like a glass marble.

My breath left my body in slow motion.

The hum of the light bulb dropped in pitch until it sounded like a groaning beast.

I reached for the falling water, and the air resisted me like thick syrup.

Another notification blinked open:

[Temporal Anomaly Detected]

[Time Portal: Initializing]

Standby…

Standby?

Standby for WHAT?

The mirror rippled—

The reflection bending like someone stirring liquid metal.

Blue light pulsed from inside the frame.

Slow.

Rhythmic.

Almost like breathing.

I stepped back instinctively.

The system buzzed, panicked for the first time:

[WARNING: Unauthorized Temporal Access]

[Warning: Unknown Entity Interference]

[Warning: Lyra Override Attempt Detected]

Lyra didn’t speak.

Not a word.

Which scared me more than anything.

The mirror bent inward.

Like a mouth.

Or an opening.

Time groaned around me.

The droplet finally fell — one inch — still slow.

My heart raced.

I wasn’t stupid.

I wasn’t reckless.

I understood when the world was telling me a rule had been broken.

I knew enough to realize—

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

And whatever was about to come through that mirror…

It wasn’t friendly.

I swallowed hard.

My voice came out sharp.

Controlled.

Steadier than I felt.

“What… is on the other side?”

No answer.

Not from Lyra.

Not from the system.

Not from the world.

Just the mirror, widening—

Inviting.

And for the first time since arriving in Mergehold…

I felt like something out there had finally noticed me back.