---
The corpse stared with empty eyes, but Lucen didn't look at it.
He stood beside it in the dark, breathing slow and measured, one hand flexing absently. His skin itched... not on the surface, but beneath it. Like something inside was adjusting. Shifting. Scraping the edge of his soul.
He could feel it now.
Stone Skin (Damaged).
A thin shell of hardened flesh coiled beneath his own. Weak. Cracked. But real. His first Soulprint.
He moved his fingers in a slow fist.
Response time: 0.4 seconds. Strength rating: 1.3. Enough to absorb a small fall or glancing blow.
> [Skill Integration: Stable]
[Memory Fragment Contained. Echo Severity: Low.]
Then it came.
A flicker of a voice. Soft. Regretful. Not his.
"Tell my daughter... I'm sorry..."
Lucen's eyelids twitched.
His body didn't move, but a cold sensation slipped down his spine. It was like someone had whispered directly behind his ear.
The first echo, he thought. Residual thought from a dying soul. Lingering emotion stored in the stolen skill. It's not mine. It doesn't belong to me.
He exhaled, slow and long. Let the feeling bleed away.
Keep it compartmentalized. Wall it off.
Lucen turned and left the body behind.
He didn't bury it. The man had already collapsed once. It didn't matter where he stayed.
---
Hours passed.
He wandered the under-chambers like a ghost, guided only by instinct and pattern recognition. Dead tunnels branched in every direction, some collapsed, others buried in silence. Lucen kept to the left-hand rule, mapping mentally as he moved.
Eventually, he reached a vertical shaft lined with metal rungs. A rusted ladder stretching into the unknown.
He climbed.
Twenty meters. Forty. His hands bled, but he barely noticed. Blood was information. Pain was data. His mind recorded everything... grip fatigue, torque pressure, heartbeat irregularities.
At the top, light filtered through a grate. Dim. Artificial. Clean air.
At one he discovered an access vent and he heaved himself through into a long-forgotten corridor, which was cleaner than the tunnels, finished with worn silver metal and smashed crystal tubes.
This wasn't part of the mines.
He moved quietly. Every footstep measured. Every breath controlled.
Then he heard voices.
Two men. Guard uniforms. Not like the ones in the lower pits. These had cleaner gear. Better weapons.
Lucen crouched behind a conduit and listened.
"...confirmed. Five dead, six buried, one unaccounted. Might be one of the Blanks. Doesn't matter, nothing down there's worth salvaging."
"Still. Protocol says we check the sealed sectors. Old soul chambers might still have value."
"Soulprint readings are dead. We're just wasting time."
They walked past him, not even noticing.
Lucen didn't move.
I'm the unaccounted.
Which means I'm also... forgotten.
He waited until their footsteps faded, then slipped into the maintenance corridor. He'd have to move fast, before the system's records caught up.
As he passed a glass panel, he saw his reflection for the first time in weeks.
Thin. Pale. Dust-covered. But the eyes were the same.
Sharp. Cold.
Watching everything.
He stared at himself for a moment, then muttered:
"One skill. One death. One echo. And I already feel the difference."
---
He moved again, tracing the path toward the surface.
But then... static.
Not in his ears, but in his mind.
A flicker. A pulse.
> [Proximity Trigger: Compatible Soulprint Detected.]
[Initiate Marking Sequence?]
[Target: Subject #47 – Active Soulprint: Heat Vein Pulse]
Lucen froze.
Another survivor?
A flicker of footsteps echoed from the next corridor. Someone limping. Alive. A glowing trace of red along their chest.
He could strike now.
Take the power. Another upgrade. Another piece to break the system.
But I just heard my first echo. The voice lingered. It wasn't mine.
What happens if I take too many?
The footsteps grew closer.
Lucen stepped back into the shadows, hiding behind a rusted wall.
He didn't move.
This time, he let the survivor pass.
I don't need to kill everything I see.
Not yet.
---
He waited in silence, then slipped in the opposite direction.
Efficiency is not violence. It's restraint.
He reached into his ragged coat, pulled out the bloodstained strip of cloth from before.
And with a sharp nail, under faint torchlight, he wrote:
> Soul Ledger – Entry #1
Skill: Stone Skin (Damaged)
Method: Collapse aftermath. Extraction from dying miner.
Echo: Regret. Final thought: "Tell my daughter..."
Side Effect: Mild breath tightness. No hallucinations yet.
Use Potential: Defense buffer for first strike.
Notes: Echo lingers longer than expected. Will monitor.
He folded the cloth and tucked it close to his chest.
Then disappeared into the world above.
A world that no longer saw him.
A Blank.
Now carrying more than just a stolen skill.
He carried a system.
And it had begun to whisper.
---
End of Chapter 2
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