For a while he just breathed and counted. In. Out. The chamber's pulse tried to bully his rhythm; he let it thump and didn't match it. The knife in his hand felt heavier than steel should, and the red shine off the altar made his fingers look like someone else's.
He forced his attention to the part of the System that didn't bleed.
Unallocated: +1 Stat, +2 Skill. He eyed Social and felt nothing but a shrug. Useful later, maybe. Not here among creatures with more teeth than tongue.
Luck, though.
He'd nearly died twice; once to fangs, once to magic that treated him like a wineskin. If five was median, six nudged the dice. A little space between getting clipped and getting killed. A better chance that the next book he gambled on wasn't poison in a pretty jacket.
[Allocate Stat Point → Luck +1?]
Confirm.
A small, almost ridiculous relief spread through him; not strength, not speed, but margin. He could live with margin.
Nice.
He flexed his hand and thought about his 13 durability. Past elite. Into the "you shouldn't be able to do that" territory. The hollow in his stomach felt wider than it had when he entered the dungeon, like the tank had grown new walls while he wasn't looking. Capacity meant options. Options kept you upright.
He faced the heart again. Whatever it was, it pumped wrong. It had fed a priest. It would keep feeding the next one.
"Not letting you reset," he said, voice flat. "Not on my watch."
He walked the room's perimeter, collecting the driest scraps he could find: cracked chair legs, ragged binding boards, a drift of handbills laminated with dust. The altar's runoff hissed at anything too close; he stacked his fuel just outside the spray radius and tested the air draft with his palm. Movement tugged toward a high vent; smoke would go somewhere that wasn't his lungs.
The ritual skill wasn't a spellbook so much as a pattern. You put lines where lines wanted to be, you made space for intention, and you let breath carry shape. He dragged the knife tip across stone in a steady arc to score a simple circle, then traced a second, smaller ring around the heart's cradle anchors—close enough to matter, not so close he'd wash himself in acid.
He crouched and set tinder. The firestarter spat sparks obediently; the paper caught, then the slats; he fed it cautious air until it had its feet under it. He didn't chant. He didn't need to. He breathed slow and regular and drew two straight lines with the knife's back along the circle's edge, letting Sense Magic tell him when the geometry "clicked." The click was real: a faint shift in the sound of the fire, like a tone finding pitch.
The flames leaned toward the cradle.
Purify.
Metal complained as heat found stress. Bone struts darkened and cracked where they'd been married to iron; resinous stink rolled through the chamber and he stepped back, forearm up, letting the poncho take the spatter it would. The heart twitched on its hooks like something deciding whether it could still pretend to live.
"Burn," he said to it, because talking sometimes helped. "Be something else."
A rivulet of dark fluid dripped, hissed, and flashed steam. The purifying fire wavered; he fed it another board and a breath and kept tracing small, careful lines in the ash at the circle's edge until the cradle's joints went from shadow to cherry to dull-black. The wrong beat slowed, then staggered, then tried to surge.
Too late.
One of the bone braces slumped in on itself; the heart sagged and tore its own weight free. It hit the altar and broke like a sack full of knives. Fluid sheeted; stone smoked; the last beat was a dry cough and then only the fire spoke.
The System noticed.
[Action Registered: Desecration of Sacred Engine]
Affiliation Updated: God of Spilt Blood — Disposition: Angered
EXP Gained: 250
"Figured," William murmured.
The words hung in the heat. The chamber felt lighter and uglier at the same time, like a locked room with a window blown out.
He pulled his screen not to admire the new line, but to see where it lived. A fresh section had budded below Combat Values.
Affiliations:
– God of Spilt Blood — Angered
That would be fun later.
He rolled his shoulders and considered the arithmetic again. Durability wasn't just a number; it was a permission slip. He rapped his knuckles lightly against a bare patch of wall and then, curiosity pricking, drove a short, sharp punch at a seam.
The jolt up his arm was a dull clap and then… nothing. No bone-shock, no bright pain. Stone dust sifted down in a soft ribbon.
Useful. Not invulnerability. A goblin's club or a falling shelf would still make him see God, if there was one, but slashes and stabs just lost leverage when the frame didn't give. Add Resorb Blood (Basic) [Self], and blades became something he could pay for in minutes instead of days.
Magic and hammers remained problems. He logged it like a field note.
He flicked to resistances, then blinked; a small chevron hung next to his blood resistance. He tapped.
Blood Resistance:
– Mitigates harm from blood-based attacks, spells, and toxins.
– Reduced absorption of bloodborne contaminants.
– Partial protection against corrosive blood effects.
– Scaling improves with exposure and related skills.
He snorted. "Too specific to be useful," he would've said two hours ago.
The room smelled like pennies again. The line made sudden, perfect sense.
He closed the menu and scanned the gore-slicked floor. No coin purse, no armor worth stealing, no trinkets he wanted to carry next to his skin. The book he'd eaten was the only drop that mattered; the rest of the reward was burned ash and a line that said a god knew his name.
He started toward the far wall and froze, because his situational awareness twitched at a patch of stone that looked dumber than the rest. No seams. No sigils. Just a square that had been scrubbed cleaner than its neighbors by hands he didn't want to imagine.
He knelt, brushed soot aside, and felt for edges. There—hairline, thin as a book page. He pressed and the panel shifted inward with a reluctant sigh.
Behind it waited a low niche and, inside, a chest. Not fancy. Iron-banded wood with a wrap of greasy cloth. The smell of old oil leaked out when he tugged the covering free. The lockplate was a crooked hexagon with a tooth.
Like the door up the passage.
Like the goblin key in his pocket.
Jackpot.
He pulled the key out and held it up. Magic shivered along his palm—faint, approving, like a dog that knew its leash.
"Yeah," he said softly. "I figured you brought me here for a reason."
He didn't slide it home yet. The heat still wavered; the air billowed with the ruin of the heart; he wanted one more pass at his numbers before he opened anything that might have opinions.
He pulled up the screen again, letting the text steady the parts of him that still shook.
Status: William Page
Age: 18
System: Unbound Bookeater
Class: None
Level: 3
EXP: 250 / 300
Strength: 11
Speed: 12
Durability: 13
Mental: 12
Social: 5
Luck: 6
Traits:
– Hunger for Knowledge
– Synesthetic Cognition
– Rational Mind
Skills:
– Survival (Basic)
– Mycology (Basic)
– Cooking (Basic)
– Knife Use (Basic)
– Herb Lore (Basic)
– Knife Combat (Basic)
– Medicine (Basic)
– Magic (Basic)
– Anatomy (Basic)
– Unarmed Combat (Intermediate)
– Wrestling (Basic)
– Situational Awareness (Basic)
– Rituals (Basic)
Abilities:
– Sense Magic (Basic) [Touch]
– Resorb Blood (Basic) [Self]
Resistances:
– Blood (Minor)
Combat Values:
– Critical Hit Chance: +10%
Affiliations:
– God of Spilt Blood — Angered
Unallocated Points:
– Stat Points: 0
– Skill Points: 2
Inventory:
– Knife (Common, Durability 81%)
– Trail Mix (Mundane, 340g)
– Water Bottle (Common, Empty, Durability 100%)
– Paracord (Common, 16 ft, Durability 98%)
– Firestarter (Common, Durability 87%)
– Poncho (Common, Durability 80%)
– Goblin Key (Uncommon)
– Improvised Sling (Common, Durability 85%)
– Smooth Stones (x3, Mundane)
He let the window fade and the chest settle back into being the only interesting object in the room that didn't actively try to dissolve him. The key felt heavier now that the heart was purified, like the weight in it had been waiting for this exact second.
He turned the toothy profile to the lock, held a breath, and slid it forward until iron kissed iron.
The wards inside clicked like teeth.
And William smiled without humor at the thing that wanted to be opened.