The wind howled like a banshee, tearing through the thin fabric of Dante's noble coat.
He had been walking for two hours.
His left shoulder, where the wolf had bitten him, throbbed with a dull, rhythmic pain. The System had stabilized the wound, cauterizing the blood vessels with the tiny amount of energy harvested from the beast's core, but it hadn't fixed the damage. He was weak, freezing, and running on fumes.
Calories burned: 450. Core Body Temperature: 35.2°C. Hypothermia imminent in 40 minutes.
Dante ignored the red warning flashing in his peripheral vision. He fixed his gaze on the grey silhouette looming in the distance.
Blackcrag Outpost.
This was it. The end of the line. The specific hell his father, the Duke, had chosen for him. It wasn't just a fortress, it was the graveyard of the Valtoria family. A crumbling relic on the edge of civilization where useless heirs were sent to govern "territory" until the cold or the wolves claimed them.
From the memories of the old Dante, he expected a fortress. What he saw was a ruin.
The outer walls were crumbling, the stone mortar eaten away by decades of neglect. There were no banners flying, no guards patrolling the battlements. It looked less like a noble's estate and more like a graveyard for the living.
Dante dragged his feet through the snow, reaching the heavy wooden gate. It was rotting on its hinges.
"Open up," he rasped, his voice barely carrying over the wind.
There was no answer.
He banged his uninjured fist against the wood. "I am Dante Von Valtoria. Open this gate!"
A small viewing slot slid open with a screech of rust. A pair of fearful, tired eyes peered out.
"Lord Dante?" A shaky voice replied. "But... the guards said you were delayed. They said..."
"They abandoned me," Dante cut him off, his tone flat. "Open the gate before I freeze to death, or I will have your head for incompetence."
He didn't mean it. Execution was a waste of labor. However, he knew that he needed to establish dominance immediately.
The bolts groaned, and the gate creaked open.
Dante stepped into the courtyard. If the outside was grim, the inside was pathetic.
A huddled group of maybe twenty people stood in the snow. They were dressed in rags, their faces gaunt and hollow. Men, women, a few children. They looked at him not with hope, but with the dull resignation of cattle waiting for the slaughter.
An old man with a limp shuffled forward. He wore a tattered tunic that might have once been a steward's uniform.
"My Lord," the old man bowed low, shivering. "I am Kaelen, the steward of Blackcrag. We... we didn't expect you to survive the wolves alone."
Dante looked around the courtyard. "Where are the soldiers? The supplies?"
Kaelen flinched. "Gone, my Lord. The previous commander took the garrison and the grain stores when he heard you were coming. He said... he said he wouldn't serve a 'Mana-less Cripple'."
Dante's expression didn't change. Desertion and theft. Typical.
"Take me inside," Dante commanded. "And give me a status report. Now."
The main hall of the keep was barely warmer than the outside. The stone hearth was empty, cold and dark.
Dante sat in a high-backed wooden chair that was missing one armrest. Kaelen stood before him, wringing his hands.
"Resources?" Dante asked.
"None, my Lord," Kaelen whispered. "We have enough moldy wheat for maybe three days. No meat. No medicine."
"Fuel?"
"We... we burned the last of the firewood yesterday. The Frost Woods surrounding us are too dangerous to gather timber without soldiers. The wolves..."
Dante leaned back, closing his eyes. No food. No heat. No army. And I have a body that can't cast a spark of magic.
"System," he subvocalized. "Status."
A red screen populated the air in front of him.
$$**[USER PROFILE]** **Name:** Dante Von Valtoria **Race:** Human **Class:** [Titan Architect (Hidden)] **Level:** 1 **[ATTRIBUTES]** **Strength:** 4 (Malnourished) **Agility:** 5 **Endurance:** 3 (Critical) **Mana Capacity:** 0/0 (Null) **Intelligence:** SSS (Limit Break) **[ACTIVE QUEST]** **Objective:** Establish a Safe Zone. **Reward:** Blueprint [Basic Mining Pickaxe].$$
Dante nearly laughed. Mana: 0. Intelligence: SSS. It was the universe's way of playing a joke. He was a supercomputer running on a potato battery.
"My Lord," Kaelen said softly. "If... if you wish to leave, we understand. You can't survive the winter here. None of us will."
Dante opened his eyes. He looked at the shivering old man. Then he looked past him, at the dark, jagged stones that made up the fireplace and the walls of the keep.
His eyes narrowed.
[Material Scan Initiated...]
The red vision returned. He focused on a pile of dusty, black rocks sitting in a bucket near the fireplace, clearly used as doorstops or trash.
[Item Identified: Anthracite Coal.][Purity: 85%. Carbon Content: High.][Potential Energy: 30 MJ/kg.]
Dante stood up. He walked over to the bucket and picked up one of the black rocks. It was heavy, cold, and dusty.
"Kaelen," Dante said, holding up the rock. "What is this?"
Kaelen looked confused. "That? That's just Blackstone, my Lord. It's useless. It crumbles when you build with it, and it dirties everything it touches. The peasants dig it up sometimes when trying to find iron."
"Useless," Dante repeated.
"Yes, my Lord. It's trash rock. We usually throw it in the ravine."
Dante gripped the coal. On Earth, wars were fought over this. Nations were built on this. And here, they used it as a doorstop because they were too obsessed with magic to understand chemistry.
"Kaelen," Dante said, a strange light entering his eyes. "Do we have any tinder? Dried grass? Old parchment?"
"A... a little, my Lord. But we have no wood to light."
"Bring it."
Kaelen hesitated but obeyed. He returned moments later with a handful of dry straw and a flint striker.
Dante placed the straw in the massive, cold fireplace. He arranged a few smaller chunks of the 'Blackstone' on top of it, creating a pyramid structure for airflow.
"My Lord?" Kaelen watched him with pity. "Rock doesn't burn."
Dante ignored him. He struck the flint. A spark caught the straw. A small yellow flame flickered, fragile and weak.
Dante knelt before the fire, blowing gently. The straw flared up, licking at the black rocks.
For a minute, nothing happened. The straw burned down, turning to ash. Kaelen sighed, about to speak.
Then, a hiss.
One of the black rocks cracked. A jet of blue-orange flame shot out of it.
The heat blossomed instantly. Unlike the fast burn of wood, this was a dense, heavy heat. The coal caught fire, glowing a deep, malevolent red.
The temperature in the immediate area spiked. The damp chill of the room began to retreat.
Kaelen's jaw dropped. He took a step back, his eyes wide with superstitious fear. "The... the rock is burning? Is this... alchemy?"
Dante stood up, dusting the soot from his hands. He felt the warmth washing over his face, raising his core temperature.
"No, Kaelen," Dante said, the flames reflecting in his dark eyes. "Alchemy is a parlor trick."
He turned to the steward, his silhouette framed by the roaring fire of the future.
"This is Chemistry."
Dante looked at the bucket of coal.
"Gather the men," Dante ordered, his voice commanding. "I saw an outcrop of these rocks near the gate. We are going to mine every ounce of it."
"But... why, my Lord?"
"Because," Dante smiled, the red light of the System reflecting in his eyes. "We aren't just surviving the winter, Kaelen. We're going to conquer it."