Spire's Challenger

Chapter 5: Life Goes On, and Three Energies

Two Months Later

Time passed, but the weight pressing on Nathan's mind never truly eased.

The nightmares lingered. Relentless and unforgiving. Every night, they came in different forms—haunting echoes of his past life and the horrors he had lived through. The faces. The cold, empty gazes of those he could no longer remember by name but felt crushingly familiar.

No, he didn't forget their names, he just didn't want to remember it, to feel the guilt stab him deeper as he breath.

He wished to end it all, but he knew it was just his fear trying to push him back into committing the same mistakes again and again.

He knew that and yet, everything feels unbearable. Each dream, a grim reminder of the blood he had stained his hands with—directly or through his failures.

He wasn't a heartless monster, because if he was, he shouldn't have this guilt in him.

Yet despite the torment, he forced himself to continue.

'No more delays bastard, you need to start doing things.'

By day, he masked it all behind a carefully crafted facade of normalcy. To his boardmates, he was just another quiet engineering student keeping to himself.

It wasn't that uncommon for someone to go silent when they were already that quiet in the first place. Still, he could feel others' rising concerns to his increased timidity.

'I mean, before, this felt like a bitch to me. Hurts, but now… it's my way of moving on.'

Thankfully, they acted as if everything was normal, likely waiting for him to open up insted. No one questioned the dark circles beneath his eyes. No one really noticed the subtle tension in his every movement, or the way his eyes seemed to linger just a moment longer on every person he passed—as if searching for something unknown to themselves.

He couldn't afford to draw attention, or be entangled with anything worrisome and annoying drama that might just pop up if he wasn't careful.

'Yeah… I'm not going to enter that hole.'

He's not the same as those main characters in survival apocalypse themed stories, who can immediately pull their weight in the team, or survive just fine alone and live without danger rearing it's maws on their backs every second of their lives.

No, he is currently both the worst outcomes of those two kinds of characters.

Unreliable, Coward, and Weak.

But, he want to change.

Four years.

That was how long he had until the Spires' emergence. Four years before everything spiraled into chaos. Before the world broke apart under the weight of something humanity was never meant to face.

Unlike those stories he had read, where the main character was dropped in last second changes before the disaster, he had time to use. To fully prepare himself, to grow enough to be able to survive when the sudden disasters come knocking his door.

He was someone who has worthless patience, and can only ask for relief and food without minding his image one bit.

But, that was before. He had no intention of wasting a second more.

Nathan's preparations had already begun, and he dares not to hasten it without any proper reason or preparations if his plans failed. The Yakuza lead he had secured weeks prior was still in progress, a delicate thread he needed to weave carefully.

The group is an asset that he would never waste his chance to take, as few of the people he knew that could help him have relations with the Japanese organisation.

Money was his first concern—resources, equipment, and information didn't come cheap. The money he had given to get the information about the Yakuza was actually his tuition fee for three full years, and a little bit of borrowed money from his 'friends', he's still an unemployed and didn't work part-time at the moment, so it really was a risky decision for him to do that.

But, time waits for no one, he never know if the Spire's would emerge quickly, or a bit later than he had experienced, just like the loops in the 'Novel's Extra', or Junghyuk's regression in 'Omniscient Reader'.

Hell, he was as paranoid as he could be when it comes with the spires, because he knew what would ultimately happen if hell finally breaks loose.

Yet his ultimate goal was more than mere survival. He needed power. Strength. Not just to endure the storm but to overcome the shadows looming over the horizon.

'A decent character development, don't you think?' he found it funny, but nevertheless still helpful for him to engage with sarcasm to break his paranoia's clutches on his mind.

His thoughts drifted back to the black notebook tucked away beneath the false bottom of his desk drawer. The notes he had written—theories about the Spires, the monsters, the energies yet to awaken. Some pages still remained blank, waiting for truths that hadn't been revealed in his past life until it was far too late.

—

Nathan sat at his desk, the dim light of his room casting long shadows across the pages of his diary. The pen hovered above the lined paper as he carefully wrote, his mind searching every nook and cranny of his memories to fill the pages with useful information from the 'future.'

He began with the Three Energies—'his' most critical discovery from the Spires. These weren't just abstract concepts; they were the foundation of power, the keys to survival and growth. This time, he would master them.

Arcane

"Mana." That was the simplest way to describe it. Arcane energy was the raw essence of the elements themselves, a force capable of shaping reality when wielded correctly.

In its most basic form, Arcane could be crudely expelled—like launching a sphere of pure, glowing energy that crackled with unstable power. But to truly harness it required finesse. By channeling imagination and understanding, one could alter the composition of the energy, shaping it into fire, ice, lightning—or even more abstract elements.

Nathan paused, underlining the word imagination.

The strength of a mage wasn't merely the size of their Arcane pool. It was the clarity of their mind, their ability to envision and control every detail of the spell. To bend reality, you had to first believe you could.

It's the energy that most of the survivors lacked upon awakening their status sheet, often only accessible to those who were saturated within the Spire's mysterious influence for an indefinite amount of time, or those who are exposed to supernatural causes, something related to witchcraft and Druidism, both related in nature yet in opposition to each other.

Ki

He tapped the pen against the page, recalling the stories from his past life. Just like in 'Murim' themed genre and in 'Wuxias' related to ancient martial arts practition, it's definitely the most important thing that a martial artist could have in their lives.

"Martial Energy." Or as some called it, Chi.

Ki was the energy rooted in the physical body—a force that enhanced strength, speed, and resilience. Energy stored within the 'pathways' or 'dantian', it was the power of life itself, bound to a person's vitality and cultivation. Unlike Arcane, which was external and fluid, Ki was internal, a reservoir that only grew stronger through physical mastery and self-discipline.

In fact, Ki has similarities to Arcane in elemental department, as the energy itself can be branded with the element which the user are intimately compatible of upon cultivation, akin to the anime 'Naruto's' chakra nature. The only difference is, such practice demands time and resilience to master elemental energy gathering, as Ki imprints said element to itself and to the user's body.

Like adding powder juice in water, you get the flavor(energy imprint) and the color(element).

Nathan smirked faintly as he wrote down the next line.

'The first to discover it was a Chinese Wuxia enthusiast… I never even learned his name.' silently thanking the hardworking brother, Nathan couldn't help but think of the possibilities of even discovering new type of energies.

'I mean, Chakra and Chi is almost the same except that it is practically the fusion of Arcane and Chi altogether. And if were going to Od and Prana, yeah… druids and martial artists in ancient times must be insanely smart.'

The rumors were vague, but the results weren't. Ki made warriors unstoppable. Those who mastered it could shatter stone with a punch or shrug off wounds that would cripple normal humans, topple mountains with chi-infused sword strike, or even have a symbolic ethereal visage latched on them when performing their techniques.

(A/N: like an illusory depiction of a growling demon behind your mom when she's angry and holding a stick.)

And yet, despite its raw power, Ki remained limited to the physical.

It couldn't cleanse. It couldn't heal everything.

If anything, it's an energy form of immortality, and immortals were never an absolute invincible.

Which brought him to the most mysterious of all.

Spirit.

Nathan's hand slowed. This was the energy that haunted him the most—the one he barely understood even in his last life.

The one that made him despair as he saw everyone continuously succeeding, unlike him who had no chance to even get stronger in the end when he reached his limit.

"Soul Energy."

Unlike the tangible forces of Arcane and Ki, Spirit was ethereal, elusive. It didn't strengthen the body or shape the elements. It was deeper. Personal.

Spirit was tied to the essence of a being, to the soul.

It granted resistance—protection against corruption, possession, and mind-altering influences.

Akin to supernatural shield to bad luck with bonuses.

And yet, Spirit wasn't just defense. It was also the core of something far greater.

Godhood.

He hesitated before writing those words, his jaw tightening.

Nathan had seen it firsthand—others ascending beyond mortality, while he was left behind, too weak and spiteful to even comprehend how they achieved such heights. Spirit was the foundation of divinity. It was the material used to transcend humanity itself.

In the stories of old, humans who achieved godhoods are common as rice in the rice field. Heroes, Chosen Ones, Demigods, greeks never had enough when creating stories depicting the grandeur of achieving the impossible–breaking humanly restraints of mortality and becoming an avatar of divinity for all to see.

Nathan exhaled sharply, underlining the word Spirit with a bold stroke.

"It's also the only thing keeping corruption from eating you alive."

He closed the diary, the memories still echoing in his mind.

This time, he would understand all three. Not just survive them—but master them.

******