"How can anyone be this reckless? Who do you think you are, the main character?"
Ryan was baffled — and a little tempted to curse someone out. He'd initially figured that whatever killed the big idiot, since he'd woken up with no obvious physical issues, things were probably fine. But now he had to admit: he was rattled. Learning about this series of "eh, probably doesn't make much difference" decisions, Ryan felt the odds of hidden complications — or outright false recovery — climbing fast.
The one thought running through his head: Is there any hope for me?
The image of those scale-like things from when he first woke up flashed back to him. What if they were just dormant? Shoving everything else aside, he immediately dug back into the newly surfaced memory fragments.
Understanding the situation had originally been about figuring out why he'd transmigrated — but that could wait. Besides, he instinctively didn't buy that a potion called "Assassin," just because one ingredient was wrong, had somehow gained the power to transmigrate people. Believing that was less reasonable than treating transmigration as an astronomically rare random event.
Still, the memory fragments were a disappointment, though not a surprise — the big idiot hadn't cared in the slightest what any of these ingredients actually did. From the new fragments, Ryan could only piece together the following:
The "Assassin" potion had subsequent tiers: Sequence 8, Sequence 7, all the way down to Sequence 1. The lower the number, the greater the supernatural power granted. After adapting to and mastering a given Sequence, you were required to take the next potion in order — or death was the only other outcome. Furthermore, there was more than one potion lineage. The two orthodox churches in this country — the Church of the Night and the Church of the Storm — each possessed their own distinct Sequence 9 potions and the tiers that followed. And once you drank the Assassin potion, you had to seek out the Assassin lineage's Sequence 8 — no substituting another Sequence 8 from a different lineage, or you'd die for that too.
That was the gist. There were a few claims he couldn't verify — like Sequence 4 and beyond rivaling the saints recorded in Church doctrine — so Ryan didn't put much stock in those.
Honestly, this was all useful knowledge — but it didn't stop him from feeling ready to throw a punch.
At least ask what counts as a success and what counts as failure. At minimum — what abilities does the "Assassin" potion actually give? Then I'd at least know whether I should be panicking.
But from the memory fragments, Ryan could tell the big idiot had this inexplicable confidence in himself, and hadn't entertained the possibility of failure for even a second.
Fantastic. He stared at the ceiling, rubbing his temples. Does surviving count as success, and dying count as failure? Then what does dying-and-coming-back make me?
This was a headache. One perfectly ordinary death had become needlessly complicated because of his transmigration. Without any prior knowledge of this world's supernatural system, he had no way to gauge whether any of the information in these memory fragments was actually true. He wasn't like the big idiot — he didn't take everything at face value. Running through everything that had happened since he woke up, the only things he could confirm as real were two: he had definitely transmigrated; and this so-called potion could definitely produce something inexplicable.
"What do I do now? Feels like a dead end. Time to change approach?"
Assume the formula is real and the missing ingredient didn't matter. Assume waking up means I successfully obtained supernatural power. What state am I in, exactly?
He let that thought run.
A supernatural power called "Assassin" — what would make it distinct? Invisibility? One-hit kills to vital points?
What he didn't expect was for the memories themselves to give him the most precise answer the moment he focused on the question.
And unlike the big idiot's hazy, fragmented recollections that took effort to surface, these were sharp, complete, and clearly intact. Even before he'd confirmed anything, he felt certain — certain enough that the dread he'd been holding back loosened, just slightly.
The knowledge felt as natural as if it had been written into his DNA. It felt so familiar that he had the strange, disorienting impression of being a veteran assassin with decades of experience under his belt — not a fresh graduate who'd barely worked a few months.
Of course, feelings were feelings. Ryan still ran through the contents carefully.
Tracking. Disguise. Stealth. Combat. Eagle Eye. Night Vision. Acute Hearing. Danger Intuition. Shadow Concealment. Full-Force Strike. Featherfall…
The more he read, the more surreal it felt — like he'd been hit in the head by a pie falling from the sky. The most optimistic scenario he'd casually imagined was actually true? The seller who looked every bit a con artist was telling the truth? The formula specifically called for a live spider, and it not being alive made no difference? This was the most basic Sequence 9, and yet he didn't need to figure anything out himself — it was as if a complete instruction manual had been downloaded directly into his brain.
"…I haven't transmigrated into a video game, have I?"
Given the situation, it was a natural thought for someone steeped in web fiction. The potions really did resemble character classes, just without a status screen — skill descriptions loaded straight into your head. The only difference was that no game would lock a player into a single build with no class changes allowed, where leveling up wrong meant a permanent game over.
Unless… he wasn't the player.
He sat with that thought for a few seconds, then shook his head and pushed it away. Whether this was a game wasn't something he could figure out from inside a room. And calm reflection told him he might be getting ahead of himself — what if the instruction manual was perfectly accurate, but the actual product was something different entirely?
So Ryan decided to step outside and test it. He wanted to see whether his actual supernatural abilities matched the "manual" in his head. If they did, he felt like he could let himself relax — at least halfway.
Decided, he moved. His life was on the line, and when that was the case, he had no trouble taking action.
That's when he noticed something he probably should have caught earlier: just by shifting his attention away from the table and looking toward the corners the crimson moonlight didn't reach, it was obvious he had Night Vision. Tonight's moon wasn't particularly bright, and yet the outlines of everything in the room were unusually sharp.
So I spent all that time overthinking, and the answer was right there.
He had no one to blame but himself — who stays calm when something like this happens?
After that mild self-consolation, Ryan moved away from the table by the window and stepped into the moonlight-free shadows.
Shadow Concealment required being physically inside a shadow to activate.
Without any preamble, as easily as flexing a finger, his body simply vanished into the dark. He glanced around, then decided to head outside and test the rest. This place was bleak enough — he didn't want to accidentally wreck it. It was the only roof over his head.
He pulled the door shut behind him and turned for one last look at the building — its silhouette still crisp in the night. It gave him the strange sensation of looking at a place that had already moved on without him.
He had to admit: as dim-witted as the big idiot had been in chasing supernatural power, Ryan had genuinely benefited from it. Not only did he now have abilities, he had a roof over his head until at least next month.
I didn't exactly want to inherit anything from you, but I don't have a way to give it back. And this world doesn't have the tradition of burning paper offerings. So… maybe I just won't disturb your parents? Without you, they'll probably be better off.
The money the big idiot had spent on the formula and materials had mostly come from a sum his mother slipped him in secret when he was thrown out — and it was no small amount. If he hadn't stumbled onto rumors of supernatural power and managed to get his hands on that formula, Ryan suspected the big idiot wouldn't have held onto that money for long.
You had everything going for you. Why become a gambling addict? And look where that got you — you gambled away your own life. If I hadn't ended up here by chance, you'd probably have stayed undiscovered until next month. And even when news of your death does make it back home, who's going to grieve, aside from your mother?
So — what was the point? Next life, don't be a gambling addict, David John.
Author's Note (this chapter):"How can anyone be this reckless? Who do you think you are, the main character?"
太和_eE · · Jiangsu Big idiot: Sorry, I actually am.
异世界的旅行家 · · Hebei Some author: Well, you are now.
叒叕是我 · · Beijing Actually not a big deal — by the end of the Fifth Era, the primal will had already weakened enough that even without the secondary ingredients, low-Sequence advancements have a chance of succeeding. 😂 (Reply to 书友20250513464: You can just skip straight to consuming the supernatural characteristic, just roll the dice.)