The biting frost was not merely weather; it was a thief. It stole heat from the skin, slowed the circulation of the blood, and numbed the synapses of the brain. In the city of Dai, the cold was the most consistent killer.
For years, the relentless incursions from the State of Yan and the ceaseless skirmishes with northern barbarians had conspired to hollow out this city. Once the proud northern gateway to the State of Zhao, Dai was now a collection of skeletal ruins. War, famine, and plague had harvested the adults, leaving behind legions of orphans in an era that recognized only one currency: power.
This was the Warring States period—a chaotic crucible where death remained the only stable truth.
In a shattered corner of this decaying city, huddled beneath the shadow of a half-collapsed mud wall, sat a small boy. He appeared no more than six years old. His frame was so emaciated that his ribs threatened to puncture his pallid skin, visible through the rags of a tunic that was more holes than fabric.
Yet, beneath the grime, his features held an unnatural sharpness. His brows were defined like sword strokes, and his face possessed a cold symmetry that promised future handsomeness. But it was his eyes that arrested the soul. They were absolute voids—pitch-black pits that seemed to house distant stars moving within the depths of a dark universe.
"It seems the temporal translocation experiment was a partial success," the boy muttered.
His voice was a dry grate, devoid of the high pitch of childhood. This was Adam, one of the most brilliant minds of the 23rd century—a man who had spent his life studying neural engineering and quantum physics until he reached a pinnacle no human had ever touched.
In his previous life, he was known as the "Architect of the Mind." He was the creator of the Mind Universe, a revolutionary technology that allowed him to store and process data as vast celestial bodies within his own consciousness. To Adam, a law of physics was a planet; a complex chemical formula was a star system. Now, all that immense power was trapped inside the frail, shivering structure of a starving child.
Growl... The sound erupted from his empty stomach, a violent reminder of his biological debt. It severed his train of thought like a blade.
"I suppose the first priority is ensuring I do not perish due to a lack of biological fuel," Adam whispered to himself.
He attempted to stand, but his knees buckled instantly. A violent wave of vertigo hit him, turning the world into a blur of grey and brown. In that moment, a fundamental shift occurred. The dizziness wasn't merely a physical sensation; it was a distortion in his very perception of reality.
The "Neural Thought-Web" he had utilized in the future had fused with his consciousness during the time leap. It had evolved, merging with his soul to become what he could only describe as the Neural Synthesis Core.
Adam no longer needed to exert mental effort to analyze his surroundings. The Core performed it autonomously, overlaying his vision with a faint, crystalline blue grid. He could see the geometric lines of the rubble, the precise refraction angles of the dimming light, and even the density of dust particles dancing in the freezing air.
He began to move cautiously, dragging his weak limbs and scanning the alley with scientific detachment. He passed the slumped corpse of a soldier, a man whose life had likely ended in a meaningless skirmish. Immediately, the Core issued a clinical warning in his mind: [Warning: Advanced organic decomposition detected. Pathogen count: High. Bacterial poisoning risk: 99.4%. Do not consume.]
Adam didn't flinch at the sight of the rotting meat. To him, it was simply a failed biological machine. He veered right, moving behind a scorched warehouse. Here, he activated his ability to sense "densities." To his enhanced vision, the piles of refuse were no longer filth, but varying signatures of matter.
He scanned a mound of debris and spotted a distinct organic signature buried deep. He began digging with frozen, bleeding fingers. He ignored the pain; pain was just a signal, and he had learned to mute it. Finally, he unearthed a shattered clay jar. Inside were the solidified remains of millet grains and a scrap of salted hog fat that had been preserved by the cold.
As he chewed the millet with agonizing slowness to avoid a vomit reflex, Adam recalled his combat background. He had been an orphan in the 23rd century as well, raised in a subterranean megacity where the weak were recycled. He had learned early that a brilliant mind requires a protective shell.
He had subjected his former body to grueling combat and military training based on absolute efficiency and anatomical weak points. He looked at his current, spindly arms with a flicker of bitterness. The knowledge was there, the lethal tactics were etched into his neural memory, but the current tool—his body—was utterly broken.
Adam rose with difficulty, intending to move toward the city's northern outskirts to find better shelter. But the Core in his mind suddenly vibrated with a sharp, haptic pulse. [Warning: Irregular acoustic vibrations detected... Subject: Organic, Aggressive. Estimated Mass: 40kg. Distance: 12 meters.]
From behind the wreckage of a wooden cart, a massive stray dog emerged. Its fur was matted with dried blood and filth, and its eyes burned with a primal, desperate hunger. The beast growled, coiling its hind muscles, preparing for a pounce.
In that instant, the world in Adam's eyes transformed into a schematic. He saw the dog's "center of gravity" as a glowing dot. He saw its "predicted attack angle" as a blue arc. Finally, the Core pinpointed a lethal structural weakness—a small gap in the skull's thickness right behind the ear.
The dog launched itself like a projectile. Adam did not retreat. Instead, he lunged forward in a low-profile crouch, sliding beneath the dog's jaws with "nano-second" precision. As the beast passed over him, Adam used a broken bronze dagger he had scavenged from the mud. He delivered a precise thrust, utilizing the dog's own momentum against the blade's edge, severing the animal's femoral artery in one fluid motion.
The dog collapsed into the dirt. A massive headache throbbed behind Adam's eyes, and a warm trail of blood erupted from his nose. The neural cost was exorbitant; his 6-year-old brain was overheating from the data surge. He stumbled but regained his footing, finishing the job with a single, precise strike at the structural point indicated by the Core.
He felt no sense of victory. There was no adrenaline rush, only a cold calculation of the results. Results: 150 calories expended. Heart rate: 165 bpm. Integrity: Stable but critical.
He dropped to his knees, his small hands trembling as he wiped the blood from his nose. His respiratory rate was too high; he was hyperventilating, and the freezing air was starting to crystallize the moisture in his throat.
He looked at the carcass of the dog, then toward the distant, jagged silhouette of the mountains. To anyone else, they were a landmark. To Adam, they were a heat-sink—a place with enough timber and stone to create a thermal barrier against the wind.
He didn't think of destiny. He simply grabbed the dog's leg and began to drag the heavy mass into the deepest shadows of the ruins. Every inch felt like a mile. His focus was reduced to a single, mechanical loop: Grip. Pull. Breathe. Repeat.
He found a corner where two stone slabs had fallen against each other, creating a narrow, stagnant pocket of air. He crawled inside, dragging the meat with him to keep it from the crows. He slumped against the freezing stone, his eyes half-closed.
He spent the next hour watching the thermal data of his own body, monitoring the slow, agonizing crawl of his internal temperature as his stomach began the violent process of digesting the raw millet. In the silence of the ruins, there was only the sound of a child's shallow breathing and the cold, silent ticking of a mind that refused to stop calculating until the heart stopped beating.