Tatehan knew this was coming. It was something he had expected to flash across his retina the moment he finished absorbing all that information about the four cities.

Since his system didn't follow the conventional structure of most novels or webcomics he had read back on Earth, he knew that absorbing all this knowledge was going to give him knowledge points. That was just how his particular system worked. It was different…

The difference between his system and a normal one was pretty easy to identify. A normal system (the kind he had read about in countless stories during his downtime on Earth) would probably look something like this:

[Name: Random.Dude]

[Species: Human]

[Level: 0]

[Physical:]

> [Strength: ]

> [Constitution:]

> [Dexterity: ]

> [Speed: ]

[Mental:]

> [Intelligence: 14]

[Skills: —]

Every stat neatly categorized and quantified, giving you a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses at a glance. Lets you identify your current strength, speed and all that necessary stuff.

His system, on the other hand, looked like this:

[HOST STATUS]

Name: Tatehan

Level: 11

Species: Human (Enhanced)

Knowledge: 170/200 [+6]

Repair Points: 57/100

[ABILITIES]

• Gravity Manipulation - Level 12

• Regeneration (Partial) - Level 8

• Enhanced Durability - Level 3

• Heightened Perception - Level 5

• Phase Shift - Level 1

• Force Multiplication - Level 1

[INVENTORY:]

[Shadow Goblin Cores: 54 total]

[Tri-Edge Shadow Chakram]

[Serrated Heavy Chakram]

[Backpack]

[Armor]

[Novels]

[Shadow-Forged Blade]

[Kinetic Absorption Armor]

[Devastator Hand Cannon]

[Core from the Destroyed Fortress]

Tatehan went through his status screen, reading every line but doing so very quickly. His eyes flicked over the abilities, the inventory, the repair points he had been slowly accumulating (something that hadn't increased since he summoned his system into his inventory).

Everything was where it had been earlier, unchanged except for one glaring detail.

His gaze locked onto the Knowledge stat.

Knowledge: 170/200 [+6]

'Just 6 added knowledge points?' he thought, his brow furrows deepening. 'My system has to be kidding me.'

Six measly points. That was it. After spending hours in the library, absorbing the histories of four entire cities—learning about their founders, their struggles, their cultures, their rise from nothing into thriving settlements, all he had to show for it was six points?

PATHETIC!

He had learned about Kryana Smith pulling an entire city from the bedrock of Mars, driven by grief and determination. He had read about the last Vikings of Earth surviving an apocalypse that wiped out billions, then carving out a new kingdom on a hostile planet. He had discovered the story of Dayvern Mark, a man who turned a death sentence into a city built from scrap and determination. He had seen how Iron Haven rose from pure chance and collective desperation, its people hauling ore from the ground with their bare hands.

All of that, and his system thought it was worth six points?

'This is bullshit,' Tatehan thought, staring at the glowing text in his vision.

And then, as if it had been waiting for him to finish complaining, his system replied.

[Let them settle in your brain.]

Tatehan blinked, the words hanging in his vision like a cryptic riddle.

"Let them settle?" he muttered aloud, his voice echoing faintly in the empty library. "What the hell does that mean?"

You know, it was kinda funny that of recent, Tatehan had been talking aloud to himself like some lunatic it psychotic guy.

It wasn't so often though…

Now, it was not the first time his system had said something vague and borderline nonsensical, but this was a new level of weirdness. How was something supposed to settle in your brain? Didn't information just... go in? You read it, you processed it, you remembered it…simple. That was how brains worked. There was no settling involved, no waiting period where knowledge sat in some kind of mental holding pattern before it became useful.

Or at least, that was how it had always worked before.

Tatehan leaned back in the chair, his mind turning over the system's words.

Settle.

For example, when you pour uncooked rice into a glass of water, at first it's chaos. The grains swirl everywhere, stirring up sediment, making the water cloudy and unclear. It's turbulent, messy and almost violent in its scattering.

But if you let it sit, undisturbed, for a few minutes, something changes.

Grain by grain, the rice begins to sink. It drifts downward, settling gently at the bottom of the glass. The water, once murky, clears. Everything finds its place. The chaos resolves into order: the rice forms a neat, solid layer beneath the calm, clear water. It's not lost; it's simply… settled.

… Settled.

But then, what did that even mean in this context? Was it talking about neural integration? Memory consolidation? Some kind of cognitive processing delay that the system was tracking in real time?

He thought back to when his system had first activated, back when it was still at Level 3. It had been straightforward then, almost intuitive. He absorbed knowledge, he gained points, the points went toward leveling up abilities or unlocking new ones. And points like the repair points helped in bringing him to the forty percent that would let him be able to put it in his inventory (which at first had been called 'System space').

Simple cause and effect.

By the time it hit Level 7, things had started to get a little stranger.

At Level 10, it had begun offering cryptic advice that he did not always understand until after the fact… like the blind chase stuff.

Like how could a goddamn system test him. It was just insanely weird.

Was the system a being to formulate something and actually execute it?

Or wait…, had it been programmed like that?

And now, at Level 11, it was telling him to let information settle in his brain like some kind of sediment drifting to the bottom of a lake.

"Getting weirder by the moment," Tatehan muttered, shaking his head.

But if there was one thing he had learned about his system, it was that it rarely said things without reason. Even when it was cryptic, even when it felt like it was being deliberately obtuse, there was usually a method to the madness. He just had to figure out what it was asking him to do.

Settle. Let it settle.

Maybe it was not about doing anything at all. Maybe it was about not doing anything.

Tatehan made a decision…

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