"Is there a way to create new skills?" I couldn't help but ask. "I know the system can create them, but can we?"

  Alyssa leaned in slightly, studying me like a puzzle she was piecing together. Knowing her specialization, she probably was.

  "Yes and no," she said. "Normally, skill creation requires someone specialized in it, but that doesn’t apply to new races." She tapped her temple, thoughtful. "You could probably create new skills, and the system would almost certainly assist you. It wants new races to succeed. Developing skills tailored specifically to your kind increases those odds."

  Excitement surged through me, my tail sweeping across the ground. "How?"

  "You need an extremely clear vision of the skill—down to the finest details. Its effects, its cost, how it activates. Everything. Then, you essentially force skills together until something forms. Sometimes this process takes hundreds of skill points."

  The weight of her words sank in. Hundreds. I didn’t have hundreds. I had three. Still, it was a start.

  "Are there any other vital general skills I need?"

  "Not really," Alyssa said, tilting her head. "But there are more skills out there than you can imagine. Don’t waste your points. Right now, it may feel like you have more than enough—the system wants you to experiment. But once you break past E-grade, skill points become rarer. More valuable. And what you can do with them…" A slow smile crossed her lips. "Well, let’s just say they become far more devastating."

  Then, with an abrupt clap of her hands, Alyssa’s entire demeanor shifted. "Actually, you know what? Go ahead and try to make a skill. I want to see you attempt it. I'm sure I'll gain valuable information from the process." Her smile was almost too eager. "Even if you fail."

  I blinked, thrown by the sudden shift. First, she was warning me to be careful with my skill points, and now she was pushing me to experiment? My brows furrowed as I studied her.

  Alyssa wasn’t impulsive. She trusted her gut, she had literally told me she saved my life based on instinct. And more importantly, her entire specialization revolved around studying new races.

  Then it clicked.

  The system had to be guiding her. It aligned people with their desires, shaping their paths accordingly. Her desire was to study new races. To study me. And this? This was a perfect opportunity.

  Not just for me to grow stronger, but for the Painborn Revenant as a whole.

  I exhaled, feeling the decision settle in my bones. Worst case scenario? I lost three skill points. A small price for the potential reward.

  "Alright," I said. "How?"

  We moved back toward the Colosseum, its looming walls promising security. As we traveled, Alyssa explained the process.

  "First, you need a clear, vivid vision of the skill—its function, activation, limitations. Everything down to the smallest detail. Once you have that locked in, you mentally group all the skill points you’re willing to spend and force them together."

  "Force them together?" I echoed.

  "Repeatedly," she confirmed, nodding. "It’s like… hammering raw materials until something new takes shape. Over and over again until the system recognizes it and refines it into an actual skill."

  I frowned. "You sound confident, but you haven’t done it before, have you?"

  She grinned. "Nope! But my family has documented cases of it happening. So, technically… I’m pretty sure it’ll work."

  I let out a short laugh, shaking my head. "That’s not reassuring."

  She just shrugged. "That’s the system for you."

  I sat, letting my thoughts shape the vision. Weapons—born from me. Weapons I could wield to channel my skills, infused with attribute points and game-like properties. Weapons that could dominate the battlefield.

  As the image solidified in my mind, a system notification appeared.

  "Skill imagined available. Create?"

  I answered without hesitation. Yes.

  And then, my thoughts veered—back to the letter from my past life, to the moment my blood had accepted this fate. The memory dragged me deeper, past that choice, into what followed. The torture. The organs taken. The relentless, grinding pain.

  It played before my eyes. The cold table beneath my back. The straps biting deep into my skin, locking me in place no matter how much I twisted. The scalpel, hovering just long enough to let the anticipation sink in, teasing in a way that felt almost merciful compared to what followed.

  Organs stolen. Flesh parted. Agony drawn out, slow and deliberate, savored like a fine meal. I remembered the way the blade slid through me—not a single, clean motion, but in increments, careful, precise, ensuring I felt every nerve scream in protest before the next cut began. The way the blood ran, thick and warm, soaking into the table beneath me until I could no longer tell where my body ended and the pain began. The sounds of my own ragged, breaking voice, forced from my throat whether I willed it or not.

  The memory consumed me, drowning me in a past I could not escape. I felt the blade sliding deep, pressing against muscle before carving through it like wet paper. I heard the low murmur of the man’s voice, calm and amused, savoring every cry, every broken breath as though each was a personal triumph. I smelled the blood, thick in the air, metallic and suffocating, clinging to my skin as though trying to brand itself into me.

  It came in waves, each one stronger, dragging me back under. Every moment played again, and again, and again, cycling through the worst of it without pause, without reprieve. The blade twisting inside me. The fingers pressing into open wounds, stretching them wider. The sheer, unbearable certainty that it would never end.

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  And then—something shifted.

  I felt the system take my pain, pulling it from me as though siphoning the weight of my suffering into itself. It molded it, shaped it, twisted it into something new, something I couldn’t yet comprehend. And then, finally, it let me go.

  I sat there, trembling, tears slipping down my face before I even realized I was crying. Alyssa was there, her voice muffled, distant, as if coming through water. She was shaking me, her touch firm but not rough, trying to anchor me back to the present. Her face was tight with worry, her lips moving, but I couldn’t hear the words. My mind was too fogged, still trapped between the past and the present, caught in the space between agony and release.

  Somewhere in that haze, my last thought before the darkness pulled me under was that she was beautiful.

  When I woke, my head was cradled in her lap. Her breathing was slow, even, the steady rise and fall of her chest a quiet comfort against the storm still lingering inside me. I stayed still, letting the warmth of the moment settle over me, unwilling to disturb it, unwilling to move. But within moments, she stirred, as if she had felt my gaze.

  Her eyes met mine, and when she smiled—genuine, relieved, real—it was enough. The darkness clawing at my edges loosened its grip, retreating just enough for me to breathe again.

  I basked in that smile for a time before I turned my thoughts towards my skill screen. I wanted, no needed, to see if that pain I just suffered was worth the price.

  Painforged Armory (Painborn Revenant- Specific)

  "My body is my forge, my pain the fire. What I suffer, I shape."

  The painborn Revenant can craft weapons from their own flesh and bone, reforged through agony. The greater the pain endured during creation, the stronger the weapon, with the system assigning it a rank based on the suffering offered. The creator can manifest their skills through these hand-crafted weapons.

  I sat there, stunned. I had imagined something similar—crafted weapons with attribute points, weapons that could channel my skills—but I hadn’t expected this. I hadn’t thought the system would tie it to pain. It made sense, in a twisted way, but that didn’t make it any less horrifying.

  The memory of torture was still fresh in my mind. The straps, the scalpel, the agony that had carved itself into me. And now, I had willingly created a skill that demanded I do something similar—to myself.

  Alyssa must have caught something in my expression. “Not what you expected, huh?”

  “No… it is. Just… the cost is higher than I thought.”

  She nodded, misinterpreting my meaning. “Oh, I told you it was going to take your skill points. Did it use all three?”

  I blinked, shifting my gaze to check. I had completely forgotten about that part of the cost.

  Skill points remaining: -7

  My mind, still raw from the memory of pain, struggled to process what I was seeing. Negative. Negative seven? That shouldn’t have been possible.

  “N-Negative seven,” I stammered, turning to her, my mouth slightly open.

  For a moment, Alyssa just stared. Then her face lit up.

  “Negative seven?! I’ve never heard of someone going negative before! I didn’t even know it was possible!” She practically vibrated with excitement, bouncing where she sat, her enthusiasm barely contained. “Oh, my family is going to be rich with this information!”

  Before I could react, she grabbed me by the shoulders. “Can you confirm? Show me your skill points!”

  I willed the status to appear, and as soon as she saw it, she blinked—like committing the image to memory—before grinning wide, her excitement surging back in full force.

  “You are my lucky charm, aren’t you?!”

  Her energy was infectious, but I couldn’t share in it. Not fully. I had just created a skill that drained from my future and demanded pain as its price. While she saw opportunity, I saw debt. A debt I would have to pay in suffering.

  Alyssa leaned forward, practically vibrating with anticipation. “So? Are you going to try it?”

  I hesitated. The skill still felt wrong, like a chain I had shackled to myself without fully understanding the weight of it. But Alyssa was watching, and despite everything, some part of me wanted to know. What had I really created?

  I exhaled and extended my arm, fingers curling into a fist. Painforged Armory. The words settled in my mind, the skill thrumming beneath my skin, waiting.

  I drew my dagger—the real one—and pressed the tip against the inside of my forearm. Not deep, but enough. Enough to make the nerves sing, enough to bead crimson along the steel’s edge. A small wound, but a wound all the same.

  The world shifted.

  The air thickened, heat rolling in waves that didn’t burn but suffocated. A forge bloomed around me, wreathed in ghostly embers and shadowed steel. Anvils and bellows flickered at the edges of perception, their presence more felt than seen. And at the heart of it all, standing before the flames, was him.

  The Master Craftsman.

  His form rippled with heat, a being of smoke and molten light, as if forged from the very essence of suffering. He did not speak—he only watched, expectant, waiting.

  My wound bled freely now, thin rivulets trickling down my arm. The forge pulsed in response, flames surging higher, metal hissing as something unseen took shape. The Craftsman extended his hand, palm open, and my blood lifted from my skin, drawn toward him like iron to a magnet. It spiraled into the air, suspended between us.

  For a moment, I thought it was working.

  Then the flames dimmed.

  The air around me stilled, and the Craftsman’s fingers curled inward, his hand closing around the meager offering.

  Not enough.

  Disappointment radiated from him, a silent judgment more scathing than any words. The embers in his eyes dimmed, his stance shifting with something almost bored. He had expected more. More pain. More sacrifice. More than a shallow cut from a blade that had never truly bitten deep.

  The forge exhaled a breath of steam, and the weapon manifested.

  A dagger fell into my grasp. If it could even be called that.

  It was crude—barely more than a jagged shard of dull metal, uneven and rough, its weight all wrong. It felt unfinished, like something discarded before ever reaching its true shape.

  The system notification flickered into view.

  Painforged Armory activated.

  Weapon Rank: F

  Torment +1

  The forge collapsed around me, vanishing in an instant, leaving only the dagger in my hand and the hollow ache in my chest.

  Alyssa leaned in, studying the weapon with open disappointment. "That’s it?"

  I turned it over in my palm, running a thumb along its uneven edge. The metal felt dead—cold, brittle, nothing like the weapons I had envisioned. My breath came slow, steady, but inside, my thoughts churned. The forge, the Craftsman, the weight of his silent judgment… It hadn’t just been a vision. It had been real.

  And I had failed him.

  The blade crumbled between my fingers, disintegrating into dust before fading from existence. Even the ashes refused to remain.

  Alyssa sighed. "Maybe it needs real pain to work properly."

  I didn’t respond. Not because I disagreed, but because I already knew. The forge hadn’t just wanted pain—it had wanted a true offering. A sacrifice worthy of creation. And the worst part? I had felt it, in that moment. A pull. A whisper of understanding.

  The skill wasn’t a crafting method. It was a transaction. I gave it my suffering, and it would shape something in return. The deeper the agony, the greater the reward. The thought unsettled me in a way I couldn’t put into words.

  Alyssa nudged me, her gaze searching. "So? What now?"

  I met her eyes, my expression unreadable.

  "That was just a test," I said, the words firm despite the weight behind them.

  Because that was the truth. This wasn’t over.

  Next time, I wouldn’t hold back.