Zieg quietly watched the light screen that only he could perceive, then used his consciousness to open the "Task Log."
At the same time, memories of the akashic records began to surface in his mind.
Since he could remember, he knew he was not an ordinary person.
His adoptive father, Luther Bernardo, found him on the banks of the Elbe River outside Hamburg and raised him to adulthood.
He had heard this story countless times; whenever the busybodies in the neighborhood gossiped about him behind his back, this story would always be brought up.
Zieg himself was well aware that his differences from ordinary people went far beyond a pair of heterochromatic eyes and unusually silver-white hair.
He was born with many... abnormalities.
Among these, what he found most impossible to ignore were the "dreams" that appeared every night...
Those fragmented, horrifyingly real dreams would occasionally surface during his sleep.
The young Zieg in the dreams was identical to the current Zieg, even the distinctive heterochromatic eyes were replicated one-to-one in the dreams.
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In his dreams, he was also called Zieg, but without the surname Bernardo.
Of course, his adoptive father named him Zieg because he constantly repeated the syllable "Zieg" during his babbling phase.
It was certain that the "Zieg" in the dreams was undoubtedly himself.
However... at that time, he had pitch-black hair.
In the dream world, he lived in a pure white room, wore white clothes, and different teachers came to teach them every day.
He was not alone, as there were many other children in the room.
Each of them had different courses, covering a wide range of subjects: culture, swordsmanship, firearms, tactics, engineering... all sorts of things.
And in the dream, the teachers called them — Seed I.
Zieg was a member of Seed I.
Among that batch of seeds, his swordsmanship talent was the most outstanding, and in the teachers' evaluations, he was even called the individual with the most potential to become a "Sword Saint."
But the teachers not only taught them swordsmanship; they also taught them — Arcane Arts.
Learning swordsmanship was meant to complement Arcane Arts.
The teachers often said that some things could only be touched by Arcane Arts and swords.
Many of Zieg's combat experiences came from those incredibly real dreams.
He couldn't forget every sparring training session in swordsmanship class: the unforgettable pain, the burning sensation of tearing muscles, the dull ache of bone impact, and the cold, sharp touch of a blade cutting through skin...
All of it felt as if it had truly happened, tormenting him in his dreams, deeply ingrained and impossible to shake off.
The training ground was never lenient.
Every child wore light training clothes and stood barefoot on the cold, hard ground.
The air was filled with the smell of sweat, blood, and metal, occasionally punctuated by the dull thud of dislocated bones and tearing muscles.
"Knock out your opponent within three minutes, otherwise — extra training."
"Get up, your body hasn't reached its limit."
"Pain? Pain means you're still alive; only dead people don't scream."
Every training session was almost a fight to the death; the swords in their hands were not blunted but actual combat-ready swords.
Although the blades were specially treated, they could still cut flesh and leave deep wounds.
There were special instruments in the white room; whenever training was complete, the seeds would lie in the instruments, and warm, viscous blue-green liquid would slowly cover their bodies.
As these liquids flowed over his skin, they brought a subtle sensation of coolness intertwined with warmth.
At the same time, tiny silver particles floated in the liquid, like miniature stars, gently shimmering in the liquid, slowly penetrating his wounds and alleviating the pain.
When they woke up again, their wounds had healed.
Then, new training began.
Those disobedient, weak-willed children would eventually fall in successive confrontations and then be dragged away — they were eliminated.
The children in the white room spent most of their day training.
They did have recreation time, but these activities were not simply for relaxation; they were designed to train reactive nerves and guide psychological states.
Sometimes, the teachers would show them a type of image called "video."
In the videos, the outside world no longer existed.
Cold steel wreckage sank into endless snowfields, the sky was covered by lead-gray clouds, and a disaster called "Nuclear Winter" swallowed the entire land.
Corrosive black rain poured down from the sky.
Twisted, monstrous beasts roamed the ruins.
The teachers would always tell them — "You are the chosen ones."
Your bodies, your abilities, were all born for an exceptionally arduous mission.
You cannot fail.
Because the price of failure is not just death.
Zieg's dreams were neither complete nor coherent.
Whenever he tried to recall, only fragments, broken images, and residual sounds would surface in his mind...
Those memories seemed to be locked away, only to be gradually unlocked with age at certain moments.
And each time a memory was unlocked, it brought another kind of peculiar pain.
When he was young, he would often see strange square frames, layers of overlapping garbled code and color blocks appearing on his retina, and a mechanically cold voice often whispered in his ear.
These phenomena could not be perceived by others; only he knew that they existed in his eyes, deep within his brain, like an unknown "information interference" that altered his perception of the world.
"ID I-017, System calibrating —"
"Insufficient permission level, data corrupted —"
"Core code fragmented, entering repair pending state —"
"Access denied!"
The young Zieg often acted like a weirdo due to these chaotic images.
He would suddenly stare blankly into the air, try to grasp non-existent blocks with his hands, and frown at the whispers in his ear...
People around him found him extremely strange, even suspecting his sanity.
But he knew that this was not a hallucination, but something that had not fully recovered.
As he grew older, those garbled codes and blocks gradually decreased, replaced by a complete information flow that slowly emerged in his life.
The akashic records slowly revived within him.
How to describe the akashic records?
It is formless, possessing no material shape, yet it is omnipresent.
It is neither a book nor a scroll, nor even humanly comprehensible text and symbols, but a collection of mysterious knowledge stored in the "ether," a universal archival system that records every thought, word, and action produced at every moment.
All questions and answers you wish to know can be found in the akashic records.
Whether it's health, wealth, career, relationships, etc., you can find guidance and interpretation suitable for your current life in the akashic records.
It can reveal —
— The true nature of the challenges you face, the real reasons for your troubles;
— Why significant events in your life occurred;
— Where your talents, abilities, and potential truly lead;
— Your life mission, blueprint, and even unperceived fated connections.
If destiny is a vast and complex web, It is the weaver standing at the very top, overlooking everything, 貫穿始終.
It does not actively answer.
But when the opportune moment arrives, Its echo will, through invisible ripples, fall into the soul of the seeker.
When Zieg first successfully contacted the Akasha Terminal, It required him to perform five prayers.
Those were not ordinary prayers, but a ritual similar to "protocol calibration."
In his mind, an invisible stream of information slowly unfolded, carrying an indescribable logic and sense of order, as if adjusting some programmatic rules.
The five prayers were as follows:
"Making implicit matters explicit"
"Standardizing explicit matters"
"Streamlining standard matters"
"Goal-setting for streamlined matters"
"Strategizing goal-oriented matters"
The moment the prayers were completed, Zieg felt a strange and profound power.
— He gained partial adjustment authority over the Akasha Terminal.
From then on, the five transformations of prayer became his core — "Task Log."
Upon unlocking the "Task Log," he also unlocked the authority to compile tasks.
He could set task rewards and have akasha weave corresponding tasks in advance.
At the same time, he could also trigger tasks through the five prayers, forming a causal loop, thereby obtaining rewards.
As long as an event had a sufficiently strong causal connection with him, it would be locked by the akashic records and then transformed into an executable task.
And he could choose whether to accept it.
From the very beginning, the akashic records gave Zieg the choice.
— The beginning of the story was chosen by him.