After discovering the connection between prayer and candles, the transmigrator was thrilled, believing that a happy life was within his grasp. However, things did not unfold as he had anticipated. For the next six months, nothing happened at all!
During those six months, little Miryam Croft knelt on a worn-out cushion every night, facing the stone statue and muttering to herself. As her lips moved, Faith Essence Points like golden light poured into the statue, and the candle, which was made of white mist, grew a little longer.
To be precise, the candle grew 0.3 millimeters thicker each week. This imperceptible change made Transmigrator doubt countless times whether he was hallucinating.
The mountain peak where his consciousness resided wasn't large, and the dilapidated temple was even smaller. His gaze swept over the moss-covered beams and collapsed dome, completing a "patrol" in just three minutes.
He had tried to penetrate the white wall of mist surrounding the mountain peak, but his consciousness was bounced back as if it had hit an elastic membrane. Apart from a snowy TV set and a mottled pedestal for a deity, the only things in the old temple were the scraps of cloth that Miryam had secretly stuffed into the cracks in the stone. She had bought them with her earnings as a laundry worker, saying, "I want to make a warm cloak for the deity."
Out of a modern Earthling's instinct, he believed that these white mist must be the greatest advantage of his current journey, but how to use it effectively would require time to explore and study... but that time was too long!
The protagonists in novels could spend decades or even centuries in just a few chapters, immersing themselves in a single pursuit for an extended period. But the Transmigrator had already grown bored after just three days!
This was because he could focus on his studies, going from undergraduate to PhD, spending six hours in the library without eating or drinking. But back then, at least he had a book. Here, on this desolate mountain peak, there was nothing! Nothing! Nothing!
Except for a television with only one channel.
Gathering intelligence is a basic skill for a transmigrator, but if he's turned into a statue, his only source of information is the conversations of this family. It's like watching a long, drawn-out documentary—all suffering, no payoff.
As a graduate of the prestigious Opava Silesia University in the Czech Republic, who then spent years studying in the East, the transmigrator instinctively activated his information-gathering mode.
The television set, which could only receive one channel, became his sole window to the world. The camera was always focused on the attic of the Croft family: every morning, the father would prick his fingertip with a needle, and when 5ml of fresh blood dripped into the metal container of Steam Essence Bella, the cotton candy-like mist would expand by 20% and emit a pleasant whistle; the sister would scrub her work clothes stained with coal ash in a washing basin, Miryam would squat in the corner trying to repair cracks in the deity statue with scraps she had picked up.
She always said, "The deity will be cold if its clothes are torn," even though the surface of the stone statue always had the coolness of granite.
From their conversations, Transmigrator pieced together the outline of this world: it was currently the year 610 of some calendar (after all, neither the daily conversations nor the newspapers emphasized the name of the calendar). the city located in the central part of the Arcanis continent is called Stellaxis Pragis, the capital of the Zodiac Kingdom. Based on the streets and people's attire, Transmigrator estimated it to be roughly equivalent to 17th or 18th-century Europe, but there were also many strange gadgets that didn't exist on Earth.
For example, automatic steam-powered water dispensers were everywhere on street corners.
For example, the Croft family's Steamsprit-Bella, a cotton candy-like device that cleans sewers and irons clothes by expelling coal-fired steam, at the cost of 35ml of fresh blood and half a piece of honeycomb coal per week. This "magical companion" reminds the Transmigrator of child labor during Earth's Industrial Revolution, where workers were exploited to fuel industrial civilization.
From a lifestyle perspective, this world is a civilization where magic and industry coexist. Its technological capabilities are roughly at the level of the first industrial revolution, but with the addition of magical artifacts, the overall level of civilization is roughly equivalent to the 18th or 19th century.
However, from the Croft family's conversations, it seems that there are still feudal nobles with vast fiefdoms, who possess significant autonomy, akin to medieval feudal lords.
Due to the limited environment and knowledge of this family, the information they can gather is scarce. The Steamsprite who can help unclog sewers and iron clothes is truly impressive, so the potential of this civilization might be quite high.
The Croft family lives in the lower-class Rust District, where public security is poor. In the past year, a serial killer known as the Ripper of Rust District has appeared, and at least ten people have been brutally murdered.
However, the Croft family has a favorable impression of the Ripper because rumors say that he only kills people who deserve to die, giving him the aura of a vigilante.
Croft's father and older brother are dockworkers, and Miryam Croft, despite her young age, has to work as a laundry worker alongside her sister to support the family. Her mother works in a lead factory.
Looking at the family's circumstances, the Transmigrator couldn't help but think of the urban underclass during the First Industrial Revolution. Especially the mother, who, despite holding a master's degree in chemistry, was in a dire state.
The work of female workers in lead factories usually included screening ore and stirring lead solutions. In the early days, factory conditions were often extremely poorly ventilated, and these unscrupulous factories did not provide any decent protective equipment, so lead poisoning was inevitable and irreversible.
"What the hell is the use of Faith Essence Points?" Transmigrator roared countless times in his heart.
He tried to touch the candlestick with his consciousness, watching the white mist flow between his stone fingers but unable to condense it; he shouted at the television, only to hear static.
As a scholar who could sit in the library for six hours studying "The Book of Crafts," he was now defeated by the barrenness of "having nothing to do." He counted the 108 cracks on the temple walls, memorized the frequency of Miryam's eyelashes trembling during prayer, and could even determine the Croft family's coal reserves for the day based on the steam whistle's sound.
"Okay, okay, this is also a test..." Transmigrator recognized the reality of the situation. If he had to say what he had gained during this time, it was that he had become very patient.
When he was on Earth, he was able to go three days without opening DikDok, and he was very proud of his patience and self-control.
The turning point came late at night when his Faith Essence Points reached 1,000. After Miryam finished her routine prayers, the TV channel knob suddenly protruded by a millimeter.
It was the mechanical knob unique to old-fashioned CRT televisions. The dampened resistance from two decades of disuse transported him back to his childhood on Earth, to his grandfather's black-and-white TV that required a firm twist to change channels. The memory flickered on the screen like pixelated snowflakes.
Transmigrator took a deep breath to calm himself, then reached out and turned the knob.
Nothing happened. The screen remained unchanged, still showing the perspective of the evil god statue in the corner of the attic.
He turned it a few more times, but nothing changed.
"Haha," Transmigrator couldn't help but laugh. He used all his self-control to resist the urge to smash the TV.
The screen flickered three times, and a red pixelated ghost face suddenly popped up. The low-resolution mosaic formed an exaggerated smile, and the dialogue box read "Did I scare you? (☞゚ヮ゚)☞"
written in the most primitive ASCII characters, but it felt like a hammer hitting his consciousness.
Below that dialogue box, another one popped up, this time featuring a blue pixelated character: "Ugh, such a hassle. Back to work."
Immediately afterward, the familiar JRPG-style attribute panel unfolded:
Character: ??
Race: Vagrant Wraith
Class: ??
Age: 100 days
Lifespan: 1 year
Talent 1: Faith's Bounty
Faith Essence Points: 1000
Character Status: Healthy, Angry
Transmigrator's mood was very complicated. The red "Life Span: 1 year" made Transmigrator's "retina" ache. It turned out that from the moment the first Faith Essence Point was injected, the countdown had already started.
He tried to converse with the pixelated figure on the screen, but all he got was the panel's relentless flickering. The entity that had made that hellish joke seemed to have never existed, leaving only a knob that could switch between the surveillance feed and the attribute panel, proving that everything that had just happened was not an illusion.
But as long as this thing responds, it's enough. Though the data shows he has only one year left, he believes that in this world where nothing can be explained by conventional knowledge, anything can be reversed. After all, according to the game's rules, the data on the status panel can be altered.
Now the knob does have a function—it can switch screens, toggling between the status panel and the surveillance feed.
Life once again fell into a stagnant calm, only to be shattered three months later by a heart-wrenching scream.
Miryam's mother, who worked at the lead factory, returned home, but she was no longer the gentle woman who used to braid Miryam's hair before bed. Her lips were purple, her fingertips trembled uncontrollably, and she lacked the strength to lift a enamel cup.
Her apron was stained with silver-white powder that couldn't be washed off. That was lead powder, which Transmigrator had seen in Earth's literature, corroding her nervous system at a rate of 0.1 millimeters per day.
"What's wrong with Mom's hands?" Miryam's voice trembled with tears. Her father silently wiped the metal container of steam distillate, the bloodstains glowing brightly in the moonlight: "The ventilation ducts at the lead factory were blocked again, and she had to stay by the molten lead pool for three extra hours."
Transmigrator stared at the screen, watching her mother curled up on the creaking iron bed. She suddenly recalled the lead poisoning specimens she had seen in the chemistry lab—the metal deposits in the kidneys, the irreversible necrosis of the nerve endings. These textbook descriptions were now destroying the pillar of this family at a visible pace.
On that chilly autumn morning, Miryam didn't come to pray. The steam whistle of the Bella sounded intermittently, like a leaky bellows.
Her father's figure appeared on the screen. His shoulders were 5 centimeters lower than usual, and his calloused hands slowly covered her mother with a white sheet, leaving the lace trim untouched at the edges.
The transmigrator stared at the screen, watching Miryam's figure rush into the frame, watching her fists pound the stone statue's base, watching the first tear fall onto its stone feet—the first time he had felt "warmth" since arriving in this world.