The ninety-day deadline Major Vance imposed felt less like a training schedule and more like a psychological countdown. Bartholomew's assignment was not to learn the specifics of the Long-Range Aetheric Communication Network—he already possessed the future knowledge of its failure—but to force his mind to access that knowledge through a carefully controlled trauma. His immediate objective was clear: gain the necessary experience to breach the C-Rank threshold and secure his position as Vance's protected asset.
His work environment was a far cry from the trenches. Bartholomew was confined to a small, windowless office within the AIC hub, adjacent to Vance's analytical lab. His days were structured, rigid, and intensely focused on the two pillars of his new existence: technical analysis and engineered psychological exposure.
The Technical Crucible
Bartholomew spent the mornings engrossed in the complex schematics of the Communication Network. The network was a marvel of early Aetheric engineering, designed to transmit simultaneous tactical commands and magical stabilization frequencies across hundreds of miles of the Western Front. It was a dense web of interconnected runes, power relays, and highly sensitive atmospheric condensers.
His D-Rank mind struggled initially to process the sheer volume of data, but his Endurance (30) allowed him to push through the fatigue, and his Magic Power (MP: 90) subtly helped him visualize the Aetheric flows described in the blueprints. Vance had provided him with an array of technical manuals detailing advanced stabilization methods that would only be needed by C-Rank mages and above. Bartholomew recognized most of the material as designs that would only be successfully deployed in the 1930s—future knowledge masquerading as current advanced study.
Vance would often test him, dropping specific, highly technical questions: "Sergeant, describe the necessary temporal delay required for a Grade-B Chrono-Lock Rune to synchronize the far eastern relays."
Bartholomew couldn't simply recall the answer; his WLS restricted access. He had to feel the problem, searching for the associative trauma. He would close his eyes, focusing on the metallic tang of the blueprint ink and the dry, precise language of the manuals, waiting for the flicker of memory. Often, only a partial answer came, fragmented by the trauma.
"Sir," Bartholomew would reply, his voice strained, "the standard calculation is flawed. It must account for the atmospheric pressure differences across the sectors. The temporal delay must be reduced by \pm 0.003 seconds, or the entire eastern flank will suffer frequency drift."
Vance never questioned the impossibility of the correction. He would simply jot down the data in his notebook and reply, "Excellent. Now, analyze the primary shielding matrix for that relay. Note any potential flaws related to subterranean Aetheric interference."
This technical work served as the priming phase, forcing the conscious mind to identify the problem so the subconscious, trauma-ridden mind could supply the solution.
The Psychological Engineering
The afternoons were dedicated to Vance's true objective: generating a high-value trauma. Vance, utilizing the journal Bartholomew was forced to keep, identified the key characteristics of Bartholomew's major success triggers: systemic failure, mass logistical collapse, and a strong sense of personal responsibility for hundreds of deaths.
The target was a specific, monumental failure from his past life: The Great Silence of 1927, when a similar, critical Allied communication network failed due to unexpected external sabotage, leading to an organized retreat turning into a mass rout and slaughter. This memory contained the precise counter-frequency needed to stabilize the current network.
Vance did not rely on simple shock; he employed controlled, highly specific stimuli.
1. Audio Resonance Exposure: Vance utilized custom-tuned Aetheric emitters to pump specific, low-frequency sound waves into the room. These weren't painful, but they subtly mimicked the characteristic vibrational pattern of the 1927 network just before its collapse. Bartholomew was forced to sit in the room, headphones on, for hours at a time, documenting his emotional response. The constant, insidious sound created a perpetual, underlying anxiety—a controlled state of pre-trauma.
2. Scenarios of Responsibility: Vance presented Bartholomew with simulated scenarios detailing the fate of the soldiers relying on the network. He wasn't shown images of death, but cold, quantitative projections: "If the Northern relay fails, 400,000 rounds of Type-VI Ammunition will be misdirected. The 4th Division will run dry during the counter-attack. Casualty estimate: 8,000." The sheer weight of numbers was designed to replicate the burden of command and the agony of logistical failure that dominated Bartholomew's first life.
3. Sensory Deprivation: For two hours every day, Bartholomew was subjected to controlled isolation. Placed in a dimly lit, silent room, he was given no task but to stare at a single, blinking red light—the exact color and rhythm of the network's final warning signal in 1927. This was designed to isolate his mind and force his subconscious to surface the latent trauma.
Bartholomew felt the process working. His sleep became more fragmented. He suffered moments of dissociation in the mess hall, seeing the modern equipment momentarily replaced by the debris of 1927. He was perpetually cold, anxious, and deeply terrified, yet driven by the primal instinct of self-preservation.
The Breakthrough and the Collapse
The two-month mark arrived. Bartholomew was physically exhausted, his eyes underlined with perpetual dark circles, but his Endurance had successfully shielded him from total collapse. He had gained small EXP bumps from minor, related traumas, but he had not triggered the Great Silence yet. He was only 100 EXP short of the C-Rank threshold.
Vance, reviewing the data, decided the next stimulus had to be the final push.
"Sergeant," Vance announced, reviewing Bartholomew's frayed journal entries, "we move to the final test. You will spend the next 72 hours continuously analyzing the schematics while exposed to the maximum approved audio resonance, interspersed with periodic bursts of a synthesized scent—the smell of burnt ozone and wet copper, the last scent recorded at the primary relay in 1927."
Bartholomew entered the room for the final test. The oppressive sound waves pressed in on him, the scent of burning metal was acrid in his nostrils, and the schematics swam before his eyes.
He spent nearly two full days enduring the punishing regimen, fighting against the inevitable psychological breach. He saw the numbers, the runes, the relays, and he knew, mathematically, that they were destined to fail, but the key to the solution remained locked behind the wall of his sanity.
On the 70th hour, while staring at the diagram of the Primary Aetheric Synchronization Node, the final trigger fired. The combination of the rhythmic audio, the metallic scent, and the schematic's complexity was overwhelming.
His world shattered.
He was no longer Staff Sergeant Bartholomew in 1915; he was a terrified, low-ranking mage caught in the 1927 rout. He saw the synchronization node explode in a shower of sparks and metal. He heard the sudden, deafening silence as all communication ceased. He heard the panicked screams of commanders realizing their coordinated attack had turned into a chaotic retreat. He saw the systematic, brutal slaughter of the uncoordinated troops, caught between the collapsing lines and the enemy's organized counter-attack. The terror was all-consuming.
The memory contained the solution, but it was buried under immense panic. He saw the final, desperate action of a long-dead engineer: the precise, almost counter-intuitive Inverted Temporal Rune needed to stabilize the primary sync node. It was a rune designed to pull Aetheric stability not from the present, but from a fraction of a second in the future, compensating for external sabotage.
Bartholomew screamed—a raw, guttural sound that startled Vance, who was monitoring from the adjacent room. He didn't move; he simply channeled the entire capacity of his D-Rank Gem into the holographic projection of the Synchronization Node on the table before him. He was no longer drawing runes on paper; he was carving them into the projection itself, using raw, panicked will.
"The Temporal Loop!" Bartholomew shrieked, his voice ragged. "You have to invert the polarity! \Omega-shift the primary output!"
He finished the sequence, a complex lattice of inter-dimensional stabilization runes, and collapsed onto the table, the scent of ozone thick in the air.
The System Reaction:
[TRAUMA RESPONSE CRITICAL: SYSTEMIC MAGICAL FAILURE AVERTED. +1000 EXP Gained.]
[LEVEL UP! D-RANK \rightarrow C-RANK (Elite Mage)]
[Endurance: 30 \rightarrow 60]
[Magic Power: 90 \rightarrow 150]
Bartholomew lay there, breathing heavily, his mind empty save for the lingering scent of copper and the dull, persistent knowledge of 8,000 men who would now not die. He had breached the threshold. He was a C-Rank Elite Mage.
The Captain's Commission
Vance entered the room a moment later, his expression betraying a sliver of controlled excitement. He ignored the trembling Bartholomew and moved straight to the analytical console. The screens confirmed the result: the projected corrective rune sequence Bartholomew had channeled was mathematically perfect and guaranteed to stabilize the Network.
"Remarkable," Vance murmured, noting the massive jump in Bartholomew's psychic output. "The Temporal Inversion Rune... a C-Rank solution indeed. A failure of that magnitude was required."
Vance turned to Bartholomew, who was slowly pushing himself upright, shaking off the last vestiges of the nightmare.
"Congratulations, Sergeant. You have met the terms of your agreement ahead of schedule. Your sacrifice of mental stability has secured the Autumn Offensive." Vance pulled a sealed document from his pocket. "Effective immediately, you are promoted to the rank of Captain, reporting directly to the AIC Logistics Command."
Vance placed the Captain's bars and a brand-new, high-grade C-Rank Aether Gem on the table. The gem was a deep sapphire blue, humming with immense, stable power. It was everything the F-Rank Gem had not been.
"You have escaped the mud, Captain. Your job is now to implement your solution. In four weeks, you will lead a specialized team to stabilize the Communication Network during the offensive. You will be safe, but your mission will be the most critical of the entire war effort."
Bartholomew reached for the Captain's bars, his new Gem already accepting the massive boost in MP (150) and Endurance (60). He was a Captain, a C-Rank Elite Mage, and a crucial logistical asset. He had survived the first major phase of Vance's plan.
But as he looked at Vance, he knew the greatest terror was not the trenches, but the continuous, escalating demand of the System. The next failure Vance required would be exponentially larger, closer to the scale of the war itself.
He had saved 8,000 men with one memory. How many deaths would the next level require?