BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT.
A high-frequency electric hum vibrated straight through the center of William's spine, snapping his eyes open in an instant.
There was none of the usual heavy grogginess that came from sleeping on a lumpy, foul-smelling mattress stuffed with damp straw. Instead, William felt as if every drop of marrow inside his bones had been drained overnight and replaced with boiling liquid mercury. Every muscle fiber in his chest, arms, and legs was pulled tight, humming with a restless energy that made the tips of his fingers tingle and his jaw clench on its own.
Before he could even take a breath to curse the freezing temperature of the stone guest room, a familiar, melodic chime rang inside his skull.
Right in front of his face, the translucent blue screen of the System flared to life, glowing much brighter than it had the day before:
[DIMENSIONAL SYSTEM]
User: [William]
Location: Border Town, Kingdom of Graycastle.
[Attributes]
Strength: 9
Speed: 11
Stamina: 10
Agility: 9
Intelligence: 8
Magic Power: 3 [Teleportation]
— "Holy shit..." — William breathed out, bolting upright on the wooden bed frame so fast the dry straw underneath him crunched loudly in the quiet room.
He stared wide-eyed at the glowing letters floating in the air, his heart hammering against his ribs with a mixture of sheer disbelief and predatory excitement. His physical stats were already sitting right at the peak of human potential without a single buff, and now that bottom line had finally unlocked.
The single word inside the brackets sent a fresh wave of pure adrenaline shooting straight into his bloodstream.
— "And I started with a 3?! I really am the chosen one of all time, fuck! Now these medieval bastards are really going to have to respect me! Hahahaha SIIIUUUUUUUUUU!!"
Not even thinking twice, William threw off the heavy wool blanket, launched himself across the narrow gap between the two beds, and grabbed Arthur by the shoulders, shaking him with a brute Strength 9 grip that nearly bounced his friend off the mattress and onto the stone floor.
— "Arthur! Wake up, man! Get up right now!" — William hissed in a frantic, vibrating whisper right next to his ear. — "The System just finished updating! We're no longer two broke scammers wearing designer hoodies in the mud! We have real magic now, bro!"
Arthur let out a low groan of protest, his brain fighting a brief war between the warm comfort of sleep and the freezing reality of a Graycastle castle room.
Pushing William's heavy hands off his collarbone, Arthur sat up slowly and rubbed his tired eyes. The moment he focused his vision on the empty air in front of him, his own blue interface materialized, casting a cold, steady glow across his sharp features:
[DIMENSIONAL SYSTEM]
User: [Arthur]
Location: Border Town, Kingdom of Graycastle.
[Attributes]
Strength: 6
Speed: 7
Stamina: 8
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 14
Magic Power: 1 [Telekinesis]
Arthur frowned slightly, his right hand automatically reaching over to trace the brushed steel bezel and cold sapphire glass of his wristwatch — an old habit from his corporate days whenever he needed to calculate a sudden variable.
He looked from his own floating window toward the empty space where William was staring, comparing the numbers in his head.
— "So the System completed the synchronization overnight because we secured Anna's safety inside the castle yesterday," — Arthur murmured, his voice still raspy from sleep but already analytical. — "Wait a second. Why is my Magic Power sitting at 1? Did you just say yours started at 3??"
— "Three, shit! Three full charges of raw, uncut power!" — William threw a rapid combination of shadow-boxing jabs and hooks into the cold morning air, letting out a muffled, arrogant laugh while still careful not to shout.
Even in the middle of his hype, William wasn't stupid; both of them knew very well that Chief Knight Carter Lannis had guards patrolling the hallway outside, listening for any strange noise coming from the "foreign scholars".
William leaned in close to Arthur's bed, flashing the widest, most insufferable grin of his life:
— "It looks like the System knows exactly who the real 'protagonist' of this story is!" — William teased, puffing out his chest. — "I rolled out of the garage with a twin-turbo V8 engine, while you're over there pedaling a rusty tricycle! Hahahaha! Hey, look on the bright side, at least you beat me in intelligence! The System clearly knows I'm the guy who solves problems heroically with his fists, while you're the sidekick locked in the office writing the instruction manuals!"
Arthur rolled his eyes, completely ignoring the provocation as his brain began connecting the implications of their new status.
Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Arthur winced as his bare feet touched the freezing stone slabs of the floor. He quickly slipped into his boots and made a sharp hand gesture, signaling William to follow him to the far corner of the room — as far away as possible from the heavy oak door and the ears of passing servants.
— "We need to test how these abilities work right now, but we have to do it in dead silence. Zero noise," — Arthur warned, his tone dropping to a serious whisper. — "And before you ask, it's not Roland or Carter that I'm worried about right now. Roland is a modern transmigrator just like us; if he found out we had abilities, he wouldn't execute us. If anything, he'd probably want to lock us in a castle and study our powers the exact same way he does with Anna. Still, we cannot afford to mess up the timeline this early."
William tilted his head, leaning his shoulder against the cold stone wall.
— "What do you mean by messing up the timeline?" — William asked quietly. — "Wouldn't showing Roland we have powers make him trust us even more?"
— "Think about the basic rules of this world," — Arthur explained, raising a single finger. — "In the original lore of Release That Witch, only women can awaken Magic Power. A male awakening magic is a complete biological anomaly — something that has literally never happened in the recorded history of this continent."
Arthur glanced briefly toward the locked door before continuing:
— "The castle is full of maids, stableboys, and guards who grew up under the brainwashing of the Church," — Arthur said, his eyes cold. — "You remember how Archbishop Heather's spy network in the Sacred City of Hermes eventually found out Roland was hiding witches in the original story, right? If a single rumor leaks out of Border Town that two 'male witches' or 'warlocks' are walking around the Fourth Prince's castle, the Church won't just send a small investigative team. It will trigger absolute religious panic. They wouldn't even wait to conquer Graycastle first; they would divert their entire holy army straight to our gates before we even finish building our first steam engine."
The grin slowly faded from William's face, replaced by a sharp, focused expression.
— "Fair point. Bringing the final boss to the tutorial map would suck," — William agreed, nodding once. — "Alright then, let's test this quietly."
William stepped away from the wall and stood in the small open space in the middle of the room.
Dropping his playful attitude, he took a slow breath and locked his eyes on a small patch of dark shadow right next to the unlit stone fireplace, roughly two meters away from his boots.
He closed his eyes for a second and reached inward with his mind, searching for that strange energy source the System had unlocked in his chest. It wasn't hard to find; inside his torso, the Magic Power felt like a heavy tank of pressurized steam trapped right underneath his ribs, practically begging for a valve to open.
Focusing on the spot by the fireplace, William mentally pulled the trigger to release that pressure.
Pop.
With a sound no louder than a soap bubble bursting — the faint rush of cold air rushing in to fill a sudden vacuum — William's body completely vanished from the center of the room.
There was no flash of light, no smoke, and no delay. In the exact same millisecond, his tall silhouette reappeared standing right on top of the shadow beside the fireplace.
— "Whoa—!"
The moment his boots touched the stone in the new position, William's knees buckled violently underneath him.
His balance vanished. The stone room spun around his head at a forty-five-degree angle, and a wave of brutal, stomach-turning nausea slammed into his gut like a sledgehammer. He had to shoot both hands out and grab the rough stone edge of the fireplace mantel just to keep from vomiting on the floor.
— "Ugh... holy crap, dude..." — William groaned softly, pressing his forehead against his forearm while cold sweat broke out across the back of his neck. — "That was completely instant! Zero travel time! But damn... it feels like I just got run over by a speeding bicycle while riding a roller coaster. My head is spinning like crazy, and my heart feels like I just sprinted seven kilometers in a single second."
Arthur stepped closer, his eyes narrowing as he watched the faint, almost invisible ripple in the cold air where William had been standing a moment ago.
— "Instantaneous spatial displacement," — Arthur murmured, his mind immediately dissecting the pros and cons of the skill. — "There are two possibilities for that number 3 on your screen. Either it means you have three consecutive 'charges' before your magic pool hits zero, or it determines the maximum distance in meters you can jump before total exhaustion kicks in. As a combat and assassination skill, it is easily S-tier... but the physical strain on a human inner ear and nervous system that isn't used to folding space is clearly heavy."
— "Yeah, no kidding. Give me ten seconds before I try that again," — William muttered, breathing slowly through his nose to calm his stomach. — "Go ahead. Lets see what your level 1 tricycle can do."
Arthur nodded and turned toward the crooked wooden nightstand beside his bed, where a dented tin water mug had been left by the servants the night before.
Standing a meter away, Arthur raised his right hand slightly.
Because of his modern mindset, he didn't picture himself waving a magic wand or chanting a spell. Instead, he visualized the invisible stream of energy inside his chest flowing down his arm and projecting outward like a vector of pure kinetic force wrapping around the metal cup.
Clack-clack-clack.
The tin mug began to tremble, rattling against the uneven wood of the nightstand.
For a full second, the cup seemed to fight against gravity before it finally broke contact with the wood, rising slowly and shakily until it hovered exactly five centimeters in the air.
The instant the mug floated, Arthur's face flushed a deep red. A thick vein pulsed visibly against his right temple as an absurd mental pressure squeezed his skull. He held the empty tin cup suspended in the air for one second... two seconds... three agonizing seconds — before his invisible grip slipped off the metal like wet soap.
Clang!
The mug dropped back onto the nightstand, tipped over the edge, and rolled onto the stone floor with a dull metallic thud.
— "Jesus..." — Arthur hissed between clenched teeth, raising a hand to rub the bridge of his nose as a bead of cold sweat rolled down his temple.
A sharp, stabbing migraine was throbbing right behind his eyeballs, as if someone had shone a laser pointer directly into his retinas.
— "It feels ridiculously heavy," — Arthur admitted, letting out a dry laugh as he leaned back against the bedpost. — "An empty tin mug weighs less than two hundred grams, and yet lifting it with Level 1 Telekinesis felt like trying to pick up a medium-sized boulder using a single strand of wet spaghetti. Compared to your teleportation jumps, my raw output right now is pathetic."
Both of them slid down to sit on the floor in the narrow shadow between the two beds, letting their breathing settle as the reality of what had just happened sank into their modern minds.
They were no longer just regular guys relying on their wits; they were actual magic users in a world of sword and magic.
— "So, how the hell do we level this up without dying of a brain hemorrhage?" — William asked, rubbing the back of his neck as the vertigo finally began to fade. — "Do we just sit around waiting for the System to drop more quests, or do we use the 'Anna method' and drain our magic pool dry every single day until we pass out?"
— "Probably a combination of both, though daily training is going to be the foundation," — Arthur replied, resting his forearms on his knees as his metaknowledge of the story kicked into high gear. — "Wait... Will, how far did you actually get in Release That Witch before we got sucked into that TV? You only watched the anime promo and read the manhwa up to the point where Cheng Yan defeats Timothy in his first attempt to take Roland to King's City, right?"
— "Yeah, right around where the second Prince starts getting really desperate," — William confirmed. — "Why?"
— "Because I read a large portion of the original web novel, in addition to receiving some spoilers," — Arthur said, a sharp glint appearing in his eyes as he leaned forward. — "And in the deeper lore of the novel, Roland discovers something crucial about how magic actually works in this world. Magic isn't just random fantasy nonsense; it evolves directly through a witch's scientific understanding of the natural laws."
William raised an eyebrow, genuinely without understanding now.
— "Yeah, yeah, I know that, it shows up at the beginning of the story, but what the fuck does that have to do with anything?!"
— "Take Anna as the prime example," — Arthur explained, lowering his voice. — "Right now, she only summons normal orange-red fire. Later on, as Roland teaches her advanced physics and chemistry, the moment she truly comprehends thermodynamics, her fire evolves and turns green, burning at temperatures that can melt steel in seconds. And when she finally grasps the true relationship between heat and atomic-level molecular motion... her fire turns pure black, capable of cutting through anything like a plasma torch."
Arthur tapped his own temple with two fingers:
— "Look at my status sheet. The System gave me a 1 in Magic Power, which means my raw battery is tiny right now," — Arthur reasoned. — "But it classified me a 14 in intelligence. If the magic granted to us by this System follows the exact same laws of physics as the witches' powers, then my high intelligence isn't just for making business plans or lying to Roland and Barov — it's a direct multiplier for how I control my ability. Right now I'm trying to lift a mug using brute mental force. But if I apply a deeper understanding of classical mechanics, gravity vectors, friction, and molecular mass, I might be able to evolve this Telekinesis into something way more lethal later on. Imagine pinching an enemy's carotid artery inside their neck from ten meters away—that takes less than fifty grams of force."
William let out a low whistle, his eyes lighting up at the brutal efficiency of that idea.
— "Okay, pinching arteries from across the room is badass," — William grinned, punching his palm. — "In that case, I need you to teach me everything you know about spatial physics! Imagine when I level up my Teleportation! I'll be jumping from city to city across the map! I'll basically be Nightcrawler from X-Men, only way better-looking! Hell, once my range is big enough, I could just teleport straight into Church prisons, grab all the hot witches in the kingdom, and pop right back out before those bastard priests even blink!"
Arthur shot him a look of pure, exhausted exasperation.
— "William, try to take this seriously for five minutes. This is a survival scenario, not a dating simulator," — Arthur scolded dryly. — "And before you go jumping across the continent, we need to understand how our bodies handle the magic load. For normal witches in this world, if they don't exhaust their Magic Power regularly before turning eighteen, the accumulated energy overflows and kills them in what the Church calls the 'Demonic Bite'."
— "Wait a second," — William frowned, touching his own chest. — "Are we going to blow up on our birthdays too?"
— "No, we're already past eighteen, and the System specifically said it 'synchronized' the energy flow with our bodies," — Arthur pointed out, reassuring him. — "The System is acting as a built-in regulator so the magic doesn't tear our organs apart. However, the basic rule of muscle and magic growth here is the same: if we want our capacity to grow from 1 and 3 to 10 or 20, we have to drain our reserves down to zero every single night and let them refill while we sleep. Treat magic training just like a Olympic workout."
— "You bet, exhausting myself every day to get stronger is literally my specialty," — William smirked, his cocky confidence returning in full force before his expression turned surprisingly serious. — "And think about the endgame. What if we train hard enough over the next year to reach the level of an 'Extraordinary' or 'Transcendent' witch? Like Roland's sister, Tilly Wimbledon, or Ashes? At that level of magic condensation, their bodies become biologically immune to the Church's God's Retaliation Stones! If you and I reach that tier, the demons, the demonic beasts, the Church, and half the world could come at us at the same time, and we'd still wipe the floor with them."
— "Maybe... I might be wrong, but I don't know if it's possible to become extraordinary— I think you're just born that way," — Arthur agreed, nodding slowly. — "Anyway, until we are immune to those anti-magic stones, exposing our powers is suicide. For now, to Roland, Carter, and the whole world, we are nothing more than two eccentric scholars from a distant land. Roland's gunpowder and steam engines will be our public shield on the battlefield... and our magic will remain our hidden dagger in the dark."
Resting his head back against the wooden frame of the bed, William felt the nausea in his stomach completely disappear, replaced by a fresh surge of energy.
Unable to sit still with a new superpower in his veins, William stood up again, braced his core, and focused on a spot near the washbasin just one meter away.
Pop.
He vanished and reappeared on the other side of the room, much quieter and far more controlled than his first jump. He still braced his hands on his knees and let out a heavy breath as his shirt soaked through with cold sweat, but he didn't stumble this time.
— "Man... teleporting is the weirdest sensation in the universe," — William whispered, staring down at his own hands in genuine awe. — "It doesn't feel like running fast through space. It feels like the room folds in half like a sheet of origami paper, squeezes me through a keyhole, and spits me out on the other side. And the crazy part is that I can actually feel my range limit now. If I tried to jump blindly through that solid stone wall without knowing what's on the other side... my brain would probably fry itself in the vacuum. That number 3 on my status is basically a safety lock keeping me from materializing inside solid rock."
Across the room, Arthur smiled faintly while focusing his eyes on a small metal soup spoon on the table, successfully lifting the lighter object three centimeters off the wood and holding it steady for ten full seconds without triggering a headache.
— "Once you master the spatial vectors and your inner ear adapts to the nausea, you are going to be a nightmare in close combat," — Arthur said, setting the spoon gently back down. — "Just promise me you won't use it outside this locked room."
— "Take it easy, bro, I told you I got it," — William scoffed lightly, wiping his sweaty forehead on his sleeve before a mischievous idea crossed his mind. — "Though, hear me out for a second, Arthur... Right now, Roland barely knows how this world works. What about the Witch Cooperation Association? Those girls are out there freezing and starving in the wild right now. Once I level up my range a bit, what if we sneak out, intercept their caravan before they enter the Impassable Mountain Range, and recruit them ourselves? We could build our own private army of witches right under the nose of the 'fake prince'! xDDDD!"
Arthur didn't even bother laughing; he fixed William with a cold, calculating stare.
— "William, forget about hijacking the Witch Cooperation Association right now," — Arthur cut in firmly. — "Our number one priority is surviving the next ninety days. If my timeline calculations are right, Assistant Minister Barov is going to walk into Roland's office within the next few days to warn him about the Months of Demons."
Arthur stood up from the floor, brushing the dust off his pants:
— "The demonic beasts coming down from the mountains this winter aren't drawings on a screen anymore," — Arthur reminded him soberly. — "They are mutated monsters with armor-plated hides designed to smash through wooden palisades and rip human bodies in half. Right now, your three short teleports and my spoon-lifting trick won't stop a wave of five hundred demonic wolves. We need Roland's industrial production, we need Anna's fire making cement walls, and we need the First Army's rifles. If we stick to the strategy, we survive this winter and take over the board step by step."
Before William could reply, the sharp, rhythmic sound of heavy metal boots echoed down the stone hallway outside, marching straight toward their door.
And they weren't stopping.
Neither of them needed to say a word. Moving with instant coordination, William dove straight onto his messy straw bed, pulled the wool blanket up to his chin, closed his eyes, and let out a loud, obnoxious snore.
In the exact same second, Arthur stepped over to the wobbly wooden table, picked up a piece of black charcoal, and leaned over a rough parchment map of Graycastle with the deep, furrowed brow of an obsessed academic.
Clack-scrape.
The heavy iron bolt on the outside of the oak door slid back, and the door swung open.
Standing in the doorway was Chief Knight Carter Lannis, his polished steel breastplate gleaming in the dim light of the corridor and his face as cold and unreadable as a slab of northern ice.
— "His Highness requests the immediate presence of both of you down in the castle courtyard," — Carter announced, his sharp, suspicious eyes sweeping across the room like a hawk looking for any sign of a plot.
For half a second, Carter's gaze paused.
His eyes locked onto the dented tin water mug lying on the stone floor a few feet away from the nightstand — the exact mug Arthur had dropped during his first telekinesis test.
Carter's left eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly, wondering how a cup had rolled that far from the bed while the other guest was supposedly dead asleep, before he finally looked back up at Arthur.
— "Right away, Chief Knight," — Arthur replied smoothly, setting the charcoal down and walking over to kick William's boot at the end of the bed. — "Wake up, Will. The Prince is waiting for us."
Two minutes later, the two of them were marching down the drafty stone corridor five paces behind Carter Lannis, the loud clinking of the knight's armor echoing off the walls.
Waiting until they rounded a corner down the stairs, William discreetly nudged Arthur's ribs with his elbow.
— "Nice save back there, Mr. Actor," — William whispered out of the corner of his mouth,barely audible over Carter's heavy boots. — "Think the Prince changed his mind overnight? We've only been in this mudhole for four days, I really don't feel like getting kicked out onto the street in this freezing weather. Why couldn't that TV drop us into a modern world with indoor plumbing, like a high school magic academy?"
— "He isn't kicking us out," — Arthur murmured back without turning his head. — "Quite the opposite. Roland spent all night realizing that he is completely alone in a medieval wasteland, and he desperately needs us to translate his modern ideas into reality without making his court think he's possessed. And we need his royal title... because a freezing world of snow and inquisitors is a very lonely place to have magic you aren't allowed to show."
At the bottom of the stairs, Carter pushed open the heavy side doors leading out into the inner courtyard.
Stepping out into the crisp morning air, Arthur and William immediately spotted Roland Wimbledon waiting for them near a secluded corner of the yard.
The young prince looked like he hadn't slept more than two hours — dark, heavy circles hung beneath his gray eyes — yet his posture was buzzing with the manic, unmistakable excitement of an engineer about to start his greatest project. Spread out across a heavy oak table beside him were a rough map of Border Town, chunks of raw ore brought down from the North Slope Mine, and a pile of crudely forged iron tools.
And standing quietly beside a makeshift brick furnace a few paces away was Anna, her orange-red hair tied back and her blue eyes fixed calmly on the prince.
As Arthur and William walked across the courtyard flagstones to join them, a chapter that no traditional history book in Graycastle could ever comprehend was officially beginning — written in secret by a witch and three men from the XX and XXI century who had stolen the fire of the future.