After gaining the book—and the additional, unknown volume tucked alongside it—Sam knew his survival rate was going to change. He could feel it in his bones, like gravity shifting slightly beneath his feet.
He had always believed—no, philosophized—that there was no book in the entire cosmos he couldn't comprehend. Whether that was arrogance or supreme confidence was a question with no easy answer.
But after the system itself confirmed his trait Insight as a mythical SSS-rank, his belief took a more dangerous shape. Confidence turned into audacity. Certainty. A kind of still-burning madness.
So, when he saw the unknown book, unmarked and unindexed, lying beside the Survival Way manuscript, Sam didn't hesitate. He took it as a challenge. A puzzle left behind by someone trying to reach him across time. And perhaps, deep down, he knew—whatever knowledge this strange diary held, it was meant for someone who could truly understand it.
"Let's see what the Survival Way can give me."
The book was thick—over 700 pages—but its appearance told another story entirely. Its aged, yellowing pages reeked faintly of sweat and old blood. The spine was half-torn. Its corners were frayed like they'd been gripped too tightly for too long. A few blotches of dried crimson confirmed it: this wasn't fiction. This was life, handwritten. Soldierboy's life.
The bloodstains weren't decorative. They were testimonies.
Sam gently opened the book.
As he began reading, his trait Insight immediately kicked in—interpreting language, deciphering layers of meaning beneath the raw text. His brain entered a cognitive overdrive.
His photographic memory memorized entire pages instantly. Not just read—memorized.
His mind matrix—his signature method of breaking down information—began creating entire mental profiles to process each sentence from multiple viewpoints.
It wasn't just that he was understanding.
It was that he was becoming.
A thousand personas bloomed within his consciousness.
A soldier. A martial artist. A field medic. A biologist. A weapons expert.
A strategist navigating a muddy battlefield.
A man starving in the snow.
A child scavenging in a post-collapse zone.
A survivor alone in a desert, charting stars with broken equipment.
A sniper. A rebel. A prisoner. A scout. A leader.
And more...
He didn't merely read the words. He visualized the scenarios. He felt the decision points.
His brain layered the context—climate, terrain, physiology, enemy behavior, nutrition levels, fatigue, ambient threat level, mental state—everything mattered.
He ran the situations again and again from different mental angles.
Rain.
Mountain.
Jungle.
Ruins.
Snow.
Saltwater.
Toxic air.
Psychological isolation.
Every variable was considered.
When Insight and Mind Matrix work together… Sam becomes something else entirely.
He had felt this kind of deep mental integration before—back during the early days of his research, when he used to read advanced genetic theory manuals while fasting for 48 hours straight, tracking every concept with quantum-simulation overlays. But this… this was on another level.
This was survival knowledge fused with emotion, pain, blood, and raw instinct.
He wasn't just reading about survival. He was experiencing it.
Thirty minutes passed.
The entire book was done.
Seven hundred and sixty-eight pages, memorized and processed, each page dissected by hundreds of internal personas and perspectives.
But he didn't stop.
He closed his eyes and entered what he called a full-brain trance. A state where all his mental faculties worked together with no energy diverted toward sensory distractions. Sight, sound, smell—all shut off. Only thought remained.
This state was dangerous. Overclocking his mind like this could induce migraines, blackouts—or even memory fractures.
But Sam had done this many times before. And this time, he pushed even further.
For four hours, he remained motionless, cycling through the thoughts of a thousand Sams. Each persona replayed the book from a different mental lens. Ideas were tested, reversed, debunked, restructured, cross-referenced, applied, and theorized. It wasn't just philosophy—it was adaptive integration.
Then finally, at the end of it all, when the fog of trance lifted and his breathing steadied again…
Ding.
System Notifications – Skill Acquisition Registered.
[Skill Acquired: Adaptability (C)]
Through deep cognitive understanding of varied hostile environments and survival without resources, you've developed an adaptive mind capable of conforming to nearly any condition.
[Skill Acquired: Mapping (C)]
Your comprehension of terrain usage, escape strategy, and tactical positioning allows efficient terrain-based planning under stress.
[Skill Acquired: War Strategy (B)]
Your mind has absorbed and restructured combat theory through the lens of hundreds of real-world scenarios, granting predictive capacity and tactical foresight.
[Skill Acquired: Survival Sense (C)]
A subtle sixth sense warns you when your life is in danger. Built from mental simulations of life-or-death instincts.
[Skill Acquired: Advanced Breathing (C)]
A refined breathing method enhancing recovery, hunger resistance, and energy control. Drastically reduces fatigue and boosts stamina during combat or long exertion.
[Skill Acquired: Modified Combat Techniques (B)]
A hybrid martial system written by Soldierboy and interpreted by you. Includes core striking, weapon adaptability, and practical kill-zone targeting across martial disciplines.
[Skill Acquired: Healing Knowledge (C)]
Understanding battlefield medicine, emergency triage, and trauma stabilization. (Overwritten by Unique Skill: Gene Mastery.)
Note:
All skills earned via Insight and Mind Matrix are unlocked through mental understanding, not shortcuts. The Universal Survival System does not provide items, scrolls, or direct brain implants.
These skills represent real comprehension developed from within.
The system reveals what the user has earned through effort and experience.
Sam stared at the list. He wasn't just reading theory anymore.
He now knew how to breathe to stabilize his vitals during a panic attack.
He knew how to look at a canyon, a sewer line, a collapsed city—and plan.
He knew how to punch a man with lethal force using makeshift gloves and how to stitch an open wound with scraps of torn cloth.
These weren't just new skills.
They were memories he never lived.
But now, they felt like his own.
He began to realize something.
What creates a skill?
It wasn't magic.
It wasn't a gift.
It was training—long, brutal training.
Running became a skill only after enough sweat, enough failure.
Boxing came after busted knuckles, endless drills, and instinctive rhythm.
Even reading became a skill when you could extract knowledge under pressure.
And experience… experience was condensed knowledge.
"But what if," Sam thought, "I could absorb the experience itself?"
He didn't mean directly downloading it.
He meant understanding it—truly and deeply, through a framework of comprehension.
If a novice runner learned how a trained runner thought, how he breathed, how he moved—
Not just what he did, but why he did it—
Then that novice would learn in weeks what others might take years.
And that was what Sam was doing.
Through thousands of perspectives, hundreds of scenarios, and an iron-blooded will to understand, he was forging Soldierboy's experiences into his own memory.
He was gaining a second life. One earned not through technology, but through unparalleled mental evolution.
The skills were only the beginning.
The real treasure…
…was the mind behind them.