Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate - Chapter 295: Origin pulse (2)

Chapter 295: Origin pulse (2)

Dominic’s voice echoed in the chamber like it had weight of its own.

“We call it… Origin Pulse.”

Damien’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Origin Pulse.

The name didn’t ring any bells—not from his readings, not from the game’s files. No glossary entries, no lore nodes, no tutorial prompts. It was new. Or maybe… deliberately hidden.

’Interesting,’ Damien thought, mind already threading through implications.

Dominic didn’t wait for him to ask. He kept speaking, as if following a path well-worn in thought, if rarely spoken aloud.

“Monsters don’t have human reasoning. They don’t meditate. Don’t refine techniques or circulate spiritual cores. But some of them… command mana. With terrifying precision. With violence, with elegance. As if it’s part of their breath.”

He gestured vaguely toward the walls, toward the old-world sigils etched faintly into the training chamber.

“And the Ascended? The ones who went beyond even the highest circles of cultivation—they’ve written about this. Left cryptic notes, journals, fragments of thought. Different names for the same idea. Some called it the Pulse of the Deep. Others, the Breath of the First Flame.”

He looked back at Damien.

“But now, the term we use—Origin Pulse. It refers to that internal resonance. A kind of synchronization with the primordial intent of mana itself.”

Damien remained silent for a moment. Processing. Then he spoke, voice low, speculative.

“Origin… does that mean it’s linked to something collective?” he asked. “Should we take the mana as something… collective consciousness? A force that remembers what it was before?”

Dominic smiled faintly—not with amusement, but something close to approval.

“You’re not far off.”

Dominic’s expression didn’t shift, but his gaze turned inward for just a breath—like someone brushing against an old memory or a path they’d walked only so far.

“This,” he said quietly, “is what most of the highly cultivated claim. Not the instructors, not the guild-trained elites. I’m talking about those who have truly stepped beyond—those who’ve glimpsed something deeper.”

Damien’s eyes locked onto his father’s, calm but unyielding.

“Do you claim that as well?” he asked.

The air between them held still.

Dominic met his son’s gaze without deflecting. “No.”

Damien’s brow lifted. Slightly.

“You’re not?” he asked. “You’re an S-rank Awakened. You’ve been deeper into the cycle than most ever dream of.”

Dominic gave a small, deliberate shake of his head.

“S-rank is strength. It is clarity. But it is not truth.”

He paused, then continued, voice edged with the rare humility of someone who had long accepted their limits.

“I’ve walked the path far, yes. But I haven’t reached the thresholds where that kind of understanding becomes absolute. Your grandfather—he would be the one better suited to speak about Origin Pulse with certainty.”

There was a note of restraint in Dominic’s voice now. Not fear. Just respect. Measured reverence for something that could not be bent by will alone.

“But he’s still in seclusion,” Dominic added, eyes darkening just slightly. “And he may remain there until you’ve already crossed your own point of no return.”

He folded his arms behind his back, posture rigid again.

“So I’ll tell you what is known. Or rather… what’s being studied.”

His voice was even, but quieter now—like a man discussing unstable ground.

“Origin Pulse. It’s not universal. Not everyone who awakens even has it. But those who do tend to draw mana in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Their cores don’t just stabilize—they resonate. Deeply. Almost naturally, even violently. As if something older is reaching back through them.”

Dominic glanced toward the center of the training room—toward the spot where the Cradle protocol would begin.

“It’s not wide knowledge. The Academies don’t teach it. The research labs observe it in silence. The nobles talk about it in code. Because it doesn’t fit in the nice, controllable models of circulation charts and measured stages.”

Dominic’s gaze turned once more toward the central ring of the chamber—the platform where the Cradle’s protocol would initiate. His voice followed a beat later, steady and level, like a truth spoken too many times in silence.

“That’s what makes the Cradle so coveted.”

He didn’t raise his voice. If anything, he lowered it. As though speaking too loudly might wake the memory of those who didn’t make it.

“It’s not just another method. Not just another ritualized awakening. It’s a conduit—a forge made to push the boundary between instinct and Origin Pulse. To shatter the self, and see what reforms from the pieces.”

Dominic’s tone darkened, clipped by something colder now.

“And that’s also what makes it feared.”

He turned back to Damien, fully now.

“The dangers of the Cradle aren’t exaggerated. The fatality rate isn’t unknown because no one measures it—it’s unknown because no one survives often enough to set a number.”

Damien’s breath remained calm, but the space between each inhale stretched subtly longer.

Dominic’s eyes narrowed slightly, voice sharpening.

“Do you know how long it’s been since the last survivor of the Cradle?”

Damien’s gaze didn’t waver. “….” Even though he knew the answer, he still did let his father speak through.

“Five hundred years,” Dominic said. “Five hundred years since the last name was written into the archives as a confirmed survivor. And that name is still spoken—because those who survive the Cradle often become legends.”

He took a step closer.

“But before they become that, they die. And die. And die again.”

He let the words hang in the space between them. Then continued, tone measured again.

“There are other awakening methods. High-difficulty ones. Dangerous ones. Ritualized spiritual immersion, elemental baptism, void pulse injection. All of them brutal. All of them near-lethal. And each of them? Has a survival rate nearly twenty times higher than the Cradle.”

Damien’s brows drew together faintly, not from fear—but from understanding the scale.

Dominic’s voice dropped low.

“To awaken Origin Pulse is to call something that isn’t meant to be heard. To make yourself visible to a force that predates the system we built. The Cradle doesn’t give power—it strips away everything that can’t hold power, and burns the rest.”

Then he asked, eyes locking Damien in place.

“Do you understand how detrimental the Cradle truly is now?”

Damien’s expression didn’t shift.

“I do,” he said simply. “I always knew.”

Dominic arched a brow.

“Did you now?”

Damien nodded once, gaze firm.

“Father, I don’t do things without looking through them.”

That drew a pause.

A faint breath. A narrow twitch at the edge of Dominic’s mouth.

“Really.”

“Yes.”

For a long moment, there was only the low thrum of the chamber’s ambient systems. Then Dominic exhaled—not as a sigh, but something close to amusement.

He shook his head once.

“Well then,” he said quietly, loosening his shoulders with a practiced motion, “we’ll see about that.”

Damien’s brow lifted. “What?”

Dominic didn’t answer. He just raised his hands—fingers flexing, wrists rolling with slow precision.

Then came the low reply, calm and clean.

“It’s time for a little lesson.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by novlove.com