SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 174: Caffeine Dreams

The others had fallen asleep before midnight. Anika curled up on a mattress we'd dragged from a side room, Elliot half-draped over an armrest like a sleeping cat. The oil lamp flickered low, casting shadows that made even the peeling wallpaper look theatrical.

I waited an hour. Just long enough to be sure no one would stir. Then I slipped on my coat, tightened the laces of my boots, and donned the mask.

Mr. Jester stepped into the night.

The city was quieter at this hour—resting, not dead. I traced the route Mark sent me through alleys and silent backstreets until the pavement gave way to cracked dirt roads. Trees crowded in like curious watchers. And before long, I reached the edge of the forest.

The path twisted. Damp earth squelched underfoot. A branch clawed at my cheek. Still, I moved. My breath curled like fog in the cool night air.

Eventually, I saw it.

An old cabin, slouching against the darkness like it had been waiting years for this visit.

Funny. Last time I was in a cabin like this, Cipher had knocked me out and left me half-dead on a blood-stained couch. The time before that, I'd stumbled in, frostbitten and unarmed, only for my old operations team to pull weapons on me—right before recognizing my voice.

I really need to ask how they're doing when I get back.

The door creaked open with the weight of memory.

Inside, Mark sat at a wobbly table in the center of the room, a faint lantern glow casting elongated shadows. He was hunched over, quietly building a tower of playing cards. Three levels stood tall, delicate, tense—

I stepped in.

The door swung back with a faint gust of wind.

fwump

The tower collapsed in a clumsy heap.

Mark didn't flinch. He just stared at the wreckage, sighed once, then looked up with a tired smirk. "You're early."

"I was bored," I said, slipping off my gloves. "And it was either this or endure being in that 'rental' for another hour."

Mark gestured toward the corner. "Chair's less broken than it looks."

I sat, brushing a cobweb off the armrest. The silence between us wasn't tense, just... familiar. The kind you only get between people who've tried to kill each other and decided it wasn't worth the paperwork.

"I'm still waiting on Connor's reply," I said, pulling out the burner phone and giving it a lazy twirl. "Set the bait. Told him I had Subject 3834. Figured he'd jump at the chance."

Mark's left eye twitched. Blood almost gathered at the corner of his sclera, a little bead forming from sheer pressure.

"You okay?" I asked, arching a brow.

He took a deep breath. "I just get... excited hearing that name."

I tilted my head. "Must've really done a number on you."

"You have no idea," he muttered, pressing a thumb under his eye until the bleeding subsided. "Anyway. That's not why we're here."

"Right, what did you find?"

He tapped a file sitting near the edge of the table. "Cain Protocol. It's worse than we thought."

I leaned in.

Mark opened the folder, flipping through notes. "Currently, the file confirmed at least fifty living subjects who underwent the protocol and survived. Another hundred were likely tested and died—most of them failed around two jobs and a couple skills."

He glanced up. "Lately, though, the success rate's increasing. Slowly. But enough to be alarming."

I frowned. "They're making it stable?"

"Stable-ish," he corrected. "But the good news is—they still can't make physical skills work. All enhancements are neurological. Numbing pain, raising reflex response, dampening fatigue. Nothing like us."

Right. Because we weren't supposed to exist.

I leaned back, fingers tapping the table. "So what? You're saying there's fifty of me now?"

Mark scoffed. "Not even close. You're still the only confirmed case of an individual possessing....I don't even know 5-6 jobs?"

That pulled my attention. "Wait—why can't they get more than two jobs onto a person? If they're forcibly implanting them, shouldn't it just be a matter of numbers?"

Mark's brow furrowed. "You really don't get it, do you?"

"What?"

He rubbed his temples. "Do you even understand why your existence breaks everything we know about the system? Even when compared to me?"

"I mean..." I shrugged. "Two years ago I was an F-Rank laborer with no skills. Never bothered to learn how the system actually worked."

Mark stood up, pacing. "Alright. Let me put it this way."

He pointed at me. "Think of a job as a kind of substance. Like coffee."

"Is this going to end with me quitting caffeine?"

"No, shut up and listen." He continued, serious now. "Imagine you wake up every morning, and there's a stream of coffee running through your body. That's what having one job is like. You adjust, your system compensates, you function."

I nodded slowly.

"Now imagine waking up with two streams. One coffee, one... I don't know, Red Bull. Still stimulants, but different compounds. They interact. The body tries to adjust but never fully succeeds. You get jittery. Maybe even paranoid. Your systems are slowly starting to fail."

I thought about Alexis. The way she'd stared at my blood under a microscope. My cells had been moving too fast. Without breaks or rest.

"So by the time you're at three jobs," Mark continued, "you're living in a constant, unsustainable overload. The body starts to break. Blood vessels rupture. Neural signals misfire. Muscles tear themselves apart just to breathe."

"And yet," I said quietly, "I'm still walking."

"Yeah," Mark snapped. "How many jobs and skills do you even have by now?"

He sat again, arms crossed.

I opened my system with a thought.

"Let's see..." I murmured, eyes flicking through the interface.

One.

Two.

Three...

Mark waited.

Four.

Five...

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Six.

Seven jobs.

And... fifty-two skills.

I said it aloud.

Mark stared at me.

Then he accidently slammed his shin into the underside of the table and cursed as the impact nearly flipped the cards.

"What the hell, Reynard?!" he shouted. "You should've been dead! Long ago! That many jobs? That many skills? Your body should've collapsed in on itself like a dying star!"

"Relax," I said, waving him off. "Day-to-day life feels fine."

He looked at me like I'd just told him gravity was optional.

I hesitated. "Though... whenever I get a new job lately, it's been getting intense. Like... I've been getting visions of doing the job before I even get it. Still, I figure I can squeeze in one or two more. Maybe another handful of skills before it gets bad."

"You're unbelievable," Mark muttered, shaking his head. "And somehow not in a good way."

We sat in silence again. The lantern flickered.

Then—

ding

My burner phone vibrated on the table.

I picked it up.

Connor had responded.

"Looks like we're in business," I said, slipping the phone into my coat pocket.

Mark looked up, something cold sliding behind his expression.

"Where?" he asked.

I smiled faintly.

"The train station, next morning."