RWBY: LUCID

Jaune stared at his status screen again.

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[Jaune Arc]

[Rank: 0]

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Aura: 0

Will: 0

Body: 0

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Runes: 19

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Nineteen runes, just enough to boost one stat.

His eyes drifted to the Aura stat.

If he remembered the tutorial right, Aura was supposed to be some sort of fuel for Rune Skills. Which sounded really useful… except Jaune didn't have any Rune Skills.

His face scrunched into a frown.

"Alright," he muttered. "Let's say I do want to use a Rune Skill. How would I even go about acquiring one?"

The system hadn't exactly been forthcoming. There was no help menu or Rune Skill tab. The only instruction manual he had received lacked a ton of information.

Still, he focused. Focused on creating one. He didn't even know what that meant, but he imagined creating a rune. He wasn't even sure what one might look like but he was guessing that it looked similar to skills in video games. With the circles and squiggly lines that had no meaning.

The moment he did, a new red screen shimmered and another soft chime echoed in his skull.

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[Rune Skill creation requires 100 Runes]

[Current Runes: 19]

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Jaune blinked.

"...One hundred?"

He stared at the glowing message like it had personally insulted him.

"Are you kidding me?" he groaned, rubbing his temple. "Two monsters only gave me ten runes each, and you're telling me I need to kill at least another nine of these creatures just to unlock a single Rune Skill?"

He let out a dry laugh and slumped back against the wall.

"No wonder this place is a nightmare. It's not just the monsters—it's the grind."

The message faded back into the ether, leaving only his status screen glowing softly before him.

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Aura: 0

Will: 0

Body: 0

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Runes: 19

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So that ruled out Aura.

"Can't fuel any skills which I don't have."

His gaze flicked to Will next.

That one, according to the tutorial, was tied to Rune Skill structure. Complexity, maybe. Control. But again—no Rune Skills meant that there was no point in adding stats to it.

He sighed.

"Useless for now."

Which meant…

His eyes settled on Body.

Simple and straightforward. Body was something relatively easy to understand.

It represented physical power, endurance and durability.

All of those things might've helped him more when he was dodging a couch-wearing boar that could also occasionally spin like a buzzsaw.

"Yeah," Jaune muttered. "You're my best bet."

He focused on the stat.

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[Body: 0 >1]

[Cost: 10 Runes]

[Y/N]

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He hesitated a beat—then nodded.

"Yes."

The change he felt was instant.

A slow warmth started to spread through his chest and limbs, like someone had poured liquid sunlight into his bloodstream. But it wasn't fiery or intense—just… comforting.

Deep.

His nerves tingled.

A strange pressure built behind his eyes and a faint buzzing echoed in his bones, as though his skeleton was being subtly… realigned. Tendons flexed and adjusted. Muscle fibers gently pulled themselves taut. Even his skin crawled a little, like goosebumps rolling beneath the surface.

Jaune grunted.

"Feels like… a full-body massage. But inside. Weird. Not bad. But weird."

He stretched out his legs, then rolled his shoulders. A few satisfying pops echoed from his joints.

The ache in his arms from all the bat swings was fading. The soreness in his calves from sprinting like mad was also disappearing. Even the nagging pain in his side—probably from diving face-first into a floorboard—was already easing off.

He flexed his fingers and tightened his grip on the bat.

They felt steadier now. Solid.

Jaune looked down at himself.

No dramatic transformation, bulging muscles or an anime glow-up.

But still... he felt better.

Sharper.

"Alright," he whispered, a small grin flickering across his face. "That was definitely worth it."

He glanced back at the status screen one last time.

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Aura: 0

Will: 0

Body: 1

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Runes: 9

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One point stronger and now, Jaune was curious about his new capabilities.

He set the bat gently against the nearest wall and rolled his shoulders.

"Alright. Let's see what this new body can do."

He started with a few stretches, cautiously at first. Reaching down to touch his toes… then further. His palms were able to touch the floor with ease.

"Huh," he muttered. "Didn't expect that."

He shifted into a squat, then into a wide lunge. From there, he slid his leg forward. Then more and even more.

"...No way."

In less than a minute, Jaune was in a full split on the dusty floor, blinking at the painless tension in his legs.

"I couldn't even get halfway before this," he said in disbelief.

With growing curiosity, he pushed up, slid back to his feet, and dropped straight into push-ups.

One. Two. Ten.

His arms moved smoothly with a steady rhythm. There was very little shakiness and strain.

Twenty. Thirty. Fifty.

He kept going.

"Okay. I'm not even breathing hard."

At a hundred, he finally stopped, popped back onto his feet and went straight into pistol squats—one-legged, full-range. They felt springy, light and controlled.

Jaune laughed, breathless with disbelief. "What the hell is this body?!"

He raised his hands and attempted a handstand. His balance wobbled. He teetered side to side for a moment, then held it steady against the wall.

Not perfect—but not a complete disaster either.

He dropped down again, heart pounding—not from exertion, but from adrenaline and excitement.

"I'm not even sore!" he grinned, eyes flickering with wonder. "One point. This is just one point."

He paused. His eyes slowly turned toward the bat resting against the wall.

If one point in Body had given him this much of a physical upgrade… what would two points give?

Or three?

Or ten?

His gaze flicked back to the status screen, curiosity surging.

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[Body: 1>2]

[Cost: 20 Runes]

[Y/N]

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Jaune's grin dropped.

"...Twenty?" he muttered.

He checked his remaining Runes.

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[Runes: 9]

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"Of course. Because of course it costs more."

He scratched the back of his head, frowning in thought.

"First point was ten... second point's twenty. That means it probably increases by ten each time."

He muttered as he counted on his fingers.

"Third point… thirty. Fourth, forty. Fifth, fifty. That's… ten plus twenty plus thirty plus…"

He groaned. "That's already a hundred and fifty runes just to hit five in Body."

He sat down hard, a gust of dust kicking up from the floorboards.

"And that's not even considering Aura or Will."

A heavy sigh left his lips.

"So I need to kill... what? Assuming every creature gives ten runes like the last two did, I'd need..."

He counted again, voice dry.

"Fifteen monsters to get to five in one stat. And that's if they all drop ten."

He stared at the bat. Then back at the glowing screen.

A beat passed.

"Better start swinging," he said with a grim little smirk.

An outsider might have noticed that something had shifted within Jaune Arc.

Not overnight—though technically, it had been a single night. But in truth, it was deeper than that. The kind of shift that comes only when someone is shoved into a corner with death at their throat and forced to claw their way out.

Jaune remembered the fear.

The sheer, paralyzing terror from the night before where he was trapped in his ruined bedroom, breath frozen in his lungs and his body unwilling to move as the Beowolf crashed through the walls. That sensation—the animal helplessness of prey facing a predator—had been seared into him. He hadn't fought then. Not really. He'd panicked, and reacted.

Survived only because the monster had overcommitted, and he'd gotten lucky.

But this time was different.

This time, he hadn't just escaped.

He'd fought and he'd won.

The Boarbatusk had torn through his home like a living battering ram, had hunted him through wreckage and ruin, and Jaune had still brought it down. Some might argue that Jaune lucked out again due to the Boarbatusk getting stuck, but Jaune had not squandered that luck. He had used every tool, every arsenal in his possession and he had and swung at it with a desperate strength, coming out on top, at the end.

And he hadn't even been hurt.

Scraped? Sure. Bruised? Definitely. But he was alive—and that alone made the victory feel real.

He sat there now, back against a cracked wall in a stranger's house, a film of sweat and grime clinging to him like a second skin. But the look in his eyes was different.

No longer wild or frightened.

It was focused, instead.

Like something in him was starting to want to thrive in this nightmare.

Where others might have broken under the pressure—shattered by trauma, curled up in a corner waiting for it all to end—Jaune had adapted and was continuing to adapt.

Each fight was forging something new in him. Not just strength, not just skill—but a mindset. A survivor's edge. The beginnings of the kind of man who didn't run from monsters, but stood his ground and planned around them.

Maybe it was that same quiet, budding confidence that had nudged him into sitting beside Pyrrha and Blake back in the waking world. Two girls who'd have turned heads from the moment they entered the classroom. He wouldn't have done that before. Not the old Jaune. Not the timid, self-conscious boy that fumbled his way through Ansel's middle schools halls.

But this new Jaune?

This Jaune was starting to realize that fear didn't have to rule him. That he could face things that terrified him and still come out breathing.

He clearly wasn't fearless... at least not yet.

But he was changing.

And deep inside, he knew it wasn't over.

Not even close.

Jaune stood from his perch and gave his body one final stretch. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the subtle resistance of his new strength—looser muscles, quicker balance, less ache. He flexed his fingers around the bat. His body felt alive now, humming with quiet power.

He exhaled once and nodded to himself.

"Alright. Let's see what the rest of this place looks like. Maybe we can even find another creature to hunt down."

With practiced ease, he stepped up to the broken window and hopped through it.

The moment his feet hit the pavement, he looked up—then stopped.

Something wasn't right.

He squinted down the length of the street, lips parting slightly.

The rusted SUV—the one the boarbatusk had ripped through like it was made of paper—stood there, parked neatly in its original position. Rusted, sure. Filthy, yes. But intact.

Not even a dent.

Jaune walked closer, cautious, as if the vehicle might change if he blinked.

But no… the hood wasn't torn. The metal wasn't shredded. The frame didn't bear a single scar from the rampaging monster that had nearly killed him.

He turned his head slowly, gaze drifting back toward his house.

And again, his breath caught.

The front porch. The door. The shattered frame and half-destroyed wall.

They were whole again.

No gaps. No craters. No hint of the carnage from before.

It looked untouched.

"It's…" Jaune's voice came out low and breathy. "The damage… it's… it's all gone…"