The transformation of a human skeleton into [Stage 3: Jade Bone] was not an act of creation; it was an execution of raw, chanical force.
As Min-jae sat motionless on the wooden veranda of the Hanok, his body didn't emit a soft, ethereal glow. Instead, his skin pulled so tight against his fra that the underlying architecture of his ribs and collarbones beca sharply defined, gleaming with a translucent, milky-white luster beneath the surface. Every breath he took sounded like a heavy iron bellows compressing, a dry, raspy wheeze that cleared the remaining carbon from his lungs.
Crack.
Deep within his forearms, the sound of his radius and ulna adjusting echoed through his muscles. The crystalized True Ki had completely saturated the dense mineral walls of his bones, replacing the organic blood-producing marrow with a highly conductive, solid crystalline matrix.
[Skeletal Overhaul Complete.]
[You have achieved 'Mortal Flesh (Stage 3): Jade Bone'.]
[Your structural integrity has reached the 'Absolute Unyielding' threshold.]
[Attributes Updated:]
Strength: 22 - 35 (Capable of delivering anti-vehicular kinetic force)
Agility: 25 - 40
Constitution: 20 - 42 (Physical tissue density surpasses standard industrial tals)
Perception: 15 - 28
True Ki: 0 / 50 (Core Seed established. Pool capacity expanded.)
Min-jae slowly opened his eyes. The world had shifted again. With his Perception now sitting at 28, the visual input entering his retinas was staggering. He could see the individual fibers of the ancient pine pillars supporting the Hanok roof. He could hear the faint, synchronized rhythmic clicking of the grasshoppers in the brush fifty yards away.
But more importantly, he could hear the distinct, heavy crunch of combat boots stepping onto the loose gravel path at the bottom of the terrace.
"Movent detected," Min-jae murmured, his voice incredibly low, yet carrying a strange, tallic resonance that caused the dust on the veranda floor to dance.
He didn't scramble to his feet. He didn't panic over his empty True Ki pool. A man who possessed Jade Bones didn't need internal energy to perform basic slaughter; his structural leverage alone was now an active weapon. He slowly stood up, his bare feet making contact with the stone. There was no friction, no lag. His body felt completely weightless to his own mind, yet the stone tile beneath his heel cracked cleanly down the middle from the sheer, unbuffered density of his new weight.
He walked out into the small courtyard, his eyes locking onto the wooden gate.
At the entrance of the alleyway, three hunters wearing the dark blue tactical coats of the Miracle Guild stood with their weapons drawn. These weren't the standard analysts or scouts; these were mbers of the guild’s secondary vanguard—Level 15 to 18 professionals who had already cleared multiple F-Rank and E-Rank gates over the last twelve hours.
Leading them was a man nad Kang Chang-wook, a Level 19 Viking Berserker class. He was a brute of a man, his bare arms covered in runic tattoos that pulsed with a dull, blue mana light. In his hands, he held a massive, dual-bladed battle axe that humd with a passive Cleave skill.
"The pointer went completely dead here," the Mage behind him whispered, shaking a glowing tallic device. "Director Choi said the target's location would display a complete lack of mana data, but this... this is like looking into a grave. My pool feels constricted just standing near this house."
"Shut up and keep your eyes open," Chang-wook grunted, his eyes fixed on the creaking wooden gate of the Hanok. "The Director said the target is unarmored and uses bare hands. No matter how high his physical stats are, a Berserker’s passive Ignore Pain modifier ans I can trade blows with a tank. The mont he shows his face, I’ll take his legs out."
The wooden gate swung open with a slow, agonizing creak.
Min-jae stepped into the dim light of the alleyway. He was completely barefoot, his trousers torn at the knees, his bare torso exposing a lean, compact muscular fra that looked almost delicate compared to Chang-wook’s massive bulk. He looked like an ordinary, broke teenager who had been caught in a street fight.
But Chang-wook didn't laugh. His instinct—honed by years of real-world military experience before the system arrived—scread at him to run. The boy’s eyes weren't human. They were entirely calm, flat, and devoid of the frantic, erratic energy that every newly awakened civilian possessed.
"Are you the rogue variable?" Chang-wook demanded, raising his heavy battle axe, the blue runes along his arms flaring with sudden brilliance. "By order of the Miracle Guild and the State Ergency Council, you are under administrative arrest. Drop to your knees and display your status window imdiately."
Min-jae looked at the massive battle axe. He looked at the blue mana pulsing through the runes.
"Administrative arrest," Min-jae repeated, the words tasting foreign on his tongue. "You corporate dogs really haven't changed a bit. The world ends, and the first thing you do is try to file a patent on the survivors."
"You arrogant little shit," Chang-wook snarled, his patience snapping. He didn't wait for a negotiation. He activated his premier combat skill.
[Skill Initiated: 'Frenzied Lunge (C-Rank)'.]
[Your physical movent speed is increased by 60% for 3 seconds.]
[Next strike will deliver a 150% physical armor-piercing modifier.]
With a roar that shook the clay tiles of the nearby roofs, the nine-foot Berserker lunged forward, the heavy battle axe drawing a lethal, vertical arc intended to split Min-jae from head to groin. The wind pressure generated by the skill was so imnse it ripped the wild ivy from the stone walls.
Min-jae didn't deploy Formless Step to retreat.
With an Agility stat of 40 and a Perception of 28, the Berserker’s high-speed skill looked like an uncoordinated, clumsy stumble. Min-jae could see every single flaw in Chang-wook’s alignnt—the way his weight was shifted entirely onto his front knee, the way his shoulders were over-extended, the way his left flank was completely exposed to maintain the montum of the heavy axe.
Min-jae took a simple, three-inch step forward, entering the absolute center of the axe's deadly arc before the blade could reach its maximum velocity.
"What—?!" Chang-wook’s eyes widened as his target vanished from his line of sight.
Min-jae didn't use an open palm or a closed fist. He simply raised his left hand, his fingers curved into a loose, relaxed hook, and caught the solid iron haft of the descending battle axe cleanly between his thumb and forefinger.
Tink.
The sound was tiny, like a pebble hitting a window pane.
The C-Rank Frenzied Lunge skill stopped instantly. The massive, two-hundred-pound steel axe was frozen in mid-air, held completely motionless by two of Min-jae’s bare fingers. The raw, anti-vehicular leverage of his 35 Strength combined with the unyielding density of his Jade Bone fra had absorbed the entire 150% armor-piercing kinetic impact without his arm moving by a single milliter.
The blue runes on Chang-wook’s arms violently backfired, the system data fracturing as it tried to process how a physical object could stop a magical movent modifier so abruptly.
"Your logic is broken," Min-jae said softly, his gaze eting the terrified eyes of the Berserker.
Before the other two hunters could even register what had happened, Min-jae twisted his wrist by a re ten degrees.
CRACK.
The solid, mythic-grade iron haft of the battle axe shattered into coarse tallic dust beneath his fingers. Using the montum of the break, Min-jae drove his right elbow straight forward, striking the center of Chang-wook’s heavy, carbon-fiber breastplate.
He didn't use True Ki. This was pure, unadulterated structural leverage.
BOOM.
The impact didn't just cave the armor in; it disintegrated the carbon-fiber lattice into a cloud of black shards. The raw kinetic force traveled cleanly through the Berserker's chest, bypassing his Ignore Pain passive entirely by shattering his sternum and sending the shards straight into his lung matrix.
Chang-wook was launched backward like a stone from a catapult, flying thirty feet down the steep alleyway before crashing through a brick wall, buried under a pile of rubble, completely lifeless.
[You have defeated a Level 19 Vanguard Berserker.]
[Experience points cannot be processed via the World Tree Network.]
[The Overmaster System converting entity's vital essence...]
[You have gained 4 points of 'True Ki'.]
[Current True Ki: 4 / 50]
Min-jae stood in the quiet alley, his hands loose at his sides, his breathing completely undisturbed. He turned his cold, jade-tinted eyes toward the remaining two hunters—the Mage and the Scout—who had dropped their weapons into the dirt, their legs shaking so violently they couldn't even execute a retreat command.
"Go back to Choi Sung-min," Min-jae said, his voice echoing off the ancient stone wall. "Tell him that if he wants to check my data again... he needs to bring a bigger hamr."
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