The neon-drenched grid of Gangnam, usually the glittering heart of Seoul’s corporate upper crust, had been transford into an iron-walled fortress. High-frequency mana emitters humd from the tops of skyscrapers, weaving a translucent blue canopy over the district that kept the curdled red sky at bay. Here, the internet worked. Here, power grids humd, and wealthy civilians sipped expensive wine behind reinforced glass while watching the chaos of the outer Gray Sectors play out on high-definition monitors.
Inside the penthouse suite of the Mirae Tower, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of ozone and corporate anxiety.
A massive, holographic display floated in the center of the room, projecting a crisp, three-dinsional rendering of a lone teenager in a torn black t-shirt. Beneath the image, lines of golden-tinted data flickered erratically, constantly interrupted by system error logs.
[SOVEREIGN BOUNTY LIST: TARGET NO. 1]
Designation: The Unranked Glitch
Known Exploits: Solo elimination of C-Rank Commander, Disarming of Level 28 Guardian, Neutralization of C-Rank Elite Hydra.
Bounty Value: 10,000,000,000 KRW / 3x Mythic Mana Cores
Status: Active / Unregistered
"Ten billion won is an underestimation of our current liquid assets, Chairman," Park Jin-woo said, his voice tight with suppressed rage.
The future master of the Helios Guild sat on a leather sofa, his pristine silver armor replaced by a tailored silk suit. His face was pale, his eyes rimd with red. Though a high-tier elixir had stitched his broken ribs back together, his pride as an A-Rank Blessed Knight was still bleeding profusely. Every ti he closed his eyes, he heard the quiet, rhythmic sound of the boy's boots, followed by the terrifying clack of his rare-grade steel broadsword shattering into dust.
Across the glass table sat a man in his late fifties, his fingers interlaced over a gold-headed cane. Chairman Lee of the Mirae Corporation—and the primary financial backer of the Helios Guild—didn't look angry; he looked calculated.
"The money is irrelevant, Jin-woo," Chairman Lee said, his voice flat and asured. "What concerns the state council is the variable itself. The World Tree System has given us a predictable ledger. We invest resources into dungeons, we harvest mana crystals, we level up our assets, and we control the territory. It is clean. It is corporate. But this boy... he doesn't have a level. He doesn't use mana. If the populace realizes that a man can shatter a D-Rank monster with nothing but a physical fist, the value of our magical monopoly drops to zero by next week."
The Chairman pressed a button on his cane. The holographic display shifted, replacing Min-jae’s silhouette with a tactical map of the Han River basin.
"The First Convergence Wave is peaking," Lee continued. "Three B-Rank gates are preparing to initialize in the Gangnam sector within twelve hours. We have already hired the Black Viper Syndicate—the premier rogue rcenary guild from Busan. They don't care about state laws or corporate decorum. They hunt for the cores. If this 'Glitch' steps into our sector to harvest our assets... they will peel the skin from his bones to find out what kind of hidden item he's hiding in his core."
Up on the isolated ridge of Mount Naksan, the wind blew hard, carrying the distant, faint echo of Gangnam’s mana emitters.
Min-jae sat on the stone edge of his courtyard, his legs dangling over the precipice. His bare chest was completely still, his skin gleaming with that dense, translucent luster that marked the perfection of the [Iron Skin] realm. Inside his torso, however, his skeletal matrix was undergoing a silent, terrifying compression.
Inhale for four. Hold for two. Exhale for eight.
The 33 units of liquid True Ki he had harvested from the Hydra were no longer circulating through his limbs. Under the relentless command of the Primordial Core rhythm, the golden fluid was being drawn toward the center of his spine, packing tightly around his Core Seed until the microscopic grain of light began to vibrate at a high-frequency pitch.
[System Milestone Imminent: Core Seed Stabilization.]
[You are forcing the high-density liquid force into a solid-state axis.]
[Current True Ki: 40 / 50... 45 / 50...]
CRACK.
A sharp, crystalline snap echoed within his skull. Min-jae’s eyes snapped open, two solid rings of brilliant, tallic gold flaring in his pupils.
The golden fluid inside his lower abdon had completely disappeared, drawn entirely into the Core Seed. The grain of light didn't expand; it condensed, turning into a solid, immovable golden pebble that sat perfectly at the intersection of his central ridians. An internal engine that didn't rely on the external atmosphere to function. A self-sustaining turbine of pure physical force.
[Transformation Complete.]
[You have achieved 'Mortal Flesh (Stage 3): Jade Bone - Stabilized'.]
[Your skeletal pathways have achieved the 'Immovable Axis' status.]
[Attributes Updated:]
Strength: 35 - 50 (Surpassed high-tier monster threshold)
Agility: 40 - 55
Constitution: 42 - 60 (Physical structure immune to standard low-tier magical degradation)
Perception: 28 - 35
True Ki: 0 / 100 (Core Engine established. Maximum pool capacity doubled.)
Min-jae stood up from the stone ledge. As his bare feet made contact with the granite bedrock of the courtyard, there was no explosive crack or dust cloud this ti. The 50 points of his Strength and 60 points of his Constitution were so flawlessly integrated into his fra that he could completely suppress his own physical weight, his movents lighter than a falling feather, yet packing the latent kinetic energy of a descending teor.
He reached down, picking up a small, smooth granite pebble from the dirt. He didn't use True Ki. He simply squeezed his thumb and forefinger together, utilizing the raw chanical leverage of his [Jade Bone] joints.
Pshhh.
The solid granite stone didn't just crack; it was smoothly, effortlessly pulverized into a fine, white flour that drifted away on the midnight breeze.
"Fifty strength," Min-jae murmured, his voice carrying a deep, resonant gravity that caused the air within the 15-ter sanctuary to hum. "In my past life, a Level 40 Tanker with an epic-grade buff couldn't reach this level of structural density. And the world has only been ended for twenty-four hours."
He turned his gaze toward the south, his advanced Perception of 35 cutting through the dark mist over the city.
He could feel it—a massive, rhythmic pulsing of high-density mana data originating from the Gangnam district. The three B-Rank gates were initializing. The corporate guilds were moving their armies into position to claim the monopoly, and the rcenaries were already spreading through the borders of the Gray Sectors, their digital interfaces tracking his ten-billion-won silhouette.
"The Black Viper Syndicate," Min-jae recalled, his mory of the old tiline aligning with the current data. "A pack of rabid dogs who used poison-coated daggers and cloaking magic to slit the throats of independent hunters in the dark."
In his first life, Min-jae had seen them execute an entire squad of level 15 rookies just to steal an E-Rank agility ring. They were the apex predators of the lawless era, relying on the system’s Stealth algorithms to bypass physical defenses.
Min-jae loose-jointed his shoulders, his long, lean arms hanging loose at his sides as his golden Core Engine began to spin with a slow, unhurried montum. He didn't have a sword, a shield, or a single piece of corporate gear. He was barefoot, wearing nothing but his dark cargo pants, his chest exposed to the frost of the midnight air.
"Ten billion won," Min-jae whispered, his body suddenly blurring into a gray distortion as he executed the first movent of the [Formless Step]. "Let's go see if those Busan dogs have enough teeth to match the anvil."
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