Infinite Evolution: The Prodigy Beyond Limits The Iron Tombs

The transition through the hidden portal was violent, far removed from the smooth spatial displacent of the academy's managed rifts. Kai felt as though his body were being compressed by a heavy oceanic tide before he was abruptly dropped onto a hard, unforgiving surface.

He recovered instantly, dropping into a low defensive crouch with the Desolation Blade held at a precise angle.

The air here was completely different from the damp, organic stench of the Goblin Caves. It was freezing, stagnant, and tasted heavily of rust and ancient dust. Kai stood in a monolithic corridor constructed entirely from massive, interlocking blocks of dark iron. The ceiling rose fifty feet above him, lost in a heavy, unnatural fog that swallowed light.

A dull, rhythmic clanking sound echoed from the darkness ahead. It was a tallic, asured scrape against the iron floor, devoid of any biological rhythm.

Kai narrowed his eyes, his SSS-Rank talent cutting through the oppressive fog to deliver a clear breakdown of the approaching entity.

[Entity: Decayed Iron Auxiliary]

> Rank: E-Rank (Level 5)

> HP: 280/280

> MP: 0/0

> Strength: 18

> Agility: 12

> Endurance: 22

> Weakness: Knee joints.

Erging from the fog was a skeletal warrior clad in ancient, heavily rusted iron armor. Its hollow eye sockets burned with an eerie, flickering crimson fla. It clutched a massive, double-handed iron broadsword that scraped along the ground, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake.

An ordinary first-year vanguard would panic facing twenty-two points of Endurance. To most novices, hitting this creature would feel like striking a solid brick wall.

But Kai wasn't an ordinary novice anymore.

"Let's test the upgrade," Kai murmured.

With his effective Agility sitting at twenty-four, Kai vanished from his position. He didn't use an active skill; his raw attributes were simply too high for the creature's perception. The skeleton raised its heavy broadsword to strike, but its twelve points of Agility made its movents look agonizingly slow.

Kai materialized directly behind the auxiliary. His Desolation Blade arced through the air in a silent, horizontal slash aid precisely at the creature's weakness.

CRACK.

The black alloy edge cleaved effortlessly through the exposed wooden joint behind the skeleton's right knee. The leg snapped instantly, sending the heavily armored monster crashing hard onto its face.

Before the auxiliary could use its massive Strength to push itself back up, Kai stepped onto its rusted spine and drove the Desolation Blade straight down through the gap in its neck guard, crushing the glowing crimson core housed inside its skull.

The flas in its eyes flickered out, and the heavy iron armor went completely still.

[System Notice]

> Gained 180 EXP.

Kai extended his hand over the heap of rusted tal. Extract.

A dense, tallic gray orb tore itself free from the broken armor and sank into his palm, sending a sharp, static thrill through his nervous system.

[System Notice]

> Extraction successful.

> Acquired 4 Evolution Points (EP).

> Total EP: 6

Kai looked down at the blade. Thanks to the passive skill Life Drain, a faint, warm current of vitality flowed up his arm, erasing the minor fatigue from the spatial transition. The weapon had functioned flawlessly.

"If the basic infantry are Level 5, the boss of this zone will be at least D-Rank," Kai analyzed, his eyes scanning the long, ominous iron corridor. "I need to clear this area quickly before the academy trial tir expires, or I'll have to find an alternative way back to the surface."

He picked up his pace, his Shadow-Tread Boots ensuring that his approach remained entirely silent. As he moved deeper into the Iron Tombs, the corridor widened into a sprawling vanguard barracks. Dozens of crimson flas ignited within the dark fog ahead as the resting auxiliary soldiers sensed the disturbance in their ancient tomb.

Kai's lips curled into a cold, predatory smile. To anyone else, this was a death trap. To him, it was a massive forge waiting to elevate his strength to the next level.

The rattling sound of old armor echoed louder as more skeletal soldiers pulled themselves from the iron walls. They weren't like the disorganized, frantic forest goblins Kai had slaughtered in the upper caves. These creatures moved with a terrifying, residual military discipline, forming a crude wall of rusted iron shields and extended spears. The collective thumping of their armored boots caused the ground beneath Kai to tremble rhythmically.

To a normal team of students, facing a phalanx of high-Endurance undead in a narrow corridor ant certain death. Without a powerful tank to absorb the initial charge and high-tier area-of-effect mages to break the armor, standard physical attacks would simply bounce off the heavy plating.

But Kai didn’t approach them head-on.

With twenty-four Agility, his perception of ti stretched. He accelerated, his body leaning low as he beca a blur of dark leather and flying fabric. The first line of auxiliary soldiers thrust their rusted spears forward, but the piercing strikes only bit into the afterimages Kai left behind.

Kai slid beneath the horizontal reach of the spears, his Desolation Blade whispering through the air as it struck. He didn't aim for the heavy chest plates or the reinforced iron helts. Guided by his system’s flawless calculations, his blade slipped cleanly into the unarmored gaps at the wrists and behind the knees of three separate skeletons in a single fluid rotation.

SNAP. SNAP. CRACK.

The chanical joints failed instantly. Weapons clattered uselessly to the tiled floor as the crippled soldiers collapsed into heaps of useless tal. Kai spun on his heel, using the montum to drive his sword upward through the jawline of a fourth skeleton, shattering its skull core in a brilliant flash of expiring red mana.

[System Notice]

> Gained 540 EXP.

The rush of experience points filled his chest with a pleasant, burning heat, but he didn't stop to enjoy the sensation. More soldiers were advancing from the fog, their glowing red eyes fixing on him with mindless animosity.

Instead of retreating to find a better bottleneck, Kai pressed his advantage. He moved like a weaver through a loom, threading through the clumsy gaps of the skeletal formation. Every swing of the Desolation Blade was short, efficient, and lethal. He wasted no energy on theatrical flair; a two-inch puncture into an exposed neck joint was worth more than a massive, armor-denting cleave.

The passive ability Life Drain continuously pumped small, steady bursts of vitality back into his body, ensuring his muscles never tired and his breathing remained entirely steady. It was a terrifyingly perfect cycle: the more enemies he engaged, the more refreshed he beca.

Within ten minutes of systematic slaughter, the massive barracks corridor fell dead silent once more. The floor was buried beneath shattered ribcages, severed limbs, and a small mountain of rusted iron armor hide.

Kai breathed out slowly, wiping a fleck of ancient bone dust from his cheek. He stood amidst the carnage and extended both hands outward, palms facing the wreckage.

"System," he commanded internally. "Extract all."

The response was instantaneous. A violent wave of violet energy erupted from his hands, sweeping across the entire corridor like a net. Dozens of glowing gray orbs tore themselves free from the fallen soldiers simultaneously, swirling through the air before condensing into a dense stream of power that flooded straight into Kai’s chest.

[System Notice]

> Extraction successful.

> Acquired 48 Evolution Points (EP).

> Total EP: 54

Kai opened his status screen, a thrill of genuine excitent rippling through him as he saw the massive spike in his points.

INFINITE EVOLUTION SYSTEM

> Host: Kai Raven

> Level: 3 (380/400 EXP)

> Talent: Eye of the Primordial Sovereign (SSS-Rank)

> HP: 140/140

> MP: 14/14

> Strength: 14 ( 15 from Desolation Blade)

> Agility: 15 ( 4 from Shadow-Tread Boots, 5 from Desolation Blade)

> Endurance: 13

> Evolution Points (EP): 54

He was a re twenty experience points away from hitting Level 4. But more importantly, his total Evolution Points had jumped to fifty-four. He now had more than enough resources to execute another major item upgrade.

His eyes drifted down to his feet. The Shadow-Tread Boots were currently E-Rank, granting him 4 Agility and silent movent. If he could elevate them to D-Rank, his mobility would reach entirely unseen heights, potentially unlocking a secondary skill similar to the Life Drain on his sword.

However, the system requirent for the boots was clear: 25 EP and one Wind Elent Core.

"The auxiliary skeletons here are earth and iron attributes," Kai analyzed, examining the broken remnants on the floor. None of them possessed the necessary elental traits to drop a wind core. "The core must belong to a different type of monster deeper within the tomb. Or the boss itself."

As if the dungeon heard his thoughts, a heavy, grinding sound vibrated through the iron walls at the far end of the barracks. A pair of massive iron double doors, covered in ancient runes of binding, slowly cracked open.

The thick, frozen fog that had been hovering near the ceiling began to churn violently, drawn toward the opening like a vacuum. From the chamber beyond the doors, a howling gale of icy wind tore through the corridor, screaming with the force of a localized hurricane. The wind was so sharp it cut shallow grooves into the solid iron walls.

Kai narrowed his eyes, bracing himself against the sudden blast as his cloak whipped wildly around him. His Eye of the Primordial Sovereign pulsed with intense violet light, piercing through the sudden storm to read the entity rising from the depths of the inner sanctum.

The creature floating in the center of the adjacent hall was magnificent and terrifying. It wasn't a skeleton, but a phantom—a spectral knight clad in ethereal, translucent blue plate armor. It had no physical body beneath the tal, only a swirling, condensed vortex of pure, freezing wind that crackled with blue lightning. In its hand, it wielded a massive cavalry halberd that spun like a windmill, generating the fierce gale that filled the tomb.

[Entity: Tempest Vanguard Captain]

> Rank: D-Rank Boss (Level 8)

> HP: 850/850

> MP: 150/150

> Strength: 25

> Agility: 30

> Endurance: 18

> Weakness: Chest core.

Kai’s grin returned, sharper and colder than before. A D-Rank Boss. Level 8. Thirty points of pure Agility.

This was a monster that could easily wipe out an entire platoon of elite third-year academy students. Its speed was vastly superior to Kai's own twenty-four effective Agility, aning for the first ti since his awakening, he would be fighting an opponent that was objectively faster than him.

But as Kai gripped the hilt of the Desolation Blade, he felt no fear. His blood ran hot with anticipation. The Captain possessed the exact elental signature he needed to evolve his gear.

He didn't wait for the boss to finish its theatrical ergence. Kai exploded forward, stepping directly into the howling windstorm, ready to tear his next evolution from the phantom's chest.