You switch buses midway, successfully shaking the tail. Walking into Anji Services, you tell no one about being followed. In this dog-eat-dog world, you trust no one.
Director Yu calls you into his office. He slides a heavy black briefcase across the desk toward you. "Jin Han, this is a virtual training headset. You've got a month's paid training at home. Those eccentric rich folks' estates have every kind of deadly creature imaginable. Without some way to save your own skin, you won't survive day one."
You rest your hand on the case, feeling the cold metal beneath your palm. Your eyes blaze with sudden intensity.
Virtual training to identify dangerous creatures. No. For you, this is a perfect starter zone. A monster compendium custom-built just for you.
You pick up the case and turn to leave. You leave behind a figure brimming with ambition. Pay me enough and there's no monster I can't clean off the map.
Back at your safe house, you double-lock the door and tear open the case. Inside is an old motorcycle-style virtual headset and a pair of wired gloves. Level one training gear from Anji Services.
You put on the headset without hesitation. Your vision flickers, and you're standing in an astonishingly realistic simulated garden.
"Assessment task. Locate and eliminate hidden hazards," the system's electronic voice activates.
You pick up the shovel, eyes sweeping quickly across the pond. Beneath the rock garden, a dark shape swims through the water. An electric eel.
Without half a second's hesitation, you put on insulated gloves. You swing the shovel and jab it straight down. Crack. The shovel strikes the eel right at its weak point. Dozens of goldfish in the pool instantly flip belly up from the surging high-voltage discharge.
Right then, several messages burst open in your mind.
Swimming skill plus one. Electrokinesis skill plus one.
You freeze completely. Then your eyes blaze with the hunger of a starved wolf. Unbelievable. Defeat a target in the virtual world. Gain a real-world skill.
A thrill tingles your scalp. Forget the so-called safety assessment. This is your own personal experience farming machine.
For the next ten days, you never leave the apartment. Fully transformed into a harvesting machine, farming the simulation relentlessly.
A poison frog leaps at your face. One kick crushes it. Photokinesis plus one. A venomous snake ambushes. One shovel strike lands. Thermal vision plus one. A bat dives at your face. One swat knocks it down. Echolocation plus one.
Your stat panel surges higher every single day.
At night, you lie in the bathtub. You extend your finger and the tip blazes with a blinding light, hot enough to make the bath water hiss and steam. The heat isn't a real threat yet, but you know for certain the seed of power has fully taken root.
While you're riding high inside, someone outside is losing his mind. The hooded assassin who first targeted you, hungry for your energy sample, has staked out your apartment for ten full days, watching you refuse to leave no matter what. His bloodlust is past the point of containment.
Day eleven. Assessment complete. Score: ninety-eight.
At Anji Services, Director Yu stares hard at the playback of your moves. The ruthless precision of that one shovel strike on the eel makes even this hardened, blood-soaked boss draw a sharp breath. This kid's reflexes. He's awakened a terrifying talent. No question.
Director Yu immediately calls you in and grants you level one job bidding access. "Get to work. In this business, instinct is everything." He pats your shoulder.
You nod and decisively take a basement cleanup job, paying 1,500 points. In truth, you couldn't care less about the boss's little tests. Your mind is fixed on one thing. Earn money, buy gear.
You arrive at the bus stop. You blend into the numb crowd, lining up to board.
Just then, the sunglasses-wearing hooded assassin finally seizes his chance. He moves like a viper coiled to its absolute limit. Using the crowd's press as cover, he presses suddenly against your back. The back of his hand brushes hard against yours, seemingly by accident.
A jolt runs through you like being struck hard by a high-voltage static shock. You spin around on instinct, but all you see is the hooded assassin's whole body seize and convulse violently.
It's your passive electrokinesis triggering a faint electric counterattack. That single jolt scatters the killing intent in his eyes instantly, his mind turning to mush on the spot. He forgets even who he is. Shoved out of the cabin like a lost ghost by the people behind him.
The doors close, the bus pulls away.
Outside the window, a sickening thud of impact and a screech of emergency brakes ring out. The mentally fried young man is sent flying over ten meters by an oncoming anti-gravity hover car, dead on impact.
Alarms blare inside the cabin. Drone police seal off the scene in an instant.
You stand inside, your heartbeat suddenly spiking, because at that exact moment, a jarring message detonates in your mind.
Mech piloting plus eight.
Your mind buzzes. You look sharply down at the back of your hand, where a tiny, almost invisible red puncture mark sits. A wave of furious bloodlust shoots straight to the crown of your head. If the situation allowed it, you'd point straight at the wreckage outside the window and tear the man apart with words.
Someone tried to ambush you. But your unconscious electric counterattack didn't just fry his mind. It turned him into a ghost beneath the wheels. Best of all, you just instantly wiped out his single greatest ability for life.
You lick the corner of your mouth, touching the puncture mark on your hand, eyes churning with lethal intent. Try to kill me. I'll settle this account sooner or later.
Carrying your toolbox, you kick the basement door open. Your mind keeps replaying the scene on the bus. That C-rank enhanced operative jabbed you with a needle and it triggered your passive discharge. It fried the biochip in his brain instantly. He came begging for death and handed me a mech piloting skill drop on top of it.
You sneer, your gaze sharp and merciless.
Pulling your focus back, you survey the basement. Wooden posts, sandbags, cold weapons, expensive exotic beast fur cushions. Clearly an expert's training room.
You don't care whose it is. You swing a hammer and smash every weapon to pieces without a second thought. You shatter the posts and slash the furs apart. You shove everything roughly into the designated trash bag. No hesitation, no wasted movement. All you want right now is money, points, and power.
Then you toss the trash aside. You march straight back to Anji Services. You slam your palm onto Director Yu's desk.
"Boss, how do I unlock higher level training?" You stare straight at him. Ambition unmasked. "I need high value jobs."
Director Yu taps the desk. No fluff. "Points. E-rank jobs, 3,000. D-rank, 10,000. What? Too slow for you? The job hall updates at eight tomorrow morning. If you want first pick, it's about how fast you move."
Back home, the first thing you do is pull up the news. A photo of the scene flashes onto the screen. A young man in sunglasses and a hoodie, dead beneath a hover car.
It's him. The one who staked out your place. The same man who tried to ambush you on the bus today.
You clench your fist hard and snap out a sharp curse. You don't use any specific obscenity, but you tear into him in your mind with full force. Every ounce of pent-up frustration instantly converting into raw, savage killing intent.
You wanted to take my essence. I'll drain every last trick you have first.