The roar of Old Man Jang was a physical force, pressing down on Muyeong as he knelt on the grimy floor. He kept his head bowed, his hands frantically gathering the scattered bowls, making himself as small and pathetic as possible. The torrent of insults washed over him, unheard. His entire being was focused inward, marveling at the two new constellations of power that had just ignited within his soul.
Imperceptible. It was a passive talent, already working. He could feel it as a subtle coolness, as if the world's attention was a harsh light that was now being gently filtered and redirected away from him.
Perfect Persona. This was different. It was a dormant beast, a complex engine of bone, muscle, and mana, waiting for a command to spring to life. He could feel the intricate pathways of the skill, the knowledge of how to manipulate his own form now as intuitive as breathing.
"Get up! GET UP!" Jang kicked at a bowl near Muyeong's hand. "Clean this mess and get back to work!"
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir," Muyeong whimpered, gathering the last of the dishes.
As he rose, he saw Hana walk past his table. She placed a few Aurum coins on the counter for her meal and left without a single backward glance. To her, the clumsy busboy on the floor was already a forgotten memory, a testament to the flawless power of her own talent, which now also belonged to him.
Muyeong endured the remaining hours of his shift in a state of detached focus. The physical labor was grueling, his muscles ached, and the stench of the dish pit was suffocating. Yet, mentally, he had never felt more powerful. He was a king disguised in a pauper's rags, and this filthy kitchen was the last place he would ever be powerless.
At the end of the day, his hands were raw and his back was screaming in protest. Old Man Jang cornered him by the exit.
"You're fired," the owner grunted, not out of anger anymore, but as a simple statement of fact. He tossed three small, bronze-colored Aurum coins onto the floor. They clattered with a pathetic chime. "That's for your 'half-day's work,' minus the trouble you caused. Now get out."
"Thank you, sir," Muyeong said, meekly picking up the coins. It was the perfect, clean exit. No lingering ties, no reason for anyone here to ever think of him again.
He walked out into the evening crowd, just another exhausted laborer heading home. But this time, he felt a difference. The jostling crowd seemed to part for him more easily. People's eyes slid past him, their gazes refusing to land. His new Imperceptible talent was at work, turning him from a target of scorn into a social ghost.
He arrived at his crumbling tenement, the air thick with the smell of boiled cabbage and damp concrete. He locked the door to his tiny, closet-like room, and the mask of Muyeong, the pathetic failure, finally fell away.
His eyes, now cold and sharp, went to the small, cracked mirror hanging on the wall. It was time to test his new weapon.
He closed his eyes and focused inward, activating the skill that glowed with a Mythical light in his mind.
[Activating Skill: Perfect Persona (Mythical) - Lv. 1]
It wasn't a painless, magical shimmer. It was a grotesque, physical process. He felt a strange popping sensation as the cartilage in his nose began to shift. His cheekbones felt like they were being pushed and molded by invisible hands. His jawline sharpened, and he felt his own muscles contort as he consciously willed himself to be slightly taller, his posture straightening with an audible crackle from his spine. The process was unnerving, a violation of natural law, but it was not painful. It was controlled.
He channeled his mana, fueling the transformation. The skill, though only at Level 1, was shockingly efficient. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, the strange sensations subsided.
He opened his eyes.
The face staring back at him from the cracked mirror was a stranger's. It was still recognizable as his own base, but subtly different in a thousand ways. The jaw was stronger, the eyes a slightly different shape, the hair a shade darker. It was the face of someone who had never been betrayed, who had never been called a traitor's son. It was the face of a stranger.
A slow, chilling smile spread across this new face. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated freedom.
Now, for the final act.
He used his new persona to leave the tenement, his Imperceptible talent ensuring no one gave the "new resident" a second glance. He walked to a dingy market stall in the darkest part of the outer district.
"I need a sturdy knife," the new, slightly deeper voice of the stranger said to the vendor. "And one vial of Rust-Ant blood."
The vendor, a man with a scarred face, barely looked up. He grunted, grabbing a cheap iron knife and a small glass vial filled with a brownish, foul-smelling liquid. "Twenty Aurum."
Muyeong paid, and the vendor immediately forgot him.
He made his way to the city's edge, where the urban sprawl gave way to cracked earth and the looming, skeletal entrance of an F-Rank dungeon. This was where the city's trash, both literal and human, ended up. It was the perfect place for a tragedy to go unnoticed.
He found a secluded spot behind a rock outcropping, well out of sight of the dungeon entrance. He took off the worn, familiar uniform he had worn for years. It was the last physical piece of his old life. He felt no sentimentality, no regret. He was merely shedding a snake's old skin.
He took the knife and methodically shredded the fabric, cutting jagged lines to mimic the claws of a low-level monster. He then uncorked the vial of Rust-Ant blood and artfully smeared the viscous, brownish liquid over the torn cloth and the dusty ground nearby. Finally, he took out the cheap plastic ID card that read 'Muyeong' and tossed it onto the blood-stained dirt.
He stepped back, admiring his work. To any hunter or guard patrol that might stumble upon it, the scene would tell a clear and tragic story: a weak, foolish boy had wandered too close to a dungeon and had paid the ultimate price. A sad, but ultimately unremarkable, end for the shadowless son.
He turned his back on the staged remains of his past life without a second glance. The stranger, the blank slate known for now only to himself, walked away into the gathering darkness, his footsteps silent.
Muyeong was dead. Now, the real work could begin.