The transition from the Slumber Realm to reality wasn't a peaceful awakening—it was an explosion of agony.
Min-ho's eyes flew open, but his vision was blurred by a thick haze of white heat. He tried to gasp, but his lungs felt like they were being filled with molten lead. The five points he had dumped into Strength weren't just numbers on a screen; they were a command for his DNA to rewrite itself in real-time.
'Argh... damn it...' he hissed, his fingers clawing into his bedsheets.
He could hear his own bones grinding and popping as they became denser. His muscle fibers were tearing apart and knitting back together at a violent speed. It felt like a thousand hot needles were stitching his chest and shoulders into a broader, more powerful frame.
[Notice: Physical Reconstruction in progress...]
[Warning: High caloric deficit detected. Host is entering starvation state.]
The pain lasted for ten minutes—ten minutes that felt like ten years inside his head. When the heat finally receded, Min-ho lay drenched in sweat, his heart thumping like a heavy drum against his ribs. He felt heavier, his body possessing a strange, coiled tension that made the mattress beneath him groan.
He sat up slowly, his joints clicking. He looked at his reflection in the window. His jawline was sharper, and his shoulders had filled out so much that his t-shirt looked two sizes too small.
"Min-ho! Get up! You're going to be late for the measurement!" his mother's voice drifted from downstairs.
'Measurement...' Min-ho thought, his stomach letting out a roar of hunger that actually hurt. 'I have to go through a Mana Test feeling like this?'
The atmosphere in the classroom was electric. Today was the monthly Mana Measurement, the day when the school's ranking was updated. At the front of the room stood a black obsidian pillar—a Mana Tester—surrounded by the school's faculty and a stone-faced representative from the Hunter Association.
"Next! Jung-su!" the teacher barked.
Min-ho's friend stepped up, placed his hand on the stone, and closed his eyes. The pillar flickered with a dull green light.
"Jung-su. Mana Index: 45. Rank: F-Tier. Stable."
Jung-su sighed and walked back, bumping fists with Min-ho. "Well, at least I didn't drop. Your turn, man. Try not to break the record for the lowest score again."
'If I touch that thing with my full power, it'll shatter,' Min-ho thought.
He walked to the front, feeling the eyes of his classmates on his back. He could hear the whispers. "Look at the lazy punk." "He looks even more tired than usual." They couldn't see the raw power vibrating under his skin; they just saw the sweat on his brow from the morning's "reconstruction."
As he stood before the pillar, Min-ho looked at his internal System.
[Notice: Current Mana Index: 850 (Rank D equivalent)]
[Notice: Suppression active. Displaying false reading.]
He placed his hand on the cold stone. He felt his true mana thrumming like a trapped hurricane, begging to be let out. He focused every ounce of his will on keeping the floodgates closed.
The pillar glowed a faint, pathetic gray.
"Min-ho. Mana Index: 12. Rank: F-Tier. No change."
The class erupted in quiet laughter.
"Still a bottom-feeder," a student muttered. "Even his 'evolution' is just him getting sweatier."
Min-ho pulled his hand away, his expression unchanged. '12 is perfect,' he thought, heading back to his seat. 'Let them believe the lie.'
As he sat down, he caught the Association representative staring at him. The man wasn't looking at the pillar; he was looking at Min-ho's chair.
In his effort to suppress his mana, Min-ho had forgotten to control his new physical weight. As he sat, the heavy metal legs of the school chair groaned and visibly sank an inch into the floor tiles, leaving four distinct circular dents in the concrete.
'Shit,' Min-ho thought, his heart skipping a beat.
The representative's eyes narrowed, his gaze shifting from the cracked floor to the back of Min-ho's neck.