Narin gasped as if he had just surfaced from deep water.
Air rushed into his lungs—sharp, greedy, desperate. His hands were still braced against the cold stone floor, fingers trembling uncontrollably. Sweat clung to his temples and slid down the curve of his jaw, dripping from his chin onto the ground below.
For several long seconds, he did nothing but breathe.
In and out.
In—too fast.
Slow down.
He looked at his hands.
They were shaking.
Not violently now—but enough.
“…That was my limit,” he whispered hoarsely.
His voice echoed faintly against the empty stone chamber where the guardian spirit waited in silent vigil further ahead.
He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes briefly.
Right now… I should be in my own bed.
Probably drooling on his pillow. Dreaming about some nonsense—overbooked rooms, broken elevators, staff not showing up for shifts. Ordinary stress. Mundane irritation.
He let out a tired, almost humorless laugh.
“…I’d take that over soul collapse.”
A soft chime interrupted his thoughts.
A translucent notification screen appeared before him.
[ Congratulations on Level Up ]
[ Level 1 → 10 ]
His eyes widened slightly.
“…Ten?”
All at once.
He flexed his fingers again. The trembling had stopped.
He rolled his shoulders.
“My stamina… my mana…” he muttered, examining himself carefully. “They are fully restored.”
He ran a hand over his forearm, pressing where the fractures of light had been earlier.
“And my wounds are gone too.”
But when he inhaled deeply, he felt it.
His mind.
it was still heavy.
That is fair.
Slowly, he called out:
“Status window.”
The familiar screen unfolded in front of him.
Name: Narin Wong-sura
Age: 42
Class: –
Level: 10
Physical Stats:
Strength (STR): 13
Agility (AGI): 10
Endurance (END): 18
Vitality (VIT): 15
Mental Stats:
Mana (MP): 17
Willpower (WILL): 18
Luck (LUK): 10
Remaining Points: 27
Passive Skills (P): –
Active Skills (A): –
“Three points per level…” he murmured softly.
Twenty-seven points.
He fell silent, eyes scanning each stat carefully.
My Strength is adequate.
My Agility is too low.
My Endurance is solid.
My Vitality is balanced.
My Mana and Willpower are decent.
His fingers tapped against his thigh as he thought.
The boss is a spirit right?
Physical damage may not be optimal.
But—
He inhaled slowly.
“I can’t build for one fight,” he whispered. “That’s short-term thinking.”
His expression settled into something calm and measured.
Without hesitation now, he began allocating points.
The numbers shifted.
Name: Narin Wong-sura
Age: 42
Class: –
Level: 10
Physical Stats:
Strength (STR): 13 → 20
Agility (AGI): 10 → 20
Endurance (END): 18 → 21
Vitality (VIT): 15 → 18
Mental Stats:
Mana (MP): 17 → 19
Willpower (WILL): 18 → 19
Luck (LUK): 10 → 11
Remaining Points: 0
Passive Skills (P): –
Active Skills (A): –
The moment he confirmed the allocation—
A subtle surge pulsed through him.
He clenched his fist.
The movement felt tighter and faster.
He opened and closed his hand several times, testing the responsiveness. The strength was there—compact, controlled. His body felt lighter too, as if gravity had slightly loosened its grip.
He rose smoothly to his feet.
“Yes…” he murmured.
Even standing felt more stable. His center of balance sharper. His breathing deeper and more efficient.
“This might not be perfect for the spirit,” he said quietly, brushing dust from his sleeves. “But long term… this is right.”
He inhaled once more.
Exhaled slowly.
“…Let’s fight the boss.”
He moved toward the staircase chamber.
The guardian spirit was exactly where it had been before.
Floating and perfectly aligned with the staircase behind it.
Pale, wavering light wrapped around its translucent form. Its armor—once imposing—now existed only as fragmented outlines. In its skeletal hand, the spirit lamp burned with cold blue fire that cast no warmth, only a faint hum in the air.
It did not acknowledge him.
It simply guarded.
Narin crouched behind a half-collapsed wall, keeping his distance.
“Perhaps I should open with a spell,” he murmured under his breath.
He extended his hand slowly.
Two triangles formed in the air—overlapping slightly, edges intersecting like layered intent.
Inside them, he inscribed:
Sanctify.
Eject.
Destroy.
His eyes narrowed in concentration.
“Circle sustains,” he whispered. “Square installs. Triangle compresses and fires.”
His voice was calm now—measured, analytical.
“If the framework determines mana expenditure…”
He traced the overlapping edges again, reinforcing them.
“Two overlapping triangles should double the compression point.”
His fingertips trembled—not from fear, but from focus.
He lifted his hand and sent his mana.
The drain was immediate.
His mana—normally a deep, dark blue in his perception—turned blindingly white as it flowed into the dual framework. It compressed violently at the intersection point, energy folding inward until it formed something razor-thin.
Then—
It fired.
A beam of pure white mana erupted forward, slicing through the air like a condensed lance of sunlight. The chamber lit up as if dawn had exploded underground.
The beam traveled impossibly fast—skimming across the floor before angling upward toward the guardian spirit.
By the time the spirit reacted—
It was too late.
The beam struck.
The guardian’s body jerked violently, armor fragments rattling as the light tore into it. Its translucent form flickered erratically, pieces of its soul fracturing outward like shards of glass.
A scream filled the chamber.
Not sound—
But vibration.
A spiritual shriek that rattled the air and clawed at Narin’s mind.
The beam intensified.
Cracks spread through the guardian’s core, fractures glowing white.
Then—
A shockwave exploded outward.
Narin’s eyes widened.
“—!”
The blast hit him like a physical wall.
He was thrown backward, body lifted off his feet and hurled across the stone floor. His shoulder slammed hard against a pillar as he skidded violently, breath punched from his lungs.
For a split second, his concentration wavered.
The spell flickered.
“Hold—!” he hissed through clenched teeth, forcing mana through the framework to stabilize it.
Across the chamber, the guardian spirit shrieked again—its lamp swinging wildly.
Blue fire lashed outward in chaotic arcs, striking walls, ceiling, floor. Where the flames touched stone, frost and cracks spread instantly.
The white beam began losing cohesion under the assault.
Narin’s left eyebrow twitched sharply.
“…So you can fight back.”
He rose to one knee, still maintaining the spell.
The guardian swung its lamp again, blue fire spiraling defensively around its fractured form.
Narin stepped out from his partial cover, boots scraping against stone.
The white beam thinned slightly as he adjusted his stance, preparing—
The spirit boss’s scream did not end cleanly.
It fractured.
The blue-white lamp in its skeletal grip flared violently, and from its mouth—no, from the hollow where a mouth should have been—something began to pour out.
At first, Narin thought it was smoke.
Then the smoke split into shapes.
Tiny spirits.
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They spilled from the lamp’s trembling flame like sparks shaken loose from a dying star. Each one was no larger than a clenched fist. Each one wore a face.
They were grotesque—little more than translucent human faces with hollowed eyes, drifting toward Narin with haunting, discordant wails that sounded like a chorus of weeping widows and screaming children.
They floated toward him.
Narin’s pupils constricted.
He stepped back immediately, heel scraping against cracked stone. “Tch—”
His breath hitched, then steadied. No panic. Panic wastes stamina.
“Is it attacking back because it’s dying?” he murmured under his breath, voice low and hoarse.
The little spirits drifted forward in uneven, erratic paths. Not in formation. Not coordinated. They moved like leaves caught in unpredictable drafts—tilting, spinning, wobbling midair.
One passed close enough that Narin heard it clearly.
A thin, stretched sob.
Another let out a sharp, piercing scream that cut through the hall like metal dragged across glass.
The sound crawled under his skin.
He moved.
A short step back. Pivot. Side-step. Another.
His body responded faster now—Agility at twenty was not a small thing. The difference felt subtle but unmistakable, like moving through air instead of water.
Still—
“They’re fast.”
One grazed past his shoulder. The cold it carried wasn’t temperature; it was absence. A hollow sensation that made the hair on his arm stand.
He ducked, rolled, came up on one knee.
Although they were fast, they weren’t precise.
The tiny faces drifted past him, overshooting, circling aimlessly, bumping into pillars and walls before bouncing away like confused insects.
“They don’t… know what they’re doing.”
He watched one spin in place, crying helplessly, before wandering toward a broken arch instead of him.
“Or…” His brow furrowed. “Is the boss not capable of controlling them at this stage?”
Possible. Very possible.
If the core was destabilized by Sanctify—
Another spirit zipped past his cheek. He leaned back just enough, feeling the faintest brush against his skin.
He did not like that.
Without taking his eyes off the boss, he opened his inventory.
The faint translucent interface flickered at the edge of his vision.
He reached in and pulled out one of his knives.
The metal felt solid. It was reassuring.
He adjusted his grip.
He exhaled once and threw the knife.
It spun cleanly through the air—
—and passed through the spirit boss as if through fog.
It clattered uselessly against the staircase behind.
Narin blinked.
“…Really?”
The word came out flat.
The tiny spirits continued to drift around him in erratic arcs.
“So this is the first challenge?”
His jaw tightened as he sidestepped another wailing face.
“A boss that only magic can damage.”
He ducked beneath a swooping spirit, rolled forward, rose into a crouch.
“To go to a lower floor.”
A breath.
“To find iron rats.”
He took two quick steps back as three spirits converged—then scattered like startled birds before reaching him.
“Not knowing which one holds the correct door code.”
A dry laugh escaped him, humorless.
“No wonder ordinary people give up.”
He shook his head once.
“No backup. No equipment. No knowledge.”
He angled his body, maintaining distance while keeping the laser focused on the boss’s core. The white beam continued to tear at the spirit’s form, but its effectiveness was weakening as the lamp swung more violently.
He glanced briefly at one of the crying faces drifting past him.
His lips pressed into a thin line.
He increased mana output slightly.
Seconds passed.
Then the shift happened.
The boss’s movements slowed.
The violent swings of the lamp became sluggish. The blue flame flickered unevenly, like a candle in its last breath.
Its form—once rigid in its hovering posture—began to sag, edges dissolving like melting wax.
Narin’s eyes sharpened.
“There.”
He straightened.
He did not hesitate.
He lifted his finger higher and poured mana into the overlapping triangular frameworks without restraint.
The drain was immediate and brutal.
His veins burned.
The dark blue of his mana surged forward and transformed—blazing white, purer than before, blinding in the dim hall.
The beam expanded and widened.
It was four times larger.
The floor cracked beneath the force as the compressed light roared forward, tearing through space itself in a solid line of radiance.
The spirit boss convulsed.
Its scream became layered—multiple voices overlapping in disharmony. The tiny spirits shrieked in resonance.
The beam swallowed it.
The armor outline shattered first. Then the hollow torso split apart, fissures of white light carving through its frame.
A shockwave burst outward.
Narin braced.
Even so, the impact lifted him off his feet and sent him skidding several meters across the stone floor.
His focus wavered for half a heartbeat.
Almost.
He clenched his jaw and maintained the spell.
“No—”
The beam did not falter.
The boss’s form fragmented cracked then exploded into particles of pale light that scattered like broken glass.
Silence fell.
The tiny spirits dissipated midair, faces dissolving into dust.
The lamp dropped.
Clink.
The only sound in the hall.
Narin lay on his side for a moment, chest rising and falling steadily.
“…It died?”
He did not stand immediately.
He stared at the empty space where it had been.
Too easy.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
It had died too easily.
Then—
A translucent screen appeared before him.
[ Congratulations! You are the first user that defeated the boss! ]
[ The extra reward has been prepared after you complete the challenge. ]
Narin stared at it.
Then let out a short, dry laugh.
“Ha.”
Another.
“…What?”
He pushed himself upright slowly.
Let’s think about this.
His mind began to churn—not frantically, but intensely. Like a storm contained within a glass sphere.
“I understand ordinary people wouldn’t defeat it.”
He began pacing slowly across the cracked stone.
“But what about those with backing?”
His tone grew sharper.
“They would have items, skills and information.”
His eyes darkened.
“So why has no one killed it?”
He lifted a finger unconsciously as he organized his thoughts.
“First. Resources. Most people would want to save their resources so they prefer sneak past to save resources”
Food scarcity. Mental erosion.
“Second. They likely know how to sneak past it.”
it was safer with lower risk.
“No incentive to fight.”
“Third. With time pressure and a safe bypass route, grinding here is inefficient.”
He nodded slowly.
“Fourth…”
His expression shifted.
Serious.
Then for a fleeting second—
Furious.
“Those who tried probably died.”
His jaw clenched.
“That makes sense.”
It was logical.
He exhaled slowly.
“But…”
His brows drew together.
“So no one thought to use light?”
He stared at the empty space where the boss had stood.
“Sanctify isn’t even complex.”
He rubbed his temple.
“I used it because I follow my common sense.”
"It’s a ghost! You use light! You use holy things! Is common sense so rare among people nowadays that they just tried to hit it harder with a bigger sword until they died?"
Are you telling me none of them tried this?
“None?”
He scratched his head unconsciously, nails digging slightly into his scalp.
“Are they that stupid?”
He winced immediately.
The motion hurt more than expected.
“…Ah.”
He lowered his hand.
“Stop.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
Thinking about other users’ incompetence would only give him a headache.
He exhaled.
A new notification appeared.
[ Your soul has reached its limit. You can now level up. ]
Right.
He sat down cross-legged on the cold stone floor.
He closed his eyes and entered deep meditation.
This time, the process felt smoother.
Less resistance.
The previous leveling had felt like dragging something heavy through mud.
Now it felt like guiding a current.
Mana flowed inward. Circulated. Condensed.
Minutes passed.
Then—
[ Congratulations on level up ]
[ Level 10 → 16 ]
Six levels.
“For a boss… not bad.”
He opened his status window.
Name: Narin Wong-sura
Age: 42
Class: –
Level: 16
Physical Stats:
Strength (STR): 20
Agility (AGI): 20
Endurance (END): 21
Vitality (VIT): 18
Mental Stats:
Mana (MP): 19
Willpower (WILL): 19
Luck (LUK): 11
Remaining Points: 18
Passive Skills (P): –
Active Skills (A): –
He stared at it only briefly.
Then began allocating.
Name: Narin Wong-sura
Age: 42
Class: –
Level: 16
Physical Stats:
Strength (STR): 20 → 23
Agility (AGI): 20 → 25
Endurance (END): 21 → 23
Vitality (VIT): 18 → 20
Mental Stats:
Mana (MP): 19 → 21
Willpower (WILL): 19 → 20
Luck (LUK): 11 → 14
Remaining Points: 0
Passive Skills (P): –
Active Skills (A): –
He flexed his fingers.
Strength had weight now. Not brute force—but density.
Agility felt like loosened joints, lighter pivots.
Luck—
He raised one brow slightly.
We’ll see.
Satisfied, he dismissed the window.
Then he stood and approached where the boss had fallen.
No corpse.
Only fragments of fading light… and the lamp.
It lay on the stone floor, intact.
The flame inside still burned blue-white.
Cold.
He crouched slowly and studied it.
No display window appeared.
No information.
He extended his hand cautiously and lifted it.
The metal felt neither warm nor cold.
Just… present.
He rotated it once.
Nothing happened.
“…Fine.”
Without further commentary, he stored it inside his inventory.
Then he turned toward the staircase.
The air beyond felt darker and denser.
He inhaled once.
Exhaled.
And stepped down the stairs to finally complete his first challenge.
The staircase spiraled down longer than he expected.
Each step echoed differently from the floor above — heavier, more hollow, as if the stone itself was thicker… or older.
Narin descended cautiously, one hand hovering near his waist, the other lightly brushing the wall to maintain orientation.
When his foot touched the final step, he stopped.
He didn’t move forward immediately.
He listened.
Silence.
The air felt heavier — not just physically, but atmospherically, like stepping into deep water.
He inhaled slowly.
“…It’s darker.”
He took one step forward.
Nothing.
No light.
Complete darkness swallowed the space whole.
He adjusted the goggles over his eyes.
Thermal vision flickered on.
And the darkness exploded with life.
Dozens.
Small, pulsing heat signatures scattered across the floor. Moving constantly. Burrowing. Skittering.
Tiny bodies shifting in erratic patterns.
“That must be them.”
His voice was low, steady.
“Iron rats.”
He stayed near the staircase entrance, not foolish enough to charge blindly into a field of unknown variables.
He crouched slightly.
Observed.
The heat signatures were everywhere. Some clustered. Some isolated. Some vanished briefly — likely entering holes in the stone.
If I fight them one by one, it’ll take hours.
He exhaled slowly.
“Better to clear the board.”
He straightened and raised his hand.
Mana flowed to his fingertips.
He began drawing overlapping triangular constructs again, precise and practiced, glowing faintly in the dark. The pale blue outlines were visible only because of the mana concentration.
His breathing slowed as he layered the structure.
One triangle.
Second.
Third.
He wrote the modifiers carefully, each word forming in controlled script within the construct.
Wind.
Explosive.
Chain.
Seek.
He paused for a fraction of a second.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“This should work.”
He spoke softly, as if explaining it to himself.
“The wind should ensure the teeth aren’t burned.”
His finger traced the structure, reinforcing connections.
“Explosive and chain should ensure coverage.”
He tilted his head.
“Seek… handles targeting.”
His lips twitched faintly.
“When wind compresses, sudden pressure release tears tissue.”
He nodded once.
“And when it disperses, it reforms.”
He finished the final stroke.
The structure pulsed.
He did not move from the staircase.
Safer to maintain elevation and exit access.
The moment the final line locked into place, he released mana into the framework.
The spell activated instantly.
No light.
No flash.
Only movement.
Invisible air bullets shot forward into the darkness.
He could not see them.
He could only feel them — thin threads of mana racing outward.
Three seconds.
Four.
Then—
Whoosh!
A violent compression sound echoed across the floor.
A sharp crack followed by wet impact.
One heat signature vanished.
The air itself seemed to recoil and surge again.
Fragments of compressed wind split apart and swirled midair before reforming into dozens of smaller wind blades.
They shot outward.
The second and third impacts followed almost instantly.
Whoosh!
Crack!
Wet splatter.
Thermal signatures began disappearing rapidly.
The floor erupted into a symphony of rushing air.
Within seconds, the darkness filled with the sound of high-speed wind carving through space.
Hidden iron rats were yanked from crevices as sudden vacuum suction formed around them.
He watched through thermal as small bodies were violently pulled out of holes mid-sprint, limbs flailing, before—
Compression. Release. Shredded.
The spell chained without hesitation.
Each explosion birthed more projectiles.
Each projectile sought the nearest heat source.
The floor became a storm.
A controlled storm.
Narin stood completely still at the staircase entrance, robes fluttering slightly from residual air currents rushing back toward the center of each detonation.
His expression remained neutral.
Only his eyes moved, tracking the rapid disappearance of heat signatures.
In less than a minute, the movement slowed.
Then thinned.
Then—
Stopped.
The whooshing gradually faded.
Silence reclaimed the floor.
Narin waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
He scanned the area thoroughly.
No more moving thermal signatures.
He lifted his hand and cut the mana supply.
The spell dissolved.
The heavy air settled.
Then—
A notification appeared.
[ Your soul has reached its limit. You can now level up. ]
“…Again.”
He stared at the screen calmly.
Then he sat down on the final step of the staircase.
He closed his eyes.
Mana flowed inward again, smoother than before. The pathway felt familiar now — like walking a road already paved.
He guided it carefully, compressing, refining.
A few minutes later—
[ Congratulations on level up ]
[ Level 16 → 20 ]
Four levels.
He opened his eyes.
Instead of immediately opening his status window, he reached into his inventory.
The spirit boss lamp appeared in his hand.
The blue-white flame flickered steadily, casting soft illumination.
Unlike the boss chamber, the flame here provided stable light.
Interesting.
He rotated it slightly, observing the way shadows shifted across the stone.
“…It works as a light source.”
Useful.
He stood.
With the lamp in one hand, he began walking slowly across the floor.
The sight that greeted him was… thorough.
The stone floor and walls were covered in thousands of deep, overlapping cuts. Thin lines carved in every direction, like a chaotic web.
Some areas were gouged so deeply that chunks of rock had split apart.
It looked less like a hunt and more like a massacre.
The air smelled faintly metallic.
Blood.
But not heavily.
Wind had dispersed much of it.
He stepped carefully.
Bodies — or what remained of them — were scattered everywhere.
Iron rats were roughly the size of large cats. Thick metallic-gray fur. Hardened incisors that gleamed even in death.
Some corpses were intact except for crushed torsos.
Others were sliced into clean segments.
He crouched beside the nearest one.
Pulled out his kitchen knife.
With practiced efficiency, he inserted the blade under the upper lip and pried.
The tooth came loose with a wet sound.
Cracked.
He frowned slightly.
He inspected it.
Hairline fractures.
“Still usable.”
He placed it into his inventory.
He moved to the next corpse.
Sometimes he didn’t even need to pry; teeth had already scattered free from violent compression.
He collected them methodically.
No rush.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
He wiped his knife on a scrap of cloth and continued.
Occasionally he paused, examining the damage.
“Despite trying to control the force…”
He exhaled slowly.
“I still cracked most of them.”
He rolled one between his fingers, feeling the faint roughness along the fracture line.
“Even so…”
He looked around at the devastation.
“If I fought them physically, it would be worse.”
His eyes flicked to his inventory mentally.
Baseball bat?
He shook his head slightly.
“That would shatter them completely.”
He sheathed the knife briefly, stretched his fingers, then continued harvesting.
His movements were steady, economical, almost clinical.
After several minutes, he stood and checked his inventory.
50 iron rat teeth.
He stared at the number.
“…Enough.”
He closed the window.
Then he turned and walked back toward the staircase.
The climb upward felt longer.
Not physically tiring — his Endurance handled that easily — but mentally heavier.
He ascended through the boss chamber again.
Empty now.
Then up till he reach the first floor — the prison-like chamber where he had first awakened.
The iron door still stood there.
He approached the mechanism.
Four-digit code.
He crouched.
One by one, he pulled out teeth.
Each tooth had a number engraved faintly along its base.
He entered combinations carefully.
Click.
Wrong.
Reset.
Another combination.
Click.
Wrong.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
“Statistically…”
He muttered quietly.
“…It shouldn’t take long.”
Teeth returned. New ones selected.
The cold stone floor pressed against his knees.
He continued.
12th attempt.
Wrong.
18th attempt.
Wrong.
His face remained composed, but his fingers moved slightly faster now.
22nd.
Wrong.
23rd.
Wrong.
He paused for a second.
Then selected four more.
24th.
Click.
A deeper sound followed.
Clank.
The heavy iron door unlocked.
He slowly rose to his feet.
Placed his palm against the door.
Pushed.
The hinges groaned as it opened outward.
Light.
Real light.
Not some blue flame nor mana glow.
Natural light spilled in.
He stepped forward.
The smell hit him first.
Fresh air.
Something alive.
He walked past the threshold.
Past the iron door that had confined him.
And for the first time since being dragged into this place—
He saw color.
The sky and the land stretching ahead.
Open space.
A faint breeze brushed against his face.
He inhaled deeply.
Then—
A notification appeared before him.
[ Congratulations! You have completed the challenge: 1 ]
