The target was a Pack Wolf. Level 4.

  It wasn't a particularly dangerous monster for a group of students, but for a solo F-Grade, it was usually a death sentence. The wolf circled Julian, its gray fur bristling, saliva dripping from jaws capable of crushing bone.

  Julian stood perfectly still in the clearing of the Outer Woods. He didn't raise a shield. He didn't chant a fireball spell.

  He simply held the modified tuning fork—the **Sonic Lancet**—loosely in his right hand.

  "Heart rate: 110. Adrenaline: Rising," Julian whispered to himself, grounding his anxiety with data. "Target mass: approx 60kg. Estimated bone density: 1.5x standard canine."

  The wolf lunged.

  It was fast. A blur of gray muscle and teeth aimed straight for Julian’s throat.

  Julian didn't dodge backward. He stepped *forward*.

  He pushed a burst of mana into the Sonic Lancet.

  [Skill: Internal Oscillation]

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  [Output: Maximum]

  The air around the twin prongs blurred. A sound, so high-pitched it was felt rather than heard, pierced the clearing. Reeeeeee.

  As the wolf’s jaws opened to bite, Julian swept the tuning fork sideways. He didn't swing it like a sword; he guided it like a paintbrush.

  The prongs touched the wolf’s lower jawbone.

  There was no crunch. No resistance.

  The high-frequency vibration of the Star-Steel transferred its kinetic energy instantly into the calcium matrix of the bone. The jaw didn't break; it *disintegrated*. The molecular bonds holding the bone together shattered under the resonance.

  The wolf yelped—a gurgling, confused sound—as its lower jaw simply fell away, sliced clean off.

  It crashed into Julian, knocking him back, but the threat was neutralized. The beast thrashed on the ground, unable to bite, bleeding out from a cauterized wound that wouldn't close.

  Julian stood up, brushing dirt off his robe. He looked at the tuning fork. It was glowing hot, the metal stressed by the energy output.

  [Combat Log: Critical Hit!]

  [Damage Type: Sonic/Severance]

  [Target Neutralized.]

  "Inefficient," Julian critiqued, breathing heavily. He looked at his mana bar.

  [Mana: 2/40]

  One strike. That was all he had. That single cut had drained 95% of his energy.

  "The output is tremendous," he muttered, watching the wolf take its final breath. "But the fuel efficiency is terrible. I'm like a railgun hooked up to a AA battery."

  He walked over to the corpse. Even with no mana left, he had a knife that was sharper than any razor. He began to harvest the core.

  "I need a battery," he planned, carving out the monster's core with surgical precision. "Or I need to find a way to steal ambient mana from the environment. Because if there had been two wolves... I would be dead."

  As he pocketed the Level 4 Core (Market Value: 50 Credits), a rustle in the bushes made him freeze.

  He turned. Standing at the edge of the clearing wasn't a monster.

  It was a girl. She wore the silver-trimmed robes of the Artificer Department, and she was staring at the Sonic Lancet with wide, hungry eyes.

  "That frequency..." she said, her voice trembling. "How did you stabilize the shear wave without shattering the metal?"

  Julian adjusted his glasses. A potential customer? Or a potential spy?

  "Trade secret," he said.

  Author's Note: