[Kai POV]
Kai watched from the vegetable patch as Robert approached the gate. Even from a distance, the change was staggering, bordering on the supernatural. Robert didn't just walk; he moved with a stuttering, violent grace, like a young predator suddenly gifted with overpowered limbs it hadn't yet learned to calibrate. A faint, white shimmer clung to his skin—a hazy distortion caused by raw Qi leaking from pores that were still too crude to seal the brilliance within.
He did it, Kai thought, grounding his spade into the dry dirt with a satisfying thud. But his body is screaming under the pressure of that light.
As Robert reached the gate, his face was flushed with a deep, crimson heat, as if he were running a fever that would melt a normal man. "I smashed it, Kai," he managed to choke out, holding up the bronze Association badge with a hand that trembled like a leaf in a gale. "But I feel like I'm breaking. My bones... they feel like they've been replaced with glass."
"That's because you have a fighter jet's engine in a horse carriage," Kai said steadily, reaching out to steady his friend. Robert's skin felt hot to the touch, a buzzing vibration humming beneath his pulse. "You've unlocked the power, but you haven't built the vessel. You need to strengthen the frame before that engine tears you apart from the inside out."
Once Robert retreated into the farmhouse to the sounds of his father's joyous, boisterous roars, Kai remained alone in the darkening field. The sunset cast long, blood-red shadows across the tilled earth, mirroring the cold urgency rising in his own chest. He opened his holographic watch, the blue light flickering against the deepening twilight.
[Account: 1,000 Gold Coins]
Robert's struggle was a vivid, visceral warning. If a Perfect-Grade foundation—a rank that made the city officials bow—caused this much physical strain on a commoner's body, then the Special-Grade Kai aimed for would be lethal. Publicly, the rank didn't even exist in the Association's records; it was a theoretical limit of human potential. To trigger it with "mud" in his system would be a death sentence.
In this world, the "impurities" accumulated from fourteen years of commoner life—the cheap grains, the smog of the industrial sector, the hormones in low-tier meat—acted like grit in a high-speed motor. When a person awakens, their Qi immediately begins a "Purge," a biological holy war to flush those impurities out. Robert's "glass bones" were the result of a Perfect-Grade flow trying to scrub fourteen years of filth away in a single afternoon.
I cannot afford to be a glass cannon, Kai thought, his jaw tightening. If I trigger a Special-Grade with this much filth in my marrow, I will vibrate into pieces before I even finish the ritual.
"System," Kai whispered into the wind, his voice barely audible over the rustling corn. "Allocate 4 points to Endurance and 4 points to Stamina."
The moment the points were allocated, the air seemed to vanish from his lungs. It didn't feel like a "level up"; it felt like a surgical reconstruction. His body felt as though it had been plunged into a vat of cooling iron.
There was no heat—only a terrifying, heavy cold that seeped into his core. His bones didn't just feel stronger; they felt as if they were becoming more compact, the very marrow thickening until they were as dense as obsidian. His skin didn't change color, but it tightened across his knuckles and forearms, losing its adolescent suppleness for a texture like cured leather.
He fell to one knee, the sudden structural reinforcement forcing his lungs to expand painfully. His ribcage creaked, the cartilage hardening into something more akin to bone to support a much higher oxygen capacity. By the time the sensation faded, Kai stood up feeling "anchored" to the world in a way he never had before. He picked up his heavy iron spade—a tool that usually required effort to swing—and spun it in his hand as if it were a twig.
[Status]
[Name : Kai hart]
[Age : 13 years 11 months (33)]
[Race : human]
[Potential :B]
[Level: 4 (0/400exp)]
[Strength:8]
[Agility:8]
[Stamina:10]
[Endurance: 10]
[Stats points: 0]
[Skill points: 4]
[Physical martial arts : none]
[Technique : none]
His physical attributes were now at the absolute peak of what a natural human could achieve. But even with these stats, a "natural" purge would take too long. Robert would be recovering for months, his Qi slowly fighting the filth. Kai only had three weeks until his own birthday. He needed to clear the path now, and he needed to do it in secret.
Kai pulled the holographic watch from beneath his sleeve, the black screen flickering to life. 1,000 gold coins sat in the encrypted trust—a fortune he could finally justify spending. He began scrolling through the "Grey Market" network, a digital underworld where fallen scions and disgraced nobles traded their family secrets for quick cash.
He found what he was looking for: "Veridian Marrow Paste." It was a brutal, primitive version of the modern cleansing pills. While noble children were fed refined "Spirit Dew" from birth to keep their bodies pure, this paste was designed to do fourteen years of internal cleaning in a single, agonizing night. It was dangerous, unregulated, and perfect.
The price: 150 Gold Coins.
Kai tapped the "Purchase" icon. [Order Confirmed. Delivery to secure locker: 'Sector 4, Drop-Point 92'. Time: 02:00 AM.]
At midnight, Kai slipped out of the farmhouse like a ghost. His new Stamina made the five-kilometer trek into the industrial heart of the city feel like a brisk stroll. He moved through the shadows of the massive, smoke-belching factories, his enhanced Agility allowing him to dodge the slow-moving patrols of the city guards. He retrieved the ceramic jar from a rusted, automated locker behind a chemical refinery and vanished back into the darkness.
Back in the safety of his room, Kai broke the wax seal. The smell was horrendous—a cloying mix of sulfur and rotting swamp water—but he didn't hesitate. He stripped naked and began to slather the thick, green sludge over his chest, arms, and legs.
The effect was a waking nightmare. The paste didn't just sit on his skin; it acted like a solvent, sinking into his pores and latching onto the "filth" within his muscles and bones. It felt as though thousands of tiny, microscopic hooks were digging into his flesh, dragging the impurities toward the surface by force.
Kai bit down on a piece of leather he had prepared, his eyes bulging as the paste reached his marrow. This was the shortcut. Instead of the Qi slowly cleaning him over months like Robert, this paste was forcibly extracting the impurities all at once. Small droplets of a foul-smelling, black, tar-like substance began to ooze from his skin, forced out by the chemical reaction. Each drop felt like a hot needle. His muscles cramped and his vision blurred, but he didn't move. He sat in a meditative trance, watching the black sludge coat his arms in the moonlight.
By the time the sun began to peek over the horizon, the green paste had turned a sickly, crusty black. Kai felt hollow, as if he had lost ten pounds of weight he didn't know he was carrying. He washed the filth away in a basin of cold water, watching the "years of impurity" swirl down the drain. He felt light. He felt "clean" in a way that most commoners wouldn't achieve until they were decades into their cultivation.
The next morning, the sun felt uncommonly bright. Kai stepped out into the yard, his body feeling eerily light. He saw Robert sitting on the porch, a bowl of porridge in his hands. Robert looked exhausted. His skin was pale, and every few seconds, his shoulder or his leg would give a small, involuntary twitch as his Perfect-Grade Qi continued its slow, natural cleaning of his system.
"You look like you fought a mountain and lost," Kai said, picking up a bucket of water. He made sure to keep his movements slightly sluggish, mimicking his old self.
Robert let out a dry laugh. "The priest wasn't joking about the fire, Kai. It feels like my own blood is trying to scrub my bones clean. It's a slow process. It feels like my Qi is fighting me for control."
Kai nodded, watching a bead of blackish sweat roll down Robert's neck. Your body is fighting the filth, Robert. But mine is already empty. I am building a temple of bone and iron, just waiting for the star to fill the void.
For the next two weeks, the city talked of nothing but Robert, the "Commoner Legend." Recruiters from minor clans began to sniff around the farm, offering "protectorship" that Robert's father politely declined, citing the Emperor's Decree. Meanwhile, Kai remained in the shadows, his internal organs thickening and his bones hardening.
He spent his nights at the river, diving to the bottom where the water pressure was highest, holding his breath until his lungs felt like they were bursting. He was using the weight of the river to force his heart and lungs to grow stronger, thickening the walls of his organs. He knew the System's warning: a Special-Grade awakening would cause a cardiac rupture in a normal human. He wasn't going to be normal. He was going to be a monster.
He looked at his remaining wealth.
[Current Wealth: 850 Gold Coins]
He had three days left. He was no longer just a farmhand. He was a weapon being forged in a dark room, waiting for the moment the world would realize that Robert wasn't the only miracle in the Outer District.