The first week after the clinic changed everything.
Not because of anything dramatic. No monsters attacked. No survival quests triggered. No betrayals were avenged.
Just... training. Day after day. The same routine, over and over, until the days blurred together like watercolors in the rain.
4:00 AM – Wake up.
4:15 AM – Run twenty kilometers through the empty streets, Kael jogging beside me, making stupid jokes about my form, my pace, my "pathetic excuse for a human body."
7:00 AM – Return to the clinic. Collapse on the floor. Let Mrs. Park rewrap my bandages while she muttered about "foolish boys who don't know when to rest."
8:00 AM – One thousand pushups.
11:00 AM – One thousand squats.
2:00 PM – Lunch. Rice, fish, vegetables. Sometimes soup if Mrs. Park was feeling generous.
3:00 PM – More training. Pullups on a bar Kael installed in the doorway. Rope climbs on a rope he'd "borrowed" from somewhere. Sprints. Lunges. Burpees. Anything to make my muscles scream.
7:00 PM – Collapse. Eat. Sleep.
Repeat.
---
Mrs. Park watched.
She didn't say much. She was a woman of few words—at least to me. But I caught her looking sometimes. Watching me run past her window at dawn. Watching me do pushups in the small garden behind the clinic. Watching the way my body changed, week by week.
"You're different," she said one morning, as she changed my bandages.
"I'm training."
"Training doesn't do what's happening to you." She pressed a finger to my arm. The muscle there was hard now. Dense. "This isn't natural. Not in four weeks."
"It's been five."
"Five weeks, then." She sat back. "I've treated soldiers. Hunters. People who dedicated their lives to becoming weapons. None of them changed this fast."
I didn't know what to say. So I said nothing.
Mrs. Park sighed.
"Fine. Keep your secrets." She stood up. "But whatever you're doing, it's working. Your ribs are healed. Your leg is healed. You're healthier than anyone I've seen in years." She paused at the door. "Just... be careful. Power changes people. Not always for the better."
She left.
Kael, who had been sitting in the corner pretending to read a magazine, looked up.
"She knows more than she lets on."
"She's smart."
"She's observant." He set the magazine aside. "But she's not wrong. You are changing. Faster than I expected."
"Is that bad?"
"No." He stood up and walked to the window. The morning light caught his face, highlighting the silver streaks in his dark hair. "It's just... fast. The System is accelerating your growth. Your body is adapting to the training at a supernatural rate."
"Because of the Quick Recovery reward?"
"That's part of it. But it's more than that." He turned to face me. "You're a Summoner. Your soul is bonded to me. And I'm... not human, Arlen. Not anymore. I was, once. A long time ago. But the void changed me."
I sat up. "You never told me that."
"You never asked." He leaned against the windowsill. "I was born human. A knight. I served kings, fought wars, watched empires rise and fall. Then I was chosen—or cursed, depending on how you look at it—to guard the space between dimensions. The void."
"The void."
"It's empty. No light. No sound. No time. Just... nothing. And in that nothing, I changed. My body. My soul. My powers." He held up his hand. A small black flame flickered to life on his palm. "These flames aren't magic. They're the void itself. The absence of everything. And they're sealed now—limited to universal scale. Because if I used my full power here, this dimension would collapse."
I stared at the flame.
"Universal scale."
"Universal." He closed his hand, extinguishing the flame. "That's the limit the System placed on me. I can't use more than that without breaking the seal. But even at universal scale... I'm stronger than anything in this world."
"Then why do you need me?"
He smiled. It was a soft smile. Almost sad.
"Because power without purpose is meaningless. I've been alone for centuries, Arlen. Drifting in the void, waiting for someone to call me. Waiting for a reason to exist." He walked to the bed and sat on the edge. "You gave me that. You, a classless orphan who refused to die. You called me. And I came."
I didn't know what to say.
So I said the only thing that made sense.
"I'm glad you came."
Kael's smile widened.
"Yeah," he said. "Me too
Sixteen weeks.
Four months of training. Four months of running, pushing, sweating, bleeding. Four months of Kael's jokes and Mrs. Park's silent observations. Four months of the System tracking every improvement, every milestone, every step forward.
And then, on the last day of the fourth month, something happened.
I woke up different.
---
The morning light was pale through the window. I sat up in bed—my own bed, in my own small room above the clinic—and stretched.
My body felt... strange.
Lighter. Stronger. Like I'd been carrying a weight I hadn't noticed, and someone had finally taken it off.
I looked down at my hands.
They were different. The calluses were still there—four months of pushups and pullups had seen to that—but the skin was smoother. Tauter. The veins were more visible, running along the backs of my hands like rivers under glass.
I stood up and walked to the small mirror on the wall.
The face that looked back was mine. But also not.
My jaw was sharper. My cheekbones higher. My eyes—still brown, still warm—seemed deeper somehow. More intense. The softness I'd carried since childhood was gone, replaced by something harder. Something mature.
And my body...
I pulled off my shirt.
Muscles. Not the bulky kind—the dense kind. The kind that came from months of endurance training, not gym vanity. My shoulders were broader. My chest was defined. My stomach was flat, ridged with the faint lines of abdominal muscles. The scars from the wyvern's claws were still there—four pale lines across my ribs—but they looked like badges now. Not wounds.
I stared at my reflection.
"Whoa."
Kael's voice came from the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, arms crossed, a wide grin on his face.
"Whoa is right," he said. "You look like a completely different person."
"I look like me."
"You look like a better version of you." He walked into the room and circled me, examining me from every angle. "The System really went all out. The training, the Quick Recovery, the stat boosts... it all came together at once."
"You're saying the System made me... handsome?"
"I'm saying the System optimized you. The handsomeness is just a side effect." He stopped in front of me and tilted his head. "Ten times more handsome, at least."
"That's not a real measurement."
"It is now." He grinned. "Mrs. Park is going to freak out."
---
Mrs. Park did not freak out.
She stared.
For a full thirty seconds, she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a wooden spoon, staring at me like I was a ghost.
"Boy," she said slowly, "what happened to you?"
"I told you. I've been training."
"Training doesn't do this." She walked closer, her eyes scanning my face, my shoulders, my hands. "You've grown. Your face has changed. Your body... heaven above, boy, you look like a different person."
"I feel like a different person."
She reached up and touched my cheek. Her fingers were warm and rough.
"You're not sick?"
"I'm not sick."
"You're not cursed?"
"I don't think so."
She stared at me for another long moment. Then she lowered her hand and sighed.
"I've been a healer for fifty years," she said. "I've seen a lot of strange things. Hunters who could lift buildings. Mages who could summon storms. Beast Transformers who could turn into dragons." She shook her head. "But I've never seen a person change like this in four months. Never."
"The System—" I started, then stopped.
Mrs. Park's eyes narrowed.
"The System?"
I looked at Kael. He gave a small nod.
"You're not going to believe me," I said.
"Try me."
I took a breath.
"I have a System. Like in games. It gives me quests. Rewards. It's how I've been healing so fast. How I've been getting stronger." I paused. "It's also how I summoned Kael."
Mrs. Park was quiet for a long time.
Then she sat down at the kitchen table and set the wooden spoon on a napkin.
"Explain," she said. "From the beginning."
---
I told her everything.
The dungeon. The wyvern. The betrayal. The System activating as I lay dying. Kael's summoning. The survival quest. The daily training. The way my body had changed, week by week, day by day.
She listened without interrupting. When I finished, she sat back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.
"A defeated god's System," she said.
"Yes."
"Bound to your soul."
"Yes."
"And the knight—" she glanced at Kael, "—he's from another dimension?"
"The void between dimensions," Kael said. "I was human once. A long time ago."
Mrs. Park nodded slowly.
"I've heard stories," she said. "Old stories. From before the Association. Before the gates. Stories about gods who fell, and mortals who inherited their power." She looked at me. "I didn't think they were true."
"Neither did I."
She was quiet for another long moment.
Then she stood up.
"Well," she said, "I suppose that explains the healing."
"That's all you have to say?"
"I'm seventy-two years old, boy. I've seen enough to know that some things don't have explanations. They just... are." She picked up her wooden spoon. "You have a System. You have a knight from the void. You're training for revenge." She pointed the spoon at me. "Just don't die. I hate burying young people."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And eat breakfast before you start your training. You're too skinny."
"I'm not skinny anymore."
"You're still skinny to me." She turned back to the stove. "Now sit. The rice will be ready in five minutes."
The days after my transformation were different.
Not because the training changed—it was still the same brutal routine. But I was different. Stronger. Faster. More focused.
The System tracked my progress.
---
[MONTH 4 – FINAL STATS]
Strength: 8 → 68
Agility: 10 → 75
Vitality: 6 → 72
Intelligence: 12 → 40
Mana: 50 → 450
Mana Regeneration: 2/min → 25/min
Skills:
· Endurance (Passive) – 20% less stamina drain
· Iron Will (Passive) – Resist fear, pain, mental manipulation
· Predator's Focus (Active) – Slow perception of time (8 seconds)
· Skill Borrowing (Level 3) – Borrow 2 skills, 60s duration, 6min cooldown
Summon Slots: 1/3
---
"Your mana almost doubled in the last month," Kael said, reading over my shoulder.
"The training."
"The training and the System. Your body is adapting faster now. The Quick Recovery reward from the first daily quest is still active—it's permanent now, basically. The System just doesn't advertise it."
"So I heal faster than normal?"
"Much faster. You're not immortal—don't get cocky—but you'll recover from injuries that would put normal hunters in the hospital for weeks."
I closed the System screen.
"Am I strong enough?"
"Strong enough for what?"
"To start hunting them."
Kael was quiet for a moment.
"Physically? Yes. You're stronger than most B-rank hunters now. Your stats are solid. Your skills are developing." He paused. "But revenge isn't just about strength, Arlen. It's about strategy. Patience. Knowing when to strike and when to wait."
"I've been waiting for four months."
"And you'll wait a little longer." He put a hand on my shoulder. "You need information. Where they live. Where they work. Their routines. Their weaknesses." He smiled. "But don't worry. I've been doing some research while you slept."
"You have?"
"I'm a knight, not a babysitter. I have skills beyond making sarcastic comments." He walked to the small desk in the corner and picked up a notebook. "Dorian lives in a penthouse in the wealthy district. He drinks every night. He's slow in the mornings."
I took the notebook.
"Bianca frequents a fighting gym near the docks. She's overconfident. Leaves her guard down after a workout."
"Vex has an apartment above a magic shop. She has a mana condition—her reserves take longer to recover than most mages. She's vulnerable in the hours after casting."
"Rook—the assassin—is harder to track. He moves between safe houses. But every Thursday, he visits a specific noodle shop in the south district."
"Jun lives alone in a small studio. He calls his sister every night at 9 PM. He's kind. He hesitated before leaving you."
I looked up at that one.
"Jun hesitated."
"He did. He didn't want to leave you. But Dorian made him." Kael sat on the edge of the bed. "What are you going to do about him?"
"I don't know."
"Think about it. You don't have to decide today."
I nodded and kept reading.
"Kai—the Beast Transformer—returned to his family's estate. He's the heir to something. Wealthy. Protected. But he has a temper. He picks fights when he drinks. He also has a soft spot for stray animals."
I closed the notebook.
"You've been busy."
"I've been bored. The void had nothing to do. Here, at least, I can stalk people." He grinned. "It's fun. You should try it."
"Maybe I will.