"This is killing me, seriously."
On trembling legs, I barely made it up to the rooftop.
The moment I opened the door and stepped inside, I stripped off every piece of clothing I was wearing.
Even my underwear was so soaked with sweat that I couldn't stand to keep it on.
I went straight to the bathroom, splashed myself with cold water, then came back, turned on the beat-up old fan, and collapsed in front of it.
Clank, clank, clank, clank.
It blasted air with a loud rattle.
"Ahhh, now I can finally breathe."
After cooling down a bit, I pushed myself up.
I picked up the rickety fan and sat down at the computer.
Right now, I was facing three major tasks.
First, diet.
If I can't get rid of these lumps of fat, the prime of my twenties? Forget about it.
There are women who like bear-like men, but no woman likes a man who looks like a rolling ball.
This wasn't just about women; it was directly tied to my health, so it was the top priority.
"How should I even exercise?"
I'd exercised plenty in my life.
But I had no idea how to start when I wasn't even at zero, but in the negatives.
"Should I sign up for a gym?"
It would be great to get a personal trainer, but there was no way I had the money for that.
And that brought me to the second task.
As I said before, money.
"This is a problem."
It wasn't just that I didn't have money, I had no money.
This bastard didn't even earn much, and he'd meticulously spend every last cent of it within a month, not leaving even a single 100-won coin.
I had no idea why.
Did he think someone would steal it if he saved any?
I opened the banking app on my smartphone and checked my account balance.
"33,000 won…"
In this era of high prices, that was an amount where ordering a single fried chicken would make you worry about your meals the next day.
"For now…"
I had to earn money, no matter how much.
So I logged into the RPG game that had been Kim Do-jin's means of survival until now.
A character decked out in the finest gear.
Searching through my memories, this guy had put more effort into his character than his own body.
Playing games isn't a bad thing, but did he really have to give up on reality for it?
As I looked through his memories one by one, I found myself cursing him without even realizing it.
"Ah, I shouldn't be like this to my benefactor."
I had to stop.
It was because 'that person' had lived so indulgently that I was able to be in this body now.
I decided to think of it that way.
"So then…"
The reason I logged into the game was to make money through it, just like him.
Of course, my method was a little different.
I took off the character's equipped gear one by one and posted it all on the auction house.
Instantly, countless chat messages started flooding in.
[King God Road: Dude, what are you doing? Why are you selling your gear?]
[WarlordTheBestMan: Hacked?]
[Shurimanse: No, hyung;; why are you suddenly selling your gear;;]
[Pretty Princess: Oppa... are you quitting the game...? You promised to carry me tomorrow...ㅠ]
"Look at all these connections."
He didn't have a single number saved in his smartphone, yet his game's friend list had dozens of people.
A shut-in loser in reality, a popular guy in the game.
This disconnect was probably another reason he got so addicted.
It must have been easier to raise his game character's stats than his real-life ones.
Since these were connections this body had built in its own way, I showed some minimum courtesy and sent the same reply to everyone.
[vVTheStrongestLordVv: Going to live a real life. Bye.]
The gear sold off one by one, and the gold piled up.
I used a popular trading site to convert all the gold into cash.
[Balance: 3,633,300]
"Holy shit…"
My balance just shot past 3 million won. Was this for real?
"Well, he poured years into this game. It'd be disappointing if it wasn't worth at least this much."
He had played this game diligently for the three years he was cooped up in this room.
Actually, 3 million won for three years of effort was a ridiculously low price.
"With this much, I can hold out for quite a while…"
If I made good use of the 'ajumma chance,' I could probably last a few months without any trouble.
"Alright, the money problem is temporarily solved…"
The third and final task remained.
Increasing my mana capacity.
My current mana level was 2.
After experiencing mana exhaustion and getting an IV drip, it went up by 1 when I was discharged from the hospital.
"Though there's not much difference between 1 and 2…"
There are several ways to increase one's mana.
Elixirs, equipment, procedures, and so on.
These are very effective for growing your mana in the early stages right after awakening, but they require a lot of money.
For me, with my entire fortune of 3 million won, these were things I couldn't even dare to dream of.
"Looks like I have no choice but to grind it out the hard way."
The only method available to me right now was training.
The training to increase one's total mana capacity is simple.
Use your mana until you're on the verge of exhaustion, then recover it through meditation.
During the recovery process, you absorb more mana than your previous capacity, naturally increasing the total amount.
Hearing just this, you might wonder why anyone would need the methods mentioned above, but the problem is that the amount you gain is incredibly small.
It's practically a speck of dust.
"Well, I'll just have to gather those specks."
Gather dust to make a mountain? No such thing.
Gathering dust just gets you a slightly bigger speck of dust.
But right now, even that was urgent for me, so I had no choice but to do what I could while looking for other methods.
"Still, this is pretty fun."
Transforming and processing the surrounding mana according to my will.
It was more enjoyable than I'd expected.
So much so that I almost recklessly used it all up and fell into mana exhaustion again.
"No, can't do that."
The more often you experience mana exhaustion in a short period, the more severe the consequences become.
Initially, it's just a matter of briefly losing consciousness and waking up right after, but if it continues, your entire mana circuit could break down, leaving you unable to use mana ever again.
So, managing it carefully to avoid exhaustion was more important than anything.
I extinguished the flame I had lit on my fingertip like a lighter.
My mana supply was running on fumes.
I immediately leaned against the wall, sat down, focused my mind, and drew the surrounding mana into my body.
"That was fast."
Because my mana level was so pathetic, recharging was also incredibly fast.
The number didn't change, but I could feel that the pool itself had grown, even if just a little.
That's when I once again felt how special this body was.
"I can actually feel the difference after just one time."
As I said, when you use and refill your mana, its capacity grows little by little.
However, it doesn't normally grow enough to be noticeable after just one cycle. Yet this body was feeling that change after a single refill.
Even though the change was minuscule, this meant I could increase my mana capacity at a much faster rate than others.
"This is fun."
For the first time since becoming an S-rank Hunter, a time when training was done purely out of a sense of duty, I was starting to feel the joy in it again.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
[Your Mana has increased by 1.]
"Hoo."
I finished my meditation and slowly opened my eyes.
I checked the pleasant message floating before me.
This was the result of exercising with the ajumma in the morning and then focusing solely on mana training for the rest of the day.
Height/Weight: 160cm / 117kg
[Strength: 5] [Agility: 2] [Stamina: 3] [Mana: 6]
Do you see this?
This dazzling change.
Of course, it was a minuscule change, but it was the first result I had achieved with this body.
"This is why I train."
It had been a whole week since I started exercising, suppressing my ravenous appetite.
I had succeeded in losing 3kg.
It was just a speck of dust compared to the fat I still had to lose, but a good start is half the battle.
"But that's not the important part."
Losing weight was great, but what was even more thrilling was the change in my stats.
First, my stamina went up.
It only went up by 1, but when I thought of it as taking one step further away from death, that number felt huge.
Next was mana.
This was what I could proudly say had made leaps and bounds.
It had finally surpassed the strength that was forcibly developed just to support this fat body!
"Kyah."
My mana pool, which was the size of a bean, had now grown to the size of my thumb.
Fwoosh!
The flame that used to be the size of a lighter's flicker had now grown large enough to cover my palm.
"It'll keep getting better."
It's the same for all stats.
There's a big difference between gaining 1 point from a base of 1 and gaining 1 point from a base of 10.
The higher it gets, the more you have to struggle to raise it by a single point, but the actual gain from that one point also becomes enormous.
"Once it gets to around 10, I should be able to at least try it."
I pushed myself up from my seated position against the wall.
From sitting down and getting up so frequently, I felt like the laziness that clung to my body along with the fat had been diluted just a little.
I went into the bathroom, took off my shirt, and stood in front of the mirror.
I found myself frowning without realizing it.
"This is no good."
A pathetic physique.
I didn't mean because it was fat. The fundamental bone and muscle structure of this body was just bad.
It had the best constitution for a magician, but it was terrible for a warrior, or for a man in general.
Magicians, along with healers, are the most popular classes in the hunter industry.
They're dealers who can pump out the highest firepower as long as a tanker reliably protects them.
Furthermore, their numbers are very small compared to the demand, so magicians can always drive up their price before joining a party.
Probably everyone except me would think so.
That if you have the optimal constitution to become such a magician, you could put up with a weak body.
"Put up with it? My ass."
I don't know about other people, but I refuse to put up with it.
I ended up living such a stifling life by putting up with one thing after another, and you want me to do it again?
No way.
If there were no way to change my innate constitution, I would have no choice but to live with what I was given. But that's not the case for me.
I have a way.
A method that can even change one's innate constitution—a method known only to a select few, including myself, and among them, one that only I can use.
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