The Breaking Point

The rain fell in sheets over Mullae-dong, turning the streets into rivers of neon-reflected filth.

Min-jun watched from the bookstore's second-floor window as a guild patrol drone skimmed past, its searchlight carving through the gloom. Behind him, Soojin hunched over a salvaged guild tablet, her fingers dancing across cracked screens as she decrypted files stolen during their last dungeon raid.

"Got something," she said, voice tight. "Hanwool's shipping logs. They're moving specimens out of the hospice tonight."

Min-jun didn't turn. "Specimens?"

"People, Oppa. *Awakened* people."

The word hung in the air, sharp as a blade.

---

Jae-hyun's black-market stall reeked of burnt solder and desperation. He didn't look up as they approached, his cybernetic eye fixed on the glowing core he was dissecting.

"You're late."

"Where are they taking them?" Min-jun demanded.

The smuggler smirked, tossing a data chip onto the counter. "Storage Facility 9. Underground dock by the river. But you'll need more than fire to crack it."

Soojin snatched the chip. "What's the catch?"

"No catch." Jae-hyun's smile didn't reach his eye. "Just a warning. Hanwool's not just experimenting—they're *weaponizing*. You crack that facility, you'll wish you'd stayed in the shadows."

[Quest Updated: Expose Hanwool's Experiments → 35%]

---

They trained until the factory walls trembled.

Soojin's telekinesis had begun to fuse with her heat affinity, creating ripples of superheated air that warped metal and stone. During one late-night session, she lost focus—a half-molten steel beam spiraled out of control, slicing through support columns. Min-jun barely yanked her clear before the roof caved in.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, staring at the rubble.

"Don't apologize. 'Adapt'." He tossed her a fresh steel rod. "Again."

By dawn, she could shape searing telekinetic currents into crude shields, her control frayed but functional.

[Soojin's Skill: Thermal-Kinetic Sync → Lv. 2]

( Soojin does not have the system nor can she see it, The mc can see her progress and it's also for the readers to understand the results of the training that takes place )

[Min-jun's Teaching → Lv. 3]

---

Storage Facility 9 loomed over the Han River like a concrete tomb. Guild enforcers patrolled its docks, their black armor glistening under floodlights. Min-jun and Soojin slipped through the sewer grate, the stench of rot clinging to their clothes.

The underground lab was a nightmare of glass pods and flickering monitors. Dozens of Awakened floated in viscous fluid, their bodies twisted by grotesque mutations—bone spurs, extra limbs, eyes blooming like tumors.

"God," Soojin choked. "They're… 'alive'?"

Min-jun's flames flickered. "Not for long."

They'd barely begun documenting the atrocities when alarms wailed. Hanwool's enforcers swarmed the vault, led by a hulking Awakened whose skin rippled with metallic scales.

"Take the files!" Min-jun shoved Soojin toward the terminal. "I'll hold them!"

The fight was chaos. Min-jun's fire glanced off the scaled enforcer, forcing him to improvise—molten shrapnel, superheated steam, anything to buy time. Soojin's telekinesis faltered under gunfire until desperation birthed a new skill: She *pulled* the heat from Min-jun's flames, shaping it into a whirling vortex that disintegrated bullets mid-air.

[Combat Breakthrough: Thermal-Kinetic Vortex (Lv. 1) Acquired]

They fled through a service tunnel, the enforcer's roars echoing behind them. Soojin clutched the stolen data drive, her hands shaking.

"We have to go back," she panted. "The people in those pods—"

"They're already dead," Min-jun said, colder than he felt.

---

Kang Ji-woo found them at the river's edge, her frost-edged blade at Min-jun's throat.

"Give me the drive."

Soojin stepped forward, thermal energy crackling. "Try it."

Ji-woo's gaze flickered to the drive. "You don't understand what you've stolen. Hanwool's not just mutating Awakened—they're 'breeding' them. Soldiers. Weapons."

"And you helped," Min-jun said.

Her blade trembled. "I didn't know."

The truth spilled out in frozen breaths: Hanwool's cull of "unstable" Awakened, the black-site labs, the plans to collapse low-tier districts into dungeons for "resource farming."

"There's a convoy," she said finally. "Tonight. They're moving a prototype—a living weapon. Stop it, and you stop Hanwool's operations for good."

[New Quest: Destroy the Convoy ]

[Reward: Hanwool Intel, Guild Weaknesses]

---

They regrouped in a derelict church, its stained-glass saints shattered by stray guild gunfire. Soojin bandaged Min-jun's burns, her touch surprisingly steady.

"You knew," she said quietly. "About the labs. The pods."

He didn't deny it.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would it have changed anything?"

Outside, the rain slowed to a drizzle. Somewhere in the distance, a guild siren wailed.

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