The Forge of Progress
The abandoned church was alive with the hum of stolen guild tech and the low murmur of refugees huddled in its shadowed corners. Min-jun sat on the cracked altar steps, his gaze fixed on the translucent system interface hovering in his peripheral vision. The cold blue text was unrelenting:
[Current Progression Efficiency: 58% of Optimal]
[Recommended Actions: Skill Fusion, Targeted Grinding, Quest Prioritization]
He swiped the alerts away, but the truth lingered like a weight on his chest. The system wasn't a cheat code; it demanded strategy, discipline, and sacrifice. His haphazard survival tactics had stalled his growth, and now, with Block 7 under siege, he couldn't afford to falter.
Soojin tossed him a stolen energy bar, her gloves still faintly smoking from their last skirmish. "You look like you're arguing with a ghost."
"Planning," he lied, tearing open the wrapper. "We hit Block 7 tonight. You'll need better control."
She raised an eyebrow. "And you?"
"I'll handle it."
The system pinged again, this time with a new quest:
[New Quest: Precision Over Power]
[Objective: Elevate 3 Skills to Lv. 4 Before Midnight]
[Reward: System Optimization Protocol Unlocked]
Min-jun stood, brushing crumbs from his jacket. "Let's get to work."
---
The churchyard became their training ground, its cracked pavement littered with rusted car parts and scavenged guild gear. Soojin floated a hubcap in the air with her telekinesis, her brow furrowed in concentration.
"Melt it," she said, her voice steady despite the faint tremor in her hands. "But keep the shape."
Min-jun focused, flames coiling from his palms. The first attempt warped the metal into slag, the edges dripping molten onto the ground.
"Too blunt!" Soojin yanked another piece closer. "Surgical strikes. Burn the rust, not the metal."
He tried again, this time narrowing the flame into a needle-thin stream. The rust flaked away, leaving the steel beneath intact. By the fifth attempt, his fire flowed like liquid light, precise and controlled.
[Fire Affinity → Lv. 4]
[New Subskill: Precision Incineration (Lv. 1)]
Soojin grinned, tossing him a twisted pipe. "Not bad. Now do it while moving."
---
Inside the church, Ji-woo rigged holographic projectors from scavenged guild tech, flooding the nave with shimmering recreations of past battles.
"Scenario 12: Labyrinth Ambush," she announced, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
Digital enemies swarmed, their movements eerily lifelike. Min-jun dissected their patterns—the flicker of a sniper's scope, the tremor of footsteps through rubble. He cleared the simulation in four minutes and twenty-two seconds.
"Again," Ji-woo said, her arms crossed. "Shave off thirty seconds."
On the seventh try, he finished in three minutes and fifty-eight seconds, exploiting enemy pathing flaws he'd cataloged mid-fight.
[Tactical Analysis → Lv. 4]
[New Perk: Predictive Combat Modeling (60% Accuracy)]
Ji-woo nodded, a flicker of approval in her icy gaze. "You're learning."
---
The black market ruins reeked of burnt plastic and desperation. Jae-hyun, the smuggler, was half-dead and chained to a rusted beam, his cybernetic eye flickering weakly. Min-jun jammed a stimulant into his arm, the man's wheezing laugh grating on his nerves.
"You want master-level core skills?" Jae-hyun croaked. "Fine. But you'll hate the homework."
For six brutal hours, the smuggler taught him to "taste" Aurora energy—identify corruption wavelengths, stabilize unstable cores through resonance frequencies. Min-jun's first successful purification left him vomiting radiation bile. His tenth birthed a flawless B-Rank core.
[Core Manipulation → Lv. 4]
[New Subskill: Resonance Stabilization (Lv. 1)]
Jae-hyun slumped against the beam, his breathing shallow. "You're a quick study. Pity you're gonna die in Block 7."
Min-jun ignored him, pocketing the core. "We'll see."
---
The system interface reconfigured as he returned to the church, its once-static menus now dynamic and alive:
[Skill Synergy Detected!]
[ Fire Affinity + Core Manipulation = [Aura Ignition (Lv. 1)]
[Effect: Coat allies/objects in temporary fire-resistant energy]
[Tactical Analysis + Teaching = [Combat Pedagogy (Lv. 1)]
[Effect: Share 15% of your combat proficiency with allies.]
Soojin stared at the flames dancing around her unscathed fingers. "This feels… weird."
"Adapt," Min-jun said. "We assault Block 7 in two hours."
---
The slum was a warzone. Hanwool's enforcers herded civilians into makeshift pens while engineers drilled Aurora conductors into the earth, warping reality into a nascent dungeon. Min-jun's team slithered through sewers, bypassing patrols with system-optimized routes.
[Predictive Combat Modeling: 83% Accuracy]
He neutralized guards with Precision Incineration—microbursts of flame to the brainstem, leaving bodies intact to delay alarms.
The Aurora conductor pulsed like a diseased heart. Soojin unleashed her Thermal-Kinetic Vortex, but the corrupted core retaliated, birthing a wave of skeletal rat-creatures.
Min-jun deployed Aura Ignition on Ji-woo's rifle, creating frostfire rounds that froze and burned simultaneously. Soojin used Combat Pedagogy to teach refugees to shatter enemy joints with bricks. Ji-woo sniped conductor nodes with guided ice shards.
[Team Proficiency: +40% Damage Output]
The destabilized conductor detonated, tearing a rift to the Aurora dimension. A gargantuan tendril of raw energy lashed out, searing Min-jun's arm to the bone.
He gripped the tendril, the system screaming warnings:
[System Override: Aurora Assimilation Protocol]
[Warning: Corruption Imminent!]
The energy flooded his veins. When he awoke, his incinerated arm gleamed with crystalline fire.
[New Limb: Aurora Arm (Prototype)]
[Abilities: Adaptive Weaponization, Corruption Resistance +30%]
---
In the church basement, refugees clustered around Soojin as she distributed ration packs. Min-jun stared at his new arm, its light pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
"It's eating you," Ji-woo said quietly. "The corruption."
He flexed crystalline fingers. "I'll control it."
"And if you can't?"
He met her gaze. "You'll put me down."
[System Alert: Corruption Level - 42% (Stabilized)]
---
Jae-hyun's intel arrived at dawn—a data dump revealing Hanwool's central core farm beneath Namsan Tower.
"Final boss time," Soojin said, her vortex swirling steadier now.
Min-jun uploaded the coordinates.
[New Quest: Eclipse the Tower]
[Sub-Objectives: Assemble Allies, Master Aurora Arm, Disrupt Guild Supply Lines]
---