Hajime woke to the sound of his own heartbeat.
Except heartbeat felt too small for what thudded inside his chest.
Each pulse wasn't flesh pushing blood—it was a controlled surge of mana, steady and resonant, like a compact reactor cycling power.
Cold stone pressed against his cheek. The cavern hummed faintly in the background. He opened his eyes.
His stone room came into focus.
The once-Divinity Stone sat where he last touched it, half-embedded in the wall like a pale, frozen moon. Its surface still held a faint sheen, but the overwhelming presence it once radiated was gone. The mana flowing through it now felt hollow—like a peripheral node.
The real core was inside him.
He sat up slowly.
No stabbing ribs.
No screaming leg.
No suffocating ache in his lungs.
He inhaled deeply—clean, smooth, effortless.
Scents layered themselves in the air: dry stone dust, the copper tang of old blood, hints of cured Behemoth meat. Piles of monster cores in the corner gave off no smell at all—just silent, dense knots of mana waiting for him to pick them apart.
A warm flow spread across his chest, as though sunlight had pooled behind his ribs.
HP: full.
Debuffs: cleared.
Stats: higher—some are multiples of their previous values.
New passives and traits glimmered subtly at the edge of his vision.
Notifications scrolled past like the log of an awakened system:
[Nexus System Integration – 100%]
[Bonus Function Unlocked: Inventory]
[Multiversal Awareness – Partial]
[Adept of Infinite Resonance – Awakening Complete, ]
[Soul Devourer has evolved into Predator]
"…Huh."
He dismissed the notifications and turned his focus inward, letting Resonance guide his awareness into his chest.
There—his Soul Core.
No longer a simple node of white light.
It burned with layered colors:
Red lightning—from twin-tailed wolves.
Deep earthen pressure—from the Behemoth's colossal mass.
A faint silver echo—the last whisper of the Divinity Stone.
A bright, diluted gold—Ambrosia-infused blood repairing and reinforcing his body.
Every beat pushed mana through his vessels until his blood glowed faintly in his inner sight.
He reached for a piece of sharpened stone and dragged it across his forearm.
A thin red line opened—
—then closed.
The wound sealed in seconds, leaving behind only faint warmth.
"High-speed regen and a built-in potion factory," he muttered. "Not bad."
He wasn't immortal. Destroy his brain or shatter the heart with the Soul Core instead and he would still die.
But short of that?
This world would have to try a lot harder.
He flicked to the new panel in his System.
[Inventory]
A simple grid unfolded before his eyes—clean, blank, utilitarian.
No fancy icons. No weight calculations. No clutter.
He focused on a Behemoth bone near his foot.
It blinked—and appeared in the first empty slot, minimized into a small icon labeled: Bone X1
Finally.
A real storage function.
A bag-of-holding built into his soul.
One by one, he loaded what mattered:
crafting hides, spare clothing armor, shaped stone rods, cleaned bones.
The Behemoth's core and flesh he got were long since part of him.
Then he returned to the heap of scavenger corpses he'd dropped with his trap earlier.
Only to notice more than 60% of meat form the behemoth was gone likely eaten while he was unconscious and evolving.
Time to test something new.
He placed a hand over the nearest body.
"Predator."
No flash. No noise. The corpse simply… unraveled.
Flesh, bone, and core dissolved into invisible motes that streamed up his arm in a quiet current.
A pulse of mana rolled through him—heavy, potent.
He winced slightly at the ache, but it faded instantly.
"Too good," he whispered. "But wasting materials is stupid."
He touched the next corpse.
"Predator. Meat and core only."
This time the body peeled apart layer by layer—meat liquefying into motes, the core dissolving into energy—while bones and hide slumped intact to the floor.
He grinned.
"Perfect."
Three more trials, a few refinements, and Predator obeyed cleanly, extracting only what he requested.
A tool.
Not a master.
He wouldn't let it become anything else.
With the scavenger remains sorted and stored, he leaned back against the far wall, crossing his legs as he slipped inward again.
His Soul Core burned bright—three distinct frequency threads circling its glow.
Kickmaster Rabbit: erratic, nimble mana—air that refused to stay still.
Twin-Tailed Wolves: sharp, controlled lightning—predatory and precise.
Behemoth: gravity and mass—dense, immovable endurance.
And coiled around the edges—
Predator.
Dark, hungry, eager.
He let his mind brush against it, picturing—for a moment—opening the gates and letting it consume everything within range.
Predator surged eagerly—
Until he thought of Kaori's face.
Her shaking hands.
Her voice on the bridge.
Shizuku's shocked gaze beside her.
Stop.
Predator recoiled instantly, folding in on itself. Hunger remained, but leashed.
"You work for me," he said softly. "I decide the terms."
The Soul Core pulsed—affirmation.
He stood, dusting stone from his hands.
There was work to do.
He crossed to the racks of tanned hides—Behemoth leather, rabbit skins, wolf pelts. For days he'd transformed them into proper clothing, layering fibers with transmutation until the result resembled a sleek, Earth-style tactical suit: black-and-gray, durable, flexible, reinforced in every critical joint.
He pulled on a fresh set. It clung to him like a perfectly tailored second skin.
"Better. If I'm playing monster, I should look the part."
Bones waited in neat stacks—raw material for later.
He slipped them into Inventory and stepped out of his alcove.
He tested Rabbit's instinct first.
Mana flowed.
Air solidified.
He stepped up—and walked into empty space.
Invisible footholds formed under each step as easily as breathing.
Air Walk.
A skill that wasn't a skill.
Just instinct embedded into his core.
He dropped lightly to the stone floor, then raised a hand.
Red lightning crackled to life, crawling along his fingers like living veins.
He flicked. The bolt arced cleanly across the ground and dissipated.
Precise. Controlled.
He stomped, channeling Behemoth instinct.
A stone carved under his foot, creating an indent on the ground.
Throws transmutation the earth obeyed as though wired into his reflexes.
A fast-moving, regenerating, air-walking, lightning-throwing, weight increasing, earth-bending alchemist with a devouring Soul Core.
Not bad—for someone once labeled average.
Still… claws and teeth alone weren't enough.
He wanted something else.
A weapon.
One-handed.
Reliable.
Firepower on demand.
A gun.
The concept rose instinctively—part memory, part Multiversal Awareness whispering that projectile weapons were a universal solution: pressure + combustion + barrel = lethal simplicity.
He closed his eyes and reached outward with Resonance.
The cavern sang back.
Taur stone—dense, heat-resistant.
Blastrock—unstable, volatile.
Glowstone—mana-conductive.
Perfect.
It took an hour to gather enough.
Back in his room, he laid them out neatly.
He rested his fingers on a block of taur and pictured the shape:
A revolver.
Simple. Brutal. Honest.
"Transmute."
The stone folded, softened, reshaped to his will.
When he opened his eyes, a heavy, matte-black revolver rested across his palms—thirty-five centimeters long, six thick chambers, mana channels carved along the frame.
He molded taur slugs, filled them with powdered blastrock, sealed them, and loaded the cylinder.
He approached the cavern edge, aimed at a distant boulder, and gathered lightning along the rails.
He squeezed the trigger.
Thunder cracked.
The bullet struck the boulder—
—and carved a fist-sized tunnel straight through it.
Stone exploded outward.
Hajime lowered the gun slowly.
"Anti-tank revolver," he said. "Sure. Why not."
Back inside, he fitted a holster—a behemoth-leather thigh rig reinforced with stone pins.
Then he sat at the Ambrosia basin, letting silence fill the cavern.
He'd come here planning only to survive long enough to climb back up.
Now?
He traced the basin's rim thoughtfully.
"No," he said. "Up can wait."
This labyrinth wasn't just a dungeon.
It was a system—layered, logical, built like a massive ancient machine.
He'd glimpsed one Divinity Stone already. There maybe more And at the bottom, there was something bigger.
Something important.
"Ultimate objective," he murmured. "Reach the bottom. Steal the secret. Leave on my own terms."
As for the others—
Kouki's hero complex.
The nobles' politics.
The classmates who laughed.
Hiyama.
He felt nothing.
Just detachment.
Abstraction.
Only two faces stayed clear:
Kaori—kind, sincere, gripping her pendant above.
Shizuku—steady, perceptive, always watching.
His friends.
Everyone else?
Background noise. Or future obstacles.
He laid a hand over Kaori's pendant beneath his shirt. The crystal was warm—pulsing faintly in time with his new heart.
She knew he was alive. They knew he was alive.
That was enough.
He stood, fastened his holster, adjusted his armor, and stepped out of the alcove.
Straight into the open air.
Invisible footholds formed beneath his boots as he walked over the abyss. Red lightning hummed along the gun at his side.
Somewhere far above, priests, gods, and one jealous classmate still believed he was long dead.
Good.
He took another silent step into the dark and smiled without warmth.
"God… Hiyama…" he murmured. "You all still think I'm dead."
His eyes hardened.
"Good. Bugs do their best work when the system stops watching."
---
"Status."
Name: Hajime Nagumo
Age: 17
Race: Human (Modified)
Job: Alchemist (Synergist Evolution)
Level: 10
Strength: 320
Vitality: 420
Defense: 360
Agility: 410
Magic: 650
Magic Defense: 580
Skills:
Transmute EX, Trap-Construction, Item Creation, Language Comprehension, Swordsmanship. (Basic), Mana Manipulation, Air Dance[ Air step / Aerodynamics / Supersonic Step], Lightning Manipulation[ lightening clad], Density manipulation (Behemoth)
Soul / System Skills
● Infinite Resonance (Adept)
● Soul Devour → Predator.
● Inventory
●Soul Core
● Mana Reactor
● Regeneration (High-Speed)
● Poison Nullification (Ambrosia-Blood)
● Enhanced Physical Abilities
● True magic affinity (High)
Titles
● Survivor of the Abyss
● Adept of Infinite Resonance
● Predator
● Transmutation Extremist
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Author: "Guys, donate some stones!"
Reader: "Bro, this is a recession — I'm hoarding digital rocks like Dogecoin."
Author: emotionally bankrupt, spiritually crypto-rich 📈
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