By the time the next staircase leveled out beneath his feet, Hajime had started counting floors.
Numbers no longer mattered.
Names no longer mattered.
Only data did.
Poison distributions. Movement signatures. Mana currents. Trap logic. Skill-acquisition thresholds. Everything slid into place inside his mind with the precision of gears aligning in a machine. Emotion had been supressed long ago; what remained was quiet, deliberate, and brutally efficient.
The corridor ahead was dim—barely lit by the faint glowstones embedded deep in the rock. To most people, it would have been a formless tunnel. To Hajime, it was perfectly comfortable. Night Vision peeling away the darkness, layering subtle colors and shadows until every crack and strand of moisture was rendered in sharp clarity.
His boots tapped lightly against stone. No hesitation touched his steps. The boy who used to lingered behind as support to everyone else— burdened with the support of the group —had been carved away somewhere far above, left behind with the version of himself who still believed the world was kind.
The dungeons creatures still wanted him dead.
They simply hadn't realized yet that the roles had reversed.
---
The basilisk had been the first true reminder.
A miserable lizard-like creature—dull grey scales, barely two meters long—more pitiful than imposing. He would have dismissed it instantly… had it not looked at him.
That beam from its gaze struck like inevitability.
Fingers stiffened. Wrist, forearm, shoulder—stone spread in a merciless crawl, climbing into his chest. His ribs ached as petrification invaded them.
For any normal human, that would have been the end.
But Hajime no longer possessed a normal heart.
Mana surged. Ambrosia-laced blood raced like molten gold through his veins, splintering the petrification from within. Pain raked him as the stone flakes fell of his body and raw new flesh reclaimed its rightful place with all the subtlety of a landslide.
The basilisk died angry—flash grenade blinding it, rail round tearing its skull apart in the same instant. Predator had devoured its lingering essence without ceremony.
Petrification Resistance.
Night Vision.
Not glamorous skills. Not some mythical "Basilisk's Evil Gaze." Just simple, practical adjustments to survival.
More than enough, and now he can see everything clearly instead of just some outlines in the dark.
---
After that, the darkness itself felt different. Not an abyss—just a room with poor lighting.
Then came the frog.
The moment he entered that floor, the air clung to his skin like damp cloth. A thin green haze drifted along the ground. Even with a makeshift filter mask, the scent pierced through—sweet, sharp, unnervingly enticing.
The creature in the center was hardly a frog at all. Slick, shimmering skin in swirling colors. A throat sac pulsing slowly, rhythmically. Eyes unfocused yet disturbingly aware.
Its first attack wasn't a warning.
The venom spit streaked across the air in a warped arc, burning through the haze and catching his cheek and forearm in the same breath.
While he could have dodged he wanted to test the limit of his new body's endurance.
Pain detonated through his nerves—white-hot, slicing thought apart. Muscles spasmed violently, vision short-circuited.
Yet again, his heart answered with violence.
The reactor hammered. Ambrosia-blood surged, forcefully unraveling and adapting to the poison. His body trembled uncontrollably as regeneration fought the toxin head-on.
The frog had been given one chance.
It had taken it.
There would not be a second.
Donner and Schlag hummed with red-lightning as he opened fire. Rail-charged rounds tore through mist and monster alike, exploding poison clouds into harmless fragments. By the time the creature collapsed, Predator had already claimed what remained.
Poison synthesis.
His body now refused to treat venom as a fatal condition.
---
The moth floor almost fooled him.
A vast cavern. A faintly glowing ceiling too high to see. Air shimmering with floating motes that drifted like gentle dust.
Except the motes weren't dust.
Night Vision revealed it: shimmering scale-dust, thickening in response to heat and motion, clinging invisibly to skin.
He realized what it was when his lungs refused to move.
His chest locked, breath halted. Limbs froze mid-stride. Paralysis strangled his body from within. Above him, a moth descended lazily, wings beating soft spreading death into the air.
His heart refused to accept the outcome.
Paralysis cracked beneath the fury of regeneration. Breath returned in painful bursts. Muscles reawakened with spasms, then with strength. He shot the moth out of the sky with a rail burst, then bisected it using Gale Claw as it fell.
Paralysis Resistance.
Farsight.
The world stretched. Distant movements, faint mana traces, tremors of unseen creatures—everything sharpened into focus.
---
Then came the tar-floor.
A corridor flooded wall to wall with shifting black sludge. Each step tried to claim his boots. The cold seeped through armor, numbing the flesh beneath.
Resonance extended outward. There is something here.
He tried to sence It with magic.
Nothing.
Not monsters . Simply the thick, oppressive presence of the tar.
He didn't trust it.
His instincts were rewarded when a silent shadow erupted behind him—shark-shaped, tar-skinned, teeth glistening with viscous black slime. Hajime dodged an instant before the jaws snapped shut on where his body had been.
Gale claw struck it—they sank in, distorted the beast's body… then slid out as the tar expelled them.
So he adapted.
Gale Claw wrapped around Donner, turning it into a hybrid blade-gun. Each swing carved deeper into the tar-shark. Transmute reshaped the sludge at its base, trapping, slowing, constricting until its movement faltered.
When the creature finally collapsed, the entire corridor trembled.
Predator fed.
Hide Presence bloomed.
His mana could now blur, merge with ambient background noise—turning him from prey into quiet hunter.
Plus his inventory now had 50 barrels of tar in case he ever wanted to burn the palace down.
---
Spell-node mimics had attacked differently—not body, but mind.
Predator swallowed one, and agony exploded behind his eyes. Strange logic, foreign mana sequences, alien architecture tore at his thoughts like someone trying to refold his mind into a new pattern.
When the storm faded, a new sense whispered into existence.
Telepathy.
Telekinesis.
Detect Magic.
He could now feel mana not merely existing—but acting.
And his mind could control objects directly without him touching them.
---
Centipede hordes honed his mobility.
Treant fruits provided unexpected nourishment.
His legs caught up with his arms.
Air Dance merged with Aerodynamic.
Supersonic Step taught him to manipulate impact angles.
Behemoth logic of weight control refined it further.
Steel Legs answered.
When he kicked now, physics adjusted in deference.
---
And so he stood within his temporary base—a clean chamber he had carved and secured—and summoned his status.
The translucent plate shimmered into view.
«Name: Hajime Nagumo
Race: Human (Heavily Modified)
Job: Alchemist (Synergist Evolution)
Level: 40
Strength: 1320
Vitality: 1980
Defense: 1080
Agility: 1620
Magic: 2210
Magic Defense: 2140
Skills:
Transmute EX – [Ore Appraisal] [Precision Transmutation] [Ore Perception] [Ore Desynthesis] [Ore Synthesis] [Duplicate Transmutation] [High-Speed Alchemy] [Weapon Creation] [Trap Construction] [Potion Synthesis] [Poison Synthesis]...
Language Comprehension
Swordsmanship (Basic)
Air Dance – [Aerodynamic] [Supersonic Step] [Steel Legs]
Gale Claw.
Lightning Manipulation – [Lightning Clad]
Detect Magic.
Presence manipulation – [Sense Presence] [Hide Presence].
Night Vision.
Farsight.
Abnormal Resistance – [Poison Resistance] [Paralysis Resistance] [Petrification Resistance] [Mental Resistance] [Fear Resistance]...
Infinite Resonance (Partial-Awakened)
Predator – [Stomach]
Mana Reactor Soul Core – [High-Speed Regeneration] [Adaptation]
Inventory.
Titles
Survivor of the Abyss
Adept of Infinite Resonance
Predator-Bearer
Transmutation Expert »
Level 40.
Four-digit stats.
Organized skill clusters, each marked with evolutions.
Hajime clicked his tongue.
"A bugged build," he muttered. "please don't Nerf."
Anyone from his old world would have called him absurdly overpowered.
Down here, he had to say "adequate."
He dismissed the display.
Infinite Resonance rose within him like a tide. He exhaled—and his mana spread across the floor and walls as invisible sound waves.
The dungeon unfolded in return:
Mapped corridors.
Cleared chambers—some remodeled.
Monster nests pulsing in steady cycles.
Traps dismantled or repurposed.
Predictable.
Except one branch.
A cluster of ordered presences pulsed like a machine. Beneath them, deep and faint, a rhythmic beat—the caged presence that had tugged at his Soul Core earlier.
His own core throbbed once in answer.
He rolled his shoulders. Armor flexed easily. Donner and Schlag rested against his thighs, warm and familiar. Tools and spare cylinders sat perfectly aligned.
He drew Donner and pressed the cold barrel against his forehead.
The reactor pulsed.
"I'll survive," he whispered. "I'll make it home. Even if a god stands in the way."
No bravado.
No sermon.
Just a simple, unshakable intent.
He spun the cylinder, holstered the gun, and left the room.
---
The corridor leading to the strange branch felt different—narrower, cleaner. Mana flowed evenly. Maintenance arrays whispered beneath centuries of dust.
No bones.
No bloodstains.
Nothing to show anything had died here—or been allowed to remain dead.
His footsteps echoed crisply.
The passage opened into a rectangular chamber. Balanced proportions. Clean walls. A sense of deliberate design rather than natural formation.
And at its far end:
The doors.
Twin slabs of stone, three meters tall. Covered in intricate glyphs—flowing like ancient circuitry, overlapping in complex patterns. At chest height, compact magic circles gleamed faintly.
And flanking them—
Two cyclops statues.
Reinforced mana ran inside their body's, their body—pale, veined, etched with alchemical seams—marked them unmistakably as living constructs.
Hajime halted before entering the semicircle.
Nothing moved.
Sense Presence confirmed it: two dormant giants, a layered door ward, and the caged signature beyond.
He stepped closer. Towards the door they were garding.
The glyphwork pulsed faintly beneath his fingers—strange, foreign, archaic.
"Well," he murmured. "Let's see how hostile you are."
He set his hand against the nearest circle.
Pain erupted instantly.
Scarlet lightning shot up his arm, ripping through nerves, searing flesh. Reflex tore his hand back. Blackened skin smoked, the scent of charred flesh rising in an acrid wave.
"Tch—"
He uncorked an Ambrosia vial, one of the few he collected from what was left and downed it to bost his own production.
Cooling feeling swept through him. Burned tissue sloughed off. New skin knit together. Nerves reconnected. Within seconds, the pain faded entirely.
He flexed his fingers.
"Rude."
The chamber responded.
Low. Grinding.
"UOOOOOOH!"
A roar thundered through stone.
The cords binding the golems bulged. Mana surged. Flesh flushed sickly green as life reanimated dormant shells. Single gemstone eyes flared crimson.
The giants tore free from the wall, ripping stone with them. Dust exploded. Each step cracked the floor.
Greatswords unfolded from their backs—grotesque hybrids of bone, stone, and hardened muscle.
"Yes," Hajime exhaled. "A boss room."
He drew Donner in one smooth arc.
Lightning crackled.
He aimed at the first golem's eye.
Fired.
The bullet pierced the gemstone dead center. It shattered in a burst of red light. The giant staggered—and collapsed like a falling tower.
The impact shook the entire chamber.
The second golem turned its burning eye toward him.
"Sorry," Hajime said. "You don't get a warm-up."
It charged.
The world shook with its steps.
The greatsword swung—a cleaving arc backed by gravity arrays that spiked weight downward, trying to glue him to the floor.
Hajime refused.
Air Dance formed invisible footholds.
Supersonic Step twisted vectors.
He shot sideways, coat whipping in the pressure wave trailing the blade.
He slid along the ground—Transmute smoothing the stone beneath his boots. As he passed under the giant's reach, he slammed his palm onto the floor.
"Rise."
A jagged ridge of stone shot upward, smashing into the golem's ankle. It stumbled.
Hajime moved.
Gale Claw twisted around his right leg—wind spiraling fiercely.
Steel Legs activated—rewriting force and angle.
He leaped. Spun.
And kicked.
His heel slammed into the giant's knee. The joint buckled inward with an ugly crunch. Flesh tore. Seams burst. The cyclops howled, collapsing as its sword bit deep into the floor.
Hajime rolled beneath its body, sliding to its exposed flank.
His palm pressed to the stone.
"Predator. Cores only."
The command was pure intent.
Predator surged—targeting the giant's internal reactor, bypassing unnecessary mass. Devouring.
The golem froze.
Its eye dimmed.
Cables snapped.
And the giant fell, lifeless.
The impact rattled dust from the ceiling.
Hajime remained kneeling a moment longer, catching his breath as energy settled uncomfortably in his core.
Two strong foreign cores in such a short time. His body protested.
"It'll adjust…" he muttered. Then, louder— "Next time, one at a time."
He stood. Rolled the ache from his shoulders.
The cyclops faded into silence.
The doors, freed from their guardians, began to hum faintly—recognizing something in the lingering echo of their cores within Predator.
Hajime laid his fingers against the carved circle again. This time, he didn't force raw mana through it.
He breathed.
Resonance flowed gently—probing, listening, unfolding the structure of the spell.
They didn't respond to touch.
They responded to identity—the mana frequencies of the two guardian cores.
He had both.
"Alright," he whispered. "Sing for me."
Predator replayed the mana signatures—two distinct pulses intertwined. Hajime guided them with his own mana, smoothing interference.
The circle lit.
Glyphs across the doors flared in sequence. Ancient mechanisms rumbled awake.
Locks disengaged.
"Good," Hajime murmured. "You still remember how to open."
Stone scraped as the doors parted, inch by inch.
Cold air surged outward—carrying the weight of centuries.
Beyond them waited a vast circular chamber, dim and utterly still.
Hajime stepped forward.
The doors continued to open.
And the floor revealed its next secret.
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Author: "Yo, slide me dem stones fr 💯."
Reader: "Ain't no way bro's trying to rizz stones outta readers." 💀
Author: skibidi cries with goofy ahh posture 😭
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