Global Descent: I Alone Can See Hidden Evolution Paths

Chapter 1

The stone floor of the dungeon was slick with dark fluid, and Jun-ho’s left knee was completely shattered. He could barely hold his head up. His iron vanguard shield lay five meters away, cracked down the middle and useless.

"Min-ah..." he wheezed, his fingers clawing at the dirt as he dragged his body toward the chamber exit. "Min-ah, help me up. My stamina potion is... it’s empty."

Min-ah stood near the heavy iron doors of the boss room. She wasn’t looking at the massive, five-headed hound that was currently tearing through the rest of their front-line recruits. She was staring at a glowing, fist-sized crystal that had dropped from a minor monster—a Tier 3 Core. It was worth more than Jun-ho could earn in five years of manual labor.

Beside her, Sang-woo, the high-ranked Mage of their party, was already backing out into the safe corridor.

"Min-ah, let’s go!" Sang-woo shouted, his voice echoing off the high stone walls. "The boss is mutating! If we don’t seal the doors now, the whole floor will collapse on us!"

Jun-ho managed to look up, his vision blurring from blood loss. He reached a trembling hand toward the girl he had loved for seven years. He had worked double shifts at the distribution center, skipped meals, and taken every brutal physical hit in the Tower just so she could afford the mana crystals for her university degree.

"Min-ah, please," he whispered.

Min-ah finally looked down at him. There were no tears in her eyes. There was no panic. There was only a cold, calculating look of survival. She picked up the Tier 3 Core and tucked it into her leather pouch.

"I’m sorry, Jun-ho," she said, her voice completely flat, devoid of any warmth. "But Sang-woo’s family offered me a spot in the Sun God Guild. If I try to drag you out of here, the hound will catch us both. I can’t let a trash-tier Vanguard ruin my future."

"What...?" Jun-ho’s heart felt like it had been pierced by ice. "Seven years... I gave you everything."

"And I’m grateful," she said, stepping backward through the doorway. "But gratitude doesn’t keep me alive in the Tower."

Sang-woo grabbed the edge of the heavy iron door, giving Jun-ho a smug, pitying smirk. "Thanks for buying us time, man. Your sacrifice won’t be forgotten."

The doors slammed shut. The sound of the iron deadbolts clicking into place echoed like a death sentence.

Jun-ho was trapped inside the pitch-black boss room. Behind him, the low, rumbling growl of the five-headed hound grew closer. The air filled with the stench of rot and sulfur.

Jun-ho rolled onto his back, his broken knee screaming in pain. He didn’t even try to reach for his weapon. The physical pain was nothing compared to the burning, suffocating rage tearing through his chest. He had been a fool. A disposable shield.

As the shadow of the monster fell over his face, Jun-ho closed his eyes tightly.

’if there is a God, or a Tower monster, or anything listening...’ he thought, his teeth grinding together until they bled. ’Give me a second chance. Just one. I won’t live for anyone else. I will tear them down myself.’

A sudden, sharp pain pierced his neck as the monster’s jaws closed around him, and everything went entirely black.

Jun-ho sat bolt upright with a violent gasp, air rushing into his lungs so fast it made him cough.

He instantly threw his hands up to his throat, his chest heaving as he looked for blood. Nothing. His fingers touched dry, smooth skin. He looked down at his legs. His left knee wasn’t shattered; it was perfectly straight under a faded, gray blanket.

He wasn’t in the cold, dark dungeon. He was sitting on the edge of a small mattress in his tiny, semi-basement apartment in Seoul. The smell of cheap instant noodles and damp wallpaper replaced the stench of monster blood. Outside the small, barred window near the ceiling, the sound of morning traffic and distant sirens drifted in.

He picked up his phone from the linoleum floor.

Friday. 08:00 AM.

Jun-ho stared at the digital numbers until they burned into his eyes. Sunday was the day of the raid. Sunday was the day Min-ah and Sang-woo were going to lock him in that room to die. He had gone back exactly two days before the betrayal.

Suddenly, a low, mechanical click echoed inside his mind. It wasn’t a cheerful video game announcement or a floating blue screen. It was just a thin line of gray text that etched itself across the very bottom of his vision.

[System activating integrating with Host soul ....10%..30%...60%...90%..100%..]

[Multiplier System integrated with the host’s soul.]

[Current State: Tier 1]

[Passive Effect: Every attribute point, item reward, or resource gained will be calculated at a 100x value.]

Jun-ho sat entirely still in the quiet room. The phantom feeling of the monster tearing his throat open was still lingering, making his hands shake. He looked at the gray text, then down at his phone.

Jun-ho sat on the edge of his thin mattress for ten minutes, waiting for the gray text in his vision to disappear. It didn’t. It hovered there, quiet and steady, moving whenever he turned his head.

[Multiplier System integrated with the host’s soul.]

[Passive Effect: Every attribute point, item reward, or resource gained will be calculated at a 100x value.]

His phone buzzed against the linoleum floor, cutting through the silence.

’– Jun-hoya, did you get my message? Don’t forget to stop by the blacksmith shop in the central district today to polish your shield. Sang-woo says the Tier 3 dungeon has heavy physical attackers. We need you to hold the line properly.’

Jun-ho looked at the message, then let out a dry, breathy laugh. She was already setting him up. In his past life, he had spent his last 50,000 Won on a premium shield polish that increased his physical defense by a pathetic 2 points for twelve hours. He had starved for three days just so she wouldn’t take a scratch.

He deleted the message without replying.

He stood up, his legs feeling strange—too light, too functional compared to the shattered bone he remembered from ten minutes ago. He needed to know if this system was real or if he was just losing his mind from the trauma.

He walked over to his cramped kitchen counter. Next to a stack of unwashed bowls sat a small, transparent plastic bottle. It was a low-grade Minor Stamina Supplement. He had bought it at a local convenience store the night before for 5,000 Won. For a regular person, it gave a temporary +1 to physical endurance for an hour. To high-ranked Hunters, it was garbage. To Jun-ho, it was all he could afford.

He twisted the cap off. The liquid inside smelled faintly of artificial cherries and medicine.

"Let’s see," Jun-ho muttered.

He tilted his head back and drank the bitter liquid in one gulp.

The moment the fluid hit his stomach, nothing happened for three seconds. Then, a sudden, blinding heat exploded from the center of his chest. It didn’t feel like a pleasant game power-up; it felt like he had swallowed a shot of boiling engine oil.

Jun-ho gasped, gripping the edge of the sink as his veins turned hot and tight.

The text at the bottom of his vision flickered violently before changing.

[Consumable Detected: Minor Stamina Supplement.]

[Standard Benefit: +1 Endurance for 60 minutes.]

[Applying 100x Multiplier...]

[Gained: +100 Endurance for 60 minutes.]

The heat subsided, replaced by a sudden, terrifying surge of absolute energy.

Jun-ho slowly looked down at his hands. The slight tremor from his hangover and panic was completely gone. His breathing was so deep and steady he couldn’t even feel his chest moving. When he gripped the edge of the cheap, stainless-steel kitchen sink, the metal groaned.

He didn’t mean to squeeze hard. He just squeezed. The thin steel crumpled under his fingers like a piece of tin foil.

He pulled his hand back, staring at the deep, crushed finger indentations he had just left in the metal. A standard Tier 1 Vanguard had an Endurance stat of around 15. With an extra 100 points pumped into his body, his physical density was currently higher than a Tier 4 heavy knight.

"One hundred times..." he whispered, his voice trembling slightly.

If a cheap 5,000 Won convenience store drink could do this, what would happen if he killed a monster? What would happen if he cleared a trial?

His phone buzzed again. This time it wasn’t a text. It was a voice call from Min-ah.

Jun-ho looked at her name flashing on the screen. The urge to answer and scream at her, to tell her he knew exactly what she was planning on Sunday, flared up in his chest. But he forced it down. If he showed his hand now, Sang-woo’s wealthy family guild would simply hire higher-ranked Hunters to crush him before Sunday even arrived. He was strong for an hour, but he was still just a guy in a semi-basement apartment.

He let the phone ring out until it went to voicemail.

He had forty-eight hours. The supplement effect would wear off in fifty-nine minutes. He couldn’t waste a single second of this strength. He needed to get to a public training ground, break his current limits permanently, and find a weapon that wouldn’t shatter the moment he tried to use it.

He grabbed his worn-out leather jacket, threw his cracked iron shield over his shoulder, and walked out into the Friday morning sun.

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