Dumbfounded, Sam stared blankly at the splintered wooden arm dangling from the edge of his study table.
"What am I supposed to do about this?" he muttered under his breath.
Replacing the furniture was completely out of the question; his wallet was already weeping from his training expenses, and he simply couldn't afford to throw away U.C. on a new desk.
"I guess I'll just have to bolt it back together with an iron sheet and some heavy nails," he sighed, shaking his head. "Anyway, what's done is done. Panicking over property damage won't help me right now. I have much bigger things to focus on."
Pushing the mundane troubles aside, his mind shifted back to the miraculous event that had just occurred. He pulled up his holographic interface once more, demanding to see the hard data to prove he wasn't dreaming.
[Strength: 3]
[Agility: 4]
[Physique: 7]
[Spirit: 10]
[Endurance: 8/8 (Physique + 10% Spirit)]
[Rune Energy: 10/10 (Spirit)]
[Rune Abilities: None]
[Special Abilities: Merge (Merge Points: 1000)]
Every physical stat had increased by a noticeable margin, but his Physique attribute had spiked significantly, dragging his Endurance up to a robust 8.
He was genuinely shocked. From his inherited academic knowledge, he knew for a fact that the absolute mortal attribute limit for an F-Rank human was 10.
The moment a single attribute surpassed that threshold, a warrior officially stepped into the E-Rank realm. However, in this world, raw stats weren't the only metric that defined a warrior's rank—possessing a proper runic ability was equally vital.
'Since I'm still technically at F-Rank, it means my body is primed to absorb its first runic ability,' Sam pondered, his mind racing. 'And since I'm trying to be a successful rune producer, my first ability absolutely has to be a Fire-type.'
He frowned, staring at the glowing numbers. 'But my Spirit stat is already capped at 10. Isn't leveling up too fast dangerous?'
"Wait!"
Sam jolted upright, a sudden realization dawning on him. He fiercely facepalmed himself.
'Is my memory really this fragmented?'
Previously, his shock had been laced with a lingering fear because stats weren't supposed to increase this rapidly without severe consequences.
In this world, a solid physical foundation was paramount. It was widely taught that early-stage attributes should always be increased through grueling physical training and life-or-death battles.
Relying heavily on artificial rune potions to forcibly level up came with a steep cost: the residual toxic waste from the elixirs would accumulate deep within the body's tissues, eventually crippling a warrior's future progress.
"Phew. I was overly worried for nothing," Sam breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
His attributes hadn't increased from chugging toxic potions; they had been purified and elevated by the miraculous boiling river generated by his Merge ability. There were no impurities. His foundation was flawlessly pure.
His wandering mind finally reached a solid conclusion. 'So, the boiling river phenomenon consumed exactly 500 Merge Points to perfectly forge my physical foundation. But... why does my system still feel like it's urging me to use the rest?'
He glanced down at his right hand.
In an instant, his pupils dilated in shock.
'What in the world is this?'
A circular tattoo, shaped exactly like a flickering flame, had magically burned itself into the skin on the back of his hand.
"Is this the physical manifestation of the Merge ability?" Sam asked the empty room. It was the only logical explanation. The mark had appeared on the exact spot he had rubbed to trigger the healing river moments ago.
'There's only one way to find out what it does.'
Driven by an intoxicating mix of curiosity and the subliminal urging in his mind, Sam gently rubbed his thumb over the flickering flame tattoo and closed his eyes.
His reality warped.
"Why am I here?" he murmured.
He was surprised for only a fraction of a second before his mind quickly adjusted; he was already growing numb to the constant shocks of the Merge ability.
He wasn't in the boiling river. He was standing in the dark, boundless expanse of the Merge space, hovering directly in front of the giant, floating slots he normally used to refine Spiritual Fire Ganoderma.
'Maybe the system will give me an answer in a moment...'
As he stood deep in thought, his eyes were drawn to a sudden, violent phenomenon unfolding before him. A blinding beam of light erupted from the three outer slots, converging violently into the center slot.
'Laser light!' His azure eyes twinkled like a row of brilliant stars.
'This is exactly why people are so obsessed with fantasy novels—you get to witness the impossible with your own eyes!'
The concept would have seemed utterly absurd to him in his previous life, but right now, he was entirely captivated by the converging beams. He stared with fierce, unblinking eyes, unwilling to miss a single detail.
'So, if I keep upgrading, I could eventually get an ability like this! Maybe I can even create a literal game combat panel for myself.'
Just having the thought gave him goosebumps. Every hair on his arms stood on end, and his body fidgeted with overwhelming excitement.
"What the—!"
Suddenly, the concentrated mass of light in the center slot whipped around and shot directly at him.
His survival instincts screamed at him to evade, but his body refused to obey. He couldn't even twitch a finger.
Time itself seemed to freeze around him in a terrifying stasis. The very fabric of the dark space crackled and groaned, seemingly unable to support the sheer, apocalyptic ferocity of the incoming projectile.
His dilated pupils watched helplessly as the distance between him and the beam rapidly narrowed.
'Is this a system bug? A malfunction?!' The desperate thought surfaced, only to be dismissed immediately. This cosmic ability was far beyond human comprehension; trivial programming bugs simply didn't exist here. There was only one horrifying explanation.
'This beam... it carries an attribute meant to permanently alter my properties!'
As his thoughts raced at lightspeed, the projectile was now less than an arm's length away. He could tell with absolute certainty that if it didn't deviate from its trajectory, it was going to hit him dead in the center of his forehead.
Due to the blinding intensity of the glare, his vision began to blur, but he stubbornly squinted, forcing himself to look at his impending doom. That was when a chilling realization washed over him. He had misunderstood everything.
It wasn't a beam of light.
It was a mass of pure, concentrated fire.
And it was blue. Incandescent, terrifyingly pure blue.
As the distance narrowed to just three inches, he finally understood the horrific crackling sound echoing in his ears.
The tip of the blue flame was actively extinguishing everything in its path. It was breaking down the very atomic structure of the dark void, reducing microscopic particles to absolute nothingness. The sound was the friction of reality and space being violently torn apart.
'Am I going to be burned to ashes?'
It was his final, terrifying thought. His fragile body, which had only just been tempered to survive the boiling river, was now frozen in space, completely helpless against the incoming inferno.
As the beam of blue fire struck his forehead, it didn't incinerate his skin. Instead, it sank directly into his skull, vanishing completely upon contact.
Bang!
A catastrophic, volcanic explosion of sheer agony erupted deep inside his mind. An endless, blood-curdling scream tore its way out of Sam's throat, violently shaking the dark space around him as his consciousness was blown entirely apart.