The city of Seoul at night was a sea of neon lights and humming engines. In 2026, it was beautiful. To anyone else, the glowing signs for fried chicken and 24-hour internet cafes were just part of the background. To me, they were a ticking clock. I knew that in five days, these lights would flicker and die, replaced by the orange glow of fires that would burn for months.
I stood across the street from the Dong-il Construction Site. It was a massive skeletal structure of steel beams and half-poured concrete. A high chain-link fence surrounded the perimeter, topped with coils of rusted barbed wire.
In my old life, I remembered hearing a story about this place. A night watchman had gone missing on April 12th. When the police investigated, they found nothing but a "silver hole" in the basement that vanished an hour later. That watchman had accidentally stumbled into a Silver Rift—a rare, high-density energy pocket that only appears for a few minutes before the world officially breaks.
Inside those rifts aren't monsters, but "Remnants." They are pieces of the old world's magic that got crystallized.
I checked my phone. 11:30 PM.
"Thirty minutes," I whispered.
My body felt tight. The "Heart of the Forest" I had eaten earlier was still working through my system, knitting my muscles together. I could feel a strange, cold pressure behind my eyes. It was the Cold Blood skill. It made my thoughts feel like they were carved out of ice. I wasn't nervous. I was just calculating.
I didn't climb the front gate. That's what an amateur would do. Instead, I walked two blocks around to the back alley where the delivery trucks came in. I found a spot where the dirt had washed away under the fence.
I dropped to my stomach. The dirt was cold and smelled like wet cement. In my old life, I had spent thousands of hours crawling through tighter spaces than this. I wiggled through the gap, the jagged edge of the fence catching on my torn school blazer. I didn't care. The blazer was a relic of a dead world anyway.
Once I was inside, I stayed in the shadows of a large yellow crane.
[ DETECTING DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY ] [ DISTANCE: 150 METERS ] [ WARNING: HIGH MANA DENSITY DETECTED ]
The Relic in my chest began to thrum. It wasn't a warm hum like before; it was sharp and jagged, like a needle poking my heart. The silver lines on my skin began to glow faintly, visible through my white shirt. I pressed my hand against my chest to muffle the light.
I moved through the construction site like a ghost. I didn't use a flashlight. My eyes, enhanced by the Level 1 jump, could see perfectly well in the dark. I climbed down the unfinished concrete stairs into the basement.
The air down here was freezing. My breath came out in small white clouds.
At the very back of the basement, behind a stack of steel rebar, the air was vibrating. It looked like a silver flame was burning in the middle of the room. It didn't cast any heat, but it made the concrete floor crack and moan.
The Silver Rift.
It was small—no bigger than a basketball—but the energy coming off it was suffocating. If a normal person touched this, their heart would stop instantly. But I wasn't a normal person anymore. I had the Relic.
"Come on," I muttered, reaching into the silver flame.
My hand felt like it was being dipped into liquid nitrogen. The pain was sharp, but the Cold Blood skill kept me from pulling away. I gritted my teeth, reaching deeper into the center of the rift. My fingers brushed against something hard and cold.
I gripped it and pulled.
With a loud pop, the silver flame vanished, leaving the basement in total darkness. In my hand, I held a heavy, metallic sphere. It was the size of a baseball, made of a strange, dull silver metal that felt heavier than lead.
The Iron Core.
[ ARTIFACT ACQUIRED: ANCIENT IRON CORE (RANK E) ] [ SYNCING WITH RELIC... ] [ SYNC RATE: 5.2% -> 11.5% ]
A massive surge of power shot from the core and into my arm. It felt like a bolt of lightning had traveled up my sleeve and slammed into the Relic. I fell to my knees, gasping as the silver lines on my body turned into thick, glowing ropes of light.
My vision blurred. I could hear the sound of my own heartbeat, but it sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
My skin grew pale, almost metallic in the dark. The "Iron Core" was being absorbed, turning my bones into something as strong as the steel beams above me. This wasn't just a boost to my strength; it was a boost to my Durability. In five days, when the monsters started biting, their teeth would break on my skin.
I stayed on the floor for a long time, letting the energy settle.
When I finally stood up, I felt a foot taller, even though I hadn't grown an inch. I felt solid. I felt permanent.
I looked at the "Time Left" on my screen.
108 HOURS.
I had the body reinforcement. I had the Iron Core. I had successfully bullied the man who would have been my greatest enemy. But I was still missing the most important thing for a scavenger.
I needed a weapon that wouldn't break. And for that, I had to leave Seoul.
I walked out of the construction site, jumping over the seven-foot fence in a single, effortless leap. I landed silently on the sidewalk.
I had four days left. Tomorrow, the "First Warning" would happen. The sky wouldn't turn purple yet, but the birds would stop singing, and the animals would start to go crazy. People would think it was just a weird weather pattern.
I knew better. I was going to the mountains.