The Man Who Looked at Mana and Said "No."

Seo Jun lowered his voice until it was little more than a breath swallowed by the silence.

"Status Window."

The darkness answered.

A ripple of pale azure spread through the room like moonlight flowing across still water. Countless particles of light gathered before him, weaving themselves into a translucent screen that floated in the air with quiet dignity.

Its glow painted his face in shades of blue.

Within those unwavering eyes, rows of immaculate characters reflected with crystalline clarity.

This was no ordinary interface.

It was the proof of his rebirth.

The foundation upon which his future would be built.

The first page of a legend that had yet to be written.

✦ ✦ ✦

[Status Window]

Name: Lee Seo Jun

Age: 20

Level: 10

Class: None

Strength: 17

Agility: 18

Stamina: 20

Perception: 18

Mana: 14

Dexterity: 2

Monarch: 1

Primal Genesis Aether: 0 (Locked)

Unallocated Stat Points: 72

Innate Characteristic: Indomitable Will (Transcendent) Lv.2

Exclusive Skill: Archive of the Fallen Epoch (Unmeasurable) Lv.2

Exclusive Skill: Mana Sovereignty (Unmeasurable) Lv.2

✦ ✦ ✦

Seo Jun remained silent.

His gaze lingered upon a single number.

72.

For a fleeting moment, even he found it difficult to believe.

Seventy two unallocated stat points.

Even after seeing it with his own eyes, the number carried an almost surreal weight.

For an ordinary Awakener, every level usually rewarded only five precious stat points.

Five points that determined whether one would rise through the ranks or remain forever mediocre.

Seo Jun was different.

Thanks to his hidden achievements and unprecedented rewards, every level granted him eight stat points instead.

A fortune so excessive that even veteran hunters would question its authenticity.

He had not received it through luck.

Nor had fate taken pity on him.

He had claimed it with his own hands.

By defeating the hidden Tutorial Boss.

By accomplishing what the System had never intended anyone to achieve.

By shattering the invisible ceiling imposed upon every player from the very beginning.

By forcing the heavens themselves to acknowledge an impossible existence.

Enough to overturn the common sense of the world.

Enough to redraw the boundary between genius and monster.

He had not stolen them.

This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Nor had fate handed them to him as charity.

He had carved them from the impossible.

The System rewarded achievement.

He had forced it to acknowledge the impossible.

His fingers hovered before the radiant screen without touching it.

Power was intoxicating.

Power was seductive.

He had witnessed it countless times in his previous life.

Prodigies who scattered their stat points according to impulse.

Veterans who chased immediate gains while sacrificing limitless futures.

Geniuses who mistook overwhelming talent for flawless judgment.

They all reached the same destination.

Regret.

Every allocation was a choice.

Every choice closed countless unseen paths forever.

A single misplaced point today could become an insurmountable wall years later.

This was not a game where mistakes could be erased with the press of a button.

This was reality.

Reality granted no second chances.

Fortunately for him...

He was living his second chance already.

Seo Jun's eyes settled upon the shimmering panel.

There was no hesitation.

Every point had already found its place long before this moment.

His finger traced across the translucent screen.

Strength.

Eighteen points.

The number rose at once.

Strength: 17 → 35

A torrent of overwhelming force coursed through his body.

His muscles contracted before expanding once more, every fiber reforged into something denser, stronger, and infinitely more resilient. The faint sound of joints settling echoed through the silent room as power accumulated within every movement.

Without pausing, his finger moved again.

Stamina.

Eighteen points.

Stamina: 20 → 38

Heat spread through his body like molten steel flowing through his veins.

His heartbeat grew deeper and steadier, each pulse carrying inexhaustible vitality. His breathing stabilized as fatigue seemed to vanish from existence itself.

Agility.

Another eighteen points.

Agility: 18 → 36

The world seemed to slow.

Every subtle vibration of the air became startlingly distinct as his body grew impossibly light. His balance sharpened to perfection, and every instinct whispered that even the smallest movement could now erupt with explosive speed.

His gaze never left the screen.

Perception.

Ten points.

Perception: 18 → 28

His senses expanded in an instant.

The quiet hum of electricity behind the walls, the faint rustling of leaves beyond the window, even the minute shifts in the night air all unfolded before his awareness with breathtaking clarity.

Finally, his finger rested on the last attribute.

Dexterity.

Eight points.

Dexterity: 2 → 10

A strange sensation spread through his hands.

His fingers flexed unconsciously as every tendon, nerve, and joint aligned with flawless precision. The slightest motion now felt perfectly controlled, as though his body had finally remembered movements it had never learned.

In only a few moments, seventy two stat points had vanished.

His vision instantly sharpened, the dark corners of his bedroom coming into absolute, hyper-focused clarity.

He could hear the faint, rhythmic ticking of the wall clock down the hallway.

He could feel the subtle shift of the night breeze slipping through the crack in his window.

His body felt incredibly light, yet anchored with an absolute, terrifying gravitational weight.

Yet what remained was a body that stood on an entirely different plane than the one he had possessed only minutes earlier.

He had deliberately left his Mana untouched.

Not a single stat point.

To most rookie Awakeners, such a decision would have been nothing short of madness.

Mana was life.

A larger mana reserve meant stronger skills, longer battles, and greater chances of survival. Countless hunters poured their earliest stat points into Mana without a second thought, believing it to be the safest investment.

Seo Jun knew better.

The Archive of the Fallen Epoch did not merely preserve history.

It preserved truth.

And among those forgotten truths was one simple fact.

Mana was the easiest attribute to increase without the System.

Ancient breathing arts capable of refining the mana core.

Meditation techniques that nurtured magical energy through countless cycles.

Alchemical formulas capable of permanently expanding the limits of one's mana core.

The Tower had granted humanity methods of the same nature.

But only fragments.

Half completed inheritances.

Imperfect imitations that barely scratched the surface of what their original creators had achieved.

The complete techniques had vanished alongside the civilizations that birthed them.

Seo Jun alone possessed those forgotten legacies.

The Archive of the Fallen Epoch preserved every cultivation art, every breathing method, and every alchemical formula in their complete and perfected forms.

They were not secrets he had uncovered.

They were memories engraved into his soul.

Investing System points into Mana would have been a needless waste.

Mana was the only attribute whose growth could be accelerated through external methods.

Given enough resources and the proper techniques, its limits could be expanded far beyond what modern Awakeners believed possible.

Physical attributes were different.

They could certainly be improved without relying on the System, but the process demanded relentless training, constant refinement, and an extraordinary amount of time.

Even after months of effort, the improvement could be insignificant.

There was no reason to spend such a precious resource on the one attribute he could cultivate far more efficiently through knowledge alone.

System points were finite.

Knowledge was not.

He already possessed the formulas for the greatest mana elixirs ever created.

He knew the cultivation methods that had once allowed ancient transcendents to rival the heavens.

All he lacked was a body capable of enduring them.

Now...

That prerequisite had finally been fulfilled.

His reinforced physique was no longer the frail shell it had once been.

It had become a vessel worthy of carrying power that the modern world had long forgotten.

With a casual wave of his hand, the luminous status window dissolved into countless motes of azure light before fading into the darkness.

Silence reclaimed the room.

Seo Jun leaned back against the bed, his eyes resting on the shadowed ceiling.

His foundation was complete.

Now came the difficult part.

The Corporate Guilds.

An empire built upon greed, influence, and carefully manufactured order.

To stand against them required far more than overwhelming strength.

He needed wealth that could shake markets.

Influence that could move nations.

Authority that no one would dare challenge.

Power alone could destroy an enemy.

But true dominion ensured that no enemy would ever rise in the first place.

A faint smile touched the corner of his lips.

The game had only just begun.

As countless plans intertwined within his mind, exhaustion quietly overtook his thoughts.

Before long, the room fell completely silent.

Seo Jun drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep, while beyond his window, the world remained blissfully unaware that its future had already begun to change.