He fell through realities.
Time fractured—spinning in different directions. He could feel his soul stretching, warping, pulled by unseen forces into a spiral of endless possibilities. Colors bled into each other—burning reds, deep blues, starlight white, and ghostly shadows. And in the midst of it all, emotions flooded him—rage, fear, confusion—other people's pain, joy, and memories tangled with his own.
And then—
A sound.
Faint, mechanical, like the hum of machinery powered by unseen hands.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
Aaron's mind latched onto the sound like a dying man gripping breath. Sharp as ever, he smirked even as he spun through the void.
"Took you long enough," he muttered, voice swallowed by the infinite dark.
The voice that answered was calm—flat, but touched with something curious.
[Unusual response detected. Synchronizing with host consciousness.]
Golden code rained down around him in curves and spirals, etching into the fabric of his soul.
They twisted, looped, and danced, like sacred geometry reborn in divine light.
[Soul Signature Confirmed.]
Name: Aaron
Designation: Unknown
Alignment: Inconsistent
"Adaptive framework activated."
Aaron's smirk widened, satisfied.
"Damn right. I don't fit in your boxes."
The system paused—was that hesitation? The digital voice held a flicker of contemplation.
"Acknowledged."
"Welcome, Aaron."
A warmth passed through him. Not physical. Something older. Golden threads of raw metaphysical data stitched themselves into his very being. It was more than a transfer. It was a reawakening.
And then—
[WORLD: SOLO LEVELING]
Target environment: Active.
Host body acquired.
Vital signs: Fading.
Physical integrity: Critical.
Reawakening sequence: Pending.
[Gacha Protocol: Unlocked.]
First pull: Available upon consciousness integration.
[Quest: Locked.]
[Store: Locked.]
Currency: ---
Aaron blinked, disoriented by the flood of data crashing into him like a tsunami of understanding.
His soul accelerated—no longer falling, but being dragged toward something.
The sensation twisted. Time dilated. The multiverse blurred—
And then, everything snapped into place.
---
Jinwoo's POV-
It wasn't supposed to go like this.
The dungeon was supposed to be normal—another low-rank assignment, a team job, nothing special.
A C-rank Gate in the middle of Seoul. Nothing that would justify danger. Nothing that could justify this.
Jinwoo clenched his teeth as he leaned against a blood-soaked pillar. His leg was a wreck—bone jutting out like white chalk snapped wrong. Every breath was a stab. His shirt was soaked through with sweat and blood. And yet, the pain wasn't what broke him.
It was the silence.
Moments ago, there had been screams. Cries. Begging. The thunderous stomp of those stone monsters moving without mercy.
Now?
Just the click of stone feet echoing down the altar's endless length.
He looked up. The statue of the god loomed, its smile eternal and monstrous, stained with hunter blood. Around its feet lay corpses—half-crushed, mangled, smeared across the mosaic tiles like forgotten dolls.
He could still hear Kang Taeshik's last scream. Ha Jiwon's defiant shout. Choi's bones snapping like dry twigs under a giant's heel.
All dead.
They were all dead.
Jinwoo had sent Joohee and Mr. Kim away—barely. She was sobbing, desperately trying to heal his leg even as the countdown ticked in his brain. Mr. Kim had dragged her off, apologizing as he knocked her unconscious to carry her faster.
And then Jinwoo was alone.
He didn't regret it. They had a chance. He didn't.
He looked down at the mana stone in his hand—cracked and dull. A last-ditch gift to Joohee, hoping she'd use it to stay alive, maybe barter her way out. Now, it was just an empty rock, forgotten and meaningless.
He was always the weakest. E-rank.
Barely better than a civilian. The guilds never wanted him. He took the jobs others didn't. Clean-up. Body retrieval. Low-pay scraps.
He endured it for his mother, stuck in that damn hospital, and his little sister who needed tuition money. That was the real dungeon—the world outside.
But here?
Here, he had nothing left to offer. His body was broken. His mana was gone. He could barely see.
And the statues were still moving.
They had followed the commandments.
Or so they thought. Kneel before God.
Don't move when the music plays. Offer tribute.
They had done everything right. Until the commandments stopped mattering.
Until the god just decided it was time to kill.
Jinwoo heard it—the grinding sound of stone. He turned his head, vision swimming. The sword-wielding statue had raised its blade again.
One final strike.
He tried to move, to roll, to crawl. His body didn't answer.
"I can't die here," he whispered.
Tears blurred his vision. Not out of fear—but frustration.
He thought of his mother's sleeping form, unmoving for years. Of Jinah, his sister, eating ramen at the cramped table and laughing. Of the part-time jobs, the loneliness, the isolation of being weak in a world of monsters.
All for nothing?
The sword began to fall.
And then, for a heartbeat, everything slowed.
A hum vibrated in the air—almost imperceptible.
Jinwoo's eyes widened, not in fear—but confusion. The stone blade paused mid-air, frozen like time itself held its breath.
And in that pause…
Something else stirred.
He didn't understand it. He couldn't.
But something ancient brushed against his dying consciousness—a presence descending like a curtain of darkness behind his eyes.
There was no sound. No light. No warmth.
Only silence.
And in that void, as his soul began to slip free—
Another stepped in.
---
Omniscient POV-
Pain.
Sharp. Unrelenting. Twisting through the fibers of his being like barbed wire.
Aaron's consciousness slammed back into existence, ripping through layers of static and void.
His eyes snapped open—but they weren't his eyes. His body wasn't his either. Everything was wrong.
The scent hit him first—iron. Blood. Smoke. Stone dust.
Then the sound—low mechanical groaning, like gears turning behind the fabric of reality. The echo of grinding stone… and something more.
He blinked slowly, vision coming into focus like a cracked lens.
The dungeon.
Flickering torchlight danced across towering statues of angels and demons, wings half-spread and eyes glowing coldly. They weren't just statues—they were executioners, their arms lifted mid-swing, frozen in motion.
His body throbbed. A vicious pain flared up from his leg—mangled, bleeding, completely unusable.
Aaron hissed through his teeth. "Shit… what the hell kind of greeting is this?"
And then it clicked.
He knew this place.
This wasn't just some random dimension. This was it.
The Temple of Cartenon. The first dungeon in Solo Leveling. The double dungeon that turned the weakest hunter into the Shadow Monarch. Sung Jinwoo's starting point.
And now... it was his.
He looked down at his hands. Slender. Pale. Bloodied knuckles. He grunted, dragging himself against the floor to see his reflection in a pool of blood.
It wasn't his face.
It was Jinwoo's.
"...So I'm not just in this world," Aaron muttered, voice hoarse, "I'm in his body."
And just like that, the fog lifted. A memory. Not his own.
Not a flashback. Not a slideshow. But a sync.
Fragments of another person's life suddenly aligned with his—moments, feelings, instincts. His sister's smile. His mother's hospital room. The dead-eyed look of guild recruiters when they saw an E-rank on paper.
The shame. The hunger. The relentless survival.
Aaron had watched Solo Leveling. He knew Sung Jinwoo's life, or at least... he thought he did.
The weakest hunter. Always injured. The one left behind. The guy who rose from nothing to become something legendary.
But that was just what the manhwa showed.
What it didn't show?
The nights he went to sleep starving, because what little he earned went to his mother's hospital bills and his sister's tuition.
The humiliation of begging C-rank healers for treatment after every raid, knowing full well they didn't see him as human—just a liability.
The loneliness of being alive in a world that pretended he wasn't.
Aaron sat there, jaw clenched, Jinwoo's memories bleeding into him not as images or cutscenes—but as real moments, raw and searing. He lived through every time Jinwoo was looked down on, ignored, discarded.
Each insult. Each injury. Each scar.
And unlike the version he'd admired from behind a screen—this was real.
So much more painful.
And infinitely more infuriating.
"...They all used him," Aaron whispered.
He remembered the smiling faces in the manga panels, the 'party members' who called Jinwoo "Hunter-nim" before leaving him behind when things got dangerous. They weren't just indifferent.
They were vultures.
Aaron's hands trembled, fists clenched. "They watched him bleed, watched him crawl, and they still expected him to go first into the gates..."
He gritted his teeth, fury boiling from deep within.
"This world... chewed him up."
His voice dropped lower. Not pity. Not sadness. Just a quiet, lethal kind of anger. "And then it spat him out."
[EMOTIONAL OVERDRIVE: DETECTED.]
[Processing Host Response… Recalibrating Personality Framework…
...Adaptation Complete.]
The system's voice returned, and this time, it carried a pulse—almost like it was enjoying this.
[FREE PULL: AVAILABLE]
[Rarity: Guaranteed Legendary and Above.]
[Bonus Modifier: System Sentience Level – 1 Activated.]
[Result: Tier Ceiling Lifted.]
Aaron blinked. "Wait. Lifted?"
The golden interface shimmered before him like a divine roulette, categories swirling:
Normal ->Uncommon -> Magic -> Epic -> Legendary ->Transcendental ->Mythical.
His eyes narrowed. He knew enough about systems and cheats to realize what this meant.
"Guaranteed Legendary or higher… on my first damn pull?" he exhaled slowly. "That's not beginner's luck. That's blood compensation."
[SYSTEM: Compensation for Host's Wrath and Soul-Binding Sync Complete.]
One pull. Guaranteed outcome. Legendary tier minimum. Upper limit unrestricted.
[Pull now?]
Aaron's lips curled into a dark grin.
"Do it."
The world shuddered as the Gacha wheel ignited. Not a digital screen. Not a casino spin. It was cosmic—a ring of light and runes and primal power rotating in the void, each click like thunder across existence.
And as it spun, Aaron could feel it scanning—searching.
Through realities.
Through timelines.
Through worlds.
---
[TEMPLATE ACQUIRED]
[Legendary Tier]
Template : Monkey D. Garp – The Fist of the Hero
World Origin: One Piece
Role: Marine Vice-Admiral | Hero of the Marines
Specialty: Raw Physical Power, Haki Mastery, Brute Combat, Indomitable Will
Synchronization Potential: 98%
Aaron's breath caught."...No. Freaking. Way."
He wasn't just looking at a legend—he was looking at a man who challenged gods and monsters with nothing but his fists.
Monkey D. Garp.The Fist.
The one who fought Gol D. Roger to a standstill without any Devil Fruit.A man whose very punch could crush mountains and cause shockwaves across islands.
Aaron's blood practically vibrated.
The system chimed again, this time with a formal prompt:
[Would you like to initiate Template Sync?]
[Warning: Legendary Templates overwrite existing combat base.
Passive abilities and foundational enhancements will immediately apply.
Full skill tree unlocks upon level progression.
You may evolve this template further with unique upgrades.]
Aaron didn't even flinch. "Yes. Lock it in."
The moment he confirmed, the world cracked around him.
It wasn't metaphor.
Reality shattered—glasslike fragments of light and shadow breaking around his soul. A white-hot shockwave coursed through his veins. It was like being rewritten at the molecular level.
Every memory of Garp. Every instinct. Every shred of physical knowledge—the muscle memory, the control, the sheer battle experience of a living demigod—it poured into him like a violent river of fire.
His muscles spasmed.
His bones creaked.
Not from weakness—from adaptation.
He could feel strength rushing into limbs that were broken seconds ago.
[Template Sync Complete.]
Passive Skill Unlocked: Iron Body Constitution
Effect: Greatly enhances durability, muscle density, and shock resistance.You can take a hit from a truck—and keep walking.
Passive Skill Unlocked: Will of the Monster
Effect: Fear resistance. Mental corruption immunity. Intimidation aura.Your will cannot be shaken by pain, fear, or spiritual attacks.
Bonus effect: Enemies of lower tier may feel overwhelming dread.
Aaron fell to ground as the last wave crashed through him. His lungs burned. His fists ached. His skin felt like stone wrapped around fire.
But he grinned like a madman.
"This... this is way more than I expected."
He chuckled under his breath, voice ragged from the surge of new power.
"To think… the system gave me Garp for free. You're setting expectations high, huh?"
The system didn't answer. But it didn't need to.
Because in that moment, surrounded by blood, broken statues, and the looming presence of gods who sought to strike him down—Aaron stood up on a single leg , steady and tall.
And in the place of weakness... stood a monster in the making.
He rolled his shoulder, cracking his neck as his fingers curled into a fist that vibrated with pressure.
"Let's see if these stone bastards like the taste of a hero's punch."
---
📝 Author's Note:
Ahem.
Cue dramatic anime narrator voice:
"And on this day, the weakest hunter… got grandpa-punched into godhood."
That's right, folks.
Jinwoo's body? Check.
System? Check.
Gacha? Abused.
First pull? Monkey. D. Freakin'. GARP.
This man didn't just skip the tutorial. He punched it in the face and asked for seconds.
Honestly, if Aaron doesn't uppercut a stone god into orbit by Chapter 4, I'll be disappointed in my own writing.
Also, let's take a moment to pour one out for the statues.They thought they were gonna vibe with some helpless E-rank.But instead, they woke up and chose violence… and Aaron chose legendary fists.
💬 Questions for YOU:
If YOU had a free first pull with no rarity cap, who would your legendary character be? Bonus points if they punch first and ask questions never.
Was Jinwoo's final moment before the takeover as heartbreaking for you as it was for Aaron—or did the hype just uppercut your soul instead?
Drop your answers like they're flaming fists in the comments.
See you in Chapter 4, where someone's definitely getting launched through a wall.
Stay sharp. Stay legendary.—Your slightly system-corrupted author 💥👊