The morning sun filtered through the heavy curtains of the academy hostel, casting long, dusty beams across the floor.
Ren sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands. Tomorrow was the day. Tomorrow, he would step onto the sands of the Royal Stadium and face Kage, the Shadow Monarch. An A-Rank assassin trained by the Crown, and the secret son of Lord Zilton. It was a fight that would require every ounce of his speed, every drop of his mana, and every trick he had bought.
Erna was still asleep, curled into a tight ball at the foot of the bed, his silver tail draped over his nose.
Ren exhaled a quiet breath and opened his interface. It had been a few days since he had actively checked his system logs, having been entirely focused on analyzing the tournament matches and keeping Erna fed.
As the familiar, glitchy red-and-gold screen materialized in his vision, a new icon pulsed insistently in the center. It wasn't a task. It wasn't a penalty warning.
It was a small, glowing icon of a wrapped box.
[System Alert: Unopened Gift Awarded.]
[Status: Pending User Activation.]
Ren frowned. The System had never given him a "gift" before. It gave him transactions, milestones, and death threats. A gift felt suspiciously out of character.
'Open,' Ren commanded mentally.
The box icon shattered into a burst of golden pixels.
[Item Acquired: Key to the Inner Realm.]
[Notice: This item cannot be stored in the Inventory. It cannot be activated by the User. It is a one-way tether controlled exclusively by the System.]
[System Directive: The User's current physical vessel is inadequate for future stat integration. A foundation must be built.]
[Objective: Preparation.]
[Initiating Transfer...]
"Wait—" Ren started, reaching out to grab the edge of the bed.
He didn't get the chance. The world didn't fade to black; it simply dissolved. The walls of the hostel, the sleeping form of Erna, the sounds of the waking capital—everything was wiped away like chalk from a board.
A sensation of intense vertigo seized him, followed by the feeling of falling through a vacuum.
When Ren's boots hit solid ground, he stumbled slightly, catching his balance. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to a sudden, bright light. He pulled in a breath of air that was startlingly crisp, tasting of pine needles and fresh morning dew.
He looked around. He was standing in the center of a vast, emerald-green valley. A crystal-clear river wound its way through the tall grass, and in the distance, a massive, jagged mountain pierced the clouds. The sky was a brilliant, unbroken blue. There were no ruined villages. No goblin nests. No blood-stained arenas.
It was a world of absolute, undisturbed peace.
Before Ren could take a step, the System interface flared to life one last time, the text burning brightly in the clear air.
[Welcome to the Realm of Peace.]
[Temporal Dilation Active: Time flows 3x faster within this realm. (3 Days Inner = 1 Day Outer).]
[WARNING: SYSTEM OVERRIDE INITIATED.]
[All Stats: LOCKED.]
[All Skills: LOCKED.]
[Inventory: LOCKED.]
[The 'Black Market Interface' is temporarily suspended.]
Ren's eyes narrowed. He immediately tried to summon Eclipse from his inventory. His hand grasped at empty air. He tried to channel his mana to activate Shadow Step.
Nothing happened.
The familiar, thrumming reservoir of energy in his chest was completely gone. The explosive power in his legs, the hyper-clarity in his mind—it had all vanished. He didn't feel sick, and he wasn't in pain. He just felt... empty. Light. Normal.
[Mandatory Training Tasks:]
1. Perform 200 Pushups.
2. Complete a 15-Mile Mountain Run to the peak.
3. Hunt and kill one wild rabbit.
Condition: You must use your bare hands. No weapons. No traps.
[Reward upon completion: True Integration.]
[Note: You cannot leave this realm until all tasks are completed.]
The screen shattered into dust, leaving Ren completely alone in the silent valley.
Ren stood still for a long moment, processing the situation. He looked down at his hands. He clenched them into fists.
Without his 106 Strength, his grip felt entirely ordinary. Without his 89 Speed, his body felt grounded, anchored to the earth by standard gravity.
He pulled back the sleeve of his tunic. For the past few weeks, he had felt like a god. He had stopped a B-Rank Dragon's claw. He had ripped the leg off a giant spider. But looking at his arm now, the illusion was shattered.
His arm was thin. The muscle tone was stringy and underdeveloped. He was a seventeen-year-old boy who had spent the first three days of the apocalypse starving in a forest, and the subsequent weeks relying entirely on magical numbers bought with cold, hard cash.
The stats had been a magical exoskeleton. A suit of invisible armor worn over a fragile, malnourished frame. The System wasn't punishing him; it was exposing a fatal flaw. If he kept piling massive stats onto a weak biological foundation, his human body would eventually tear itself apart from the inside out.
"Preparation," Ren muttered. His voice sounded normal—no longer carrying the subtle, intimidating resonance of high mana.
He looked at the towering mountain in the distance. Fifteen miles. Uphill. Then he looked at the tall grass, where he knew wild, lightning-fast rabbits were hiding. Catching one with bare hands, without traps, required explosive fast-twitch muscles, patience, and perfect biological coordination.
He couldn't buy his way out of this. He couldn't outsmart it with a glitch. He had to bleed for it.
"Fine," Ren said calmly to the empty sky. "Let's build a foundation."
He dropped to the grass, kicking off his boots to feel the earth. He positioned his hands shoulder-width apart, straightened his back, and lowered himself for the first pushup.
One.
He pushed up. It felt okay.
Two. Three. Four. Five.
His form was perfect, a remnant of the muscle memory from his locked Martial Arts skill, but the actual physical execution was entirely reliant on his own biology.
Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.
A thin sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. His breathing grew heavier. In the outside world, with his high Stamina stat, he could fight a horde of goblins for an hour without breaking a sweat. Here, his own body weight was a relentless enemy pulling at his chest.
Thirty.
The burning started. Lactic acid flooded his triceps and pectorals. His arms began to tremble slightly. He gritted his teeth, forcing his core to stay tight. He was a survivor; he knew how to endure discomfort.
Forty.
The discomfort turned into pure, localized agony. Every time he lowered himself, it felt like his muscles were tearing. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. Sweat dripped from his nose, watering the green grass beneath him.
"Forty-one... forty-two..." Ren grunted, his voice strained.
His mind, usually a fortress of cold calculation, was being forced to focus entirely on the sheer, primitive screaming of his nervous system. Willpower was a powerful thing, but willpower did not generate energy in human cells. Willpower could not magically create muscle fibers that didn't exist.
Forty-eight... forty-nine...
Fifty.
Ren hit the bottom of the pushup and stopped. He was stuck. His chest hovered an inch above the grass. He tried to push up, but his arms felt like they were made of wet paper. They shook violently, vibrating with the effort.
"Move," Ren hissed at his own body.
He forced his elbows to straighten. Veins bulged on his neck. Inch by agonizing inch, he pushed himself up.
Fifty-one.
He dropped back down, barely catching himself before his face hit the dirt.
Fifty-two. Fifty-three.
Each rep took five seconds. Then ten seconds. His shoulders felt like they were on fire.
Fifty-seven... Fifty-eight...
He couldn't feel his hands anymore. There was only the burn.
Fifty-nine.
He lowered himself for the sixtieth rep. His chest brushed the grass. He inhaled a ragged breath, tasting the dirt.
He pushed. He sent the command from his brain to his arms with every ounce of his S-Rank willpower.
His arms simply refused.
The biological limit of his unconditioned, malnourished body had been reached. The muscle fibers gave out completely, snapping under the strain.
Ren's arms collapsed. His chest hit the ground with a heavy thud. He lay there, his face pressed into the dirt, his arms splayed out uselessly at his sides. He tried to push himself up to his knees, just to sit up, but he couldn't even lift his own shoulders.
He was completely, utterly spent. Sixty pushups. That was the reality of the "Dragon Slayer." Without his money, without his glitch, he was just a skinny kid.
Ren let out a weak, breathless laugh that tasted of dirt and defeat. It was the most humbling moment of his life. He wasn't angry. He wasn't scared. He just finally understood what the System was trying to tell him.
The exhaustion washed over him like a dark tide. His eyes grew heavy. The peaceful rustle of the wind through the valley grass sounded like a lullaby.
He had three days in this realm to complete the impossible. But right now, his body demanded its toll.
Ren's eyes fluttered shut, and he passed out on the soft earth, the towering mountain waiting silently in the distance.