The basement of The Scrap Yard felt smaller now, the air cramped and heavy with an energy that didn't belong in the slums. As Alex descended the creaking wooden stairs, the heavy obsidian chest in his arms seemed to pulse in sync with his own quickened heartbeat. It was a rhythmic, thrumming vibration that resonated through his bones. The very air in the small room warped and shimmered, distorted by the residual heat radiating from Alex's skin—a lingering gift from his encounter with the First Flame.
Old Jack was hunched over his workbench as usual, his mechanical prosthetic hand whirring as he adjusted a micro-circuit on a half-finished mechanical arm. He didn't look up at first, his focus absolute. "You're late, kid. I thought the Enforcers finally caught up to—"
Jack's voice died in his throat as Alex set the obsidian chest down. The impact was silent, yet the sheer density of the object caused the reinforced concrete floor to spiderweb in a three-meter radius.
"Holy... Kid," Jack muttered, finally spinning his stool around. His prosthetic eye whirred and clicked frantically, the mechanical lens zooming in and out as it tried to calculate the mana-density of the object on the floor. "You smell like burned meat, ozone, and high-grade mana-exhaust. I told you to find a treasure to stabilize your core, not bring back a literal piece of the sun."
"It's the First Flame," Alex said, his voice sounding hollow, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a deep well. He slumped into a grease-stained chair, his chest heaving. His new skin, reconstructed by the SSS-rank essence, was still tingling with a needle-like sensation. "The Drakes sent their elite Retrievers. They didn't want to talk. I had to use the essence to survive."
Jack whistled, a long, low sound of pure disbelief. "Retrievers? Those are A-rank assassins. And you're still standing? If word gets out that an E-Rank—no, wait." Jack paused, his gaze sharpening until it felt like a physical weight. "You broke through the bottleneck. You're radiating D-rank pressure already?"
[Status Update: Alex Kane][Rank: D-Rank Scavenger (Evolution: Stripper)][New Ability Unlocked: Essence Stripping — The host can now remove enchantments, soul-binds, and active mana from high-grade gear without destroying the base material. The 'Waste' is now a 'Resource'.]
"I didn't just break through," Alex said, staring at the obsidian box which seemed to swallow the dim light of the basement. "I think I found a way to fix things. Not just the imbalance in my body, but... the imbalance in this entire world."
He reached out and touched the lid. The chest recognized the unique mana-signature of its new "owner," the obsidian surface turning from pitch black to a hauntingly clear transparency. The ember within was dormant now, a tiny flicker of white light that looked deceptively fragile, like a candle flame in a hurricane.
[System Prompt: Primordial Essence 'First Flame' detected.][Function Identified: The Divine Forge.][Effect: The Host can now consume 'Trash', 'Broken', or 'Cursed' items to refine their base materials into Mythic-tier components through the process of Conceptual Scavenging.]
Alex looked around the basement. To any other awakened, this place was a literal graveyard of "junk"—shattered mana-blades, cracked dragon-scale armor plates, and depleted energy cores that Jack had salvaged from battlefields over the last forty years. To the world, this was a pile of debt and failure. To Alex, it was the greatest armory ever assembled.
"Jack, give me the most 'unfixable' piece of gear you have. Something the best blacksmiths in the Upper City called a lost cause," Alex commanded, his eyes glowing with a faint violet light.
Jack snorted, but there was a new spark of curiosity in his eyes. He reached under his workbench and pulled out a twisted, blackened hunk of metal that looked more like a burnt branch than a weapon. "This was once a 'Moonlight Greatsword.' It belonged to a Hero-tier vanguard during the Third Rift War. A Dragon-King snapped it like a dry twig and then breathed concentrated soul-fire on it. The mana-circuits aren't just broken; they're melted into the steel. It's literal slag."
Alex took the broken hilt. It was cold, dead, and heavy with the weight of its former owner's defeat.
[Detected: Wreckage of Moonlight Greatsword (Legendary - Status: Broken).][Status: 0% Durability. Concept: Failure. Cannot be repaired by any standard or legendary blacksmithing.]
"Watch," Alex whispered.
He opened the lid of the obsidian chest and dropped the shattered hilt inside. The First Flame didn't consume the metal; it bathed it in a soft, ethereal glow. Alex placed his hands on the sides of the chest, activating his core talent.
"I scavenge the 'Broken' status! I strip the concept of failure from this steel!" Alex roared, his mana flaring upward like a pillar of light.
[The Void Hand: Stripping 'Broken' Concept...][Refining via First Flame: Initiating Rebirth...]
The basement suddenly filled with a melodic, metallic ringing, a sound like a thousand silver hammers hitting a single anvil. The blackened "slag" began to glow with a silver brilliance so intense it forced Old Jack to shield his eyes with his trench coat. Alex could feel the heat, but this time, it didn't burn. It was controlled, focused. He was the smith, and the Void Hand was his hammer, striking at the very laws of reality.
Minutes passed in a blur of light and heat. Finally, the light faded, and the obsidian chest clicked shut with a sharp, heavy sound.
Alex reached in and pulled out a weapon that shouldn't exist in the current era.
The sword was no longer a massive, clunky Greatsword. It had been refined and compressed into a sleek, translucent ivory katana. It felt weightless in his hand, yet the air around the blade seemed to frost over, the temperature dropping twenty degrees in an instant.
[Item Created: Lunar Eclipse (Mythic - Rebirth Grade).][Attribute 1: Soul-Severing (Ignores 50% of Spirit and Physical Defense).][Attribute 2: Scavenger's Hunger (Gains +1 Permanent Sharpness for every elite kill).]
Old Jack stood frozen, his half-empty whiskey bottle slipping from his hand and shattering on the concrete floor. He didn't even notice the spilled liquor. He stumbled forward, his mechanical hand trembling as he reached toward the ivory blade.
"This... this is impossible," Jack breathed, his voice cracking. "The Moonlight sword was legendary, a relic of the past. But this? This is a God-slaying tool. You didn't fix it, kid. You evolved it into something the System hasn't even named yet."
Alex handed the blade to Jack, the hilt cool and steady. "Keep it, Jack. Use it to protect the shop. I don't need a sword to do what I'm about to do."
"Out? Where the hell are you going with that look in your eyes?"
Alex's gaze turned toward the ceiling, looking past the dirt and the overpass, toward the glittering ivory towers of the Upper City where the Drakes lived in luxury.
"Victor Drake is hosting a 'Recovery Gala' tonight to celebrate his 'heroic' return," Alex said, a cold, sharp smile touching his lips—a smile that promised a reckoning. "He lost a lot of attributes in that dungeon. I think it's only fair I go and see if he has any more 'trash' for me to collect. After all, a scavenger's work is never done."