He was home by midday.
Two hundred crystals added to his mother's eight hundred made one thousand total. Kai set the coins on the table and looked at them for exactly three seconds before accepting the obvious.
*It's not enough and they're coming anyway.*
His mother stared at the pile. "Where did you—"
"Made some things and sold them near the perimeter." He kept it vague. "Mom, when Iron Fang comes today, let me handle it."
"Kai—"
"Please." He met her eyes. "I know what I'm doing."
She didn't look convinced. She looked terrified. But she nodded.
Mei stayed quiet in the corner, pretending to do schoolwork. Her pencil hadn't moved in twenty minutes.
Kai went to his room and sat on the floor. He had maybe two hours. He needed to use every minute.
*Think. What can I actually do at current stats?*
He pulled up the System panel.
**STR: 9 | AGI: 8 | END: 10 | MAN: 18/18 | VIT: 7 | INT: 46 | PER: 19 | LUK: 7**
Full Mana for once. He'd been careful since morning.
The Stone Hide leader was D-rank. His skin hardened under impact — blunt force and standard strikes probably did reduced damage. The Flame Spark guy threw fire bursts. Quick Step moved in short unpredictable dashes.
He couldn't beat all three. Not today. But *yesterday* he'd been caught completely off guard with zero preparation and zero understanding of his own abilities. Today was different.
He spent forty minutes creating and immediately consuming a Stat Pill — not a fully optimized one, not yet, his comprehension of body enhancement wasn't deep enough for that. But he understood human musculature from Earth biology classes. Understood the basic chemistry of adrenaline response, oxygen uptake, fast-twitch muscle fiber recruitment.
He poured everything he knew into the visualization.
[Mana Cost: 10]
[Current Mana: 8/18]
He swallowed it. The effect wasn't that dramatic. No golden light, no roaring power surge. Just a rush of energy spreading through his limbs. His hands felt more solid. His footing felt grounded in a way it hadn't before.
[Temporary Stat Boost Active]
**[STR: 9 → 30]
[END: 10 → 45]
[Duration: 40 minutes]**
"Not enough to go toe to toe with a D-rank. But enough to matter."
He spent the remaining Mana creating one more item — a small glass marble, perfectly smooth, filled with a compressed flash compound. Earth chemistry again. Magnesium powder and oxidizer, sealed and stable until impact. Something he'd read about in a survival manual once and never forgotten.
[Mana Cost: 5]
[Current Mana: 3/18]
He held the marble up to the light. Looked completely harmless.
"I love having an Earth brain in a world that hasn't invented flashbangs yet."
He pocketed it and went to the common room to wait.
Iron Fang arrived at two in the afternoon. Same three. Stone Hide leading, Flame Spark and Quick Step flanking. They'd brought an addition — a fourth man, older, with the flat eyes of someone who collected debts professionally.
The debt collector looked at the thousand crystals Kai placed on the table without being asked. Then looked at Kai.
"Four thousand short," he said simply.
"I know," Kai said. "I'm asking for a two week extension."
Stone Hide laughed. "You're asking. That's cute."
"The family has consistent income," Kai continued, keeping his voice level. "Two weeks gets you the full amount plus standard interest. Breaking the apartment gets you furniture worth maybe three hundred crystals and a harassment complaint filed with the Platform Authority."
The debt collector tilted his head slightly. Apparently F-rank kids didn't usually cite platform regulations.
"Extension denied," he said anyway. "We'll take the thousand as partial and claim the apartment for the remainder. You have one hour to remove personal belongings."
His mother made a sound from the kitchen doorway.
That was the line.
Kai stood up.
Stone Hide moved first — same shove as yesterday, aimed at his chest, the casual violence of someone who'd never been resisted by an F-rank.
This time Kai stepped sideways. The hand caught his shoulder instead of center mass. He used the momentum, turned with it, and drove his elbow hard into Stone Hide's forearm.
With STR at 40, the impact was real.
Stone Hide actually grunted. Stepped back. Looked at his arm, then at Kai, with genuine surprise crossing his face.
Quick Step blurred. Kai had been watching for it — his PER stat tracked the movement shift half a second before it happened. Not enough to fully dodge. The strike caught his ribs. Pain flared. But he'd turned into it, reduced it, stayed upright.
Flame Spark raised his hand.
Kai threw the marble.
It hit the wall beside Flame Spark's head and detonated in a burst of white light and sharp concussive crack. Not an explosion — no fire, no shrapnel — just a violent sensory shock in a small room.
Everyone flinched. Flame Spark stumbled. The debt collector knocked over his chair stepping backward.
In that half second of chaos, Kai activated Shadow Walker.
His outline dissolved. He was in the corner behind them before anyone reoriented.
Seven seconds of invisibility. He used five of them to let the room settle.
When he reappeared, he was standing between the door and his family.
The four men stared at him. Stone Hide's expression had shifted from contempt to something harder to read. The debt collector was very still, eyes moving professionally — reassessing.
"F-rank Shadow Walker," Stone Hide said slowly.
"That's what the crystal said," Kai replied.
Silence stretched. The debt collector looked at the scorch mark on the wall, the afterimage still dancing in his vision, and made a quiet calculation.
"Three days," the man said finally. "Full amount. No further negotiation.
They picked themselves up and left.
Kai's mother stood in the kitchen doorway for a long moment after the door closed. Mei had her face pressed against the hallway wall, eyes wide.
"Kai," his mother said quietly. "What was that?"
"A marble," he said.
She stared at him.
He sat back down at the table, looking at the thousand crystals. His ribs ached. The Stat Pill's warmth was already beginning to fade. Three days was nothing — he hadn't solved anything, just pushed the wall back slightly.
But yesterday he'd lain on an alley floor and couldn't create a stick.
Today he'd made a D-rank step backward.
*Three days,* he thought. *Fine.*
He needed a real accelerant. Not tonics sold for two hundred crystals at a scavenger stall. Something that hit the black market and made the right people ask questions about a ghost alchemist who shouldn't exist.
He pulled out a blank scrap of paper and started writing. Not a plan exactly. A list of everything he understood deeply enough to create *right now* that this world had never seen.
By the time his mother called him for dinner, the list was longer than he expected.
He folded it carefully and smiled for the first time since arriving in Neo-Eden.
*Three days is enough.*
To be continued.