The translucent blue screen of the Universal Adaptation System materialized in his vision, casting a pale, spectral glow across his worn face.

--

[Universal Adaptation System]

Host: Hide Volter

Age - 18

Level: 26

Exp: 4780 / 5500

Class: ∞

Class Rank: E

Evolve - Level 26/30

Physical Attributes

Strength: 30

Agility: 32

Endurance: 20

Vitality: 25

Mental Attributes

Perception: 30

Willpower: 20

Non-Allocated Points: 33

Active Skills – Abyssal Scale Carapace (A), Abyssal Flame (B), Mana Blast (A), Abyssal Frost (B), Damage Inversion (B), Weightless (B), Mana Press (A), Abyssal Healing (S)

Passive Skills – Dermal Reinforcement (F), Predator’s Respite (B), Unshaken Will (B), Toxin Resistance (C), Virus Immunity (C), True Sight (C), Dark Abyssal Core (S)

[Inventory]

[Daily Quests]

[Virtual Adaptation Space]

[Store]

System Messages:

[0 Unread Notifications]

--

Lying flat on his back, Hide stared at the raw numbers. The past events had distorted the equalness in his stat points.

Because he had been forced to allocate points frantically to survive immediate threats, his character sheet was a jagged, uneven mess. His perception, agility and strength were highly advanced, but his baseline physical vitality and defensive endurance were lagging dangerously behind.

In a world where a split-second delay or a single vulnerability meant a blade through the throat, such statistical fluctuations were a luxury he could no longer afford.

"if my senses and physique mismatch at the wrong time, it would be the endgame." Hide thought, his blue eyes tracking the bottom line of the system prompt.

[Non-Allocated Points: 33]

He had leveled up 6 times giving him 30 stat points and the other 3 from the daily quest rewards for the last 3 days.

He didn’t dump all his points into a single flashy category this time. Instead, he systematically distributed the points across all six categories, intentionally leveling them out.

’2 to strength, 12 to Endurance, 6 to Vitality, 1 to perception and 12 to will power.’

Strength: 30 → 32

Endurance: 20 → 32

Vitality: 25 → 31

Perception: 30 → 31

Willpower: 20 - 32

He watched the numbers go up with satisfaction, pulling his lowest attributes out of the danger zone and dragging his entire foundation into a perfectly uniform line.

As the final point settled, a profound, restructuring wave coursed through his body. Hide felt the cellular structure of his muscles tighten, his bone density expanding to lock his skeletal frame into place.

His breathing instantly slowed, dropping into a deep, perfectly synchronized rhythm as the lingering fatigue in his lungs dissolved.

The system window updated immediately, displaying the finalized, flawless state of his progression.

He read it one more time and realized once again that he was close to another Class Evolution, the Evolution from E to D Rank was happening at level 30 and he was already at 26.

Another 4 levels were nothing much for him. He would go to the gate training facility tomorrow and farm some exp. Though it would now be getting harder to level up by only killing low ranked beasts.

The another thing he noticed was the option of [Virtual Adaptation Space]. He had been ignoring that up until now.

’Ugh... I am not in mood right now, I will see it later.’ Hide was tired and hence let away the idea.

He closed the screen with a brief wave of his hand. he now had a thirty two across every single baseline indicator. He could feel the difference immediately in his normal movements as well.

Apart from that... the exercises he did for daily quests were now starting to show signs on his physical appearance as well.

A soft, electronic chime echoed from the doorway, breaking his focus.

"Hide," CASS’s neutral voice announced over the speaker network. "The dinner is ready to be served."

"Thanks, CASS," Hide muttered, pushing his newly aligned body off the mattress.

He walked into the small kitchen, where a thick, perfectly seared portion of premium steak sat beneath a silver warming dome. Hide didn’t bother using a knife or formal manners.

He sat on a nearby stool and devoured the meal with the silent, ravenous actions of a starving predator.

When he finished, he washed his hands, wiped them, locked the kitchen down, and retreated straight back to his bedroom. He shed his grey hoodie, sliding beneath the thin sheets of his bed as his eyelids grew impossibly heavy.

As he lay there in the quiet dark, waiting for sleep to claim him, Hide’s thoughts drifted back across the timeline of the past seven days. He hadn’t slept peacefully since the fateful day when he had first swallowed the Life Stone at the AAA building.

His entire life had been compressed into a non-stop gauntlet of world-altering violence.

He closed his eyes, an internal question forming in his mind.

’Did other Exterminators go through this level of absolute, suffocating hassle right after their awakening?’

He only knew one other newly awakened person closely: Kai. And Kai’s progression had been the definition of textbook normalcy. It had taken Kai nearly a full year of rigorous training, safe hunting drills, and bureaucratic safety nets just to increase his Class Rank from F to E.

Hide had done it in four days. He had bypassed years of institutional progression, leaping straight into the deep end of the continental underworld, single-handedly creating new records.

It was all thanks to the system.

Yet, as much as Hide was profoundly glad to possess the Universal Adaptation System, a cold, deeply buried splinter of fear remained wedged in his chest.

He was afraid of it.

He was afraid because this entire system was a complete, impenetrable mystery. It didn’t obey the laws of standard state network rings. It had no public origin, no documentation, and it perceived his internal thoughts with a terrifying, omniscient intimacy. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

In his time living, Hide had learned one absolute truth: mysterious things were more than often a trap. Powers that granted absolute, unconditional authority almost always demanded an equal blood price before the curtain fell.

Torn between his survival and his suspicion, Hide’s mind finally short-circuited under the sheer weight of his exhaustion, plunging him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

**

In the dead of the night, a sharp, rhythmic tug at his right wrist forcefully snapped Hide out of his slumber.

Hide’s eyes flew open, his glowing blue irises instantly cutting through the dark room. He didn’t move his arm. Draped tightly around his wrist was a cool, incredibly elastic, dark-translucent filament.

It was the abyssal slime ball tool he had bought from the system shop. Before going to bed, Hide had commanded the slime to stretch out, transforming into a microscopic, high-tensile wire that ran across the bedroom floor, slipped through the crack beneath the bathroom door, and wrapped securely around the torso of the bound assassin.

It was a primitive but flawless biological tripwire. If the assassin made a single significant movement, the line would transfer the micro-vibrations directly to Hide’s wrist.

The line was pulling again. The rhythmic tension meant one definitive thing: the assassin was awake.

An intense wave of pure, unfiltered frustration washed through Hide’s chest. He let out a low, venomous growl, burying his face in his hands for a fraction of a second.

Who the hell would enjoy having their first good night of sleep in days forcefully interrupted in the middle of the night? He had planned to start the interrogation at dawn, well-rested and fully prepared, but the prisoner had chosen to force his hand early.

"Stupid, arrogant bastard," Hide muttered, his voice raspy with sleep as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed. His bare feet touched the cold floor, his enhanced muscles already coiling to transition back into combat focus.

He took a single step forward, preparing to cross the dark living room and enter the bathroom.

POP.

A sudden, sharp, muffled explosion detonated from behind the bathroom door. It wasn’t a massive blast that shattered the walls, but it was incredibly dense.

Hide’s remaining sleep was completely, brutally obliterated. His heart kicked against his ribs as his blue eyes locked onto the bottom of the bathroom door, where a thick, dark fluid was already beginning to sluggishly seep out onto the living room carpet.

"Damn it!"

Hide bolted across the apartment in a blur of explosive movement. He didn’t bother turning the handle; he drove his palm straight into the metal, slamming the bathroom door open with a violent crash that nearly ripped it off its hinges.

He stepped through the threshold, and his blue eyes instantly narrowed into absolute, icy slits. His jaw locked so tightly the muscles in his cheeks violently jumped, as he winced.

The bathroom was a grotesque mess.

Thick splatters of dark, viscous red blood, shattered bone fragments, and white brain matter were violently pasted across every single square inch of the pristine white tiles he had spent an hour scrubbing.

The walls, the shower curtain, the porcelain rim of the sink—everything was dripping with fresh, hot gore.

Sitting perfectly upright in the corner, still tied securely to the reinforced metal chair by the tactical wire, was the assassin’s body. The wire hadn’t broken. The towels covering his face were shredded and burning with purple rot.

But the man no longer had a head.

From the collarbone upward, the flesh was a jagged, hollowed-out crater of scorched tissue, actively releasing thin wisps of foul-smelling purple smoke into the humid air.

The bastard had killed himself.

The moment his consciousness had returned, rather than risking leaking his clan’s classified intelligence under torture, the elite operative had killed himself with his own curse.

The corners of Hide’s lips twitched. "This... This asshole."