Body Strengthening

The park at night was deathly silent.

Only the eerie creaking of swings swaying in the wind echoed through the air.

It was 3 AM. The hour when neither health-obsessed joggers nor loitering delinquents could be found. A completely deserted time.

"… No one can see me here."

I stood in the center of a clearing at the back of the park, surrounded by tall zelkova trees growing thick.

I pulled my hands from my tracksuit pockets and lightly rotated my ankles.

The "light" I'd lit at my fingertip last night was just a starting point.

What I was about to do now was an experiment in converting that energy into kinetic energy. A test of Body Strengthening, the fundamental magic most frequently used in actual combat.

(Visualize it. Mana is blood. It wraps around each muscle fiber, reinforcing them, pushing contraction speed to its limit.)

I closed my eyes and released the Mana Core in my dantian.

The stored maso discharged all at once.

Not to my fingertips. To my entire body.

I circulated the hot, mud-like mana through every blood vessel, every nerve.

—Creak.

I thought I heard a sound from inside my body, like rubber being stretched taut.

Beneath my skin, my muscles pulsed and expanded slightly.

A sensation of being enveloped in a thin aura of heat.

"… First stage, connected."

My exhaled breath turned to white steam.

My field of vision seemed to have risen slightly.

My senses sharpened, the texture of gravel transmitting clearly through the soles of my feet.

Success.

Right now, my normal human limiters had been released.

I was deliberately, and sustainably, drawing out what people call "hysterical strength."

"First… a vertical jump."

I bent my knees slightly.

I wasn't planning to jump with full force.

It was just meant to test how much "output" I could produce, a quick check of my legs.

At best, I figured reaching high enough to touch the net on a basketball hoop would be good.

I kicked off the ground.

—BOOM!!

An explosive sound rang out.

Beneath my feet, the packed earth cratered and dust billowed up.

"—Huh?"

The next instant, the ground had vanished from my field of vision.

It wasn't a gentle floating sensation.

My body was forcibly lifted into the sky like a fighter jet launched from a catapult.

My vision blurred.

The park's streetlight was suddenly below me, rapidly receding.

Before I knew it, the edge of the public restroom's roof was right before my eyes — about four meters above the ground.

"You're kidding me…!"

Unexpected altitude.

Losing my balance mid-air, I frantically placed my foot on the roof's edge and forced a landing.

CLANG!

The sound of concrete cracking, and I tumbled onto the roof.

"Gu, uugh…!"

At the moment of landing, sharp, intense pain shot through my ankle.

Bones creaked, and I felt the unpleasant sensation of several muscle fibers snapping.

I dropped to one knee on the roof, grimacing as I held my throbbing ankle.

"… Output overload, huh."

A miscalculation.

The mana output was just as feeble as expected.

But this modern body was far too fragile.

It was like putting an F1 engine in a compact car. Just tapping the accelerator nearly tore it apart.

The strengthened muscular force had exceeded what my skeletal system and ligaments could handle.

If I'd failed that landing, my leg bones would have shattered.

(A double-edged sword, this thing.)

I wiped away the cold sweat.

Body Strengthening was the ultimate weapon, but it also carried the risk of self-destruction.

Lose control, and the moment I punch an enemy, my own arm could explode.

But.

"… Hehe, hahaha!"

Standing on the roof, I let out a laugh.

There was pain. There was fear.

And yet I couldn't suppress the elation welling up from deep within.

I stood up and looked down below.

The park trees I always looked up at were now at eye level.

The streetlight's glow was far below me.

Freedom from gravity.

Power beyond human knowledge.

A fragment of the S-rank physical abilities I once wielded as a matter of course was definitely here.

"Good. I can fight with this."

I rubbed my aching ankle with a grin.

Even if surrounded by a horde of goblins, with this jumping power I could toy with them using three-dimensional maneuvers.

Even an orc's powerful arm could be evaded by a hair's breadth with this burst speed.

Compared to the joy of having my power return, pain was nothing but seasoning.

"All that's left is improving control precision. Without breaking myself."

I clenched my fist in the night breeze atop the roof.

Reason warned me not to get drunk on this sense of omnipotence.

But instinct screamed. Faster, higher, stronger.

In a world with zero maso, I alone had removed gravity's shackles.

That sense of superiority seemed to transform even the throbbing pain in my foot into pleasure.

I leaped from the roof — this time carefully, landing softly to absorb the impact.

Looking at the deep footprints I'd left in the ground, I was certain.

The preparation phase was complete.

Next would come practical combat testing.

My gaze turned to the bench in the park, where my rebar lay wrapped in rags.

The body was ready. Now to give my fangs a test cut.