Morning sunlight poured across the rooftops, painting the city gold.
The air smelled of concrete dust, steel, and coffee — the kind of scent only workers knew.
Arin sat on the edge of the half-built structure, his legs hanging loosely over the scaffolding. Below, his coworkers shouted, laughed, and argued over tools.
He didn't join them. He just stared at the distant skyline, lost in thought.
It had been a week since he'd woken up in this world.
A week since he'd opened his eyes in a dead boy's body.
A week since the voice called itself the Blackstar System.
At first, he thought it was all a dream. But dreams didn't make your wounds heal in seconds. Dreams didn't make numbers appear in the air when you whispered a word.
> "Status."
The transparent blue window appeared again, like always — quiet and calm.
[Blackstar System]
Name: Arin
Nickname: Blackstar
Race: Human
Origin: Earth (Parallel Dimension)
Qi Level: 605,379
Combat Power (CP): 605,379
Lifespan: ∞
Skill: Hidden (Lv. 1) — Conceals power from detection.
System Function: Passive Growth (+1 CP / +1 Qi per second)
Arin looked at the digits for a moment, then closed the window. The glow faded instantly.
He had already memorized the numbers. They never stopped rising. Every second, without fail, +1.
Even when he slept.
It's too much… he thought. And yet I can't even feel it properly.
His muscles felt the same, his breathing normal. But he knew — deep inside — that something was different.
He could lift steel beams like they were wooden sticks. He could sense vibrations in the ground before machines started moving.
His reflexes were inhuman, but no one noticed. He made sure of that.
The "Hidden" skill kept everything sealed. Even his co-workers, standing right beside him, couldn't sense the power humming beneath his skin.
"Hey, Aru!" someone shouted below.
It took Arin a moment to realize they were talking to him — the name of the body he now lived in.
"Yeah?" he called back.
"You coming for lunch or you gonna sit there staring at clouds again?"
Arin smirked faintly. "Coming."
He stood and jumped lightly from the platform, landing a few meters down. The fall should have twisted an ankle, but his feet touched the ground silently. No pain, no strain. Just balance.
The men nearby whistled. "You've been doing parkour or something, kid?"
"Something like that," Arin said, brushing the dust off his pants.
They laughed and went back to work.
No one noticed his faint smile — or how his eyes glowed for a heartbeat before fading.
Lunch was simple. Rice, curry, pickles.
He ate in silence, sitting alone near the edge of the site. The others joked and argued about pay or girls, the usual noise of living men. Arin didn't join in. He wasn't really one of them.
He didn't need food. But the act of eating reminded him that he was still human — at least, what was left of one.
I wonder how long it'll take before I stop needing this, he thought, staring at his half-empty lunchbox. How long before even hunger gives up on me.
He shook his head and looked up at the blue sky. It was too peaceful — nothing like his past life.
There were no beatings here. No shouting. No hate.
Just work. And silence.
And the quiet ticking of power rising inside him, second after second.
That night, when he got home, he rented a small single-room apartment in the city's cheaper district. The room was small — one bed, one window, one fan that made more noise than wind. But it was enough.
He took a shower, sat on the floor, and whispered again.
> "Status."
[Blackstar System]
Qi Level: 637,930
Combat Power (CP): 637,930
The numbers had gone up by more than 30 thousand since lunch. It was constant, endless.
He leaned back against the wall, staring at the faint reflection of himself in the window glass. His hair was dark, his face young. But the eyes — they weren't the boy's anymore. They were his. Calm, cold, and older than they should've been.
"This world's stronger than mine ever was," he said quietly. "And yet… I'm not part of it."
He thought about the warriors he'd read about in his old life — Goku, Vegeta, Gohan. Men who pushed their limits with every breath.
They trained until their bodies broke, then trained again.
And here he was, growing stronger without lifting a finger.
It didn't feel like strength. It felt like theft.
Like the world was feeding him without his consent.
Days turned into weeks.
Work continued. The System kept ticking.
Arin learned how to control his strength carefully. When he lifted heavy materials, he faked effort. When machines jammed, he "accidentally" fixed them with a single tap.
No one noticed.
Humans were easy to fool when the world stayed normal around them.
But something was changing in him — not just power, but perception.
He could sense energy faintly now, like distant ripples in air.
When he focused, he felt tiny sparks everywhere — in people, in engines, in life itself.
It wasn't sight or hearing. It was… awareness.
He didn't understand it, and the System gave no answer.
One afternoon, while carrying materials up the scaffold, he suddenly stopped.
His hand trembled slightly.
The System had pinged something new.
[System Notice:]
Qi density has reached threshold.
Body evolving to withstand energy overflow.
Estimated completion: 2 hours.
Arin frowned. "Evolving?"
He quickly found an excuse to take a break and walked behind the site's storage shed, out of sight. Then he sat down and waited.
Time passed slowly. Sweat rolled down his back, though not from heat.
Inside, his body felt… alive. His heartbeat slowed. His blood felt thicker, heavier, glowing faintly with warmth.
When two hours passed, the System chimed again.
[Body Evolution Complete]
Result: Physical frame enhanced to match current Qi and CP levels.
Side Effects: None.
Arin clenched his fist — the air itself shivered slightly.
He could feel it now. Every part of him was sharper, faster, stronger.
The world looked different, clearer.
He stood and exhaled softly. The wind stirred around him.
It's like my body's catching up to my power… piece by piece.
He smiled faintly, then whispered, "Hide."
The Hidden skill flared briefly and suppressed the energy again, erasing every trace of it.
When he returned to work, no one noticed a thing.
Only Arin knew that under the skin of an ordinary boy, something impossible was growing — quiet, patient, unstoppable.
That night, he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan spinning lazily above.
He thought about death — his mother, the meteorite, the goddess's eyes.
Why me? Why infinite life? Why this world?
The questions circled endlessly, but there were no answers.
Only the ticking in his mind — one second, one point of power, forever climbing.
---
End of Chapter 2
Friends if you give me power ston I'm going to continue