The next day, as the sun rises, Merin opens his eyes just as a beam of light slips through the crack in his cottage window and lands on his face.
He exhales a long breath, sits up, and slowly gets out of bed to begin his morning routine.
Fifteen minutes later, he steps outside into the small clearing beside his cottage.
Lowering himself to the ground, he closes his eyes and spreads his biological field, sensing the Karst energy pulsing faintly beneath the earth.
Merin has trained at dawn ever since he was first permitted to learn martial arts.
In his previous life, he was an ordinary man in an ordinary world—a place where power existed only in myths.
But in this life, reborn into a world of the extraordinary, his hunger for mastery runs deeper than most can comprehend.
And this world’s harsh reality only fuels his resolve.
The human federation is controlled entirely by powerful private corporations. There are no democratic governments.
Laws are strict, but selectively enforced.
Merin knows very well: if someone from a major corporation commits a crime, it will vanish beneath layers of silence.
That’s why he trains.
To ensure that if injustice ever comes for him… he’ll be strong enough to crush it.
He discovered early on that martial arts had faded as technology rose, but that didn’t matter.
What mattered was this: if he possessed personal power, true power, even the federation would think twice before crossing him.
He found proof in the federation’s own policies—while the lower three realms of martial arts were ignored, the Unification and King Kong realms still received clear preferential treatment.
The federation, driven by profit and logic, wouldn’t grant those benefits without reason.
That alone proved the value of power—real power.
And so, driven by fascination for the extraordinary and the unforgiving truth of this world, Merin had trained.
Every single day since the age of six.
Alongside martial arts, he embraced education—the other path to rise to the top.
He chose to major in Karst Crystal studies because in this world, everything—technology, martial arts, infrastructure, even medicine—ran on the energy of Karst Crystals.
He wanted to understand it. Truly understand it.
And the deeper he studied, the more he realised: Karst Crystals were like radioactive elements from Earth.
They emitted energy constantly—subtle, invisible radiation.
In small doses, it wasn’t dangerous. In fact, it nourished life, encouraged evolution.
This was why Body Forging martial artists could exist—humans here, bathed in Karst energy since birth, could break physical limits.
To step into the Body Forging Realm, one needed to punch with ten times their own body weight.
That would’ve been impossible without the passive nourishment of Karst energy.
One milligram of refined Karst Crystal could sustain a family of four for a year, not with luxury, but with enough.
Everything—food, water, soil, even air—carried traces of Karst energy.
So even the poorest child, with enough discipline, time, and steady training, could—after a decade or two—step into the Body Forging Realm.
Merin began practising martial arts at the age of six, and by ten, he stepped into the Body Forging Realm.
He achieved this in just four years, not only due to his unwavering diligence but also his natural talent.
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His family's support played a crucial role as well.
Though not wealthy, they belonged to the upper middle class and owned a small but thriving restaurant, not fine dining, but it served meat from Giant Beasts.
Thanks to that, Merin had access to Karst-infused meat two to three times a week.
Every cell in a Giant Beast’s body held traces of Karst energy, and eating that meat regularly gave Merin a nutritional advantage that most kids didn’t have.
It took him three more years to step into the Qi Condensation Realm.
Reaching this stage required condensing the energy stored within every cell—the raw force called Qi.
During the Body Forging Realm, that Qi was used to strengthen the body, and as the body adapted, the amount of Qi grew.
Once ten wisps of unrefined Qi were formed, the foundation was laid.
At that point, one could begin condensing—merging ten wisps into a single, denser wisp.
That single wisp would then be used to further temper the body, and the process repeated, again and again.
Ten became one, then ten of those condensed into another one, over and over, until the Qi became pure enough to leave the body at will.
That was the true mark of mastery in the Qi Condensation Realm—when Qi no longer remained bound to flesh and bone.
When Qi could leave the body, you stepped into the True Energy Realm.
It took Merin another three years to break through.
In this realm, the goal was to saturate every cell with True Energy—until the entire body pulsed with power.
This granted complete bodily control, down to individual cells.
With time, a martial artist learned to influence every biological field across those cells and eventually unify them into a single, cohesive field.
That was the key to stepping into the Unification Realm.
For Merin, that leap took four more years.
At twenty-one, he broke through.
The first three realms—Body Forging, Qi Condensation, and True Energy—were considered the lower realms.
Martial artists in these stages could only fight with their bodies, and while strong, they weren’t seen as truly dangerous.
But that changed entirely at the Unification Realm.
Here, martial artists began absorbing Karst energy directly, whether from crystals or from the ground itself.
They merged that external energy with their own True Energy and reforged their bodies once more.
This transformation greatly amplified their biological field. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novelFirｅ.net
The Unification Realm itself was split into two phases—lower and upper.
In the lower phase, a martial artist could shape their True Energy into projectiles, like bullets.
They could also use their biological field to sense vibrations in the earth, tracking movement from a distance.
From this point on, martial artists became living weapons.
As for the upper Unification Realm, Merin couldn’t speak from experience—he had only broken through to the lower stage a few months ago.
Still, he had heard stories.
At that level, martial artists could manipulate metal using their biological field.
It was one of the key reasons the Federation still valued martial artists, though only those in the upper two realms.
About the King Kong Realm, Merin knew even less.
All he’d learned was that the True Energy within the body transformed into a mysterious black energy.
That energy was so dense and resilient, it could block anti-tank rounds and withstand low-grade explosives.
Merin dreamed of reaching that stage—becoming a King Kong martial artist and standing at the pinnacle of power.
But first, he had to break through to the upper Unification Realm.
And he knew that wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
Not with his current breathing technique, holding him back.
Qi was energy stored in every cell of the body, but it could only be gathered, refined, and controlled through a proper breathing technique.
With enough training, food, and natural talent, anyone could reach the Body Forging Realm.
But to go further—to form Qi itself—a breathing technique was essential.
Breathing was the foundation of martial cultivation.
Without a technique to draw in and guide energy, a martial artist would be forever stuck at the early stages of Body Forging.
They wouldn’t be able to gather Qi.
That’s why breathing techniques were so crucial.
The earliest ones were created by humans who studied how giant beasts absorbed Karst energy, mimicking their rhythmic, deliberate breathing.
Those ancient techniques were often named after the beasts they were based on, and over time, were slowly refined for human physiology.
Breathing techniques were now classified into lower and upper ranks.
Merin’s current technique—*Blue Light Breathing*—was a lower-rank method.
The Qi it produced burned hot, leaving scorch marks on impact after breaking through to the True Energy Realm.
It could even create delayed explosions, just like the one he triggered to kill the giant deer yesterday.
He’d learned it from the martial arts school he first joined, a solid technique for someone in the lower realms.
But now he was an upper realm martial artist.
And this technique was holding him back.
He needed an upper-rank breathing technique.
Getting one wouldn’t be difficult—every major martial sect in and around Terrilyn City had invited him.
But he hadn’t joined any.
The benefits were tempting, especially the access to advanced techniques—but so were the obligations.
And Merin didn’t want to carry anyone’s burden.
Besides, he’d already passed the entrance test to the Karst Energy Research Centre.
Once he officially joined, the Federation would grant him access to upper-rank techniques anyway.
Until then, he could only rely on what he had.
He let out a breath and slowly began drawing in Karst energy—painfully slow, but steady—refining it into his True Energy.
Merin continued his practice for several hours.
Then, as always, he drank a vial of life potion and used its surge to forge his body, letting the True Energy temper every muscle, bone, and cell until nearly all of it was consumed.
Only then did he stop to cook and eat the preserved giant deer meat—his main source of nutrition and recovery.
This routine lasted for four more days.
But today, he had to stop an hour before six.
It was the sixteenth—the scheduled date for the planning meeting to discuss the hunt for a Colossal Realm beast.
Merin freshened up, changed into a set of clean, formal clothes, and stepped out of his cottage.