Global Awakening: Starting With Ten SSS-Rank Talents

”Huff!”

Jet lay flat on the damp ground, his chest heaving as he breathed in rough, ragged gasps. His face was ghostly pale, and thick sheets of cold sweat completely soaked his clothes, gluing the tattered fabric of his black shirt to his skin.

Although the brutal struggle against the predator had only lasted for about thirty minutes, to Jet, it felt like an absolute eternity.

He had come within a fraction of a millimeter of getting ripped apart and killed right at the beginning of his new life.

”Looks like the rumors were true,” Jet muttered under his breath, his voice scratching against his dry throat as he stared blankly up at the giant, interlocking canopy of the prehistoric trees.

”The Beyond is incredibly dangerous after all...”

In his previous life, Jet had been nothing more than a low-level corporate drone and a disposable luggage carrier.

He had never possessed the right or the power to enter this dimension. Everything he knew about the Beyond had been pieced together from fragments of information, public reports, and rumors posted online by Awakeners.

According to everything he had read, it was universally understood that death lurked behind every single bush in this otherworldly realm. If an Awakener lost focus for even a second, they would die an agonizing death without leaving a single piece of a corpse behind for their family to bury.

Now, after experiencing his very first raw encounter, Jet finally understood the literal weight behind those warnings.

He had barely entered the Beyond, it hadn’t even been a full minute since his feet touched the soil and he had already been violently jumped by a giant, predatory beast.

”Dammit, I need to be much more careful from now on,” Jet thought, a cold shiver running down his spine.

He slowly forced his aching body to sit up on the mossy earth, his white pupils turning to look at the massive, limp corpse of the Black-Fang Hyena still wedged securely between the two colossal roots.

He looked away from the dead animal and focused entirely on his right hand. He opened his palm, staring down at the monster core resting in his center. A wide, manic grin slowly flashed across his pale face.

”My very first monster core,” he thought, his fingers lightly playing with the dark crimson marble, feeling its dense, unrefined texture.

Monsters in this dimension were formally classified as Beyond Monsters. They were divided into nine grades, and every single creature contained a core within its body. These cores naturally inherited the general grade and element of the beast from which they originated.

For an Awakened human, a monster core was not just a valuable piece of loot; it was the most vital resource for their long-term survival and strength. Divine Runes could not develop through ordinary physical exercise or human martial training. They required the exact energy and elemental essence contained within these cores to develop their Runes toward their next evolutionary threshold.

By absorbing compatible cores, an Awakened could unlock new skills embedded within their tattoo’s ability tree, increase their physical compatibility, and eventually trigger a complete rune evolution.

It was a resource that could only be harvested within the boundaries of the Beyond, making it highly sought after by every major organization on Earth.

Unless an Awakened was born into a multi-trillion dollar conglomerate or had enough money to buy them off the black market, they were forced to risk their lives hunting in the wilds.

Jet smiled faintly, focusing his intent on the system interface.

He opened his inventory tab and watched as the small crimson marble dissolved into a point of light, storing itself cleanly inside the digital space.

With the first piece of loot secured, Jet called up his status screen once again. His eyes drifted down to the Divine Runes section. Nine out of his ten Divine Runes were completely greyed out.

Looking at those brilliant, world-shattering Divine Runes sitting in total lockdown made Jet’s heart pang with a sharp slice of physical pain and regret.

He had spent his parents’ entire heritage, borrowed millions, and endured a month of absolute biological torture just to have his weapons taken away from him on day one.

”Sigh... there’s no point in crying over this now,” Jet murmured, shaking his head to clear the negative thoughts. ”As long as I continue to grow stronger and expand my baseline mana core, I can forcibly break these seals and unlock them one by one.”

He shifted his focus, tapping directly on the only Divine Rune that had successfully excluded itself from the emergency sealing protocol.

The Eight-Armed Asura.

His white pupils flickered with an intense, burning fervor as the detailed information of the Asura rune expanded in front of his eyes:

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[ EIGHT-ARMED ASURA ]

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Rune Type: Divine Rune

Rune Rank : SSS

Rune Status: Active

Rune Stage: Dormant

Synchronization : 1.00%

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BOUND AUTHORITIES:[ War ] [ Combat ] [ Slaughter ]

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[ RUNE ABILITIES ]

• Asura Physique — [ Stage 1 Awakened ]: Grants the wielder the supernatural physique of an Asura deity. Drastically enhances physical strength, movement speed, endurance, motor reflexes, and innate combat instincts. The longer the wielder remains in battle, the more efficiently the physique adapts to combat, allowing the body to endure increasingly greater physical strain without losing fighting efficiency.

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Jet’s eyes were filled with excitement as he read through the detailed description of the skill.

Although his low vessel synchronization rate of 1% meant he had only unlocked a single passive ability from the massive SSS-Rank tree, the nature of that ability was absolutely broken.

The longer he fought, the more his body would naturally adapt to the battle, overriding exhaustion and adjusting to the enemy’s attack patterns. It was the ultimate vanguard toolkit.

Thinking about this specific mechanic, Jet’s mind traveled back to the frantic fight against the Black-Fang Hyena. At the very beginning of the ambush, he had been entirely panicking, scrambling through the dirt and desperately trying to dodge the talons.

But as the minutes dragged on and his blood spilled into the soil, he distinctly remembered a strange, heavy warmth spreading across his back. He had felt his muscles suddenly calming down, his vision tracking the shift of the monster’s shoulders with an unnatural, fluid rhythm.

At the time, the adaptation had been subtle because his baseline stats were still locked at 1-Star, but he had definitely felt his body adapting to the predator’s speed.

”Damn, this is too good,” Jet grinned widely, a trace of dark humor returning to his features. ”If Frey saw this, he would be absolutely sick with jealousy. I can’t wait to rub this straight into his face when we meet up.”

Yet, as the excitement in his chest began to settle, Jet looked up through the thick gaps in the ancient ironwood branches, noticing the subtle shift in the forest’s ambient lighting. The dim rays of the sun were beginning to tilt at a sharper angle.

Nightfall inside the Beyond was an absolute death sentence for a lone, Awakener. When the sun went down, the high-tier apex predators from the deeper regions of The Thousand Boughs would migrate to the outer borders to hunt.

He closed his digital status screen with a sharp snap of his mind. He needed to find a safe zone immediately.

”I better hurry up and find an ancient Citadel,” Jet muttered, his voice tightening as he stood up on his sore legs. ”Otherwise, if I’m caught out in this open forest after dark, I will turn into monster food in no time.”

He walked over to the tree roots, reached down, and firmly grasped the long, jagged ironwood stake he had used to slay the predator.

The durable wood was heavily coated in dark, sticky monster blood, but the sharp fractured tip was completely intact, providing him with a solid, makeshift weapon.

Weapon in hand, Jet adjusted his footing, ignored the burning pain radiating from the claw marks on his chest, and pushed through the dense, tangled ferns, continuing his dangerous trek deeper into the unknown wilds of the Beyond.

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