Deicya stood frozen as the laughter of the nearby vendors slowly faded into a low, mocking hum.
His hand hovered near his side, empty. Down near his worn sneakers, the crisp, blue one-thousand-peso bill lay face down in a puddle of grey, stagnant water, soaking up mud until the paper turned dark and limp.
Three thousand pesos. The final remnant of his old life—his sweat, his hunger, his pathetic savings—was completely worthless.
Slowly, Deicya leaned down. His broad shoulders stretched the cheap fabric of his shirt to its limit as he pinched the wet bill between two fingers, lifting it out of the filth. He didn't bother drying it off. He simply folded the soggy paper and slid it back into his wallet beside his driver's license.
He didn't say a word to the clothing vendor. Turning on his heel, he pushed his way back into the main thoroughfare of the wet market.
The humiliation burned in his chest, but beneath the embarrassment, a cold, sobering clarity settled in.
'Paper money is dead,' Deicya thought, his eyes scanning the chaotic alleyways. 'No banks. No central government. The old world didn't just break—it was erased.'
As he walked, he forced himself to observe every detail of this new reality.
The market path was narrow, lined with makeshift stalls constructed from corrugated iron, rusted scaffolding, and frayed blue tarps. Wet, muddy concrete squelched under his shoes. But instead of the usual price tags written in thick red marker, small chalkboards listed entirely different terms of trade:
1 Tin of Sardines = 2 Liters of Filtered Water
1 Pack of Batteries (AA) = 3 Packs of Instant Noodles
1 Vial of Crystal Dust (0.5g) = 5kg Rice / 1 Box Canned Goods
Everything was tangible. Everything was tied directly to survival or power.
At one stall, a frail older man offered a set of rusted wrenches in exchange for a single strip of pain relievers. At another, a scarred scavenger in a stained leather jacket handed over a small, glowing glass tube filled with shimmering amber dust in exchange for a heavy canvas sack of grain and three packs of cigarettes.
Deicya's gaze lingered on the glowing tube.
'Crystal Dust…' Kazura's words echoed in his mind. The raw, overwhelming energy bleeding out of the cores. Even here, in a country left behind by the meteor impact, tiny fractions of divine fallout had filtered into the soil and atmosphere, becoming the ultimate currency of the post-collapse era.
A sharp cramp twisted in Deicya's stomach. A reminder that he hadn't eaten since before his encounter in the Void.
'I have no canned food. No batteries. No dust,' he realized, his jaw tightening. 'I'm standing in a body built like an ox, but I'm one step away from starving on the street.'
Panic threatened to swell, but he forced it down.
He wasn't helpless. He hadn't just spent two years in a cosmic domain to die of hunger in a Quezon City market.
'The System,' he thought, his pulse quickening. 'Kazura gave me something before I left. The God of Absorption… how do I actually use it?'
Deicya slowed his pace, weaving through the crowded aisle while keeping his head lowered. He concentrated, focusing his thoughts inward.
'Status,' he called out silently in his mind. 'Interface. Open.'
Nothing happened. The air in front of his eyes remained clear, save for the murky shadows of the market canopy.
'Do I have to speak it again?' He swallowed, glancing around to make sure no one was watching him closely. "System," he muttered under his breath, his deep voice barely audible over the market noise. "Open interface."
Still, nothing.
'There has to be a trigger. A condition.' Deicya gritted his teeth, flexing his fingers into tight fists. Kazura hadn't given him a manual. The god had simply bestowed the power and thrust him back into the world. If the System didn't respond to simple mental commands, it meant his authority over it was still dormant—waiting for an actual target to interact with.
He kept walking, his eyes darting across the stalls, searching for anything out of the ordinary.
Then, he saw it.
Farther down the aisle, where the food stalls gave way to hardware and scavenged gear, something caught Deicya's vision.
At first, he thought it was a trick of the light—a lingering glare from a dangling lightbulb. But as he blinked and narrowed his eyes, the image sharpened with unnatural clarity.
A faint, crimson light was pulsing in the dark air.
It wasn't a physical lamp or a flare. It was a soft, ethereal orb of crimson energy, hovering steadily roughly two feet above the head of a man standing behind a heavy wooden counter.
Deicya stopped mid-step, his heart hammering against his ribs.
'What is that…?'
He stared intensely at the light. No one else in the market seemed to notice it. Shoppers walked right past the stall, browsing through piles of iron pipes, tactical knives, and salvaged generator parts without giving the floating ember a single glance.
Only Deicya could see it.
Driven by an irresistible pull, Deicya adjusted his posture and moved toward the source.
As he closed the distance, the man beneath the red light came into full view. He was a towering, heavily built merchant in his mid-forties, possessing thick, muscular arms scarred from years of hard labor. He wore a faded tactical vest over a dark tank top, his calloused hands casually cleaning a heavy iron wrench with a greasy rag.
The man exuded the quiet, hardened air of a veteran scavenger—someone who had survived the initial collapse and carved out a profitable niche in the wet market.
Deicya took another step forward, entering a three-meter radius from the counter.
The moment his foot crossed that invisible boundary, the air in front of his eyes vibrated with a sharp, static frequency.
BZZT.
A dark, obsidian-and-gold prompt materialized out of thin air, hovering directly over his field of vision. Unlike the bright blue invitation from Kazura, this screen burned with a deep, liquid gold outline that pulsed in rhythm with his own heartbeat:
[ ABSORPTION TARGET DETECTED ]
Source: Human (Merchant - Level / Essence Unawakened)
Extractable Trait: Passive Skill — [ Appraisal (Grade: F) ]
[ Description: ]
Siphon the target's accumulated experience to perceive basic item value, material composition, and resource purity. Does not harm the host.
[ Would you like to absorb this skill? ]
[ YES ] / [ NO ]
Deicya's breath caught in his throat. His eyes darted across the floating characters, reading every line twice to make sure he wasn't imagining it.
'Appraisal…'
His gaze shifted from the glowing screen to the thick, scarred hands of the merchant cleaning his tools. The man had spent two years evaluating scavenged goods, learning through trial and error what was valuable and what was junk in this ruined world.
The Absorption System wasn't just about taking raw power or fighting monsters.
It allowed him to harvest the very knowledge, skills, and traits of the world around him.
The merchant looked up from his counter, his sharp eyes locking onto Deicya's towering frame. "Looking for something, big guy?" the merchant asked, his voice rough and raspy. "Or are you just standing there taking up space?"
Deicya didn't answer right away. He looked at the golden prompt floating between them, his heart pounding with a mixture of anticipation and nervous tension.
'Absorb,' Deicya commanded mentally, focusing every ounce of his intent on the glowing option. 'Yes.'
The crimson light above the merchant's head flared.
Without a sound, a hairline thread of liquid red energy shot down from the light, piercing straight through the center of Deicya's chest.
Deicya flinched, expecting a searing tear, but no pain came. Instead, a sensation akin to ice water flowing directly into his bloodstream washed over him. Across the counter, the muscular merchant simply paused mid-wipe with his greasy rag, blinking hard as a faint, fleeting shiver passed over his shoulders before he shook his head and grunted under his breath.
Inside Deicya, the siphoned energy didn't just register as text on a screen.
It flooded his veins, rushing outward from his heart into his skin and atmosphere. A dark, translucent golden haze—invisible to the mortal eyes of the market shoppers—swirled briefly around Deicya's towering frame. The raw experience of the merchant was broken down, refined by Kazura's system, and permanently woven into the outer layer of Deicya's own aura.
His aura pulsed once, settling down like a quiet, invisible tide clinging to his skin.
BZZT.
[ ABSORPTION SUCCESSFUL ]
[ Passive Skill Siphoned: Appraisal (Grade: F) ]
[ Trait Integrated into Aura: Sighted Perception ]
10 Essence Collected [10/200] E - Rank
Effect: Your divine aura now radiates an invisible perceptual field. Non-living matter entering your sight or aura will reveal its material integrity, purity, and value.
The subtle pressure of his newly empowered aura radiated outward from his body. When he looked down at the heavy iron wrench resting in the merchant's palm, his aura brushed against the metal.
Information flowed directly into his mind—not like reading words on a page, but as an instinctual, sharp clarity radiating through his aura:
[ Heavy Cast-Iron Wrench ]
Material: High-Carbon Iron Alloy (Corrosion: 34%)
Structural Integrity: 66%
Estimated Value: Low (Worth approx. 1 tin of canned meat or 1.5L clean water)
So I gain Essence just from absorbing skills? Deicya thought, genuinely startled.
"Hey! Big guy, I asked you a question," the merchant barked, setting the wrench down on the heavy wooden counter with a loud CLANG. He leaned forward, his broad shoulders squaring up as he eyed Deicya's tight, strained shirt and towering frame. "You buying metal, or are you just staring at my tools like a creep?"
Deicya forced his hands out of his tight pockets, keeping his tone calm and low. "Just looking. Seeing what's worth trading for."
"Got nothing to trade if you don't have goods," the merchant grunted, crossing his massive arms over his tactical vest. "I don't do charity. Food, fuel, or dust. If you don't have 'em, step aside and let real scavengers through."
Deicya didn't move. Instead, his newly enhanced aura swept across the merchant's stall.
To the average survivor, the counter looked neatly organized—salvaged copper pipes, steel blades, rusted gears, and old vehicle alternators stacked according to size. But as Deicya's eyes lit up with the appraisal overlay, the truth revealed itself instantly:
[ Copper Wiring Bundle ] — Purity: 41% (Heavily oxidized inside insulation / Value: Minimal)
[ Reconditioned Generator Valve ] — Structural Integrity: 12% (Micro-fracture detected / Value: Trap)
[ Tactical Steel Knife ] — Material: High-Grade Spring Steel (Value: High / Approx. 2 vials Dust)
The merchant was a veteran, but his eyes relied on visual inspection and weight. He couldn't extend a perceptual aura to detect internal micro-fractures or chemical decay.
Then, Deicya's gaze shifted toward the shadowed ground beneath the right side of the counter.
There sat a large, dented plastic crate filled with discarded scrap—items the merchant had deemed too broken, heavily rusted, or worthless to display on his main table. Shoppers routinely walked right past it, occasionally kicking it out of the way.
Deicya focused his vision and let his aura reach toward the pile.
Rows of trash data filtered into his consciousness: [ Rusted Steel Plate - Scrap ], [ Molded Rubber Hose - Degraded ], [ Cracked Battery Casing - Empty ].
He was about to look away until his aura touched the very bottom of the crate, half-buried under a layer of greasy iron filings.
A distinct, subtle hum vibrated through his aura as it hit a small, heavy object:
[ Severed Conduit Core Fragment ]
Material: Reinforced Titanium Shell / Compressed Copper-Crystal Alloy
Condition: Exterior heavily scorched and caked in sludge.
Special Property: Contains trace residue of unrefined Crystal Dust trapped within the inner seal (Approx. 0.3g).
Real Value: High (Equivalent to 3kg grain or basic clothing set).
Current Classification: Junk (Unexamined).
Deicya's heart took a heavy, deliberate thump against his ribs.
The merchant thought it was just a piece of burnt engine pipe. Because the outer casing was caked in black sludge and melted rubber, no one had bothered to pry it open or clean it. But Deicya's aura had penetrated straight through the filth.
Deicya looked back up, catching the merchant's impatient glare.
"I don't have canned food or Crystal Dust," Deicya said, his deep voice remaining steady and grounded. "But I have strength. You've got heavy crates back there, and you're working this stall alone."
The merchant raised a thick eyebrow, looking Deicya up and down. He took in Deicya's broad chest, the thick muscles straining against his sleeves, and his solid, unwavering stance.
"You want to trade labor for gear?" the merchant asked, a sneer tugging at the corner of his lip. "Boy, muscle is cheap in Metro Manila. Half the desperate fools in this market would break their backs for a cup of rice water."
"I'm not asking for a cup of rice or your high-grade knives," Deicya replied calmly. He pointed a long, thick finger toward the dented plastic crate resting near the mud. "I'll haul those three iron beams behind your stall and stack them wherever you want. In exchange, let me pick two pieces out of your junk box."
The merchant glanced back at the three massive, structural iron beams resting against the brick wall behind his stall. They were remnant support pillars from a collapsed building—each weighing well over two hundred pounds. He had been waiting for a team of two or three scavengers to help him move them all morning, unwilling to pay them in actual food.
He looked back at the junk box. To him, it was literally trash he intended to dump into the river alley at the end of the day.
"Two pieces from the scrap box?" the merchant chuckled, shaking his head. "You're a weird guy, big man. Fine. Move those three beams behind that blue tarp over there, and you can take whatever garbage you want out of that crate. But if you drop one on my table, I'm calling the market guards."
"Deal," Deicya said.
He stepped past the side of the counter and approached the first iron beam.
In his old life—when he was a scrawny, underfed twenty-two-year-old—he wouldn't have been able to lift one end of that beam off the pavement without snapping his wrists.
He leaned down, wrapping his broad, calloused fingers around the cold, rough iron. He braced his core and lifted.
HHMF—
The iron beam rose off the muddy ground as if it were made of solid oak rather than dense metal.
Deicya's eyes widened slightly in internal shock. His muscles didn't tear; his lower back didn't ache. The divine restructuring of his body in Kazura's Void Domain had granted him a dense, terrifying physical baseline. The weight felt substantial, but entirely manageable.
The merchant's smug smile instantly vanished. His mouth opened slightly as he watched Deicya casually walk five steps with a two-hundred-pound iron beam resting against his chest, tossing it onto the wooden pallet behind the tarp with a heavy, dull THUD.
Without stopping to catch his breath, Deicya turned around, picked up the second beam, and carried it over. Then the third.
In less than two minutes, the job was done.
Deicya wiped a light sheen of dust from his forearms, stepping back toward the stall. He wasn't even breathing heavily.
The merchant swallowed hard, clearing his throat as he adjusted his tactical vest, suddenly looking at Deicya with a newfound sense of caution. A man who could lift iron beams alone without an awakened Core wasn't someone to mess with unnecessarily.
"A deal's a deal," the merchant said quickly, gesturing toward the floor. "Take your two pieces of trash and move along."
Deicya didn't hesitate. He crouched down beside the plastic crate, deliberately reaching past a few rusted bolts to make it look like he was casually browsing. He picked up an ordinary rusted iron plate first to throw off suspicion, then plunged his hand to the bottom of the bin, pulling out the sludge-covered, scorched titanium conduit.
He stood up, holding both pieces in his large hands.
"These two," Deicya said.
The merchant glanced at the black, burnt piece of pipe, snorting softly. "Suit yourself, big guy. Don't come crying to me when you realize that pipe is fused shut."
Deicya nodded once, turning on his heel, and walked away into the bustling crowd of the wet market.
Holding the heavy, sludge-covered conduit against his side, Deicya navigated toward a quieter, dimly lit alleyway behind the fish stalls where the smell of salt and rot drowned out the main market noise.
He crouched beside a concrete drainage pipe, pulling out a small, discarded iron bolt he had snagged from the ground. Using his immense upper-body strength, he wedged the bolt into the scorched seam of the conduit pipe and twisted with raw, concentrated force.
CREAK— SNAP!
The brittle, melted rubber seal gave way. The outer titanium shell popped open, revealing the inner chamber.
Inside, protected from the rain and mud, sat a small, crystalline glass tube embedded within the copper wiring. Inside the tube, a tiny, concentrated pile of shimmering, amber dust glowed faintly in the shadows of the alley.
Deicya's aura brushed over the exposed tube, sending a soft, confirming pulse through his mind:
[ Harvested Asset: Refined Crystal Dust (0.34g) ]
Quality: Uncontaminated / Grade F
Est. Market Worth: High (Equivalent to 1 Full Outfit, 3 Days Canned Rations, or Clean Water Supply)
Deicya let out a long, quiet exhale. The tension that had been coiling tightly in his shoulders since he got mocked by the clothing vendor finally began to thaw.
He didn't just have useless paper money anymore. He had real, tangible currency.
Carefully wrapping the glowing tube in a clean scrap of cloth he tore from the inner lining of his old shirt, Deicya stood up and walked back into the main market square.
Ten minutes later, he returned to the very same clothing stall he had been laughed away from earlier.
The middle-aged female vendor was busy haggling with a customer over a pair of rubber boots when Deicya's massive shadow fell over her counter, blocking out the dim overhead light.
She looked up, annoyed. "You again? I thought I told you—"
Her words died in her throat.
Deicya didn't say a word. He reached out his hand and unrolled the cloth scrap on her wooden counter.
Resting in the center of the fabric was the small glass tube, its amber Crystal Dust pulsing with a soft, undeniable divine glow in the dim light of the stall.
The woman's eyes widened. She stared at the glowing dust, then up at Deicya's sharp, carved face and broad frame. The arrogant sneer she had worn earlier vanished completely, replaced by a nervous, eager smile.
"Is… is that pure Dust?" she stammered, pulling a small brass weighing scale from beneath her desk with trembling hands. "Boy—I mean, Sir… what can I get for you today?"
Deicya looked down at her, his voice deep, calm, and utterly devoid of hostility.
"An oversized black shirt. Dark cargo pants with working pockets. And a heavy leather jacket."
He paused, looking at the food stall across the aisle where rows of sealed canned sardines sat stacked on a wooden shelf.
"And whatever canned rations this balance covers."
The vendor didn't dare argue. Within five minutes, the trade was finalized.
By the time Deicya stepped out of a dilapidated public restroom near the edge of the market, he looked like a completely different man.
Gone was the scrawny, pathetic youth squeezing into tight, suffocating clothes from a dead era.
He now wore a heavy-duty, plain black tactical shirt that fitted comfortably across his broad chest, sturdy dark cargo pants tucked into reinforced leather boots, and a heavy, dark slate jacket that draped over his broad shoulders like a mantle. His wallet—still holding his old ID and useless paper bills—was safely zipped into an inner jacket pocket.
In his left hand, he carried a heavy canvas bag containing six sealed cans of beef, three bottles of purified water, and a small iron hunting knife he had traded the remaining fraction of his Dust for.
For the first time in two years, Deicya felt grounded. He had clothes that fit. He had food. He had a weapon. And above all, he understood how to survive in this broken world.
He walked toward the edge of the market perimeter, leaning his back against a concrete support pillar near the main road. He pulled open a can of beef with his thumb, using a small plastic fork to take his very first bite of real food since leaving Kazura's Void.
The salty, savory meat tasted incredible. He chewed slowly, letting his body absorb the nutrients as he looked out toward the quiet street.
Now that he understood the rules of this new world—and how to use his aura to survive—the knot of tension in his stomach finally loosened. He was no longer helpless.
As he finished his meal, a soft movement near a pile of discarded wooden crates caught his attention.
A stray tabby cat, lean and agile, was casually wandering along the top edge of a high brick wall. It moved with quiet, effortless grace, navigating the uneven concrete without a single misstep.
Deicya blinked.
Floating roughly two inches above the cat's ears was a tiny, pulsing red light—identical in hue to the one he had seen over the merchant's head earlier.
Deicya stopped chewing, his fork hovering mid-air.
'A red light… on a cat?'
Surprise flickered in his chest. Kazura had said the Absorption System allowed him to inherit power, but Deicya had assumed it only applied to humans or monsters. Could he actually siphon traits from ordinary animals too?
Driven by pure curiosity, Deicya set his empty tin aside and stepped away from the concrete pillar. He kept his movements slow and subtle, closing the distance until he stood within three meters of the brick wall.
The cat stopped, turning its yellow eyes toward him, twitching its whiskers in the quiet afternoon air.
The moment Deicya entered range, his dark golden aura brushed gently against the stray. The air in front of his vision vibrated with a faint, familiar static.
BZZT.
An obsidian-and-gold prompt materialized in his field of vision:
[ ABSORPTION TARGET DETECTED ]
Source: Feline (Stray Cat - Unawakened)
Extractable Trait: Passive Skill — [ Soft Landing (Grade: F) ]
[ Description: ]
Siphon the creature's instinctual spatial balance and impact dissipation. Reduces fall damage from high grounds and automatically rights the body during mid-air descent.
[ Would you like to absorb this skill? ]
[ YES ] / [ NO ]
Deicya stared at the prompt, a quiet breath escaping his lips.
It wasn't just human experience or monster cores. The System could harvest the natural, biological advantages of the world itself. If he absorbed this, dropping from roofs or jumping across broken urban ruins would become second nature.
He looked up at the cat resting on the high wall, then down at the glowing prompt hovering before his eyes.
His thumb twitched.
'Yes.'