Adam stared at the knife in his hand, it was a plain thing, its blade was dull and it looked like the kind of utensil meant for kitchens and small crimes.
In truth it was a conduit too, the lowest grade: a dirty-bronze Common Knife.
Conduits were tools that focused a martial artist's essence and multiplied their strength.
There were eight grades in total; Dirty-Bronze, Black-Iron, Pure-Silver, Champion-Gold, Royal-Purple, Rare-Platinum, Epic-Diamond and Mythical.
Adam's conduit sat at the very bottom of that ladder.
It looked like nothing more than metal and a wrapped handle.
He set it into the strap on his waist without ceremony.
Conduit or no conduit, with an E rank special talent this rift is no longer a threat.
As he walked toward the rippling gate, a lanky man near the entrance nudged a colleague and nodded in Adam's direction.
"Isn't that the kid who came out all banged up yesterday?"
The colleague, a broad-shouldered, bald man with a face like a hammer, squinted, then shook his head.
"Most people tend to overestimate themselves after awakening. Figured he'd get a wake-up call after what happened yesterday, guess I was wrong."
The lanky man scoffed.
"Poor kid, hasn't even stepped into the Martial Apprentice rank."
Although it seemed as if they cared, in all honesty, they just took Adam as a joke.
Other fighters glanced up and the murmur spread like a current.
Adam felt the stares and counted the minutes of scorn the same way a thief counts coins.
It didn't matter.
He hadn't come for their approval or pity.
Stepping close to the mirage-thin vortex. The air tasted like cold iron and rain on hot stone.
The Mirage-Like rift hummed against his teeth.
One step.... One step and the past becomes a promise kept.
Then, without hesitation, Adam folded forward and let the rift swallow him whole.
****
When entering a rift as a group, every martial artist had to maintain physical contact. If not, the rift would scatter them the moment they crossed, dropping each member in random, often dangerous locations.
But for solo entrants like Adam, that rule didn't matter.
The moment he stepped through, the air around him warped and pulsed with thick essence pressure.
A chill swept over his skin as colors bled and twisted, until suddenly, the world steadied.
He stood in a vast open plain.
Tall golden grasses brushed against his knees, swaying under a faint wind.
A few crooked trees jutted out from the landscape like broken spears and a large hill could be seen surrounding the area.
The air carried the faint stench of iron and decay, the scent of monsters.
Adam took a slow breath, eyes narrowing as he surveyed the terrain.
"Just like last time, I have to reduce the rift's monster saturation by 0.5% for an exit to form."
He gave a faint, humorless smile. The truth was, he hadn't achieved that last time.
He'd merely stumbled upon a temporary exit left behind by another group of martial artists.
It had been luck, nothing more.
Each rift operated under its own system of monster saturation, which was the measure of how filled the rift was with monsters.
Every time monsters were killed, the saturation dropped slightly.
For every 0.5% decrease, a temporary exit would open, lasting three minutes around the person or group responsible for the 0.5% decrease.
And once the overall saturation reached 0%, the rift would collapse completely, sealing itself shut.
But that was easier said than done. Killing monsters wasn't simple, and martial artists weren't tireless machines.
The moment they paused to rest or recover essence, the rift would heal, its saturation creeping back up as new monsters spawned.
That endless cycle had its advantages: more monsters meant more resources.
But it also brought a deadly risk, a rift breach.
Once a rift's saturation reached 100%, the essence inside would begin to overflow, spilling into the outside world.
Monsters would pour out like a flood, devouring anything that moved.
That's why the Mission Hall maintained a "safe saturation" limit of 70%.
If a rift went above that, they would issue a mass cleanup order, rapidly clearing it before it could overflow.
But that safety only applied to stable rifts, rifts that behaved according to predictable essence patterns.
Unstable rifts were the exact opposite as they were chaotic by nature and their essence flows shifted without warning.
They didn't need to reach 100% saturation to break.
Sometimes, all it took was a ripple or a sudden imbalance, and the rift would tear open, vomiting monsters into the world outside.
It was an unstable rift that had caused the sector 516 disaster 9 years ago.
****
Adam pushed those thoughts aside for now. What mattered now was the hunt.
He scanned his surroundings carefully, the landscape was identical to the last time he'd entered Gob Valley.
The hills that circled the plains stood like painted backdrop and served as a cruel illusion of depth.
No matter how far one walked toward them, they would never draw closer, because the rift twisted space itself, trapping everything in this endless flatland.
Taking a breath, Adam raised his hand, summoning his Panel.
A faint pulse of essence responded, and a blue screen shimmered into view before his eyes.
╭───────────╮
〖Name: Adam〗
〖Rank: None〗
〖Cultivation Talent: G〗
〖Special Talent: Equip ❖ Connect〗
〖SLOT〗
↳ SOUL (2): Rapid E ❖ Rapid E
↳ BODY (5): Empty
╰───────────╯
Adam focused on one of the Rapid slots, and the description materialized in a small golden box.
[Rapid E: Gives the bearer a modest increase in speed.]
He couldn't help but smirk.
The panel is underselling the talent.
In truth, an E-rank special talent wasn't "modest" at all.
The boost it provided was equivalent to having a 7 Stars profound-grade martial spirit, something that took most martial artists years to achieve.
That was the difference between normal martial artists and those with special talents.
While others spent years raising their spirits, those with special talents simply activated that same power instantly.
To the rest of the world, they were walking cheats.
Adam's smirk hardened.
And just yesterday, It would have been naive to consider myself among them… but now? He gripped the handle of his conduit knife tightly.
Now I'm the biggest cheat there is.
The tall grass rustled faintly ahead, and Adam froze.
His eyes narrowed. His pulse quickened, his heart drummed faster, and an old, familiar anger began to simmer deep inside.
Something was approaching, it was small, fast, and moving low through the brush.
A faint hiss broke the silence.
Then a hunched figure emerged, its green skin slick with sweat and grime, jagged teeth glinting beneath a crooked grin.
A goblin.
Adam's eyes sharpened, his grip on the knife firming.
Finally,