Bruce exhaled slowly, a thought taking shape in his mind.

'With my Life Glance and Death Glance title, affecting the soul isn't something farfetched…'

And then,

His breath hitched.

A wild, dangerous smile crept onto his face, eyes lighting with sudden realization.

'Why haven't I thought of this before?' he wondered. 'Why did I keep limiting myself to physical structures, to flesh and organs, when everything I manipulate has always gone deeper than that?'

The more he followed the thread of thought, the faster his heart began to beat. Excitement surged through his veins, not reckless, not uncontrolled, but sharp and focused, like a scalpel finding its mark. This wasn't power-lust.

This was discovery.

'The soul isn't untouchable, he realized. I can heal damaged soul if I wanted. Stabilize it. Repaire it.'

His lips curled slightly. 'So why shouldn't I be able to destroy it the same way?'

Bruce turned toward Ash, eyes glinting with something cold and eager.

"Ash," he said quietly, his voice carrying a dangerous edge, "let's go find more of them."

Ash rumbled in response, golden eyes burning with anticipation.

Together, they moved deeper into the forested dungeon.

The light thinned. Shadows thickened. Mana grew heavier with every step, darker, denser, as though the forest itself had begun to breathe. Bruce felt it before he saw anything, the subtle distortions, the shifting pressure, the quiet intelligence of predators that weren't merely hunting, but observing. These were not the mindless beasts they had already exterminated.

Then the attacks began.

Shadows peeled away from tree trunks. Darkness stretched unnaturally along the ground. Wolves emerged only to vanish again, slipping between pools of black like liquid smoke. One moment they were behind him, the next beneath his feet, then above, slashing, retreating, phasing away before counterattacks could land.

Shadow to shadow.

Reality to absence.

A claw burst from the darkness behind Bruce, aimed straight for his spine.

'Too slow.'

Bruce caught the beast mid-motion. Quite easily at that.

His hand snapped back with impossible speed, fingers closing around the wolf's throat at the exact instant it materialized. The impact stopped it cold. Shadow energy exploded outward as its body was forcibly dragged fully into the physical world, black smoke tearing away from solid flesh.

Bruce smiled.

Not wide.

Not joyful.

Just a thin, chilling curve of understanding.

"Time to test the first theory…" he murmured.

Mana surged, not outward, not explosively, but inward. Focused. Refined. Precise. The same fundamental logic behind Restorative Detonation, but inverted, stripped of mercy.

Bruce didn't heal flesh.

He healed the soul.

Excessively.

The wolf convulsed as a glowing blue silhouette was forcibly revealed within its body, its soul torn into visibility by overwhelming intent. It flickered violently, destabilizing as restorative energy poured into it far beyond what its structure could endure. Healing mana flooded the core relentlessly, reinforcing, expanding, overcorrecting.

Cracks spread across the spectral form.

And then,

SHATTER!

The soul broke apart like glass struck by a hammer, fragments disintegrating into nothingness before they could even fall.

The body went limp instantly.

Bruce released the corpse, letting it collapse onto the forest floor. His expression remained calm. Measured. Unreadable.

'The theory worked.'

The dungeon had just become far more dangerous, for everything inside it.

Bruce's gaze shifted toward the shadows.

Without raising his voice, without changing his posture, he directed his Heal into the darkness itself.

The effect was immediate.

The forest shuddered.

A wave of invisible force surged outward, not tearing through flesh, not scorching earth, but flooding the shadows with restorative energy far beyond what they could contain. The dimensional pockets where the Dark Variants hid convulsed violently.

Then,

Bodies fell.

Dozens of S-Ranked Abyssal Direwolves were violently expelled from the shadows, slamming into the forest floor one after another. They lay scattered across the ground, lifeless, their bodies intact, their expressions frozen in eerie stillness.

Their souls had shattered.

"I'll call this skill," Bruce said quietly, eyes cold, observing the aftermath, "Soul Shatter."

He waited.

But nothing happened.

Bruce frowned when no notification appeared.

No title.

No acknowledgment.

They moved on.

As he continued forward, he tested the others on more beasts, Vitality Collapse, Restorative Detonation, even Neural Amplification, mentally assigning names as he used them.

But deep down, he already knew why.

These were skills he had tested back in VR.

The Akashic Codex hadn't taken note of them there.

And without acknowledgment from the Codex, titles could not be formed in the real world.

To gain a title, the Codex had to witness creation.

He had suspected this for a while.

He also knew something else.

He couldn't gain an exceptional title twice for doing the same thing in slightly different ways.

That was a hard limitation of the Akashic Codex, one he had already brushed against.

As for the other skills,

Since they were first used in VR, the Codex had no record of their birth.

That meant only one thing.

He would have to use them again.

Here, In this world.

The next group of beasts didn't last long.

Bruce stepped forward and unleashed everything, Vitality Collapse, Restorative Detonation, Mana Lock, and Holy Rupture, layered together with surgical precision.

The battlefield turned silent in seconds.

Then,

<Ding!>

[You have created a skill for the seventh time.]

[You have gained a Distinguished Title.]

[Congratulations. You are now a Half SS-Ranked Awakened.]

[Your trial awaits you to determine your Authority and ascend to Full SS-Rank.]

[Do you wish to begin your trial now?]

Bruce stared at the notifications.

Then sighed.

He turned inward and asked calmly,

'I can leave this for later, right?'

[Yes, you can.] Vaelith replied.

Bruce exhaled.

Despite ranking up,

For some reason, he felt no excitement.

He looked at Ash, who stood silently at his side.

The dragon could feel it, the shift in its master's aura, the subtle but undeniable rise. Something deep within Ash stirred, ignited by the urge to grow stronger as well.

Bruce could only sigh again.

'What is this strange feeling in my heart…?'

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