A New Trait and an Old Fox

The tenth floor marked the end of the adaptation zone.

By now, strategies and walkthroughs for this stage were scattered across the internet in abundance. A quick browse through any hunter forum laid it all bare.

As the forum chatter made abundantly clear, the tenth floor was fundamentally different from anything that came before it.

Insane mob density, huh?

From the sixth to the ninth floor, various breeds of Hog monsters had been introduced one stage at a time. The tenth floor threw all of them into the arena at once. Ten of each type, totaling forty beasts, accompanied by a colossal Wild Hog serving as their chieftain. Cleansing the entire floor was the only way forward. It was a brutal gauntlet fully deserving of its role as the final gate before the real climb began.

"Spiky, think you're up for this?"

Pyu-reeeeng!

The tiny scarlet bud flared open and snapped shut in rapid succession, practically vibrating with eagerness. While I appreciated the little guy's boundless confidence, I couldn't shake a lingering prickle of concern.

"Let's make sure we're thoroughly prepared before stepping inside."

I resolved to finally tackle a project I had been putting off under the excuse of being too busy: concocting an offensive weapon suitable for combat.

First, I harvested Dream Powder from the Dream Mushrooms and thoroughly dried it before packing a generous measure into a sturdy pouch. Next came the venomous barbs plucked from my Angler Flower. After sliding them inside and sealing the cloth, I shook the blend until the contents integrated seamlessly.

"It worked."

The description matched my exact intentions. If I wanted to maintain an EX rank on the tenth floor, relying entirely on Spiky wasn't an option. I needed to pull my own weight on the battlefield. That determination was what drove me to spend the entire preceding day theorycrafting and testing recipes.

Naturally, no book or guide had ever recorded such an item. Perhaps because of its novelty, a string of translucent system prompts abruptly materialized before my eyes.

"Wait, what?"

Stunned, I pulled up my status window.

My designation had shifted from Gardener to Alchemist. Along with the title came a brand-new skill.

"Are you kidding me...?"

Any potion I had manually brewed even once could now be whipped up on demand with a single thought? It was the ultimate one-click automated craft. Still struggling to believe it, I immediately triggered the skill.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Manufacturing."

"Confusion Poison Pouch."

The moment I voiced the selection, materials vanished from my inventory in real-time, and a completed pouch coalesced out of thin air directly into my palm.

"This is absolutely insane..."

Every tedious step of processing, drying, grinding, and blending had been bypassed entirely. Setting aside my awe, I quickly burned through my available materials to produce as many pouches as possible, ending up with three in total. They would prove invaluable for conquering the upcoming gauntlet.

Armed with my newly crafted arsenal and the light crossbow I had picked up from the hunter supply depot during my last visit to the Awakened Persons Management Bureau, I was finally ready. This time, I had every intention of fighting alongside my companion.

The world flickered, and the scenery shifted in an instant.

A vast, rolling grassland stretched toward the horizon. Scattered across the field were dozens upon dozens of multicolored swine, grunting and snorting in a cacophony of porcine menace.

Spiky had already hopped out of my pocket, rooting into the soil. I promptly bathed him in Growth Acceleration before strapping on my crossbow gear.

Pyu-reueee!

The flower coiled its stem tight, poised to pounce across the plains like a spring-loaded trap.

"Hold on, Spiky. Wait a second."

Pyu-reut?

The crimson bud swayed from side to side, peering up at me in confusion. Smirking, I retrieved one of the newly minted pouches from my belt.

"If I pitch this right into the middle of the herd, can you pop it mid-air with a thorn?"

Spiky paused for a fraction of a second, as if calculating the geometry, then bobbed his flower head with vigorous enthusiasm.

Pyu-reut! Pyu-reureut!

"Good. Here goes nothing!"

Relying on old muscle memory from playing catch back in school, I wound up and launched the pouch in a high, arcing lob. It sailed cleanly over the grass, hanging poised directly above the center of the unsuspecting herd.

"Now!"

Pa-ang!

With an explosive crack, a needle-thin thorn erupted from Spiky's foliage and impaled the pouch dead center.

BOOOM!

A crisp concussive pop rang out, blowing the pouch apart and atomizing the contents into an iridescent cloud of spore dust and venom-tipped needles that rained down upon the herd.

"Squeal?"

"Oink...?"

"Grunt?"

At first, the beasts merely blinked in dazed stupor, shaking the odd dust from their snouts. But within seconds, the concoction took hold.

"SQUEEEEEEE!"

"GRUUUOOOOH!"

Unhinged shrieks shattered the plains as the herd dissolved into sheer panic. The hallucination-inducing Dream Powder severely impaired their threat perception and friend-or-foe recognition. While some collapsed into foaming heaps from the Angler Flower's fast-acting paralytic toxins, the rest went completely feral, gouging tusks into their neighboring kin and stampeding blindly into one another.

In the span of a breath, the open field transformed into an absolute slaughterhouse.

"Looks like I won't even need a second pouch."

Nearly half the herd had already dropped stone-dead from the poisoned barbs, while the survivors were tearing each other apart. The efficacy exceeded even my wildest projections. I gave the signal to charge.

"Spiky, let's clean up."

Skrrrrk!

Vines churned into the earth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as Spiky burrowed forward like a green torpedo. Following closely behind, I raised my crossbow. It was a budget model with no fancy enchantments, but for backline support, ranged suppression was king. Besides, reaching Level 10 had imparted a distinct crispness to my physical coordination.

Man, if only this stat boost carried over to the outside world.

Physical enhancements granted by tower levels were restricted strictly to the tower's interior. Then again, if civilian climbers walked back out onto modern streets with the strength of demigods, society would have collapsed into anarchy overnight. The government already had its hands full monitoring awakened hunters. From a public safety perspective, the restriction was probably a blessing.

Keeping a safe perimeter, I slotted iron bolts into the mechanisms and picked off any stray hogs that managed to limp away from Spiky's path. Each thwack sent another beast rolling through the dirt.

Hey, this is actually pretty fun.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when the ground shuddered violently.

"KUROOOOOOAAARGH!"

A guttural roar shook the air as the Wild Hog chieftain charged onto the scene, its boulder-like skull crested with iron tusks. Yet before it could even lower its head to trample me—

PYU-REEEEEEEET!

An Angler Flower that had swelled to a size dwarfing the boss monster itself unfurled its massive crimson petals, hissing with territorial fury. The chieftain skidded to a halt, hesitating in terror.

Whap! Pa-pa-pa-pang!

Spiky's colossal leaves whipped through the air with sonic thuds, unleashing a torrential volley of barbed spines. Even a chieftain monster possessed no defense against hundreds of armor-piercing venom spikes raining down like hail.

Was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Spiky always this terrifying? I stared in mild disbelief. No wonder he had been puffing his chest out earlier. In hindsight, the confusion pouch had been completely redundant.

Still, I shook my head. No matter how overpowered my plant companion was, standing around like a useless bumpkin was thoroughly undignified for a master. Pushing my chest out with renewed authority, I cheered at the top of my lungs.

"Spiky! Get him! You've got this!"

Spurred on by my encouragement, Spiky lunged forward and enveloped the pincushion of a boar in his gaping maw.

CRUNCH! SNAP! SQUELCH!

Despite the gory acoustic performance, the sound emerging from the plant was an absurdly gentle purr.

Pyu-reung, pyu-reureung! It sounded like an overgrown cat rubbing against its owner's shins.

Before I could even celebrate the familiar clear alert, a subsequent series of golden runes flashed across my vision.

"Thunderstrike Grass...?"

Resting in my palm was an elongated yellow seed streaked with vibrant azure veins. Hurriedly, I summoned the botanical codex from my inventory to cross-reference the specimen.

My eyes widened. I had just acquired a second combat plant.

In Hannam-dong, Seoul, two men sat facing each other in a private dining alcove of a quiet chicken soup restaurant near the Awakened Persons Management Bureau.

"It's been quite some time, Assemblyman Yang."

"Haha, indeed it has, Commissioner Kim. A rare pleasure."

Assemblyman Yang Pan-seo settled into his seat, his sharp eyes narrowing with polite calculation. "May I ask what brings about this sudden invitation...?"

"Haha, where is the fire? Let us enjoy our meal first. I imagine you must be famished."

At Commissioner Kim Han-soo's gesture, the waitstaff began wheeling in an extravagant spread. It wasn't merely ordinary ginseng chicken soup; steaming plates of boiled chicken suyuk and glistening platters of fresh chicken sashimi covered the cedar table in quick succession.

Despite the rich aromas and appetizing sheen of the feast, Assemblyman Yang found it difficult to swallow a single bite.

Kim Han-soo...

The Commissioner of the Awakened Persons Management Bureau was the undisputed leader of an administrative powerhouse wielding unprecedented geopolitical authority in modern Korean history. Back when the Special Medicine Act was drafted, Assemblyman Yang had maintained a strictly neutral, non-committal stance. He couldn't fathom why this colossal bureaucratic fox had suddenly summoned him to break bread.

The meal passed in tense, measured civility, Yang Pan-seo chewing mechanically without truly tasting the meat.

"Would you care for a drink?" Kim Han-soo asked pleasantly.

"I would be honored."

The clear liquor trickled into their glasses. As soon as the porcelain cups met the wood, the commissioner leaned back and dropped the pleasantries.

"I'd like to discuss the Special Medicine Act."

Ah. As expected.

Yang Pan-seo's pulse quickened. "The Special Medicine Act...?"

"I believe it is high time we tear it apart and rewrite it from scratch."

"Rewrite it?"

"You know as well as I do how deeply flawed it is."

The Awakened Persons Special Medicine Management Act—colloquially abbreviated as the Special Medicine Act.

On paper, it was an administrative safeguard establishing strict hygiene, quality control, and testing protocols that any awakened-use medicine had to pass before being distributed on the open market. While it appeared thoroughly rational at a glance, the legislation concealed a rotten core.

"That law exists solely to line the pockets of Hanshin Group, does it not?" Kim Han-soo remarked plainly.

"Ahem! Really now, Commissioner Kim... Even coming from you, such blunt accusations are not to be thrown around lightly."

In truth, Assemblyman Yang agreed with every word. It was an open secret among political insiders that the Special Medicine Act was the direct result of Hanshin Group's relentless lobbying and backroom payoffs. The regulatory benchmarks were completely arbitrary, and the licensing prerequisites were deliberately convoluted.

Furthermore, the foundational GPMP standards—Good Potion Manufacturing Practice—were constructed so that Hanshin Group could tweak the requirements whenever a domestic competitor threatened their market share. The law had been drafted immediately after Hanshin secured the exclusive domestic distribution rights for American potions produced by Glorio. Ever since, the Special Medicine Act had functioned as an iron wall, single-handedly strangling South Korea's domestic potion industry in its crib.

"Isn't it absurd on its face?" Kim Han-soo pressed, his voice cool and steady. "The very inspectors evaluating compliance are former Hanshin executives or on their payroll."

"Well... that is..."

"We let it slide during the initial bill proposal. Back then, gates were popping up, the Tower had just appeared, and the Bureau was drowning in crises. We simply lacked the bandwidth to police corporate greed."

Assemblyman Yang swallowed hard. Even though he had broken no laws, the back of his throat felt dry as sand. Unbothered, Kim Han-soo poured another measure of liquor and continued his measured indictment.

"Furthermore, the only commodities capable of meeting the Special Medicine Act's current criteria happen to be imported potions."

"......"

"And what is the state of our market today? Hanshin holds a complete stranglehold, price-gouging our hunters while low-grade imported stock causes endless casualties. Are you telling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me this status quo should stand?"

"...Are you suggesting we abolish the law entirely?"

"Haha, who said anything about abolishing it? I said we are going to tear it down and rebuild it properly."

Yang Pan-seo frowned, studying the older man. "Isn't that practically the same thing?"

"Pharmacy degrees, GPMP certification, Special Medicine Dispensing Manager licenses... These absurd hurdles were never about public health. They were designed to protect an artificial monopoly. That is my assessment, Assemblyman. How does it sound to your ears?"

"Are you arguing that anyone should be allowed to brew medicine without credentials?"

"Of course not," Kim Han-soo countered smoothly. "Conventional pharmaceuticals naturally demand stringent oversight."

"Then what are you proposing?"

Kim Han-soo topped off Yang Pan-seo's glass with deliberate slowness.

"Potions are fundamentally different from synthesized chemicals. From raw ingredients to the arcane mechanics of their creation, they defy traditional pharmacology."

"Even so, objective safety standards are—"

"Naturally. I do not dispute that. But tell me, Assemblyman... what if an awakened individual exists who possesses the inherent capability to brew potions directly?"

Yang Pan-seo's breath hitched. "What did you just say...?"

"What if that awakened person crafts potions whose purity and efficacy vastly surpass Glorio's stock, yet is legally barred from selling a single drop because of Hanshin's manufactured red tape? Could there be any greater injustice to our nation's hunters?"

"Could it... could it really be...?!"

Meeting the veteran politician's flabbergasted stare, Commissioner Kim Han-soo offered a faint, leisurely chuckle.

"All I am saying is that our domestic market desperately needs healthy competition. How else will superior goods ever see the light of day?"

"......"

"So, my esteemed Assemblyman... do you find yourself inclined to agree with my assessment?"

Kim Han-soo raised his glass into the quiet space between them. After a breathless pause, Yang Pan-seo slowly lifted his own.

Clink.

The crisp chime of meeting crystal echoed gently through the room.