Leveling Up in Reality... by Slaughtering Chickens!?

Chapter 006

Seeing their boss get slapped, Benny Gosling’s crew instantly saw red. Roaring in anger, the five or six guys rolled up their sleeves and lunged forward to swarm Glen.

Glen had virtually zero actual street-fighting experience, but facing down half a dozen guys didn't scare him in the slightest. His personal philosophy was simple: disregard life and death; if someone pushes you, fight back until one of you drops. He'd much rather be beaten to death than scared to death. Plus, he had a trump card—a Blood Essence Pill capable of multiplying his strength by five times. What was there to fear?.

Without a second of hesitation, Glen took a quick step back, fished the mission reward pill from his pocket, and swallowed it whole.

Boom.

The second the Blood Essence Pill hit his stomach, an explosive surge of raw, terrifying power flooded every single cell in his body, rushing through his veins like a flash flood.

"You're asking for it!" Glen roared. As Benny's lackeys closed the distance, Glen swung his fists in a wild, uncoordinated barrage, hammering relentlessly into the pack.

Crack! Crunch!

Agonized screams mingled with the sickening sound of snapping bones. In the blink of an eye, all five or six of Benny's thugs were crumpled on the floor.

In reality, Glen's fighting style was a chaotic mess. While he was knocking them out, he took more than a few solid hits himself. However, with his fists backed by five times his normal Vitality, a single blow from Glen was enough to instantly disable an opponent. These guys were just spoiled rich kids anyway; their punches lacked real weight, leaving Glen with nothing more than a momentary, stinging pain that he easily pushed through to finish the job.

Stepping over the groaning bodies, Glen walked slowly toward Benny. The arrogant rich kid was violently trembling, terrified out of his mind. He scrambled backward, cowering behind Anne Safdie, and stammered, "Don't come any closer! I... I already called the cops! If you dare touch me again, they'll lock you up!".

"You called the cops?" Glen sneered coldly. "Then I definitely can't let you off easy!".

He closed the gap in two strides, violently shoving the shivering, terrified Anne to the side. He grabbed Benny by the collar, hoisting him up, and unleashed a vicious flurry of backhands and slaps. Over a dozen strikes connected, swelling Benny's face into an unrecognizable, bruised pulp until the rich kid's eyes rolled back in his head. Disgusted, Glen threw the unconscious Benny to the floor and casually tossed a hundred-dollar bill onto the table to cover his meal.

But just as Glen turned to leave, the god-like power surging through his veins abruptly vanished, receding as quickly as a falling tide.

The medicine's duration had ended.

An unprecedented wave of sheer, agonizing weakness slammed into Glen's body, feeling exactly like the worst fever of his life. Accompanying the physical crash was an extreme, burning thirst, as if he had just marched twenty miles across a scorching desert without a single drop of water.

Damn it... the system didn't say anything about side effects this severe! Glen thought, his throat feeling like sandpaper. I'm dying of thirst!.

He frantically scanned the room and locked onto a large cup of freshly squeezed orange juice still tightly gripped in Anne's hands. It looked completely untouched.

Glen lunged forward and snatched the cup right out of her grasp. "I'm parched. You don't mind if I drink this, right?".

Seeing the blood-soaked, feral look in Glen's eyes as he charged her, Anne almost collapsed in sheer terror. She knew exactly how deeply she had wounded him in the past, and seeing how ruthlessly he had just dismantled Benny and his crew, she was entirely convinced he was about to beat her into a swollen pulp next.

Realizing he only wanted her drink, Anne frantically shook her head. "N-No... I don't mind!" she stammered, quickly backing away to put distance between them, terrified he might change his mind and snap her neck.

Glen didn't have the energy to care about her panic. He tilted his head back and chugged a massive mouthful of the cold juice.

The sweet liquid hit his burning throat, providing a fleeting moment of relief. Suddenly, the faint, rising wail of police sirens echoed in the distance. His heart skipped a beat. Knowing he couldn't afford to be caught at the scene, Glen gritted his teeth against the overwhelming exhaustion, ducked into the gathering crowd of onlookers, and sprinted away as fast as his trembling legs could carry him.

Despite his weakness, adrenaline kept him moving fast. But running blindly meant the half-full cup of orange juice in his hand was sloshing wildly, spilling sticky liquid everywhere.

He wanted to throw the cup away, but his throat was still agonizingly dry; he couldn't bear to waste it.

A sudden thought flashed through his mind. The soul-bound Upgrade Chest had five empty slots, and it technically existed in an alternate dimensional space. If he put the drink in there, it wouldn't spill, right?.

Acting on pure instinct, Glen mentally summoned the Upgrade Chest and carefully placed the sloshing cup of orange juice into the center slot.

He took a few experimental jogging steps. The holographic chest hovered and moved flawlessly with him, yet the juice inside the slot remained perfectly still, without a single ripple.

It actually works! Haha... I'm an absolute genius!.

A rush of excitement cut through his exhaustion. This wasn't just about saving a drink; this experiment proved that he could effectively use the Upgrade Chest as a magical spatial inventory. Even though it only had five slots and couldn't hold massive objects, having an invisible storage dimension in the real world was an incredible, game-breaking advantage!.

But just as Glen was about to dismiss the chest and keep running, the icy, synthetic voice of the system abruptly echoed in his mind:

"Discovered low-level Health Potion material. Please continue to input suitable materials for crafting.".

Glen froze mid-stride. ...What?