THE SOVEREIGN SCAVENGER: GOD-LEVEL EXTRACTION SYSTEM

THE GHOST HUNTER

The icy river hammered me against rocks, dragging me deeper into the guts of the city. A regular person hell, even the person I used to be would've gotten their skull cracked right away. But now, with my endurance jacked up by a 210 strength stat, those hits were just heavy nudges.

I don’t know how long I spent fighting the current in total darkness. Eventually, it lost momentum and carried me over a concrete ledge, dumping me straight into a swampy, reeking pool.

I came up gasping, lungs burning. Rot, rust, old chemicals every possible stench slammed into me at once. I wiped the grime from my face and activated Abyss Eyes.

Everything shifted turned cold and sharp in blue and silver. Huge arches of pitted concrete rose overhead, smothered in patches of radioactive moss that glowed faintly. Yep. I’d landed in the Under-Sewers, the endless maze winding under the wealthy neighborhoods above. No one decent came down here. Beasts thrived, outcasts died.

I slogged my way through the sludge and hauled myself up onto a dry patch of walkway. My overalls were wrecked soaked with god-knows-what. I stripped them off, left in just my undershirt and battered tactical pants.

I pressed my hand to my Interior Abyss Ring, and space rippled. My rusty scavenger hook appeared in my palm.

“Perfect,” I muttered, checking the chipped edge. “Really gotta upgrade this gear. And get a disguise.”

If I walked into the slums looking this healthy and strong, wearing a spatial ring too, everyone would know something was up. Word would reach Silver Wing in hours. If Oliver found out I survived? Forget it. He’d send hunters to finish the job before I could even blink.

I spent an hour winding through tunnels, sticking to the shadows and using Abyss Eyes to dodge mutant rat packs. No way I was wasting mana on weaklings. Right now, I had bigger problems: I needed a safe base.

Eventually, I found a rusty emergency ladder. At the top, a heavy grate. I muscled it open and slipped into a dark alleyway thick with grease, street food, and old engine fumes.

Sector 7. The bottom of the slums.

I kept my head down and wandered until I spotted a flickering thrift shop sign: neon, chipped, promising gear for broke hunters. The bell above the door barely made a sound as I stepped inside. Cheap armor, chipped swords, magical junk crammed every shelf.

The shopkeeper a wrinkled old man with clouded eyes dragged on a beat-up e-cig, ignoring me.

I dug around the back until I found a long, heavy black coat with a deep hood. A little frayed, but it would hide the new muscle I’d put on. Under a tangle of scrap, my fingers closed around something cold. A plain, matte-black iron mask, with slits for eyes and a blank mouth exactly the kind of thing a shady freelancer would wear to stay anonymous.

I dropped my last credits on the counter. The old man hardly glanced at me as he slid the coat and mask over.

Outside, I slipped the coat on and fixed the mask to my face. Hood down, mask tight I stopped to look in a cracked alley mirror.

Ethan Vance wasn’t staring back. Not anymore. Just a shadow, someone who could disappear in a crowd.

“From today on, Ethan Vance is dead,” I whispered, feeling that cold iron pressed against my skin. “Call me the Ghost Hunter.”

I had my cover. Now I needed power. Real brute power. If I even wanted to get close to slapping the Vance Corporation, I’d need to shatter every stat limit they knew.

I headed to the rift plazas. Corporate hunters owned the high-level dungeons, but the government kept some public dungeons open for F-rank and E-rank freelancers desperate enough to risk their lives for pocket change. Monsters in there were usually so weak their corpses weren’t worth hauling out. But for me? That didn't matter. I needed bodies, not payouts.

I found the F-rank Iron Burrow. Grey vortex, bored guards. I flashed an old freelance ID unregistered. One of the guards just waved me through, yawning.

One step through and bam. Underground caves, twisting tunnels, the air sharp with the taste of metal and wet stone. This place crawled with Iron-Hide Beetles tough exoskeletons, hated by hunters because their shells ate through crappy swords.

I moved deeper in, leaving any other hunters behind. Shadows swallowed me.

Then—scratching. One drooling beetle, big as a dog, slid from a crack in the wall. Its pincers flexed, hungry for flesh.

$$TARGET: IRON-HIDE BEETLE (LEVEL 5 - F RANK)$$

It charged. I didn’t even bother pulling my hook. I waited, slipped to the side the kind of move that felt like second nature with my new agility. The beetle smashed into stone where my legs had been.

I brought my boot down on its black shell.

CRUNCH.

Two hundred ten points of strength. Its armor shattered, bug guts splattering everywhere.

I knelt, pressed my palm to its shell.

$$BEEP! INITIALIZING EXTRACTION FROM 'IRON-HIDE BEETLE'.$$

$$SUCCESSFULLY EXTRACTED:$$

$$+5 STRENGTH$$

$$+3 ENDURANCE$$

Thin silver energy leeched into my hand. Not huge like the boss before, but steady, permanent growth. I smiled.

Just one beetle gave me five stat points? If I cleared the whole dungeon...

I became a shadow. I slipped behind beetles, cracked shells with my fists, sucked their stats dry. Every kill, another line of blue notification:

$$BEEP! EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL: +4 STRENGTH, +2 AGILITY.$$

$$BEEP! EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL: +6 STRENGTH, +4 ENDURANCE.$$

$$BEEP! EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL: SKILL EXTRACTED: 'IRON SKIN' (COMMON - RANK 1).$$

Four hours went by. By the time I finally hit the last chamber, I felt heavier. Denser. My skin shimmered with a metallic sheen—Iron Skin, just unlocked, made my limbs as tough as steel.

The final boss waited Iron-Hide Broodmother. This thing was the size of a tank, armored to hell and back, with golden spots flickering on its shell.

$$TARGET: IRON-HIDE BROODMOTHER (LEVEL 15 - E RANK BOSS)$$

The Broodmother bellowed, driving its scythes into the ground. Rock exploded toward me.

I didn’t dodge. I stood my ground, Iron Skin activated. The stone shattered harmlessly against my arms.

“My turn,” I growled.

In a blink, I closed the distance, sliding under its belly. I drove my palm up into the joint between its plates, pouring everything I had into the strike.

BOOM.

The Broodmother’s insides popped. It lifted off the ground, hit the floor, and stayed down.

I set both hands on the corpse.

$$BEEP! SYSTEM HARVESTING HIGH-GRADE TARGET...$$

$$SUCCESSFULLY EXTRACTED FROM 'IRON-HIDE BROODMOTHER':$$

$$+40 STRENGTH$$

$$+35 AGILITY$$

$$+50 ENDURANCE$$

$$ITEM EXTRACTED: 'GOLDEN BEETLE HORN' (RARE)$$

$$HIDDEN ITEM FOUND: 'ANCIENT ALCHEMICAL FLASK' (UNCOMMON)$$

The surge of power flooded my veins. I checked my stats, grinning behind the mask.

$$BEEP! STATS UPDATED.$$

Name: Ethan Vance (Identity Hidden: Ghost)

Level: 7

Strength: 395

Agility: 315

Endurance: 280

Mana: 270

Skills: Shadow Step (Rank 1), Abyss Eyes (Rank 1), Iron Skin (Rank 1)

Nearly 400 strength. I was catching up to corporate squad leaders and I did it solo, in a dungeon freelancers usually picked over for scraps.

I glanced at my loot. That Golden Beetle Horn was rare, worth fifty thousand credits easy. But the Ancient Alchemical Flask… that had my attention.

Abyss Eyes flashed a box of floating text.

$$ITEM: ANCIENT ALCHEMICAL FLASK$$

Description: A perfect relic for brewing old-world elixirs; boosts your chance of brewing ancient recipes by 30%.

Synergy Warning: Matches requirements for 'Sovereign Dragon Elixir' recipe stored in your spatial ring.

I turned the flask in my hands, the weight of opportunity and danger sinking in. If I wanted to brew the Sovereign Dragon Elixir, the formula Vance Corp had hunted for a decade, I’d need more than materials. I’d need facilities, contacts, places to disappear somewhere in the city’s black market underground.

I packed the horn and flask away.

Time to pay the Underground Hunter’s Auction a visit. Time to cash out, stock up, start phase one of my revenge.

Oliver Vance had used his family money as a shield for too long. He was about to learn what happened when a ghost started running the game.