Seeing their leader taken out, the rest of the gang froze in confusion.
One of them lunged, but Fenrir sidestepped him, grabbed his wrist, and twisted until the man scread and dropped to the floor, clutching his arm.
The leader finally reacted, drawing his weapon, but by then, it was too late.
Fenrir's movents were clean, calculated. He didn't need a weapon.
He used their weight against them, redirected their attacks into walls, crates, and each other.
It didn't take long—less than a minute—and the warehouse was silent again.
He adjusted his collar and walked toward the pile of boxes, inspecting the labels to ensure nothing had been broken during the scuffle.
Behind him, groans of pain echoed from the floor. The gang mbers weren't dead—he'd held back—but they wouldn't be moving anyti soon either.
As he began unpacking the lab equipnt, Fenrir turned toward them one last ti.
"I'll give you one day. Clear everything out. If I see any of you here again, I won't be as gentle."
He said, his tone even.
They didn't reply, but the fear in their eyes told him they understood.
By sunset, the warehouse was quiet.
Fenrir had cleared a section near the back, where he began arranging the gear and preparing the site for potion brewing.
The place still slled like beer and sweat, but it was his now.
His own little lab, hidden in the ruins of forgotten industry.
Fenrir took a deep breath as he turned on the essence burner for the first ti.
Now the real work could begin.
______
The n who had fled from the warehouse—now nursing bruises, fractures, and battered egos—sat in silence under the overpass a few blocks away, the muffled sounds of the city buzzing in the distance.
No one spoke at first, still in disbelief over what had happened.
Their leader, still unconscious and drooling on a plastic crate, was a sharp reminder of the humiliation they had suffered.
"We got beaten... by a school kid."
One of them finally muttered, wincing as he rubbed a swollen wrist.
The words hung in the air like poison.
"If this gets out...we're dead. The entire underworld will laugh us out of the city."
Another groaned.
Their vice-leader, a lanky man nad Margo, lit a cigarette and stared at the trail of smoke for a long mont before he finally spoke.
"We spin the story."
The others looked at him, unsure if he'd lost it.
"We say that the guy in the storage isn't just so kid. We say he's a monster in human skin—a guy who hides his strength behind a weak look. That we barely escaped with our lives."
Margo continued,
"You serious? Won't that just draw more attention?"
Soone asked.
"Maybe. But if we admit we were taken down by so weakling school brat, our rep's done. No one will trust us to guard a vending machine."
Margo said with a shrug.
"But if word spreads that we fought a real powerhouse—one who humiliated us like it was nothing—then we don't look weak. We look smart for backing off. And no one else will go poking around a place owned by soone dangerous."
The others glanced at each other, uncertain.
"I don't know... what if soone investigates and finds out we lied?"
"They won't. That kid had money. He had system access. Did you see that equipnt? That's not so low-level scavenger. That's high-grade lab tech, rare licenses. He's soone important. And people like that? They don't play fair. They have backup plans."
Margo said firmly.
That logic—flimsy as it might've been—was enough to settle the group. They nodded slowly, and before long, rumors began to ripple through the downtown underworld.
Whispers of a terrifying young man with blood-red eyes and a calm, unreadable expression.
Of how he moved like a shadow and dropped five ard n without breaking a sweat.
The "Ghost of the Storage District," they started calling him. The kind of nickna that stuck.
anwhile, completely unaware of the fear he had inspired, Fenrir was neck-deep in his new obsession: potion crafting.
After the gang had been dealt with, he returned to the warehouse with his purchased security traps and barriers.
Though the system had already confird ownership, Fenrir knew better than to leave things unguarded.
He installed mana-sensitive alarms, pressure-sensitive glyph pads, and reinforced the entrance with a biotric lock attuned only to his presence.
He even linked a silent alert to his system—just in case soone dared sneak in again.
Once the periter was secured, Fenrir finally began setting up his equipnt.
The crucible went into the center of the worktable, while the extractor and essence separators were aligned on the left side.
A miniature mana furnace glowed with quiet warmth, and cooled collection chambers lined the right wall.
Every piece had a place, every motion accounted for.
He activated the mana circulator and loaded the first ingredient into the extractor.
As the system humd to life and the essence was slowly siphoned into the containnt vial, Fenrir watched, fascinated.
Compared to his previous experiences—mixing things by hand, gauging timing by feel, and praying the potion wouldn't explode—this was a revelation.
He didn't have to rely on gut instinct or half-forgotten traditions.
The tools regulated temperature, filtered impurities, and even alerted him when concentrations peaked.
"Modern tech is... actually incredible. How did things beco this convenient?"
He muttered, shaking his head.
The brewing process took just over two hours.
By the ti he had finished combining all five extracted essences and circulating his mana through the concoction, the potion had taken on a deep sapphire hue with faint streaks of silver swirling at its core.
The system pinged.
[Potion Created: A-Grade Body Rejuvenation Elixir
Effect: Simulates 8 hours of high-quality rest in 1 hour. Restores minor injuries. Accelerates stamina regeneration.
System Rating: 92/100 – Quality: A-class
New Title Acquired: Potion Master
New Passive Skill Acquired: Alchemical Talent (Lv. 1)]
Fenrir narrowed his eyes at the results.
"A-grade? Hmph. It should've been at least S."
He took a sip of the potion, swishing it around in his mouth to check consistency before swallowing.
The effects hit almost imdiately—his fatigue vanished, a light warmth flooded his limbs, and his head cleared as if he'd just woken from a deep, dreamless slumber.
Not bad.
But it could be better.
"Guess I'm out of practice. Still... it's a start."
He muttered, though the system ranked it as near-perfect.
The title amused him more than anything else.
Potion Master.
A little premature, but not entirely wrong.
The passive skill, though, was more valuable—his understanding of alchemical interactions increased.
When he looked at ingredients now, their innate properties shimred faintly, letting him estimate their synergy or incompatibility with each other.
As night fell over the city, Fenrir sat on a stool inside his lab, sipping tea and reviewing the day's notes.
He had a clear roadmap now.
Brew better potions. Grow stronger. Gather skills that suited him—and not rely entirely on what the system fed him.
He still didn't trust it completely.
What concerned him most was how much of his own power the system seed to be trying to "classify" and "assign values" to.
As if it needed to put him in a box.
But he was not sothing that could be asured in grades or levels.
Still, for now, it was a useful tool. He would use it, and if it ever tried to turn against him...
Well, he had ways of dealing with tools that broke.
With a deep breath, Fenrir stood up and began sterilizing the equipnt. He was already thinking of the next potion—sothing to accelerate healing, perhaps. Or maybe sothing offensive.
After all, the weekend wasn't over yet.
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