He achieved what he aimed for. He aced the National College Aptitude Exam.
Entered a prestigious university in a major city.
Then came his first night alone in the big city.
He had been accepted to Donghai Metropolitan Technical University, a sprawling institute known for its research programs and government affiliations. It was everything he'd dreamed of.
Classes were intense, but manageable. Professors were sharp. The city pulsed with energy.
One late night, after working late in the lab, Orin walked home through a quiet street just outside the university's edge—an alley near the old film district, where redevelopment hadn't fully swept through yet.
That's when it happened.
A man in a dark suit crashed into a dumpster with enough force to dent metal.
Orin froze.
Another figure blurred into existence—long hair, flowing sleeves, white shoes, and glowing eyes. His hands moved in precise, spiraling patterns.
The air warped.
The other man leapt from the rubble, fists surrounded by crackling force—like pressure waves in liquid form.
They clashed again. Dust exploded outward, but never touched Orin.
He stood a dozen meters away, wide-eyed.
What the hell?! That's—! That's not physics!
A punch cracked the pavement.
A palm strike sent the suit-wearing man flying into a second-story wall.
That's not tech... that's—
He choked on his breath, eyes wide.
"Fu*k, it not a normal world"
"IT'S A DAMN MARTIAL ARTS WORLD?!"
He shouted it out loud.
Neither fighter looked at him.
The ground trembled as they vanished into the shadows, leaving silence in their wake.
Orin stared, stunned.
They hadn't even noticed him.
Not because he was hiding.
But because they simply couldn't register him—not unless he willed it.
His [Paradox] talent had veiled him from detection.
In that moment, as he stood alone under the broken streetlight, realization hit him like a thunderclap.
This wasn't just a world of science.
It was a hidden battlefield.
And he?
He was the anomaly walking through it, untouched and unseen.
The air still quivered from the impact of the final blow.
One man lay slumped in a cratered wall, body mangled and motionless. The other—a young figure in a gray robe, his face pale with exhaustion—glanced around once before vanishing into the alley's far end.
Orin stood frozen.
Not with fear, but with disbelief.
He had just witnessed a man die—struck down by something beyond human.
And the killer?
Had run away like someone else, someone far more terrifying, might be chasing him.
But the part that truly left Orin stunned was this:
One of them had passed directly through him during the fight.
Literally. As if he didn't exist.
There had been no impact, no reaction. The man's shoulder had grazed Orin's chest—and yet it was as if Orin was a shadow.
"They didn't see me... I was right there, and they couldn't see me."
[Paradox].
His talent was no longer just a mystery. It was a veil. A shield. A Cheat.
Cautiously, Orin approached the fallen body.
The man was dead—his eyes open, blood pooling around shattered ribs. A sickly smell filled the alley.
Orin didn't know what to feel. Guilt? Fear? Excitement?
He crouched beside the body, hands trembling. It wasn't looting—it was curiosity. There might be something here. A clue. A fragment of truth.
He patted the coat, checked inside the bloodied satchel.
Nothing...Wait—
A tightly bound scroll, wrapped in black cord.
He slipped it into his jacket.
Heart pounding, Orin backed away and turned toward the streetlight. The city was still humming like normal. Cars passed. Neon signs blinked.
No one had seen.
Back in his dorm room, Orin double-checked the door lock three times before sitting cross-legged on his bed.
His roommate was out for the weekend. He was alone.
Hands shaking slightly, he slowly unwrapped the black cord and opened the scroll.
It was handwritten, with ink that shimmered faintly under the lamp. There were also many diagrams of human body with many marks on it.
But the words?
They weren't in any language he knew.
For the next few days, Orin scoured the internet between lectures.
He took photos of symbols and compared them with ancient scripts on forums, digital archives, and old scanned texts. Nothing matched at first—until one night in an internet café, he struck gold.
Sanskrit.
An ancient language from Earth's past. Long dead, yet still studied.
Piece by piece, hour by hour, he cross-referenced terms using academic translations, religious manuscripts, and linguistic tools. Always on different networks. Always in different locations. Never from his dorm.
If all martial techniques are encoded in Sanskrit,Then there's a chance someone—government, secret groups—could monitor mass translation behavior.
He was paranoid. But not wrong.
So he played it slow.
It took two weeks.
Finally, late one night, in a dingy café near the train station, Orin leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.
He had finished the translation.
"Breath of the Hidden Tiger."
A martial art. Real. Deadly. Detailed.
It outlined breathing patterns, explosive bursts of internal strength, and step-by-step movements designed to strike vital points without warning. There were diagrams, flow charts, and instructions to cultivate "force veins."
It was beautiful.And impossibly beyond his means.
He read through it carefully again, absorbing the structure and theory.
But when he reached the last page, his expression fell.
There, written plainly in translated text:
"First-level initiation requires the Wind Essence Fern, Redroot Lotus, and Snow Iron Leaf . Without these, starting with this technique is impossible."
He stared at the list for a long time.
Each of those ingredients was either prohibitively expensive or outright legendary in the normal world.
He didn't have the funds. Didn't have the contacts. Didn't even have a way to acquire them without drawing attention.
His dream of learning a real martial art?
Stopped cold at the first step.
Orin folded the scroll, tucked it inside a physics textbook, and leaned back.
His eyes traced the cracks in the ceiling.
So this is what the hidden world looks like…
Real.
Dangerous.
And far out of reach.
But not forever.
Not for someone like him.