The Old Kid Awakens

Section 1: The DVD Store

As Lawson walked past the playground, something across the street caught his attention—the old DVD store was still there. He slowed down and stared at it for a moment, hardly able to believe the place was still in business. In this day and age, when almost everything could be watched online, somehow that little DVD store had survived.

The sight brought back an old memory. Lawson still remembered the owner from nearly a decade ago—a ridiculously handsome young man with a perfectly sculpted body and eight-pack abs, who seemed to spend half his working hours behind the counter without a shirt on. Despite his appearance, the man took his job extremely seriously, especially when it came to the store’s age-restricted section. No matter how mature a kid looked or what excuse they came up with, he would never knowingly allow a minor inside.

Lost in the memory, Lawson eventually found himself standing outside the store, where a small commotion near the counter caught his attention.

“Come on, sir,” a teenage boy pleaded. “Tomorrow’s my eighteenth birthday. Can’t you just let me into the age-restricted section? I need to buy a DVD to celebrate with my friends. You know, like a coming-of-age ceremony.”

The owner shook his head firmly. “No. Seventeen years and three hundred sixty-four days is still seventeen. One day short is too young. One hour short is too young. One minute short is too young. Come back tomorrow—or come back tonight after midnight.”

“Come on! You close at midnight!”

The owner was clearly just as strict as Lawson remembered.

Lawson casually glanced toward him and immediately noticed that the man was still shirtless, just as he had been nearly a decade ago. Unfortunately, that was about the only thing that had stayed the same. The stylish hair Lawson remembered had thinned into a messy middle-aged mop, while his perfectly sculpted eight-pack had been replaced by an enormous round belly protruding over his waist.

Lawson stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell happened to this guy?”

He hadn’t seen the man in nearly a decade, but apparently, nine years had been more than enough.

Feeling a wave of nostalgia, Lawson stepped inside. This time, however, things were different. He was eighteen now. For the first time in his life, he could legally enter the age-restricted section.

As he approached the counter, Lawson naturally reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID, ready to show it to the owner.

The owner took one look at him and immediately recognized him.

“Oh, it’s you! Man, it’s been almost a decade. I thought you might’ve died of old age by now.” He looked Lawson over with genuine concern. “How’ve you been? Still in good health?”

“Excuse me, I’m only eighteen.” Lawson held out his ID. “Here.”

The owner burst out laughing and waved him away. “Ha! You’re still funny as hell. Go ahead, man. I don’t need to see that.”

Lawson stood there with his ID still extended.

The owner gestured toward the age-restricted section. “Go on. You’re good.”

Lawson slowly put his ID back into his pocket and shook his head.

“He has never checked my ID. Not even once.”

With that, he walked straight into the age-restricted section.

Section 2: Advanced Human Biology Research

Inside, Lawson casually began browsing the shelves.

The first DVD that caught his eye was Journey to the Sex. According to the cover, it followed a monkey warrior who had sworn to protect his master on a dangerous journey to a paradise filled with beautiful women. Lawson studied the actresses posing on the cover for a few seconds before putting it back. “Looks boring.”

The next one was Semen on the Clocktower. Lawson raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.” He examined the dark, ominous cover for another moment. “Could make a pretty good horror movie. Not sure it’s the best idea for adult research material, though.” He returned it to the shelf.

Then he pulled out Family Gay. Lawson took one look at the cover and immediately put it back. “Oh, no. This is definitely not my type.”

As Lawson continued down the aisle, he suddenly remembered a particular series Mildy had been obsessed with back in college.

Two Girls, One Cop, starring Lady Sasa.

Lawson stopped in his tracks. He hadn’t thought about that name in years.

The memory carried Lawson back to his college dorm. Back then, Mildy and the other two roommates would often gather around the computer to conduct what they liked to call their “advanced human biology research.”

Little Lawson, meanwhile, wanted nothing to do with any of it. He was usually somewhere on the floor, completely absorbed in his own world—building Lego sets, assembling model kits, working through enormous 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles, or playing with the latest addition to his collection of toy kitchen sets.

One evening, Mildy looked over from the computer. “Hey, Lawson. Wanna come study with us?”

Lawson barely looked up from what he was building.

“Come on,” Mildy said. “This research material has a lot of pretty chicks.”

“Nah. I’m not interested in chicks.” Lawson went right back to his toys. “I’d rather play down here.”

Mildy simply shrugged. “Come on, Lawson. You’re such an innocent little sheep.”

“Come on, Mildy,” one of his roommates said. “Let the kid be a kid.”

With that, the three of them turned back to their intense studying.

“Oh, man,” Mildy said, staring at the screen. “Two Girls, One Cop, starring Lady Sasa. This is the best thing I’ve seen in ages.”

Meanwhile, Lawson continued playing quietly on the floor.

Section 3: Six Months of Failure

Ever since witnessing the Golden Technique at the playground, however, Lawson had become obsessed with understanding how it worked. He spent much of his free time alone in the university research lab, filling sheet after sheet with diagrams, calculations, mathematical models, and theoretical structures as he tried to reverse-engineer the principles behind the technique. He ran experiment after experiment, approaching the mysterious power like an engineering problem that simply had to have an answer.

Six months passed, and Lawson had made virtually no progress.

One afternoon, after staring at yet another useless set of calculations, something inside him finally snapped. He planted both hands on the desk and swept everything off in one violent motion. Hundreds of diagrams and pages of calculations scattered across the laboratory floor.

“This is impossible!” Lawson shouted. “Six months! Six freaking months, and I still haven’t made any real progress!”

An instructor working nearby immediately turned toward him.

“Hey, Lawson. Behave yourself.”

Lawson returned to the dorm with his head lowered, still frustrated by another completely unproductive day in the lab. When he stepped inside, the room was empty. Apparently, Mildy and the other two roommates had gone out again. Maybe they were gambling, maybe they had gone to the DVD store, or maybe they were visiting one of their favorite massage parlors. Lawson didn’t particularly care.

Just as he was about to sit down, however, he noticed that Mildy had left his computer on. Lawson casually glanced at the screen—and froze.

Two Girls, One Cop.

Section 4: An Unexpected Awakening

“Holy shit…”

His eyes locked onto the screen. Lawson sat down without even realizing it, and before long, one of his legs began bouncing casually beneath the desk. He didn’t notice that either. He simply sat there, completely absorbed, until he had gone through the entire series.

Somewhere during that time, something inside Lawson began to change. Without him noticing, his short arms and legs began stretching, followed by the rest of his body. His small frame grew rapidly until he reached 169 centimeters tall. His muscles became denser and more developed, his bones thickened and strengthened, and the proportions of his body matured with astonishing speed.

Unfortunately, so did his face. If Lawson had looked like a man in his sixties before, he now looked well into his eighties.

By the time the transformation was complete, the little Lawson who had entered the dorm was gone. In his place sat a much taller, stronger, even older-looking Lawson, still staring at the computer screen with one leg casually bouncing beneath the desk.

But the transformation had gone far beyond his physical appearance.

Lawson’s intelligence and wisdom had also increased dramatically, as though both of his mental stats had suddenly received an enormous boost. He had already been exceptionally intelligent, easily outperforming most ordinary college students despite his age. Now, however, his mind was operating on an entirely different level.

Ideas connected almost instantly. His reasoning became sharper, his understanding grew deeper, and problems that had once seemed impossibly complicated suddenly began breaking themselves apart in his head.

The intellectual bottleneck that had held back his Golden Technique research for six months had finally been broken.

Lawson slowly stood up and looked down at his newly developed body. A huge grin spread across his face.

“Now I finally feel like I’m eighteen.”

Section 5: The Breakthrough

Without another word, he turned around and headed straight back to the research lab.

The instructor from earlier was still there when Lawson walked through the door. He looked up, stared at the eighty-year-old-looking man approaching him, and frowned.

“Excuse me, sir. Who are you?”

“Just move out of my way.” Without breaking his stride, Lawson raised one hand and casually stopped the instructor from stepping in front of him.

Lawson walked straight past him and returned to his usual desk, leaving the instructor standing there in confusion.

He pulled out a fresh stack of paper and immediately began drawing. Diagrams appeared one after another, followed by equations, calculations, and increasingly complicated models. His pencil raced across the pages as six months of failed research suddenly began making sense.

With his greatly enhanced intelligence and wisdom, Lawson could finally recognize the patterns and connections that had previously escaped him. The research itself had not changed. What had changed was his ability to understand it.

Lawson continued working late into the night. By the time he finally put down his pencil, the desk was covered with completed diagrams and calculations. He leaned back, stretched his arms above his head, and let out a satisfied breath.

“Oh… this is it.” A smile slowly appeared on his face. “I finally reverse-engineered one of the secrets behind the Golden Technique.”

Section 6: Golden Bow

Feeling more satisfied than he had in months, Lawson left the lab and slowly made his way back toward the dorm. Along the way, he passed through the same small park where he and his roommates often went for walks.

Suddenly, a large figure stepped out from the bushes.

Lawson immediately recognized him. It was the same tall, heavily built man who had robbed him and Mildy before.

The man cracked his knuckles. “I’m taking all your money tonight. And my wife just divorced me, so I’m in a really shitty mood. After I rob you, I’m gonna beat the hell out of you too.”

Lawson looked him up and down.

A sly smile slowly appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Without warning, Lawson dropped onto all fours. The instant his forehead struck the ground, a brilliant golden light flashed from his forehead.

“Please… please spare my life!”

The robber froze.

For a brief moment, the Lawson kneeling before him no longer seemed like some random victim. In the robber’s eyes, he saw a pitiful young man who had already endured one disastrous marriage after another, each ending in heartbreak, betrayal, and divorce. Somehow, despite being only a kid, Lawson appeared to have suffered through more failed marriages than the robber had experienced in his entire life.

The robber’s anger disappeared.

“Damn…”

He lowered his fists and walked toward Lawson, suddenly filled with sympathy. Reaching down to help him up, he shook his head sadly.

“Man, we’re in the same boat. I had no idea you’ve been through even worse shit than me.”

As the robber reached down to help him up, Lawson quietly slipped a switchblade from his pocket. The moment the man let his guard down, Lawson drove the blade straight into his chest.

The robber’s eyes widened. Lawson tightened his grip on the handle and twisted the blade once while it was still lodged in the man’s chest.

Even after that, the sympathy in the robber’s eyes never disappeared. He looked at Lawson one last time and managed a weak smile.

“Man… don’t give up on love. You’ll find the right one… someday…”

Then he collapsed onto the ground and went still.

Lawson slowly stood back up. A sudden wave of dizziness passed through his head, and his body felt noticeably more tired than it had just moments earlier. For the first time, he experienced just how much physical and mental energy a Golden Technique could drain—just as his calculations had predicted.

Still, the exhaustion could hardly suppress his excitement. Lawson looked down at the dead robber, then at his own hands. A deeply satisfied smile spread across his face.

“It worked.”

He thought for a moment before giving his newly created technique a name.

“Golden Bow.”

More importantly, Lawson finally understood one of the fundamental secrets behind the Golden Techniques. Intelligence alone was not enough. A Golden Technique also had to match the natural characteristics of the person using it.

Someone born with exceptionally sharp and perceptive eyes, for example, might be suited for a Golden Technique centered around vision.

“That one could be called… Golden Eyes.”

And Lawson finally understood what suited him.

Deception.

He had always been naturally cunning, and the Golden Bow amplified that characteristic far beyond ordinary human limits. His kneeling, his pleading, his helpless expression—every part of the deception became so convincing that the robber had continued believing in Lawson’s pitiful story even after Lawson had stabbed him.

After six months of research, Lawson had finally found his answer.

The Golden Techniques were not simply powers that anyone could learn. They were extensions of the people who used them.

That also meant no ordinary person could master every Golden Technique. Most people, Lawson concluded, would probably be limited to one or two techniques that naturally matched their own characteristics.

There was, however, one theoretical exception.

If someone possessed an almost inhuman level of intelligence—an intellect so far beyond normal human limits that ordinary rules no longer applied—then perhaps that person could understand and master every Golden Technique.

Lawson stared at his calculations for a moment.

“But there’s no way someone like that actually exists.”

Section 7: Pandora’s Box

Not long after that, Lawson asked his mother to buy him a computer of his own. From that day forward, his enthusiasm for “advanced human biology research” became almost frightening. He studied the material with such intensity that even Mildy and the other two roommates eventually began to worry about him.

One day, Mildy walked over and placed a hand on Lawson’s shoulder. “Dude, you’ve been taking this research way too seriously lately. You need to give yourself a break. Your body’s not gonna survive this.”

Lawson barely acknowledged him and continued with his research.

Mildy slowly backed away and returned to the other two roommates. The three of them stared at Lawson from across the room.

“Man,” one of them whispered. “I guess he was never really an innocent little sheep.”

Mildy shook his head. “Nah. We opened Pandora’s box.”

The other roommate stared at Lawson for another moment. “There was a demon hiding inside that little sheep the whole time.”

Mildy sighed.

“Compared to him, I think we were the innocent little sheep.”