Chicken bones in the trash. Shower steam ghosting the mirror. Two knives on the nightstand like judgmental pets. The band on my wrist pulsed once, smug and proprietary.
"Okay," I told the ceiling. "Show me the homework."
"Menu."
White panels popped up—clean, sterile, the kind of UI that charges by the minute.
"Quest."
Tabs slid over. Main. Side. Job. The last one blinked like a smoke alarm I'd put tape over.
I tapped Job.
[Job — Threshold Reached.]
[Candidate: Ethan Cross.]
[Assessment: Combat survivability exceeds local curve. Crafting affinity detected.]
Select a Path.
— Blade Dancer (Offense): Amplify critical vectors. Extend Step chains. Open riposte windows.
— Stone-Blood (Defense): Temper regen cooldowns. Add stagger immunity frames. Guard counters
.— Slipstream (Mobility): Reduce Step cooldowns. After-images. Micro-telemetry evasion.
[Hidden Path Detected.]
Fragment: "forge protocols / material conversion / growth scaling." Current limit: A-Rank output.
[Recommended.]
[Note: Selection influences public signature detectable by higher-tier scanners.]
Public signature. Translation: if I picked a job, every fancy guild scanner in the city would see me glowing like a bug zapper. Normal hunters get one boring ability and it stamps their aura forever. Me? I'm supposed to be F-rank trash with no tricks. If a whole new signature suddenly lights up around me, inspectors will ask how I grew a second soul overnight.
I stared at the list like a hungry kid outside a bakery. Blade Dancer? That was free violence, extra Steps, more stabs per second. Slipstream? Dodge everything from attacks to rent collectors. Stone-Blood? Not sexy, but "harder to kill" is a classic.
So of course the system cleared its sterile throat and shoved me toward night school.
[Hidden Path Priority Override.]
[Forge Protocols locked as primary path. All other selections restricted.]
"Excuse me?" I said at my ceiling. "I came here to stab, not apprentice as some blacksmith NPC."
The panel didn't care.
[Candidate affinity detected: compulsory alignment.]
Great. Everyone else gets fireballs and sword halos. I get to hammer scrap until my arms fall off. Which—spoiler—it won't, because Absolute Regeneration, but still.
I wasn't mad.
…Okay, I was mad.
[Note: Hidden Path progression intersects with SSS-tier growth scaling.]
[Job Quest — Initiation Required.]
— Requirement: Keyed entry.
— Rule 1: Enter alone.
— Rule 2: No outside help, communication, or summons.
— Rule 3: Inventory access limited to materials and tools. (No food. No potions.)
— Rule 4: Absolute Regeneration suppressed during Heats (craft windows). Partial restoration between Heats.
— Time: 3 Heats, 10 minutes each, with combat breaks between.
— Failure: Abandon instance; death; objective incomplete.
— Objective: Produce A-Rank output using only materials you currently possess. Instance will judge.
[Note: Entry anchor may be applied to any unopened door.]
[Item issued to inventory: Initiation Key (1).]
"Any door," I said. "Yeah, that's not ominous at all."
I opened Inventory. Boxes lined up—tidy little secrets I couldn't show anyone:
Fog Tyrant Core (A-Rank) — Trait channel fuel.
Guardian Basalt Plate (A-Rank) — Heavy, shield-like plate.
Horn Segment (A-Rank) — Guardian drop, edged for weapon crafting.
Mana Stone (A-Rank, Core) — Guardian drop, raw power source.
Mana-Veined Ore (Rare) — Lot C leftover.
Mist-Etched Rib (Rare Component) — Trait conductor.
Root-Fiber Resin (Rare) — Craft stabilizer.
Rib-Knot Charm (Rare Component) — Tyrant drop.
Core Fragment (Unknown Rank) — Weird coin-thing, Lot C anomaly.
Thread Resin (Fine) ×4 — Fog Tyrant drop.
Crystal Fog Vial (Rare) ×3 — Guardian drop.
Swampglass Phial (Rare) ×2 — Fog Tyrant drop.
Basalt Plate (A) — Guardian drop; heavy, mean; forgotten in a guilt pile
District Scrip (3,800 credits) — two rums and rent anxiety
Initiation Key (Job) — small brass key that doesn't fit any lock. When turned in any unopened door, it makes one.
The key looked boring. Plain bow, no teeth. Nothing fancy—just consequences shaped like brass.
Timer ticked: 24:00 → 23:59.
"Not tonight," I told it. "Later this week. Somewhere quiet. Not my front door."
If I was going to be alone with a door, I needed to make sure Mikey wasn't alone with pain.
The hospital first. Mikey looked small in the bed—pale, breathing, alive in a way that made my knees consider religion. The stump under the blanket was neat and awful.
"You look like trash," he said, grinning anyway.
"Thank you," I said. "Professional brand."
We talked about nothing. Games. Cafeteria lies. A soap opera on mute where everyone looked rich and allergic to honesty. Mikey tried a grin big enough to hide the IV and almost pulled it off. The nurse who could bench-press Jax drifted by and bullied him into drinking water like it was a boss fight.
I didn't say "leg." He didn't either. We let the machines do the beeping for us.
On the way out, guilt tried to climb into the passenger seat. I buckled it, adjusted the mirror so it could watch me make good decisions, and told it it could pick the music if it behaved.
Then I did errands, because money evaporated when your hobby wanted you dead. I drifted through the riverside market where tarps snapped and fry oil fought the river stink. A guy swore his seal-stitched boots were "swamp-proof," and I swore back until he sighed and threw in socks that didn't feel like sandpaper. I left lighter by 110 credits and heavier by one pair of ankles that might forgive me. Goodbye, trench foot.
The surplus hole-in-the-wall buzzed like a tired beehive. The clerk looked bored enough to nap standing up. I grabbed a field kit—water tabs, clot-mesh, a chewed-looking whetstone, a hand lamp that seemed one bad mood away from arson—and a burner phone for the day the guild decided to love me loudly. The scanner under the counter tickled my skin; I pretended not to notice. Public signature, sure. Great. That stop cost me 260 credits and a layer of optimism.
In the tailor's back room, a man with scarred fingers and a shut door for a mouth slid a hidden sheath into a new canvas jacket, reinforced the elbows, and politely didn't mention the band on my wrist pulsing like a smug lighthouse. "Try not to bleed in it on day one," he said. "Ambitious," I told him, and paid the 180 credits anyway.
The dockside pharmacy smelled like antiseptic and bad coffee. I bought electrolyte packets, blister tape, a sleep mask so I could lie to myself, and a filter straw the size of a flute. Seventy credits. I added a bruised apple so the cashier would stop judging me with her eyebrows.
After that, it was doors. I walked the maintenance levels where the lights hummed and nobody bothered to sweep, and the dead streets where puddles kept secrets. The Key would have taken any unopened door; I wanted one the city wouldn't notice. I stood under a tram hatch and listened to water echo in the concrete, stared at a laundromat back entrance that still breathed old steam, and paced a storage row with a dead camera bubble until it felt like the hinges were holding their breath for me.
There a utility hatch under the tram: low foot traffic, high noise, no live cams.— Shuttered laundromat back door: boarded, tagged, only pigeons and old steam.— Storage unit row: dead cam bubble, office long abandoned.
Tooltip kept flickering Valid Anchor. Hinges made the air thin, like the city held its breath there.
I didn't use it. I kept walking.
By sundown I had dumplings in a greasy paper boat and a half-sweet tea from a stand with a cat that hated everyone equally. I sat on the steps by the overpass and watched Arcadia pretend to be gentle. Neon started its nightly lie. Sirens harmonized.
Somewhere, a scanner pinged; it felt like a draft inside my sleeves. Public signature as a rumor my body already knew.
Back home, I laid out the haul. Boots stood like proud dumb dogs. Jacket waited to be blooded. Field kit nested in a crate. Fangpiercer and Gloamthorn went back on the nightstand like judgmental bookends.
I opened the panel again because I enjoy pain.
[Hidden Path Detected.]
[forge protocols / material conversion / growth scaling. Current limit: A-Rank output.]
[Recommended.]
[Job Quest — Initiation Required.]
[Initiation Key: 22:41:09]
Forge protocols. Material conversion. Growth scaling. The words made no sense.
If I turned the key in a door, the city would cough up a room that wasn't a room and ask me to make an A-rank weapon out of the junk in my inventory. Alone. Timer running. No regen during the quest.
Hana would say: Don't be a hero.
Jax would say: Beers after, idiot.
Mrs. Dobrev would text me another knife emoji and call it rent.
Under all that, the system coughed politely.
[Recommended.]
The word looked polite. Felt like a hand on my back near a ledge.
"Tomorrow," I said. "Find a quiet door. Bring everything that won't explode."
I packed a materials-only bag—ore, rib, vials, phials, resin, plate—and left it by the door because I was either optimistic or predictable. I slid the new boots under the mat like talismans. Hung the jacket on the chair and pretended it would keep me alive.
Phone buzzed.
Hana: Inspector statements tomorrow, 10:00. Keep it tidy.
Jax: If you say anything weird I'm telling them you collect stamps.
Me: I only collect rent notices.
Unknown: Exclusive credit offer— (Blocked on principle.)
I ate cold dumplings over the sink like a king with bad habits and told myself I'd sleep.
Before I killed the lights, I checked Job one more time. Because I'm healthy like that.
[Note: Selection influences public signature detectable by higher-tier scanners.]
I pictured an inspector waving a wand and a nice neat aura blooming over my head that read: HELLO I AM LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING.
"Love that for me," I said to the dark.
The Key icon pulsed—one soft heartbeat every few seconds. The city hummed like it was listening through the walls.
"Be boring," I told the ceiling. Sexy optional.
Sleep found me. The clock didn't. It kept counting toward a door that didn't exist yet.