Four years passed.
In the timeless, accelerated reality of the Crucible, four years was an eternity of relentless, brutal effort. For the world outside, it was only two. The seventeen-year-old boy dragged into this digital realm was gone, burned away and reforged in a crucible of pain and power. In his place stood a young man of twenty-one. He was taller, his frame lean but corded with the dense, powerful muscle forged by the torment of Null Conditioning. The desperation that once haunted his eyes had been replaced by the quiet, unshakable confidence of a warrior who had stared into the abyss and made it his training ground.
His life became a brutal, simple rhythm. Two halves of a whole. One of light, one of shadow.
The day cycle belonged to Aether. He returned to the pristine training fields of the Crucible, his mind a razor's edge of focus. He fought. He summoned data constructs—Alpha Wolves, Glitch Raptors, Data Golems—and slaughtered them by the thousands. His movements, once clumsy and hesitant, were now a fluid, lethal dance. The constant chime of system notifications became the background noise of his existence, a litany of his progress.
[+2 Essence Points!]
[+5 Essence Points!]
[Skill: Sword Proficiency has reached Grandmaster Level!]
He poured every point of essence he earned into his weapon. The Level 2 Steel Shortsword, his first and only companion, began to evolve. The metal grew harder, sharper, imbued with the sheer volume of Aether he channeled through it day after day.
[Ding! Upgrade Complete! Level 2 Steel Shortsword -> Level 3 Knight's Arming Sword!]
[Ding! Upgrade Complete! Level 3 Knight's Arming Sword -> Level 4 Arc-Edge Blade!]
The blade now hummed with latent power, a faint blue light tracing its razor edge. Each weapon upgrade acted as a catalyst, pushing his own Aether Core to new heights. After two years of this merciless grinding, he shattered another bottleneck with the force of a thunderclap.
[Congratulations! You have reached Rank V Aether User!]
But as the simulated sun bled across the horizon and the Crucible plunged into digital twilight, his true work began. Every night, he made the long pilgrimage to the Southern Terminus. Every night, under the silent, sorrowful watch of Silas and the quiet companionship of Nyx, he subjected himself to the torment of Null-Body Conditioning.
The pain never lessened. It grew worse. But so did his resilience. He learned to channel the agony, to use it as a fuel to temper his willpower. His body became a fortress. He could feel the change on a fundamental level; his bones were as durable as forged steel, his skin as tough as boiled leather. The process was a private hell, but the results were undeniable.
[KRRSSSHH! [Null-Body Conditioning Level 2] Achieved!]
[KRRSSSHH! [Null-Body Conditioning Level 3] Achieved! Your physical vessel is now as durable as refined steel.]
With four years of this punishing, dual-path training under his belt, he knew it was time. He was no longer the terrified boy annihilated in seconds. He turned his gaze to the horizon, to the jagged, malevolent spire that had been the site of his greatest humiliation. It was time for a rematch.
He walked through the spire's obsidian gates without a shred of hesitation. The circular chamber was as he remembered it, a pit of darkness and oppressive energy. The Obsidian Wolf materialized in the center, its data-form larger and more menacing than before, its crimson eyes burning with malevolent code.
[Guardian Construct: Obsidian Wolf]
[Rank: Rank I (Peak)]
The wolf let out its grating, stone-on-stone growl and lunged. Last time, this single move had overwhelmed him.
This time, Alvian didn't even bother with Essence Slash.
He met the charge head-on. With a single, fluid motion born of a million repetitions, he drew his Level 4 Arc-Edge Blade and swung. His Rank V Aether surged through the enchanted steel, creating a brilliant blue arc of light. The sword met the wolf's crimson-wreathed claw. There was no explosion of sparks, no violent clang of impact. There was only a clean, silent hiss, like water on a hot stone.
SPLASH!!
The wolf's claw, its body, its very code, was bisected so perfectly that the two halves hung in the air for a heartbeat before dissolving into a shower of light particles.
[Ding! Guardian Construct: Obsidian Wolf defeated!]
[Access to Floor 2 granted.]
Alvian didn't pause to savor the victory. He walked up the newly materialized staircase, his expression unchanged.
The second floor presented a [Crystal Golem], a ten-foot-tall hulk of enchanted crystal. Its fists could shatter stone, its hide nearly impervious to attack. Alvian fought it for ten minutes, a blur of motion, using his superior speed to dance around its clumsy, powerful blows while chipping away at its form with precise, Aether-infused strikes. He learned its patterns, identified its weaknesses, and with a final, decisive thrust, shattered the glowing Aether core in its chest.
He ascended again. Floor three.
The guardian here was different. Not a beast of data or a mindless golem. It was a perfect, life-sized simulacrum of a warrior clad in thick, black plate armor, wielding a massive tower shield and a brutal-looking war maul.
┌─────[ Target ]─────┐
➽ Simulacrum: Juggernaut
➽ Rank: Rank V (Mid)
➽ Description: A high-fidelity defensive combatant. Possesses extreme physical durability and overwhelming crushing power. ➽ Threat level: Extreme.
└────────────────────┘
The Juggernaut was his equal in rank. The fight was a brutal, grinding war of attrition. Alvian was faster, more agile, but every attack he landed on the Juggernaut's armor or shield resulted in a dull thud and a spray of sparks. The simulacrum's defense was absolute. In return, every swing of its maul carried enough force to make the entire floor tremble. A single clean hit would be the end.
He dodged, he parried, he used every skill in his arsenal, but he couldn't find a single chink in its armor. After thirty minutes of exhausting, fruitless combat, he made a mistake. A moment of hesitation, a fractional delay in his footwork. It was all the Juggernaut needed. The war maul descended like a falling moon. Alvian brought his sword up in a desperate block, channeling every ounce of his Null-conditioned durability into his arms.
The impact felt like a mountain falling on him. His sword didn't break, but the kinetic force traveled through the blade and into his body, shattering the bones in both his arms and sending him flying across the room. He slammed into the far wall, defeated. As the Juggernaut raised its maul for the final blow, Alvian was ejected from the spire in a flash of white light.
He landed outside, gasping, the phantom pain in his arms terrifyingly real. He had failed. But this time, it wasn't a crushing, hopeless defeat. It was a lesson. He had reached his current limit.
Frustrated, he returned to the Southern Terminus that night and pushed his Null Conditioning harder than ever before. He poured his rage and disappointment into the process, absorbing the Null Essence with a reckless desperation that bordered on self-destruction.
And the Prismatic Seal fought back.
For the first time, he felt it not as a passive container, but as an active, hostile cage. As the Null Essence flooded him, the seal flared with a brilliant, prismatic light, desperately trying to suppress the forbidden energy. The clash between the two forces inside him created a new dimension of agony. It was a war being waged in his soul, and his body was the battlefield.
He grit his teeth, embracing the torment. He would not be stopped. He would break this wall, just as he had the last one. During one particularly agonizing surge, as the seal constricted and the Null energy rebelled with volcanic force, something inside him finally snapped.
A massive, uncontrolled wave of pure Null Essence erupted from his body, turning the air around him black and cold.
[Ding!]
[SYSTEM ANOMALY DETECTED: HOST WILLPOWER HAS OVERRIDDEN SEAL PROTOCOLS.]
[Through extreme physical and spiritual duress, you have pushed past your defined limits!]
[KRRSSSHH! [Null-Body Conditioning Level 4] Achieved!]
[Host's physical vessel is now prepared for Prismatic Seal Deconstruction.]
He collapsed, his body smoking slightly. From the shadows, Silas and Nyx watched. The Custodian's sorrowful gaze held a new emotion, one Alvian had never seen before: anticipation.
[The time has come,] Silas's voice echoed in Alvian's weary mind, a promise and a threat. [The shell is strong enough. Now, we break the egg.]