Chapter 1: F-Rank Background Character
The air cracked open.
One moment, the world was normal—the dull hum of city traffic, the glow of phone screens, the simple, boring reality of my final university exam. The next, a shimmering, golden screen the size of a skyscraper materialized in the sky, visible to everyone.
**// SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE. //**
**// PLANET EARTH DESIGNATED: TUTORIAL ZONE. //**
**// 100 'PLAYERS' WILL BE SELECTED TO DEFEND HUMANITY. //**
**// PREPARE. //**
A stunned silence gripped the exam hall, followed by a tsunami of chaotic noise. Cheers, screams, prayers—it all blended into a single roar of primal emotion. My heart hammered against my ribs. This wasn't a movie. This was real.
**// SELECTION COMMENCING. //**
Beams of light, brilliant and divine, shot down from the screen. They struck people seemingly at random. A jock two rows ahead of me, Brandon, was hit by a golden ray. He screamed, not in pain, but in ecstasy as shimmering, silver plate armor materialized around his body, a massive shield forming on his arm. **[Brandon Miller - Player #034 - A-Rank: Fortress Guardian]**.
To my left, Sarah, the quiet chemistry prodigy, was enveloped in a soft blue light. A staff of crystalline ice formed in her hands, and her eyes glowed with arcane knowledge. **[Sarah Chen - Player #056 - A-Rank: Cryomancer]**.
Then, a violent red beam struck my roommate, Jake. He threw his head back and laughed, a raw, powerful sound as flames erupted around his clenched fists. "YES! S-Rank! Pyrokinetic! I knew I was destined for greatness!" **[Jake Fury - Player #087 - S-Rank: Inferno Lord]**.
I stood there, my own mundane life crumbling around me. A desperate, foolish hope bloomed in my chest. *Maybe me too. Please, just once, let it be me.*
A thin, sickly grey beam, barely more than a flicker, lanced down from the screen. It didn't feel warm or empowering. It was cold, like a splash of digital sludge. It hit me square in the chest, and a private, shameful notification seared itself into my vision.
**// LIAM CROSS. //**
**// DESIGNATION: BACKGROUND CHARACTER (F-Rank). //**
**// ROLE: EXPENDABLE. //**
**// ASSIGNED TASK: ASSIST THE PLAYERS IN THEIR GLORIOUS QUEST. //**
**// GOOD LUCK. YOU WILL NEED IT. //**
The text above my head materialized in a pathetic, faded grey: **[Liam Cross - F-Rank - Civilian]**.
The hope in my chest curdled into a block of ice. Expendable. A nobody. A glorified NPC in my own damn story.
"Out of the way, F-Rank!" Jake's voice was a sneer as he shoved me aside, striding towards the window to bask in the adulation. My former classmates looked at me with a mixture of pity and contempt. I was already invisible.
That's when the world ended. Monstrous Seedpods, dripping with alien ichor, crashed into the city. The screams that followed were of pure terror.
The new "Players" sprang into action. Brandon braced with his shield, taking a hit that cratered the floor. Sarah flash-froze a smaller creature solid. Jake was a whirlwind of fire, incinerating everything in his path. But they were clumsy, uncoordinated. They were playing a game. I was fighting to not be pulped.
I ducked and weaved through the chaos, my mind racing faster than my feet. I wasn't a fighter. I was a survivor. A problem-solver.
I scrambled into the ruins of the campus computer lab, my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest. This was it. I was going to die as a statistic. A footnote in Jake's epic.
As I crouched behind a shattered server rack, my private, greyed-out system interface flickered in my vision. It was a pathetic menu with one option: **[DUTY LOG]**. A list of chores for the help.
Fury, hot and sharp, burned away the fear. A lifetime of being overlooked—the scholarship student, the quiet hacker, the background character—boiled over. This "System" was just another piece of software. Arrogant, cruel, and worst of all, *badly designed*.
My fingers, acting on an instinct honed from a thousand late-night coding sessions, flew across the air in front of me. I manipulated the glitchy system interface not as a user, but as a programmer. I input command prompts, looking for a vulnerability.
**// ERROR: COMMAND NOT RECOGNIZED FOR USER CLASS: F-RANK. //**
"Override," I whispered, sweat stinging my eyes. "Admin override. Root access. Sigma Phi Theta." It was a dumb, desperate hack, trying classic backdoor passwords.
I found it. A tiny, overlooked flaw in the system's authentication protocol. A logic loop it hadn't bothered to protect because no "Background Character" should ever possess the audacity to try and hack god.
I injected a single, elegant line of code.
The grey, lifeless interface flickered violently. Glitchy artifacts swarmed my vision. Then, it dissolved and reformed in a storm of blazing, neon green text.
**// UNAUTHORIZED PRIVILEGE ESCALATION DETECTED. //**
**// ... //**
**// ... ACCESS GRANTED. //**
**// WELCOME, SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR. //**
My breath hitched. The menu was no longer grey. It was a vibrant, complex tree of options.
**[PLAYER MANIFEST]**
**[SKILL DATABASE]**
**[INVENTORY MANAGEMENT]**
**[LOOT STREAM INTERCEPTION]** <---
My eyes locked on the last one. A notification popped up in the corner of my new admin screen.
**// LOOT STREAM INBOUND: //**
**// PLAYER: #087 - JAKE FURY. //**
**// ITEM: [FLAME WALKER BOOTS] - EPIC GRADE. //**
**// EFFECT: IMMUNE TO GROUND-BASED FIRE EFFECTS. +25% FIRE DAMAGE. //**
**// DELIVERY IN: 5... 4... //**
He was about to get an epic item drop for killing a few low-level monsters. For being "special."
A vicious, unbidden smile spread across my face. This was a better rush than any A+ grade.
"Override delivery coordinates," I commanded.
**// NEW DELIVERY TARGET: SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR INVENTORY. //**
**3... 2... 1...**
A pair of boots, crafted from what looked like smoldering dragon scale and etched with runes of power, materialized in my inventory with a soft, satisfying *chime*.
Outside, I heard Jake's furious roar echo over the chaos. "What the hell? Where are my boots?! System! Bug!"
I didn't stop. I was a god at the keyboard. I opened the **[SKILL DATABASE]** and filtered for `Player_087`. There it was, shining with arrogant S-Rank brilliance: **[Pyrokinesis]**.
My cursor hovered over it.
**[COMMAND: COPY? Y/N]**
This wasn't just stealing an item. This was stealing his destiny, his specialness. This was taking the narrative for myself.
I selected **Y**.
A searing, glorious heat flooded my veins, a thousand times more intense and *pure* than the flames I'd seen from Jake. It wasn't just fire; it was the understanding of plasma, combustion, and star-forged energy. Knowledge burned itself into my mind. I looked at my hand, and a sphere of pure, white-hot plasma—a miniature sun—coalesced above my palm without a single thought.
The notification was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
**// SKILL ACQUIRED: [TRUE PYROKINESIS - LEGENDARY GRADE]. //**
**// NOTE: ADMINISTRATOR VERSION. SUPERIOR TO PLAYER VARIANT. //**
I stood up. The shattered glass of the computer lab crunched under my new, epic-grade boots. I stepped out into the hellscape.
Jake was staring at his empty hands, confused and furious. He saw me. "You? What do you want, cannon fodder? Run along before you get—" He threw a casual fireball at me, the same one he'd used to vaporize a monster. It was slow, sloppy, an insult.
I didn't move. I opened my mouth and *inhaled*. The fireball streaked towards me and dissolved into my being, a minor snack that barely tickled my throat. A notification flashed: `[+10 Essence Absorbed].`
Jake's jaw dropped. "What... how?"
"Your fire," I said, my voice unnaturally calm, layered with the hum of raw power, "is a cheap imitation."
I raised my hand. The air itself screamed as it was torn apart. A pillar of incandescent, legendary-grade plasma, ten stories high, erupted from my fingertips and lit up the apocalyptic sky. It wasn't an attack. It was a declaration of war.
The pathetic, grey text above my head glitched, corrupted, and reformed in the same blazing green as my admin access.
**[Liam Cross - SYSTEM ERROR - ???]**
I looked at Jake, his S-Rank pride shattered, his face a mask of pure, undiluted terror.
"The tutorial is over," I said, the plasma still dancing in my eyes. "Time for the real players to step up."
---
**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**
What did you think of Liam's first heist? The story has only just begun! Please leave a comment and don't forget to vote for this novel with your Power Stones! Every vote helps me climb the rankings and write faster for you