For the next two weeks, Jera Murphy ceased to exist. In his place, Cain Walker was born.
Cain Walker had a simple, boring, and perfectly believable routine. Every morning at 6:00 AM, he would clock in at the Iron Hand Guild's entrance to The Ironworks. He wore his high-end DM-100 Mining Rig, carried a standard-issue jackhammer, and always signed up for the least popular contracts: clearing D-Rank monster nests and stabilizing C-Rank rubble zones.
He was quiet, polite, and completely unnoticeable. The other miners and Hunters saw him as a B-Rank with good gear, someone trying to make an honest living.
Then, he would enter the dungeon, and the mask would drop.
The moment he was out of sight of the entrance cameras, Jera's entire presence changed. He was no longer a man; he was a machine of perfect efficiency.
He would walk into a tunnel swarming with D-Rank Iron-Husks and C-Rank Scrap Golems. The monsters would charge, their claws and stone fists ready to tear him apart.
Jera would not even bother to dodge.
His S-Rank skill, [Aetheric Shield (L512)], was always active. It was not a glowing bubble, like in movies. It was an invisible, paper-thin layer of multiplied mana that coated his entire body.
When a Scrap Golem's massive fist struck his helmet, the golem's arm would shatter into a thousand pieces from the reflected force. The monster would look at its own broken limb in confusion just before Jera's hand, not even multiplied, would punch a clean hole through its chest.
He didn't need a $\times 1000$ multiplier for this. His base strength, now over Level 67, was already far beyond any C-Rank creature.
[Monster Kill: Scrap Golem. Experience Multiplier Roll: $\times 12$.]
[Result: Experience +120.]
It was a tiny gain. But Jera was not here for big gains. He was here for fast gains.
He moved through the tunnels at a speed that was just under the threshold of a sonic boom. He cleared nest after nest, his C-Rank knife (one of his 24 duplicates) flashing as he harvested monster cores.
[Monster Kill: Iron-Husk. Experience Multiplier Roll: $\times 88$.]
[Monster Kill: Iron-Husk. Experience Multiplier Roll: $\times 312$.]
[Monster Kill: Iron-Husk. Experience Multiplier Roll: $\times 45$.]
[Level Up! Jera Murphy is now Level 68!]
He did this for eight hours a day. He was a ghost in the tunnels, clearing entire sectors of the dungeon before the Iron Hand Guild's own Hunter teams had even finished their morning briefing.
Jera's true genius was not in his killing power, but in his collection.
Other miners had to stop when their carts were full. They had to haul tons of ore and monster parts back to the surface, a process that took hours. They had to leave "trash loot"—like low-grade hides, common minerals, and broken monster bones—behind, because it wasn't worth the cost to transport it.
Jera took everything.
His Unlimited Inventory was a bottomless void.
After clearing a cavern, he would simply walk through it. His thoughts were sharp and precise.
Store.
The ten-ton corpse of the Scrap Golem vanished.
Store.
The pile of 50 Iron-Husk hides vanished.
Store.
The entire vein of Ferrum-E ore in the wall, multiplied by $\times 300$, vanished.
Store.
The loose rubble, the dirt, the very dust on the floor—it all vanished, stored and perfectly categorized in his mind.
He was not just clearing dungeons; he was vacuuming them.
To the Iron Hand Guild, "Cain Walker" was a miracle. He would sign out at the end of his shift, walk to the Guild's resource manager, and begin his deposits.
The manager, a tired man named Hobbs, would watch in shock as Cain Walker, a man with no cart and no pack, would stand at the deposit bay and start pulling items out of thin air.
"One hundred C-Rank Scrap Golem Cores," Jera would say in his flat, disguised voice.
Hobbs would stammer, "One... one hundred? From one shift? That's..."
"And 4,000 units of Iron-Husk Hide," Jera would continue.
A mountain of hides would appear, filling the entire cargo bay.
"And this."
A perfect, massive cube of Ferrum-E ore, multiplied by $\times 10$, would thud onto the floor, shaking the building.
Jera never deposited his $\times 1000$ hauls. He only deposited the small multipliers ($\times 8$, $\times 10$, $\times 20$). Even then, the "small" hauls were so large that the Iron Hand Guild had to pay him millions of credits every single day.
Cain Walker became a legend among the miners. They called him the "Miracle Miner" or "The Guild's Ghost." He was the man who did the work of a hundred Hunters and never said a word.
At the New York Hunter Bureau, Captain Elara Kane was not happy. She was looking at a data screen that made no sense.
"Explain this to me again, analyst," she demanded, pointing at a graph.
The young analyst nervously adjusted his glasses. "Well, Captain, that's the resource report from The Ironworks. For the last fourteen days, their salvage output... well, it's up by 500%."
"Five hundred percent," Kane repeated, her voice dead flat. "That's not an increase, that's a statistical error. Is their entire Guild working overtime?"
"No, ma'am," the analyst said. "Their Hunter activity is normal. But their mining reports are... anomalous. It all seems to trace back to one new B-Rank miner. An independent contractor named... Cain Walker."
Kane's eyes narrowed. She remembered the name. She remembered the impossible, perfect cube of ore.
"Cain Walker," she said. "The man who leaves no energy signature. The man who clears C-Rank zones with a D-Rank knife. And now he's outperforming the entire Iron Hand Guild's mining division by himself."
"The Guild loves him, Captain. He's making them rich," the analyst offered.
"The Guild is stupid," Kane snapped. "They are so happy counting their money that they don't see the monster in their own house. No B-Rank can do this. No A-Rank can do this. This... thing... is operating on a level we don't understand."
She pulled up Cain Walker's file. It was blank. Created two weeks ago. No history. No family. No past.
"He's a ghost," she murmured. "He's hiding his power, and he's using our dungeons as his personal piggy bank. Why?"
She couldn't find an answer. She only knew that Cain Walker was the single most dangerous and unknown variable in her city.
"Put a high-level surveillance team on him," Kane ordered. "I want to know where he eats, where he sleeps. I want to know what he does with the billions he's making. Find him."
The surveillance team failed.
They tried to follow Jera when he left the dungeon. He would walk into a crowded subway station, turn a corner, and be gone. His multiplied Agility, even when used subtly, made him impossible to track.
They tried to find his home. But "Cain Walker" had no home. He used his untraceable credit chips to pay for everything in cash. The apartment he owned was registered to a shell corporation created by The Vault.
The Hunters of New York were looking for a B-Rank miner. They had no idea they were trying to catch a being that was, for all practical purposes, a god.
While they hunted for shadows, Jera was in his Infinite Fortress under the city, counting his real treasure.
The money from the Guild was useful, but it was nothing. His real profit was the loot he kept.
He sat in the center of his fortress. Around him, in massive, neat piles, were the real results of his work:
Over 50,000 multiplied Sentinel Cores. Tons of Luminous Dust (the S-Rank item he had multiplied). Mountains of high-grade ores, monster hides, and rare herbs.
And, most importantly, his own growth.
[Status Update: Jera Murphy]
[Level: 71]
He had gained ten levels in two weeks, just by killing D-Rank trash. His power was growing at a speed the world had never seen.
He was now, without question, stronger than a standard A-Rank Hunter. He was rapidly approaching the power of an S-Rank, and he hadn't even entered a real A-Rank dungeon yet.
Jera knew he was being watched. He could feel the eyes of Kane's agents on him. It was a dull, harmless pressure, like the buzzing of a fly.
He allowed it. His disguise as the "Miracle Miner" was perfect. It explained his wealth and his skill, all while hiding the source of his power: The Multiplier. The world could think he was a lucky genius. They would never guess he was a conceptual error.
His routine was stable. His wealth was growing. His power was rising.
But as he sat in his fortress, a new notification flashed on his System Interface. It was not a Level Up. It was a [Warning].
[System Anomaly Detected: A high-density mana event is forming.]
[Location: Sector G, C-Rank Tunnels (The Ironworks)]
[Analysis: A dungeon collapse is imminent. Probability: 99.8%.]
[Estimated time to collapse: 10 minutes.]
Jera looked at the notification. He knew that sector. It was an old, unstable part of the dungeon. Because of the risk, the Guild only sent low-level, civilian workers there to salvage scrap.
They were not Hunters. They were not trained for a collapse.
Jera stood up. His disguise as the "Miracle Miner" was about to get a lot more public. He had been hiding his power. Now, he was about to be forced to use it.
He put on his DM-100 helmet, the cold, expressionless faceplate sliding shut.
"Time to be a hero," he muttered, his voice flat and empty. He stepped out of his fortress and vanished, his multiplied speed carrying him toward the collapsing tunnels.