The forest was quiet, mostly because I had incinerated the loudest thing in it.
I stood over the smoking crater, holding the [Monster Core] like a shiny, blue lifeline. That was 2 Gold. Twenty bucks.
Only $480 to go.
"You..."
I turned. The fancy Swordsman was still sitting on the ground. His pet wolf was sniffing a piece of burning glass that used to be a tree.
The player's nameplate hovered above his head:
[Lancelot_V2]
[Class: Noble Fencer]
[Guild: None]
"You just one-shot an Elite," Lancelot stammered, scrambling to his feet. He dusted off his pristine, cash-shop armor. "That damage... was that a hidden Ultimate? A Legendary Scroll?"
I looked at him. Then I looked at the system warning pulsating in the corner of my vision.
[System Notice: Combat Log Anomaly Detected. Uploading to Server for Review...]
If the GMs reviewed that log, they'd see I cast a Level 1 spell twelve times in a single millisecond. That's an instant ban.
I needed to flood the buffer. I needed to bury the evidence.
"Hey, Lance," I said, my voice calm. "You want to know how I did it?"
Lancelot's eyes lit up. "Yes! I'll pay. Is it a secret skill trainer? I have Gold."
"It's... sensitive technique," I lied.
I opened my Formula Slot.
I didn't input a spell. Instead, I input a string of empty, meaningless data.
print("0");
print("0");
print("0");
I copied the string. Then I set up a loop.
[Loop: x10,000]
"Just watch closely," I said.
I activated the formula. Nothing happened visually.
But internally? I was spamming the local combat log with ten thousand lines of absolute garbage code instantly.
The system notification flickered.
[Uploading to Server...]
[Error: Log File Too Large. Connection Timed Out.]
[Upload Cancelled.]
I exhaled. The "Anomaly" was buried under a mountain of zeroes.
"I missed it," Lancelot said, squinting at my hands. "Did you cast it?"
"Too slow," I said, putting my hands in my pockets. "Trade secret. But since you were a good meat shield, I won't kill you for seeing it."
Lancelot bristled. "Kill me? Do you know who I am? My father owns—"
"Yeah, yeah. Listen, Richy Rich." I stepped closer, inspecting his gear. It was high-tier stuff, but his build was trash. He had stacked 'Agility' on a 'Heavy Armor' class. "You're struggling to hit mobs, right? You have the gear, but you keep missing your swings."
Lancelot paused. He looked embarrassed. "The hit-detection in this game is buggy! It's not me!"
"Right. It's the game." I grinned. "Lucky for you, I'm a Formula Master. I fix bugs."
I pulled a small, nasty-looking bottle from my bag. It contained the [Flickering Oil] I had brewed earlier.
Technically, it was a failed lighting potion.
But mechanically? It created a localized visual distortion.
"See this?" I asked. "This is a... Potion of True Aim."
"It looks like sewage," Lancelot noted.
"That's the potency. Drink this, and for the next ten minutes, your enemies will appear twice as big. Bigger target, easier to hit."
"Wait, really?"
"Would I lie? I just vaporized a boar."
I wasn't lying. Not really.
The potion messed with the render scale of target models. It didn't actually make the enemy bigger—the hitbox stayed the same—but it stretched the texture.
However, for a noob like Lancelot, seeing a "bigger" enemy would give him the placebo confidence to actually aim.
"How much?" Lancelot asked, reaching for his coin pouch.
I did a quick calculation.
Rent was due. I had 2 Gold.
I needed a whale.
"For you? A one-time friend price." I held up three fingers. "30 Gold."
Lancelot blinked. "30? That's 300 dollars."
"For the ability to grind Elites without missing? Think of the XP, Lance. You'll be Level 20 by tonight."
The greed in his eyes fought with his wallet. The greed won.
He opened the trade window.
[Trade Offer]
[Lancelot_V2 offers: 30 Gold Coins]
[Reaper-X offers: Flickering Oil (Glitched)]
I hit accept so fast I almost broke the holographic button.
The coins vanished from his inventory and appeared in mine.
Ching.
[Current Funds: 32 Gold / 50 Gold Needed]
"Pleasure doing business," I said, handing him the bottle. "Don't drink it all at once. And if your vision starts turning purple, just close one eye."
Lancelot uncorked the bottle and downed it.
He blinked. He looked at his pet wolf.
"Whoa," he whispered. "The wolf looks... wide."
"Wide is good. Wide is hittable. Go get 'em, tiger."
I turned and walked back toward the village, forcing myself not to run.
I had just sold a bugged graphics error for three hundred dollars.
God, I love this class.
Sootheel Village – The General Store
I stood at the NPC counter, buying out the entire stock of empty glass bottles.
32 Gold.
I was close. So close. Just 18 Gold ($180) left to save my apartment.
But I couldn't rely on finding an idiot like Lancelot every hour. I needed a sustainable business model.
I checked the Auction House.
I searched for "Potions."
Minor Healing Potion: 5 Silver.
Minor Mana Potion: 8 Silver.
Strength Elixir: 1 Gold.
The market was flooded. Low margins. High competition.
If I sold normal potions, I'd be broke forever.
But I couldn't sell "Glitched" items on the Auction House. The automated filters would detect the invalid item IDs and delete them—or ban me.
I needed to sell things that looked legal but acted broken.
I opened my Skill View and looked at the recipe for a [Minor Healing Potion].
[Recipe: Ginseng + Water]
[Effect: Restore 50 HP]
[Cooldown: 10 Seconds]
Boring.
I focused on the [Cooldown] variable.
Cooldown = 10s
I tapped the air. I couldn't delete the cooldown without Mastery 50. But I could introduce a conditional logic loop.
I modified the formula:
[Cooldown: IF (User_Health < 10%) THEN (0.5s) ELSE (10s)]
Essentially, if you were dying, the potion became a machine gun of healing. If you were fine, it was normal.
It was a "Clutch Potion."
"This..." I muttered, smiling. "This is money."
I spent the next two hours brewing.
I bought cheap Ginseng. I used the village well water.
I churned out twenty bottles of [Panic Healer].
I couldn't list them on the Auction House because the custom code might flag the filter. I had to sell them face-to-face.
I found a spot in the village square, right next to the fountain where players respawned after dying.
Prime real estate. High traffic. Lots of frustrated, angry players who just lost XP.
I laid out a ragged cloth on the ground and lined up my bottles.
I didn't have a flashy sign. I used a piece of charcoal to write on a wooden plank:
NOT TRASH ALCHEMY
Potions that actually save your life.
Price: 2 Gold.
(No Refunds if you explode)
A few players walked by, ignoring me.
"Scam," one muttered.
"Two Gold? Is he insane? Store price is 5 Silver," another laughed.
I sat there, arms crossed, waiting.
I didn't need everyone to buy. I just needed one desperate person.
Ten minutes later, a party of five respawned at the fountain in a flash of blue light.
They looked miserable. Their armor was battered.
"I told you the healer was too slow!" the tank yelled.
"It's the cooldowns!" the healer shouted back. "I can't spam heal!"
I cleared my throat.
"Sounds like a skill issue," I said loudly.
The party turned to look at me. The tank, a massive Orc player, stomped over.
"You got something to say, level 1?"
"Yeah. Your healer is fine. The game mechanics suck." I picked up a bottle of [Panic Healer]. "You died because the cooldowns are too long, right?"
"Obviously," the healer snapped.
"This potion," I said, tossing it in the air and catching it, "has zero cooldown if your HP is critical. You can chug it instantly."
The Orc narrowed his eyes. "Bullshit. Cooldowns are hard-coded."
"Try it," I said. "First one is free. Go fight that boss again. If you die, come back and kill me. If you live... you come back and buy the rest for 2 Gold each."
The Orc looked at his party. They were desperate. They had probably wiped five times.
"Fine," the Orc grunted, snatching the bottle. "But if this is a scam, I'm camping your corpse until you delete your account."
They marched off toward the forest.
I leaned back against the fountain.
I waited.
Five minutes passed.
Ten minutes.
Then, the global chat pinged.
[Server Announcement: Party 'Iron Skulls' has defeated the Field Boss: Giant Mantis!]
A moment later, the Orc came running back into the square. He wasn't walking; he was sprinting.
He stopped in front of my stall, panting.
"Give me," he wheezed, slamming a bag of coins onto my cloth. "Give me everything you have."
I smiled.
"Pleasure doing business."
I counted the coins.
20 bottles. 40 Gold.
Plus the 32 I already had.
Total: 72 Gold.
Rent was covered. I had $220 extra for food.
I looked up at the virtual sky. The sun was setting over MythBorn.
For the first time in three days, I didn't feel like a victim.
I closed up my shop.
I had money. I had a class that broke physics.
Now... I had one more thing to do.
I opened my friends list. It was empty, obviously.
But I typed in a name. A name I remembered from the hacker's trace logs I'd briefly seen before my old account was wiped.
[Search User: Warlock_Zero]
The system paused.
[User Found. Status: Online. Location: Capital City, Royal Spire.]
The Royal Spire. That was where the top 0.1% of players hung out.
The hacker wasn't just some thief. He was royalty.
"Okay, Zero," I whispered. "I've got my rent. Now I'm coming for my refund."