John was ready to execute the command for the enhanced search engine. He hesitated for a heartbeat, the red warnings flashing like strobe lights against his retinas.
He remembered what the system had warned about the "Mental Burnout" state—a vague, ominous threat that sounded like a total system crash.
"Y'know what? Screw it," John muttered, a reckless grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Let me see what this Mental Burnout State actually is. I need to be prepared for every scenario that might happen. If I'm going to experience a crash, I'd rather do it here than in the middle of a high-security heist. Run the program!"
The Shell window flickered to life. For a brief second, the black console overflowed with many fewer data lines—his script was working, filtering the room's noise into pure information. But then, the beauty turned grotesque, and success into failure.
The window began to stutter. The white code lines were suddenly slashed by jagged, erratic blue streaks that appeared and disappeared out of nowhere, like digital scars. Even the green world around suffered from this meltdown!
[Ding! Warning! You have emptied your Mental Points!]
[Ding! Warning! You are entering a Mental Burnout State!]
[Ding! War—]
The system notification didn't even finish. It was as if someone had abruptly pulled the power line from him. The world around John went white, then a void-like black. His knees buckled, his consciousness evaporated instantly, and his body slammed into the floor as a puppet with its strings cut.
He stayed there, motionless on the cold floor, for the entire twelve hours!
When John finally opened his eyes, he didn't wake up refreshed. He woke up in a world of agony. An immense pain assaulted his body, radiating from his skull down to his toes. He groaned, the sound grating in his throat, as he slowly recalled the events of the previous night.
"Damn! It's way worse than a hangover," he wheezed, squeezing his temples with shaking hands. He felt as if a horse had kicked him squarely in the forehead, then turned around and did it again for good measure.
It took thirty minutes of heavy breathing and staring at the ceiling before the room stopped spinning and he felt remotely human again. As his vision cleared, he spotted a vertical scroll of notifications waiting for him, hanging in the air like a digital receipt of his folly.
[Ding! You have experienced a Mental Burnout State!]
[Ding! System Shutdown: You were rendered unconscious, unable to perceive the world or respond to external stimuli until the abnormal state was lifted!]
[Ding! Emergency Protocol: Mental Point regeneration rate was doubled during the shutdown period!]
[Ding! Status Update: Mental Points have reached above 50% of total capacity!]
[Ding! Mental Burnout State: RELIEVED.]
[Ding! Breakthrough: By pushing your limits to the edge of collapse, you have raised your Mental Point cap by 10 points!]
"Hmm, that's interesting!" John said, his voice raspy.
Seeing the messages made the nature of the burnout clear. It wasn't just "sleep"; it was a coma. His mind had literally turned itself off to prevent permanent damage, prioritising recovery over everything else.
"So... Being in this state doesn't mean I'll wake up the moment the burnout is lifted," he mused, leaning his back against the bed frame. "I slept for twelve hours when the state probably cleared after six. I was a sitting duck for the rest of that time."
Despite the danger, he turned to check his profile, and his eyes widened.
[Mental Point (MP): 24/36]
He was struggling to keep up with his own increasing capacity, but the math was starting to look better. If he managed this burnout state correctly, he could use it as a high-speed, high-risk, and high-gain charger during the night.
"It's still incredibly risky," he cautioned himself. He imagined a future scenario where his cap reached the hundreds or thousands. Would he end up in a coma for days? A week? He shook the thought away. For now, the perks were undeniable.
"It also increased my cap! I can use it as a training method," he realised. This was an abnormal state with few positive side effects—if, and only if, he was in a secure spot. As long as he didn't have enemies breathing down his neck or a target on his back, the burnout was a viable tool for growth.
"Just this headache... And this fatigue," he grumbled, finally forcing himself to stand. His muscles screamed in protest. He felt like he had spent the entire night at a high-intensity gym while being beaten with a lead pipe. "It definitely has a few negative trade-offs."
He rubbed his neck, summing up his gains. He had a working search engine program, a massive jump in his MP pool, and a better understanding of his own limits.
"I'm ready," he declared. He was pumped for tonight's mission. He planned to spend the day surveying the administrative building, identifying the exact office he needed to crack, and then—once the sun went down—he would execute his very first hack in this game world.
He checked the time. He had a little over an hour before his first actual class began.
"Time for some reconnaissance," he said, inhaling his breakfast at top speed.
He walked out of his dorm, feeling the fresh air, feeling a little better.
'Frame Recognition!' The world turned green. As he walked toward the educational sector, he didn't just look for his classroom. He began to map the building like a digital architect, scanning for monitors and hidden sensors.
From the outside, the Military Department appeared to be a cluster of seven distinct, imposing buildings. But as John began his walkthrough, his Frame Recognition revealed a different story: the structures were all interconnected at the base and third levels, forming a massive, unified maze of data.
He bypassed the training halls and the dorms, heading specifically for the administrative wing.
As he maintained his ability for half an hour, he began to take rigorous mental notes on the technical shortcomings of his digital sight.
'Distance matters,' he realised. 'In an open field, I can see up to twenty meters without a drop in effectiveness. But the moment I try to peer into a building or through walls, the range drops to five, maybe ten meters at most.'
It was a significant limitation. When he looked out toward the open plaza and the sprawling gardens, the green wireframes were crisp and expansive.
But when scanning the administrative walls, the code structure became a blurry, opaque mess if he stood too far back. However, the ability had one saving grace: it could penetrate matter. He could see the interior structure of rooms before even opening the door.
'If I can upgrade this one day to see for a hundred meters through solid structures, I'll be the greatest spy in history,' he joked to himself, pausing in front of a specific alcove.
'Another monitor device spotted. Noted.' He kept a running tally of the surveillance net. To his surprise, once he left the dormitory zone, the density of these devices plummeted.
In the administrative building, he had walked for five full minutes before hitting his first sensor. He wasn't complaining—it meant his midnight stroll would be much smoother than anticipated.
'What if I tried to synchronise with one of these monitors instead of a room?' he wondered, the hacker in him itching to hijack a feed. He entertained the thought for a moment before shaking it off. 'Too risky for now. I don't have enough system synchronisation level yet to safely try it.'
He turned his attention toward a different direction, walking to the edge of the third-level walkway that overlooked the grand plaza. He leaned against the railing, his eyes scanning the crowd below.
That's when he saw her!
Emerging from a nearby dorm building, a girl with long brown hair was moving with hurried, purposeful strides. Her hair bounced against her back, a rhythmic motion that caught the morning light.
"It's her!" his eyes shone. The administrative recon could wait; a target from his serialised quest was in the wild. He immediately ditched his mapping mission and took the stairs two at a time, heading toward the garden.
By the time he pushed through the thick outer layer of ancient, towering trees that shielded the garden, he found himself in a spacious, lush area. Students were scattered everywhere—reading on benches, practising, or chatting by the streams—but none of them had that wild, unstyled brown hair.
"Where did she go?"
He spent ten minutes weaving through the labyrinthine paths, checking behind statues and inside gazebos. He found nothing. She had vanished as if she had never existed.
"This girl... I'm sure something big is hiding behind her," he muttered to himself, feeling a surge of frustration. He checked the time and realised he needed to head back to class before the teacher decided to make an example of him if he arrived there late.
But before he could take a single step toward the exit, a flash of brown blurred past the edge of his vision. A sharp hiss of wind followed, and before he could even react, a figure was standing mere inches from him, head-to-head, eyes locked onto his.
"It's you..."
John's eyes brightened up. It was her. He hadn't found her; she had found him. And she wasn't interested in a friendly introduction. She took a sharp step forward, invading his personal space, and jabbed a firm, accusing finger directly into his chest.
"Stay the fck away from me," she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. "This is your first and final warning. Got it?!"
Before he could even open his mouth to respond, she spun on her heel and disappeared into the foliage, moving with a speed and silence that defied logic.
"I swear, she is hiding a massive secret," John whispered, completely unbothered by the threat. He wasn't thinking about the danger; he was thinking about something else. He hadn't felt her approach. He hadn't seen her in the open garden.
She must have been nearby the entire time, watching him look for her. 'She either has some sort of cloaking ability, or she's a professional spy,' he thought, a thrill of excitement running through him. The idea that he was hunting a shadow-dweller didn't bother him at all—it only made the quest more interesting.