The countdown clock in the corner of Vahn Ryker's vision was a jagged line of crimson light. It bled into the darkness of his small and sterile apartment. The glow illuminated the sharp edges of his jaw and the unkempt strands of his pitch black hair. He looked like a man who hadn't slept in weeks, but his eyes were sharp.
00:00:03.
00:00:02.
00:00:01.
[Initiating Neural Link: Aetheria Online.]
Vahn did not blink. He did not hesitate. His pulse remained a steady sixty beats per minute. To anyone else, this was the launch of the century's most anticipated Virtual Reality MMORPG. To Vahn, it was the final countdown to the end of the world. In exactly thirty days, the Convergence would occur. The digital world of Aetheria would overlay reality and the data would become flesh.
He remembered the screaming. He remembered the smell of ozone and burnt blood as the Galactic Market harvested Earth like a ripe orchard. He remembered the Alpha, Pierce Valerius, standing atop a mountain of corpses while selling humanity's core for credits.
Not this time.
The world dissolved. The physical sensation of his chair vanished and was replaced by a weightless void. Blue data streams spiraled around him. They formed a sphere of shimmering information.
[Welcome, Candidate 001.]
[Memory Integrity: 100%.]
[Temporal Variance Detected. Adjusting...]
A cold and mechanical voice echoed in the space. Vahn's eyes, a deep and piercing purple, tracked the movement of the code. As he calculated the flow of data, faint azure circuits began to glow beneath the surface of his irises.
"Skip the introductory cinematic," Vahn said. His voice was blunt and devoid of the excitement typical of a new player. "Logic dictates that lore is irrelevant when the engine is already live. Open the Hidden Class Selection sub-menu. Sequence: Delta-Niner-Seven."
The system paused. A normal player would be forced to choose between Warrior, Mage, or Rogue. But Vahn carried memories of the future. He knew about the Midnight Patch that existed for only three seconds during the initial server handshake. It was a developer backdoor for the Architects who built the world.
[External Command Recognized.]
[Warning: Accessed Hidden Directory.]
[Class Identified: EXP Architect.]
Vahn stared at the description that appeared before him.
[Class: EXP Architect (Hidden/Unique)]
Description: A system-level administrator role. The Architect does not follow the laws of the game. They define them.
Base Stats: All stats are locked at [0].
Special Modifier: 100x EXP Requirement for all levels.
Hidden Passive: [Total Conversion Control].
Architect Permission: [EXP Multiplier: 10,000x].
"The bait is the 100x EXP requirement," Vahn muttered. He rubbed his temples as his mind processed the sheer volume of incoming data. "Most would see a class that levels a hundred times slower with zero stats and discard it as a bug. They lack the vision to see the multiplier."
He reached out and his hand was steady. His fingers brushed the glowing text.
"Confirm selection."
[Class: EXP Architect selected.]
[Warning: Base stats are currently non-functional. Probability of survival in Tutorial Zone: 0.002%. Proceed?]
"Survival is not a matter of probability," Vahn replied. "It is a matter of calculation."
The void shattered.
Vahn landed on his feet in the center of a white marble plaza. This was the Plaza of Beginnings. It was the starting point for millions of players. Around him, thousands of avatars were materializing. They were cheering and testing their digital muscles while admiring their basic iron swords.
Vahn looked down at his own frame. He stood at 188 cm and his build was broad and explosive. Even with zero functional stats, the EXP Architect class had refined his digital physique into what the future would call the Dark Knight build. He looked like a man forged in a furnace. He was functional, heavy hitting, and intimidatingly fit.
He ignored the stares of the players around him. To him, they weren't people yet. They were data packets and most of which would be deleted within the first week of the Convergence.
"Status," he commanded.
— [EXP Architect System] —
[Host Information]
↳ Name: Vahn Ryker
↳ Level: 1
↳ Class: EXP Architect
↳ Health: 10/10
↳ Mana: 0/0
[Biological State]
↳ Strength: 0
↳ Agility: 0
↳ Intelligence: 0
↳ Constitution: 0
[System Resources]
↳ EXP: 0 / 10,000 (100x Requirement Applied)
A nearby player, a tall man in shimmering silver armor, glanced at Vahn's holographic status plate. He let out a bark of laughter.
"Hey, look at this guy! He's got zeros across the board! Did you glitch during character creation, commoner?"
Vahn turned his head slowly. The purple glow in his eyes intensified. He analyzed the man's stance. His weight was shifted too far onto his left heel and his grip on his sword was amateurish.
"Biological data error detected," Vahn said calmly.
"What did you say?" The player stepped forward with his hand on his hilt.
"Your arrogance is a byproduct of a low cognitive threshold. You are viewing a snapshot of a process you cannot comprehend. You are dross. Move."
The player's face flushed red. "You're a level 1 loser! I'm already Level 2 because I bought the head-start pack! I'll—"
Vahn didn't wait for the sentence to finish. He moved.
He didn't have Agility stats, but he had the Architect permissions. As he stepped past the player, he didn't use strength. He used his authority to convert the friction between his boots and the marble floor to zero for a fraction of a second. He glided past the man like a ghost.
By the time the player turned around, Vahn was already at the edge of the plaza. He was heading toward the North Gate.
"He's... he's fast," someone whispered. "But the status said zero?"
Vahn didn't hear them. His mind was focused on the Midnight Patch timer. He had exactly ten minutes to reach the Slime Meadows before the first global event triggered.
He pushed through the gates. The transition from the city to the wilds was seamless. The air smelled of digital pine and fresh earth. Far in the distance, a massive spire pierced the clouds. That was the Chronos Spire. That was his ultimate goal. To stabilize that spire was to save Earth.
But he was currently a God-King with the health of a common housefly.
Vahn stopped at the edge of the tall grass. Ten meters away, a Level 1 Green Slime bounced aimlessly. It was a blob of translucent jelly with two black dots for eyes. In Aetheria, slimes were the joke of the tutorial.
Vahn reached into his inventory and pulled out a Starter Dagger. It was a rusted piece of iron that was barely sharp enough to cut bread.
"The multiplier is active," Vahn whispered. His eyes scanned the slime. He wasn't looking at a monster. He was looking at an EXP battery. "The 100x requirement is a gate. The 10,000x multiplier is the key."
He calculated the slime's movement. It bounced every 1.5 seconds. Its core was the source of its data and it shifted slightly to the left during the apex of its jump.
Vahn crouched. His muscles coiled like steel springs. He didn't feel fear. He felt the cold and dry wit of a man who had already seen the end of the world and found it lacking.
"Target acquired," he said.
He lunged.