The grass parted as Vahn moved. He was a minimalist in motion. Every stride was calculated to use the least amount of energy for the maximum amount of displacement. Despite his zero Agility, his movements were fluid. They were governed by his knowledge of the world's physics.
The Green Slime didn't notice him until he was within three meters. It let out a gurgling sound and attempted to compress its body for a defensive leap.
Too slow.
Vahn's rusted dagger moved in a precise arc. He didn't aim for the body. He aimed for the mathematical center. The blade sank into the cool and gelatinous mass.
Squeltch.
The dagger tip vibrated as it struck the Slime Core. It was a small and marble sized sphere of concentrated energy. Vahn twisted the blade.
[Critical Hit!]
[You have killed a Level 1 Green Slime.]
For any other player, a small +1 EXP would have floated above their head.
For Vahn, the world suddenly stuttered. A torrent of golden light erupted from the dying slime. It swirled around him like a miniature hurricane.
[Base EXP: 1]
[Hidden Multiplier Detected: 10,000x]
[Calculating...]
[You have received 10,000 EXP!]
[Ding! Level Up!]
[Ding! Level Up!]
[Ding! Level Up!]
The notifications flooded his vision. It was a cascade of blue screens that blocked out the meadows. Vahn waved them away with a bored gesture. He wasn't interested in the levels themselves. He was an Architect. Levels were merely unprocessed data.
"Leveling is a linear progression for the masses," Vahn stated. His voice echoed in the quiet meadow. "I require non-linear growth. Open the EXP Converter menu."
A new and golden interface appeared. This was the core mechanic of the EXP Architect. Instead of letting the system automatically distribute points into base stats, Vahn could spend his raw EXP to manually override his character's limitations.
[EXP Converter]
↳ Current EXP Reservoir: 10,000
↳ Conversion Rate: 100 EXP = 1 Stat Point.
↳ Note: Stats converted via Architect Permissions ignore the Soft Cap of the Tutorial Tier.
Vahn looked at his stats. A normal player at Level 10 might have a total of 50 stat points across all categories. Vahn had 10,000 EXP from a single slime.
"Calculated efficiency: Strength and Physique are secondary for the first twenty-four hours," Vahn mused. He rubbed his chin. "Survival in the Ghost Path of the tutorial requires extreme reaction speed. Dump 5,000 EXP into Agility. Dump the remaining 5,000 into Intelligence."
Intelligence in Aetheria didn't just govern magic. It governed Calculation Speed. This was the ability to process the world's data in real-time.
[Conversion Complete.]
↳ Agility: 0 -> 50
↳ Intelligence: 0 -> 50
The effect was instantaneous. Vahn's body felt like it had been injected with liquid lightning. His muscles were already dense but they felt lighter and more responsive. It was the mental change that was most profound. The world slowed down. He could see the individual blades of grass swaying in the wind. They were not a blurred field of green but distinct data points with specific vectors.
"Acceptable," Vahn said. "Now, let us test the multiplier's limits."
He spent the next hour acting as a reaper.
To any onlooker, Vahn Ryker would have looked like a glitch in the game's code. He didn't run. He blurred. He moved through the Slime Meadows like a scalpel through silk. A single flick of his rusted dagger caused another slime to burst into golden light.
Kill. +10,000 EXP.
Kill. +10,000 EXP.
Kill. +10,000 EXP.
By the time the sun began to dip toward the horizon, Vahn stood in a crater of scorched grass. He was surrounded by the motes of ten thousand dissolved slimes. Most players were still struggling to reach Level 5 in the safe zones.
Vahn checked his reservoir.
↳ [EXP Reservoir: 50,000]
He had stopped converting for a moment to analyze a new notification.
[Skill Unlocked: Flashpoint (Active)]
Description: For 1 second, your movement speed is multiplied by 2x.
Architect Note: This skill has a 0.001% chance to mutate into [Temporal Step] if over-leveled with EXP.
Vahn's deep purple eyes glinted. "Probability of mutation is low. However, with the multiplier, I can brute-force the evolution. Spend 40,000 EXP on Skill Mutation: [Flashpoint]."
The system chimed a warning. [Warning: Excessive EXP infusion may cause a Logical Error in the skill's structure. Continue?]
"Execute," Vahn commanded.
The reservoir drained. The golden light that had been clinging to his body was sucked into his feet. It turned into a vibrant and emerald green glow. The air around him began to warp. The visual data of the meadow distorted like a heat haze.
[Logical Error Detected!]
[Skill: Flashpoint has been corrupted... correcting...]
[Skill Mutated into Epic Tier: Temporal Step (Level 1)]
Effect: Move to any point within 10 meters instantly. To the world, you have teleported. To you, time has simply paused for a single stride.
Vahn tested the skill. He didn't even blink. One moment he was standing in the crater. The next moment he was thirty feet away while standing atop a large boulder. There was no sound and no wind. There was just a displacement of reality.
"Architect talk: The world is a blueprint and I have found the eraser," he whispered.
He looked toward the dark forest bordering the meadows. Deep within that forest lay the Tutorial Boss. It was the Ghost of the Tutorial. It was designed to be defeated by a raid of forty players over the course of thirty minutes. It was the gatekeeper meant to slow down the player base.
Vahn looked at his rusted dagger. The iron was chipped and its durability was nearly zero.
"Inefficient," he said. "I need a better tool before I clear the boss. But first, let us address the biological data error approaching from the left."
He didn't turn his head. His 50 Intelligence allowed him to sense the vibration in the air.
Three players emerged from the brush. They were led by a woman with short-cropped red hair and a sneer that looked permanent. They wore Elite starter gear. It was leather armor that actually offered protection. The leader was a 7/10 in beauty but her arrogance made her a 2. Her leather chest piece was tight and it struggled to contain her racks as she marched toward him.
"Hey, commoner," the woman said. She pointed a spear at Vahn. "We've been watching the map. The slime count in this sector dropped by 90% in the last hour. Where's the party that cleared them? We want to buy their loot."
Vahn stood on the boulder and looked down at them. His purple eyes were cold. His gaze made the woman feel suddenly transparent. It was as if he were reading her very soul or her base code.
"There is no party," Vahn said. "There is only the data I have harvested. You are trespassing on an active work site. Leave."
The two men behind the woman laughed. "Active work site? You're a Level 1 commoner with a broken knife. Did you hide in a hole while a high-level player did the work?"
Vahn rubbed his temples. He felt the familiar itch of a system calculated affinity conflict. These people were distractions. They were noise in a world that needed signal.
"Behavioral deduction: You intend to use force to tax me for information you aren't capable of processing," Vahn said. He stepped off the boulder. He didn't fall. He seemed to simply reappear on the ground.
The woman's eyes widened. "Wait... how did you"
"I am a minimalist," Vahn interrupted. His voice dropped to a dry and bored wit. "I won't draw my sword or this rusted piece of iron if I can solve this with logic. But your presence is a biological data error. I shall now clear the cache."
"Get him!" the woman barked while leveling her spear. Her heavy chest jiggled as she lunged forward.
Vahn didn't reach for his dagger. He activated [Temporal Step].
The world turned gray. The red-haired woman was frozen mid-stride. Her mouth was open in a shout that would never reach the air. Vahn walked calmly past her. He reached out and gently tapped the base of her neck. Then he did the same to her two companions. He wasn't using strength. He was using his Architect permissions to re-label their equilibrium data as Null.
Time resumed.
The three players didn't even see him move. They simply collapsed. Their bodies hit the grass as if their legs had turned to water. They weren't dead because Vahn didn't waste EXP on trash. But they were paralyzed by a sensory overload they couldn't comprehend.
Vahn didn't look back. He began walking toward the forest.
"The Ghost of the Tutorial is scheduled to spawn in four minutes," Vahn said to the empty air. "Probability of a solo clear: 100%. Probability of the world realizing I am the Architect: Irrelevant. By the time they know, I will already be the God-King."
He disappeared into the shadows of the trees. His purple eyes were glowing with the azure circuits of a man who was no longer human. He was something far more dangerous.
He was the system's owner and he was just getting started.