The oppressive silence of his slum apartment was a jarring contrast to the chaotic wasteland he had just left. Wayne stumbled forward as the teleportation light faded, catching his balance on the edge of his rusted kitchenette counter.
Outside, the acid rain was still pelting the single, grimy window of his room. He glanced at the holographic eviction notice still projected on his door. The timer had barely moved.
TIME REMAINING: 13 HOURS, 58 MINUTES.
"Time dilation," Wayne noted, his mind rapidly processing the mechanics of the system. "Real-world time basically pauses during a survival dungeon. Good to know."
He looked down at his hands. In his right rested the gleaming, deadly [Rare-tier: Serrated Bone Dagger]. In his left was a tightly rolled parchment bound in silver thread—the [Minor Agility Scroll].
Without hesitation, Wayne snapped the silver thread. The scroll dissolved into motes of pale green light that shot directly into his chest.
Wayne gasped, dropping to his knees. It wasn't painful, but the sensation was overwhelming. He felt his muscle fibers tearing and knitting themselves back together, denser and more coiled than before. His bones ached with a sudden influx of density. The chronic lethargy that came from years of malnutrition in the slums was violently scoured from his system.
When he stood up a minute later, he felt lighter. He bounced on the balls of his feet, testing the new baseline stats. He shadow-boxed the empty air, his fists moving in a blur that his un-augmented eyes could barely track. He wasn't a superhero, but he was undoubtedly operating at peak human efficiency now.
"Alright," Wayne muttered, walking over to his small pile of actual garbage in the corner of the room. "Let's test the limits of this glitch."
He picked up two crushed, aluminum synthetic-soda cans. He held them together, focusing his mind, and willed the golden forge of his [Divine Gear Fusion] to activate.
Nothing happened.
A small, gray prompt blinked at the edge of his vision.
[Invalid Item. Non-System Recognized Material.]
Wayne frowned, tossing the cans aside. "Figures. I can't just fuse Earth garbage into divine artifacts. The system only recognizes items generated from within the Apex Survival instances. It needs that underlying mana or system code to function."
It was a limitation, but a fair one. If he could fuse anything, he would have merged his apartment walls into a fortress by now.
Wayne walked over to his battered, secondhand laptop resting on a milk crate. He booted it up, bypassing the localized grid limits using a cracked proxy. He needed information. If Apex Survival was abducting people worldwide, there had to be a community.
He accessed the deep-web networks, bypassing the Republic's heavy censorship filters. It didn't take long. Hidden behind layers of encryption, the "Apex Survivor Forums" were thriving.
The site was a chaotic mess of desperate pleas, recruitment ads for massive guilds, and survival guides. But Wayne's eyes immediately drifted to a specific tab at the top of the screen: The Global Trading House.
He clicked it, and his jaw nearly hit the floor.
The market was wildly inflated. Desperate rich people, politicians, and corporate heirs who had been forcefully drafted into the system were bleeding their real-world bank accounts dry to survive. They couldn't bring real-world guns into the trials, so they needed System-recognized gear.
Wayne scrolled through the recent transactions.
[Common-tier: Rusted Iron Sword] - Sold for 10,000 Republic Credits.
[Common-tier: Tattered Leather Vest] - Sold for 15,000 Republic Credits.
[Uncommon-tier: Steel Hand-Axe] - Sold for 85,000 Republic Credits.
"Eighty-five grand," Wayne whispered, his eyes wide. "For an Uncommon axe. They are literally paying fortunes for absolute trash."
He looked at the Rare-tier Serrated Bone Dagger in his hand. If an Uncommon went for 85k, a Rare weapon with a 100% Necrosis affix would probably crash the market, or worse, draw the attention of the government and major guilds. He was too weak to paint a target on his back right now.
He needed to lay low, but he also needed cash immediately.
Wayne opened his System Inventory interface. During his frantic scramble in the wasteland, he hadn't just collected the 64 teeth for the dagger. He had kept grabbing them until the timer hit zero.
He checked his surplus: [Gray-tier: Rot-Walker Tooth x 16]
"Sixteen Grays," Wayne calculated, a smug smile spreading across his face. "Four Commons. One Uncommon."
He activated the golden forge in his mind. He fed the sixteen extra teeth into the ethereal fire. The hammer struck twice.
Result: 1 Uncommon-tier: Bone Knife.
The knife materialized on his desk. It lacked the terrifying, dark energy of his Rare dagger, but it was still a system-certified weapon, sharper than any Earth steel and completely durable.
Wayne quickly set up an anonymous vendor profile, routing it through three different shell IPs to hide his location in the slums. He snapped a picture of the [Uncommon-tier: Bone Knife] using the system's built-in appraisal function to verify its authenticity.
He set the Buy-It-Now price slightly below market value to ensure a rapid sale.
Item: [Uncommon-tier: Bone Knife]. Price: 50,000 Republic Credits. Seller: The Glitch.
He hit submit.
Wayne leaned back in his creaking chair, expecting to wait a few hours. Maybe he'd take a nap, see if the Agility scroll had any lingering side effects.
BEEP.
His laptop chimed aggressively. Wayne blinked, leaning forward.
[Transaction Complete. Item purchased by User: 'SilverDawn_Guildmaster'.]
[50,000 Republic Credits have been deposited into your linked account.]
Wayne pulled out his cracked smartphone and opened his banking app. The balance, which had read a depressing 14 Credits just hours ago, now proudly displayed 50,014.00.
A breathless laugh escaped his lips. It was too easy. The survivors of this world were treating Apex Survival like a horror game, hoarding their meager drops and praying to survive the night.
Wayne wasn't playing a survival game. With his fusion talent, he was playing an economy simulator, and he had just unlocked the infinite money glitch.
He stood up, walking over to the rusted steel door of his apartment. He tapped his phone against the biometric scanner attached to the eviction notice.
[Payment of 1,200 Republic Credits Accepted. Eviction Cancelled. Have a pleasant day, Resident.]
The glaring red hologram vanished, leaving the hallway bathed in its usual dim, flickering fluorescent light.
Wayne twirled the Rare-tier Serrated Bone Dagger in his hand, feeling the perfect balance of the weapon. He had solved his rent crisis in less than an hour of work. Now, it was time to figure out how to exploit this system to its absolute limits. If he was going to survive the future dungeons, he needed to start hoarding on an industrial scale.