Morning light filtered through Vance's half-fortified windows, casting soft, patterned glows on the walls. Outside, the city thrummed with oblivious life—but inside, things were changing.
Vance's house looked rough and patched together, but the system was transforming every piece he added.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the Tech Tree floating before him. Most of the upgrades were locked, but the basics—Electricity, Walls, Doors, Windows—were within reach.
His first priority was power.
He scavenged battered solar panels, old wires, and dead car batteries from junkyards and hardware stores. Back home, he mounted the panels on his roof—clunky, weathered, barely efficient.
As soon as he connected the last wire, the system silently kicked in.
The panels glowed faintly, reshaping.
The flat, dusty panels transformed before his eyes into sleek, hexagonal photovoltaic tiles, shimmering with a soft blue energy mesh.
The old battery bank below hummed, morphing into a compact, sci-fi battery array with glowing energy cells that balanced the load automatically.
Lights flickered on for the first time.
Cool white LED strips pulsed gently along the ceilings, powered by an unseen, silent core.
Vance's heartbeat quickened.
Next came the walls.
Using scrap metal, plywood, and stone, Vance painstakingly reinforced the crumbling walls.
Every nail hammered, every plate bolted on was tracked by the system.
Then, without warning, the surfaces began to ripple and shift.
The rough metal patches fused seamlessly with advanced composite alloys. The walls gained a faint shimmer, like liquid metal waiting to harden instantly.
Hidden within, layers of reactive nano-fibers embedded themselves, able to absorb shocks and repair minor damages automatically.
His windows were the next challenge.
He fitted thick plastic sheeting scavenged from construction sites over cracked glass.
The system responded immediately.
The dull plastic hardened into a transparent crystalline barrier, stronger than any bulletproof glass.
Faint circuit patterns traced across the surface, glowing softly in the dim light.
They weren't just windows anymore—they were energy shields that could adjust transparency and block infrared scans.
The front door was the final piece.
Vance lugged a heavy steel slab from an abandoned warehouse, sweating as he positioned it in the doorway.
The moment he locked it in place, the system's upgrade kicked in.
The door thinned and stretched, becoming a sleek monolith embedded with biometric scanners and nano-coating that could resist hacking attempts and physical attacks.
A small panel beside it blinked to life—a silent sentinel guarding his home.
Each upgrade felt like a leap between worlds.
While Vance did the hard work, hammering and wiring and scavenging, the system breathed life into his home, turning his grimy refuge into a fortress of advanced tech.
Days blurred as Vance ran from place to place, hunting scrap metal, wood planks, wiring, and old batteries. His rucksack was always packed with survival kits, ration bars, and tools.
He called his parents, urging them to stockpile food and water.
And he contacted Tank, his stout childhood friend, for help hauling heavy loads.
One evening, after exhausting another junkyard, Vance sank onto his creaky couch, pulling up the Tech Tree again.
His eyes drifted to a glowing sub-node labeled "Subspace Storage" with a small lock icon.
Curious, he tapped the node—and it expanded.
A description popped up:
"A dimensional pocket for storing perishable and non-perishable supplies. Reduces decay rate to near-zero. Access limited to secure entry only."
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