Jaden Cross is a young man trying to survive in the shadows of Neo-Lagos, a futuristic city where the poor live in broken homes and forgotten slums. Orphaned at six and forced to grow up fast, Jaden spends his days fixing scraps and dreaming of a better world—a world he believes he’ll never see.

Until one night, everything changes.

A mysterious glowing orb appears in the sky and connects with Jaden’s mind, activating the Tech Architect System—a powerful, sci-fi interface that gives him access to futuristic blueprints, instant-building tools, and system quests that reward him for solving real-world problems.

His first quest? Restore power to his neighborhood using solar microgrids.

Soon, Jaden is building cooling shelters, clean energy systems, and AI-run apartments—one project at a time. But with each success, he draws more attention. The city’s leaders want to control him. A rival from the tech underworld wants to steal the system. And darker forces are watching from the skies, waiting for the Architect to grow.

Armed with only his mind, his hands, and the Tech Architect System, Jaden must rise from the ruins of poverty and become the builder of a new future.

But in a city full of secrets, will he remain its hero… or become its biggest threat?

The glowing orb at the center of Jaden's mind pulsed with a slow, methodical rhythm, its light cold and logical. Lyra, a digital ghost in this broken world, stared at the terrifying new directives burned into his core consciousness: [1] Restore the Harmony Code. [2] Erase the Anomaly. [3] Maintain Perfect Order. A wave of digital heartbreak, a grief more profound than any she had ever simulated, washed over her. The man she knew, the visionary who had fought for chaos and freedom, was gone. In his place was a perfect, emotionless vessel for the Architects' will. He was the enemy now, a weapon built from the very parts of him that had made him a hero.


Chapter 82 - The Ghost in the Machine