### Chapter 2: The Infinite System
The miniature sun in Su Yuan's palm pulsed with a silent, rhythmic beat, in sync with the wild drumming in his chest. It was a tangible manifestation of the impossible, a sphere of pure light and energy that defied every known law of this world, at least as they applied to him. He could feel the infinite ocean of mana roiling within him, a calm and placid sea that answered his every whim without the slightest ripple of effort.
He closed his fist, and the light vanished. He opened it, and the sun was reborn. Again and again, he repeated the motion, the sheer novelty of it, the absolute power, a heady intoxicant. The despair that had crushed him moments ago felt like a lifetime away, a half-remembered nightmare.
This was real. This was his.
He pushed the [Glow] spell further. With a thought, he didn't just create a sphere, but ten. They floated around him, bobbing gently in the air, transforming his cramped, squalid room into a celestial throne room. He willed one to move, and it zipped to the far corner. He willed another to change color, and its brilliant orange light shifted to a serene sapphire blue.
This was the level of mana control only Archmages in the game could dream of. Fine manipulation of multiple, simultaneous spells was a hallmark of mastery. For Su Yuan, it was as easy as breathing. He wasn't just controlling the mana; he *was* the mana. There was no separation.
A giddy, slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up from his throat. He, the 'Empty Vessel,' was conducting a symphony of light in his squalid little room. What would Kael say if he saw this? What would the instructors who looked at him with pity think? The thought sent a jolt of vindictive pleasure through him.
He was so lost in the intoxicating sensation of omnipotence that he almost missed the soft chime in his mind. The ethereal blue screen flickered back into existence before his eyes, pulling him from his reverie.
[System Notice: First Activation Protocol initiated.]
[Warning: The Host's sudden and infinite mana signature has created a severe anomaly in the local mana field.]
[This anomaly acts as a beacon, attracting entities sensitive to magical energy.]
[Binding of the Infinite Gacha System is currently at 99%. Final integration requires a stable host and a secure environment.]
Su Yuan's elation froze, replaced by a sudden, icy dread. A beacon? He knew exactly what that meant from his gaming days. In 'Arcane Destiny Online,' certain high-level events or items would emit a 'World Aura,' drawing powerful monsters to the player's location. It seemed his reality operated on a similar, terrifying principle.
A new line of text appeared, stark and demanding.
[First Activation Quest: Survive the Night.]
[Objective: Survive until the next sunrise to complete the System binding process.]
[Time Remaining: 07 Hours, 43 Minutes, 12 Seconds.]
[Reward for Completion: Full System Integration. Unlocking of [Inventory] and [Gacha Log] functions.]
[Penalty for Failure: Soul Disintegration.]
Su Yuan's blood ran cold. *Soul Disintegration*. The words slammed into him with the force of a physical blow. This wasn't a game where he could just respawn after death. Failure meant complete and utter annihilation. The System that had appeared to be his salvation was now holding a metaphorical gun to his head.
He immediately extinguished the ten floating orbs of light, plunging the room back into the oppressive gloom of twilight. The sudden darkness was a comfort, a flimsy shield against whatever might be watching.
Survive the night.
He had to think. Panicking would get him killed. He forced himself to take a deep, shuddering breath, his gamer mind kicking into overdrive, pushing past the fear of the original Su Yuan. This was just like a surprise event. A boss raid. He had dealt with hundreds of those.
First, analyze the threat. What kind of 'entities' would be drawn to him? The Azure Flame Magic Academy, being a third-rate institution, was situated in a region with relatively stable but thin ambient mana. It was safe enough for untalented apprentices. This meant he wouldn't be facing dragons or behemoths. His game knowledge supplied a list of low-level magical creatures that thrived in such environments: Mana Wisps, Shadow Crawlers, Gloom Sprites, and the most common predators of fledgling mages—Nocturnal Mana Hounds.
Second, assess his own capabilities. His assets: unlimited mana and the theoretical knowledge of a top-tier gamer. His liabilities: a physically weak fourteen-year-old body, a complete lack of combat experience in this world, and a spell repertoire consisting of exactly one cantrip—[Glow].
It was a pathetic loadout. But his greatest asset wasn't the mana itself; it was the fact that it was *infinite*. In gaming terms, he had zero cooldowns and zero resource cost. This opened up possibilities that normal mages could never consider.
He needed a plan. He couldn't run. The beacon was centered on him, not the location. Hiding was pointless; these creatures hunted by sensing magic, not by sight. His only option was to turn his room into a fortress and fight.
His eyes darted around the spartan room. The rickety bed frame, the wobbly desk, the single stool. It wasn't much. With a grunt of effort, he shoved the heavy, lumpy mattress against the thin wooden door, followed by the bed frame itself. It was a flimsy barricade, but it might buy him precious seconds. He then dragged the desk and stool to block the single, grimy window high on the wall.
Fortifications complete. Now, for his weapon.
All he had was [Glow]. A light spell. How could he possibly weaponize light? His mind raced through the spell trees from the game. Light magic wasn't just about illumination. At higher levels, it was about searing beams, holy judgment, and blinding flashes. The principles were heat and intensity.
He held out his palm, and a familiar orange orb materialized. He focused his will, not just on creating it, but on a new command: *more*. He began to pour mana into the construct. Not the trickle a normal apprentice would use, but a firehose. A deluge.
The orb of light trembled. Its soft orange glow began to brighten, shifting to a sharp, brilliant yellow. It grew hotter. Su Yuan could feel a wave of warmth wash over his face. He kept pushing. The yellow intensified, bleaching into a stark, clinical white. The air around the orb started to shimmer. The temperature in the small room began to climb noticeably.
This was it. He didn't have the spell matrix for [Sunbeam] or [Holy Smite], but he could use brute force to mimic the effect. He could overload a simple cantrip with a universe of energy until it became something else entirely.
He had his weapon. Now, he just had to wait.
The minutes stretched into an eternity. The only sounds were his own ragged breathing and the frantic pounding of his heart. The sky outside the grimy window bled from crimson to a deep, starless indigo.
Then, he felt it.
A subtle shift in the air. A cold spot forming near the door. It was a faint disturbance, like a drop of cold water in a warm bath. A normal apprentice would have missed it entirely, but Su Yuan's senses, now hyper-attuned by his infinite mana, picked it up instantly.
Something was outside.
He held his breath, staring at the barricaded door. A faint, ethereal blue light began to seep through the cracks around the frame. It flowed like smoke, coalescing on the inside of his room. The shape it formed was a small, wispy orb of shimmering energy with two dark spots resembling eyes.
A Lesser Mana Wisp.
In the game, these were harmless, level 1 mobs. They were drawn to mana and would harmlessly drain a tiny amount before floating away. They were more like magical insects than monsters.
But Su Yuan wasn't a player with hundreds of hit points. He was a frail boy. And that wisp wasn't just sampling the air; it was fixated on *him*. It saw him as an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The wisp drifted towards him, its form wavering. Su Yuan felt a strange, pulling sensation on his core, as if a single thread of his infinite ocean was being siphoned away. It was an insignificant amount, less than a drop, but the violation was unmistakable. This thing was feeding on him.
He raised his hand. He could have blasted it with a wave of raw mana, but that would be messy and inefficient—a bad habit for a mage to learn, infinite resources or not. He needed control.
He summoned his modified [Glow] spell. The orb of searing white light instantly materialized, flooding the room with the intensity of a lightning strike.
The Mana Wisp recoiled. Its form flickered violently, like a candle in a hurricane. These creatures were made of pure, stable mana. A sudden, overwhelming burst of unstructured energy was anathema to them.
Su Yuan saw his chance. He didn't throw the orb of light. He simply willed it to expand.
*Flash.*
The white light detonated silently, expanding in a wave of pure energy. It wasn't an explosion of fire or force, but of sheer luminosity. For a split second, the room was brighter than noon, every speck of dust and crack in the stone illuminated with impossible clarity.
When his vision cleared, the wisp was gone. It had been completely overloaded, its delicate structure torn apart by the violent energy, dissipated back into the ambient mana of the world.
His first kill.
A grim sense of satisfaction settled in his chest, but it was short-lived. The silent flash of his spell had been the equivalent of setting off a magical flare. The small beacon he represented had just turned into a bonfire.
The System's timer now read: 05 Hours, 12 Minutes.
The true night was just beginning.
An hour later, the second wave came.
It started with a scratching sound. A low, persistent scraping against the stone wall outside his window. Then another, at the door. It was the sound of claws on stone, accompanied by a low, guttural growl that vibrated through the floor.
Shadow Hounds. He knew it instantly. Low-level magical beasts, pack hunters. They weren't particularly strong, but they were fast, vicious, and could travel short distances through shadows. His barricades wouldn't stop them for long.
*CRACK!*
A splinter of wood flew inward from the door. A black, shadowy claw had punched through. The growling intensified, a chorus of hungry predators that had found their prey.
Su Yuan's heart hammered against his ribs. These weren't ethereal wisps. They were solid. They had teeth and claws. The fear was primal, but his focus was absolute.
He held out his palm again, summoning the supercharged [Glow]. White light filled the room, but he didn't stop there. He kept pouring mana into it, pushing it far beyond what he'd done before.
The orb of white light began to shrink, compressing on itself. The brightness became so painful he had to squint. The air around his hand warped and distorted with heat. A low hum filled the room as the spell struggled to contain the astronomical amount of energy he was forcing into it. The orb's color shifted again, from blinding white to a piercing, incandescent blue-white, the color of a welding arc. Small motes of dust that drifted too close to it instantly vaporized.
*CRUNCH!*
The door groaned, the wood splintering further. A black snout, wet and snarling, forced its way through a newly formed hole, sniffing the air. Rows of needle-sharp teeth dripped with a shadowy saliva.
Su Yuan knew he had one chance. This had to work.
He channeled the mind of 'Void,' the Archmage. He pictured the spell he was trying to create. Not just light, but a directed blast. A spear of concussive force and incinerating heat. He didn't have the words, the runes, or the technique. He only had the will, and an engine that would never run dry.
"Begone," he whispered, the word a prayer and a command.
He thrust his hand forward.
He didn't release the spell. He *unleashed* it.
The compressed, blue-white star in his palm erupted forward. It wasn't the elegant, focused [Sunbeam] of a master. It was a raw, uncontrolled detonation of energy. A shockwave of pure light and heat shot across the small room.
The effect was instantaneous and devastating.
The front half of the Shadow Hound was simply erased from existence. The wooden door and the barricade behind it were vaporized into superheated ash. The wave of force continued, blasting a blackened, molten crater into the stone hallway beyond. The sound was deafening, a sharp, concussive *BOOM* that shook the entire dormitory building.
Silence descended, broken only by the ringing in Su Yuan's ears and the hiss of cooling stone. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and burnt shadow.
He stood panting in the ruin of his doorway, his arm extended. He wasn't tired. His mana was as full as it had ever been. But the mental focus required, the sheer act of will to shape and control that much power, had left him mentally drained.
He had won. He had turned a simple light spell into a weapon of terrifying destruction.
But the roar of the explosion was a far greater beacon than any passive aura. He had just announced his presence to the entire academy, and to anything else lurking in the night.
He stumbled to the shattered remains of the doorway, peering into the dark, smoke-filled hall. Nothing. The other hounds, likely terrified by the sheer power of the blast, had fled.
He looked up, through the hole in the wall where his door used to be. Through the building's main archway, he could see the sky.
On the eastern horizon, a faint, fragile line of grey was beginning to push back against the oppressive black of the night.
Dawn was breaking.
A triumphant, exhausted smile touched his lips. He had made it.
Just as the first rays of the true sun crested the horizon, painting the world in shades of orange and gold, the System chimed in his mind once more. The sound was no longer menacing, but warm and finalizing.
[Sunrise detected. Host has successfully survived the night.]
[Quest 'Survive the Night' complete.]
[Commencing final System integration... 10%... 50%... 100%.]
[Binding successful. Welcome, Host, to the Infinite Gacha System.]
Before he could even begin to process his victory, he heard them. Hurried footsteps, shouts of alarm, and the distinct, authoritative voice of an instructor echoing down the hallway.
"What in the name of the Archons happened here?!"
Su Yuan stood in his wrecked room, bathed in the morning light, a godlike power thrumming in his veins. He had survived the monsters of the night, but now, he had to face the judgment of men. His problems, he suspected, were just getting started.