The dragon was still staring at me.
I was still staring at the dragon.
This had been going on for about thirty seconds, and honestly? I was starting to feel awkward about it.
"So," I said aloud, because apparently talking to giant reptiles was my life now, "you gonna eat me or what?"
The dragon tilted its head. Then, to my complete shock, it snorted—like it was laughing—and went back to roasting its scorpion dinner.
I blinked. "Okay. That's... not what I expected."
My system interface was still floating in my vision, all glowing text and countdown timers.
{System monitoring: Low priority}
I needed to figure out this world fast, and step one was probably not dying to the first creature I met.
I took a careful step backward. The dragon didn't look up from its meal.
Another step. Still nothing.
"Right. You're busy. I'll just... go figure out how not to die horribly."
I backed away until the dragon was just a colorful spot on the dune, then finally turned around to assess my situation. Desert in every direction, ruined tomb behind me, and a system interface that apparently thought I was playing some kind of game.
Time to actually read the manual.
[Administrator Console - Level 1]
The interface expanded in my vision, showing menus I hadn't noticed before. Most were locked—grayed out with "INSUFFICIENT PRIVILEGES" warnings. But a few were available.
[Creature Summoning] caught my eye immediately.
"Okay, let's see what we're working with."
The menu opened, showing a list of creatures I could apparently spawn out of thin air. Most were locked, but at the bottom was one option that glowed green:
[Chicken - Level 1]
[Cost: 1 AP — Authority Point]
I stared at it. "A chicken. They're giving me a chicken to fight a dragon."
But then again, it was something. And right now, something was better than nothing.
"Alright, let's do this. Summon chicken."
A magic circle appeared in the sand in front of me—actual glowing runes and everything. Light swirled, energy crackled, and with a soft pop, a chicken materialized.
It was... completely normal. Brown feathers, beady black eyes, already pecking at the sand looking for bugs. The most mundane creature imaginable.
"Well, hello world," I muttered.
The chicken clucked at me.
[New Creature Registered: Chicken]
[Assign Name?]
"Uh... Atrice." Half joke, half genuine. If I was going to die in a fantasy world, might as well name my sidekick something that sounded important.
{
Name: Atrice
Species: Chicken
Status: Extremely Ordinary
Level: 1
HP: 10/10
STR: 2
AGI: 1
INT: 0.5
}
I looked at Atrice. She looked back with the vacant stare of a creature whose entire worldview consisted of "find food, avoid death."
"Great. I'm officially the guy with a pet chicken in a world full of dragons."
That's when I noticed something interesting. Next to each stat was a small plus sign. Like I could edit them.
[Stat Modification — 1 AP will be used per 10 stat adjustment]
I checked my available AP: still 5/5 after the summon.
"Hmm… It should cost me AP, right?"
I decided to test it. I tapped the plus next to Agility and Strength.
[Warning! Entity Stat Modification Detected!]
[Agility: 1 → 6]
[Strength: 1 → 6]
Wait. My AP didn't go down?
Atrice suddenly stood straighter, her movements becoming quicker and more alert. She looked bulkier too.
"This has to be a bug!"
Excited by the possibility, I tapped again quickly.
[Agility: 6 → 11]
Atrice blurred. One second she was standing in front of me, the next she was ten feet away, pecking at a completely different patch of sand.
"Holy shit."
I kept tapping.
[Agility: 11 → 21]
Atrice started moving so fast she left afterimages. She was pecking, scratching, and clucking in three different places simultaneously.
[Agility: 21 → 50]
Now she was just a brown blur circling me like a feathered tornado.
"Okay, this is insane. What happens if I max out Strength?"
[Strength: 6 → 100]
Atrice stopped mid-blur and pecked the ground.
The sand exploded.
A crater the size of a manhole cover appeared where her beak touched. Atrice looked at the hole, then at me, and made a confused cluck.
"You just... you just one-shot the desert."
I opened the stat menu again, hands shaking slightly. If a tiny boost could do that, what would happen if I really pushed it?
[Strength: 50 → 100]
Atrice pecked a nearby rock.
The rock didn't crack. It disintegrated. Just turned into powder and blew away in the wind.
"What the actual fuck?"
I looked at the stat slider. It just kept going. It seemed to have no cap limit..?.
I could apparently boost this chicken's stats indefinitely.
"Let's see what happens when we break the system."
[Strength: 100 → 500]
Atrice jumped—a tiny little hop that chickens do when they're happy.
The ground shook. A shockwave rippled out from where she landed, and somewhere in the distance, I heard rocks tumbling.
[Agility: 50 → 500]
Atrice disappeared. Completely vanished. For a terrifying second, I thought I'd accidentally deleted her. Then I saw the trail—a perfect circle burned into the sand where she'd been running so fast she'd literally ignited the air.
She reappeared next to me, not even breathing hard.
"Atrice," I said slowly, "I think you might be the most dangerous thing in this desert now."
She clucked happily and pecked at my shoe.
That's when the sky started screaming.
Not literally screaming, but the air filled with voices, loud and angry and…
{Why Is A Chicken Stronger Than An Ancient Dragon?!}
The voice belonged to someone who sounded like they'd just watched their perfectly organized world get hit by a tornado.
{Who Gave A Farm Animal Divine-Tier Stats?!}
Another voice, equally pissed.
{The Balance Protocols Are Having A Seizure!}
I looked up at the sky, then down at Atrice, who was now casually scratching patterns in the sand that probably had enough kinetic energy to level a building.
"Oh," I said, understanding flooding through me. "I broke the world's system..."
[Warning! Anomalous Growth Detected!]
[Administrator Level: 1 → 4]
[Alerted: Cosmic Attention]
{Administrative attention: Minor anomaly detected}
{Administrative attention: Multiple anomalies detected}
{System monitoring: Medium priority}
{System monitoring: Enhanced surveillance active}
I quickly closed the stat menu and grabbed Atrice.
"We need to lay low. Like, really low." If the cosmic voices were this upset about a strong chicken, I definitely didn't want them figuring out 'how' she got this strong.
I could feel the weight of attention now - something was watching, analyzing, cataloguing what I'd done.
But I was grinning like a maniac.
"Atrice," I said, watching my overpowered chicken demolish a cactus by looking at it wrong, "I think we're going to have some fun with this broken system."
In the distance, the dragon I'd been afraid of earlier was still enjoying its scorpion meal.
Hmm, let's find out," I muttered. "Atrice… or the dragon?"