**Chapter 88: The Avatar Project**
**Day 1,294.**
**Location: The Dead Belt (Uncharted Sector, Zyloth Border).**
**Current Status: Too Big to Fail.**
**Mood: Nostalgic.**
There is a specific kind of loneliness that comes with being a celestial hazard.
I floated in the silence of the void, surrounded by the shattered remnants of a moon I had accidentally pulverized three hours ago. I hadn't attacked it. I had simply landed on it to think, and my gravitational mass had exceeded the structural integrity of the rock. It had crumbled beneath me like dry cake, drifting apart into a field of grey dust and silicon shards.
I sat cross-legged on the largest remaining fragment, a slab of rock about the size of a football stadium.
To my left, a red dwarf star burned dimly. To my right, the infinite black stretched out toward the Galactic Core.
I checked my internal clock.
**[Day 1,294.]**
**[Daily Growth: +10%.]**
**[Current Power Estimate: Beyond Calculation.]**
The numbers were meaningless now. Yesterday, I had flicked a finger and bisected a destroyer-class starship. Today, I was ten percent stronger. If I sneezed, I might accidentally delete a solar system.
I looked at my hands. They were wreathed in a perpetual corona of golden fire. My skin wasn't skin anymore; it was a containment field holding back the energy of a supernova. I couldn't touch anything. I couldn't walk among people. If I returned to the Mars Orbital Ring, my mere presence would give Ren and Dr. Aris radiation poisoning within minutes.
I had won the game, but I had locked myself out of the server.
"Boring," I said.
The sound wave propagated through the mana-rich vacuum, shattering a nearby asteroid.
I sighed.
In the simulation—back on the Earth server—I had enjoyed the climb. The struggle. The thrill of finding a weapon that was slightly better than my current one. The adrenaline of a boss fight where my HP actually dropped below 50%.
Now? I was the Admin. I was the developer. I was the glitch that ate the universe.
"If I can't fit in the world," I mused, the golden fire flaring around my lips, "then I need to make myself smaller."
I stood up. The movement caused a ripple in spacetime that would probably confuse astronomers three light-years away.
I couldn't reduce my power. The Compound Interest was a law of my existence, absolute and irreversible. But I *could* compartmentalize it.
I pulled up the System Interface—the code of reality that I now commanded.
**[Initiating Protocol: Smurf Account.]**
It was a gaming term. A high-level player creates a new, low-level account to play with beginners, to feel the rush of the early game again.
"Project Avatar," I whispered.
I raised my hands.
"Architect," I projected the thought across the light-years, aiming it back toward the Mars station.
The response was instantaneous, a whisper in the back of my skull. *// I AM LISTENING, MAKER. STATUS OF THE FLEET? //*
"The fleet is safe," I said. "I am currently... loitering. I need you to transmit the character creation data from the original game files. The default human template."
*// ACKNOWLEDGED. TRANSMITTING BIOMETRIC BLUEPRINTS. //*
Data streamed into my mind. DNA helix structures. Muscle density charts. Nerve conductivity ratings. The frail, beautiful, limited blueprints of a human being.
I looked at the debris field around me.
"Time to craft."
I reached out with my telekinesis. I didn't grab a planet. I grabbed dust. Carbon from the asteroids. Ice from a passing comet. Trace metals from the wreckage of the moon.
I pulled them together, compressing them into a sphere of matter in front of me.
Then, I began the transmutation.
I poured mana into the sphere—not the destructive, explosive mana I usually used, but the creative, knitting mana of life. I forced the carbon to align into organic chains. I forced the water to become blood. I forced the iron to become hemoglobin.
It was delicate work. Like trying to perform watch repair while wearing boxing gloves made of dynamite.
Slowly, a shape formed.
It hovered in the vacuum, protected by a bubble of air I had synthesized.
It was a body.
Male. Approximately six feet tall. Lean muscle. Black hair. It looked like me—before the gold, before the power, before I became a nuclear reactor with a face. It looked like Shigu from Day 1.
But it was just a shell. Meat and bone.
"Now for the hard part," I muttered.
I needed to put myself inside it. But I couldn't put *all* of me. That vessel would vaporize instantly. I needed to split my consciousness.
I closed my eyes and focused on the core of my being—the raging inferno of my soul. I needed to peel off a sliver. A tiny, microscopic fragment. Less than 0.0001%.
It hurt.
Separating a piece of your own soul is not a pleasant experience. It felt like tearing a muscle in my brain.
I isolated the fragment. I wrapped it in a dense layer of mental shielding, creating a firewall between the fragment and the main source. I severed the direct connection to the infinite mana pool.
I held the glowing blue spark of consciousness in my golden hand.
"You," I said to the spark, "will remember who you are. But you will not have the power. You will have the knowledge, but not the muscles. You are the player. I am the server."
I pushed the spark into the chest of the floating body.
The body convulsed. The heart kick-started.
I opened the System Interface and began to code. I wasn't coding the universe this time; I was coding a User Interface for this specific body.
**[Defining Parameters.]**
**[Name: Shigu (Avatar).]**
**[Level: 1.]**
**[Class: Novice.]**
**[Strength: 10 (Locked).]**
**[Agility: 10 (Locked).]**
**[Mana Capacity: 100/100.]**
**[Special Trait: The Admin's Favor (Access to System Console - Restricted).]**
I looked at the stats. They were pathetic. They were beautiful.
"Perfect," I said.
Now, I needed to secure my main body. If I was going to be driving the Avatar, I couldn't leave my God-body floating around in open space where it might drift into a planet or get poked by a curious singularity.
I looked at the red dwarf star nearby.
"Bedtime."
I flew toward the star. I dove into the corona, the million-degree plasma feeling like a warm bath. I sank deep into the stellar mantle, where the gravity was crushing and the heat was absolute.
I curled up in the heart of the star.
This would be my anchor. My main body would sleep here, feeding on the stellar fusion, growing stronger in the background, acting as the wireless router for my connection.
I closed my eyes.
**[Transferring Consciousness.]**
**[3...]**
**[2...]**
**[1...]**
**[Connection Established.]**
***
**System Reboot.**
**Location: The Dead Belt (Debris Field).**
**Current Status: Mortal.**
**Mood: Freezing.**
"Gah!"
I gasped, my lungs expanding with a sudden, painful jerk.
The first thing I felt was the cold. It wasn't the abstract concept of zero-kelvin I had felt as a god. It was the biting, shivering, teeth-chattering cold of the air bubble surrounding me.
The second thing I felt was gravity. Or rather, the lack of it. My inner ear spun. I flailed my arms—heavy, sluggish arms made of meat—and drifted backward.
I opened my eyes.
I wasn't seeing the universe in a 360-degree sphere of data anymore. I was seeing it through two biological lenses. The resolution was terrible. The colors were dull. My peripheral vision was gone.
I looked at my hands.
Pale skin. Callused knuckles. Blue veins visible beneath the wrist. No golden fire. No world-ending aura.
I squeezed my fist. It felt weak. If I punched a rock now, I wouldn't shatter the rock; I would break my fingers.
A grin spread across my face. A genuine, human grin.
"Hah," I croaked. My throat was dry. "Hahahaha!"
I was weak! I was fragile! I was *mortal*!
**[Welcome, User: Shigu.]**
**[Level: 1.]**
**[Warning: Oxygen supply in containment bubble is at 15%.]**
The blue box floated in my vision. It was comforting.
"Right," I said, my voice sounding thin in the recycled air. "Oxygen. Survival."
I looked around. I was floating in a small, transparent bubble of air in the middle of an asteroid field. I was naked. I had no weapons, no food, and about ten minutes of air before I suffocated.
The difficulty curve had just spiked. I loved it.
"Inventory," I commanded.
A holographic grid appeared. Empty.
"Crafting Menu."
I accessed the basic knowledge I had encoded into this avatar. I couldn't use the God-level creation magic anymore. I had to use the System's crafting mechanics, which relied on available mana and materials.
I reached out and grabbed a small chunk of rock floating inside my bubble.
**[Item: Iron-rich Asteroid Fragment.]**
"Mana Manipulation," I muttered.
I drew from my internal pool.
**[Mana: 100 -> 80.]**
I didn't transmute the rock instantly. I had to shape it. I visualized the form, pouring the meager energy into the stone. It heated up, glowing dull red, and slowly reshaped itself.
It wasn't a masterpiece. It was a jagged, crude knife about six inches long.
**[Item Created: Space-Rock Shiv.]**
**[Quality: Poor.]**
**[Damage: 3-5.]**
"Garbage," I laughed, spinning the knife in my hand. "I'll take it."
Next, clothing. I didn't have fabric. But I had mana, and I had the ability to weave ambient cosmic dust if I concentrated hard enough.
I focused. This was harder. It drained my mana bar rapidly.
**[Mana: 80 -> 10.]**
A simple, grey tunic and trousers materialized over my body. They were rough, scratching my skin, offering zero armor protection.
**[Item Created: Novice Robes.]**
**[Defense: 1.]**
"Okay," I breathed, feeling lightheaded from the mana drain. "Dressed and armed. Now, I need a ride."
My air was running out. I could feel the CO2 building up, making my lungs burn. I spun in the zero-G, looking for options.
The asteroid field was dense. But something glinted in the distance. Not rock. Metal.
A ship.
It was sleek, painted a dark violet, shaped like a teardrop. It was moving slowly through the belt, scanning the debris.
**[Identify.]**
**[Target: Zyloth Ascendancy Scout Vessel.]**
**[Level Estimate: 25.]**
**[Threat Level: Deadly.]**
"Perfect," I whispered.
The Zyloth were the dominant power in this sector. Militant, xenophobic, and technologically advanced. If they saw a naked human in a bubble, they wouldn't rescue him. They would capture him for dissection.
Or shoot him for target practice.
"That's my ride," I decided.
I couldn't fly. I didn't have a propulsion spell.
I looked at the large slab of rock behind me.
Physics. Newton's Third Law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
I braced my legs against the rock. I crouched.
"Strength check," I muttered.
I pushed off with everything I had.
It wasn't a supersonic launch. It was a desperate, flailing leap through the vacuum. My air bubble moved with me, maintained by the last dregs of my mana.
I soared across the gap between the asteroids.
The Zyloth ship was getting closer. It was about the size of a bus. I could see the sensor arrays rotating.
A red light swept over me.
**[Alert: You have been detected.]**
The ship stopped. A turret on the underside swiveled toward me.
I smiled.
"Come on," I whispered. "Don't shoot. Be curious."
The turret paused. The Zyloth were arrogant. Why waste plasma on a piece of space debris that looked like a primitive biological specimen?
A hatch on the top of the ship opened. A tractor beam—a cone of blue light—shot out and engulfed me.
I felt the tug. It pulled me in, dragging me toward the airlock.
"Hook, line, and sinker," I grinned.
***
**Inside the Zyloth Scout Vessel.**
**Location: Cargo Bay / Airlock.**
The gravity plating kicked in the moment I hit the deck. I stumbled, my knees buckling under the sudden weight of 1G.
The airlock cycled. The hiss of pressurization was the sweetest sound I'd heard in minutes. My bubble popped, and I breathed in the ship's air. It smelled like ozone and antiseptic.
The inner door slid open.
Three figures stood there.
They were tall, humanoid, but with skin the color of amethyst and eyes that were solid black. They wore sleek, bio-organic armor that shimmered. They held energy rifles pointed at my chest.
"Species: Unknown," the leader clicked. His voice was translated by a universal device on his collar. "Status: Unarmed. Primitive."
He stepped forward, lowering his rifle slightly. He looked at me with the disdain a scientist reserves for a lab rat.
"How did you survive in vacuum, primitive?" he asked.
I stood up slowly. I dusted off my grey robes.
I looked at the leader.
**[Enemy: Zyloth Enforcer.]**
**[Level: 22.]**
**[HP: 450/450.]**
I had 50 HP. One shot would vaporize me. One punch would kill me.
"I held my breath," I said.
The Zyloth blinked. "Sarcasm. A sign of intelligence. Unfortunate. It means we have to vivisect the brain while you are awake to map the neural pathways."
He gestured to his subordinates. "Stun him. Cage him."
The soldier on the left raised his rifle.
I didn't have speed stats. I didn't have strength stats.
But I had *experience*.
I knew exactly how a finger tightened on a trigger. I knew the micro-tells of a shooter's shoulder dropping before they fired.
I moved before he pulled the trigger.
I dropped to one knee. The stun bolt sizzled over my head, scorching the wall behind me.
"Movement!" the leader shouted.
I lunged forward.
I didn't aim for the soldier. I aimed for the gravity control panel on the wall beside me.
I slammed my Space-Rock Shiv into the console.
*Spark.*
The shiv shattered, but the panel shorted out.
**[Critical Hit to Environmental Systems!]**
The artificial gravity in the cargo bay failed instantly.
The three Zyloth soldiers, caught off guard, floated upward, flailing. They were trained for gravity. They relied on their boots locking down. But the sudden shift disoriented them.
I was ready for it. I had spent the last twenty minutes floating in void.
I kicked off the floor, launching myself like a torpedo at the leader.
"You dare!" the leader screeched, trying to bring his rifle to bear.
I grabbed the barrel of his rifle with my left hand and his wrist with my right. I used his own momentum against him, twisting his body in mid-air.
"Physics doesn't care about your rank," I whispered in his ear.
I performed a Judo throw in zero-G, slamming him into the soldier behind him. The impact sent them both spinning into the far wall with a sickening crunch.
**[Combat Log: Zyloth Enforcer takes 12 Blunt Damage.]**
**[Combat Log: Zyloth Soldier takes 15 Impact Damage.]**
Not enough to kill. But enough to confuse.
I snatched the energy rifle floating from the leader's grip.
It was heavy. The interface was alien. But I was the Admin. I understood the code of weapons.
**[Item Acquired: Zyloth Plasma Carbine.]**
**[Proficiency: None (Accuracy penalty -50%).]**
"I don't need accuracy," I muttered. "I need volume."
I braced myself against the ceiling and pulled the trigger.
*Thwum-thwum-thwum!*
Bolts of violet plasma sprayed the room. I missed two shots, scorching the crates. The third shot hit the remaining soldier in the chest.
His shields flared and broke. He screamed and went limp, floating backward.
The leader recovered, pushing off the wall. He drew a vibro-blade from his belt. His black eyes were wide with rage.
"You are no primitive!" he roared, propelling himself toward me.
He was fast. Level 22 fast.
I couldn't dodge.
I raised the rifle to block.
*CLANG.*
The vibro-blade bit into the metal casing of the rifle, shearing it in half. The force of the blow threw me backward. I hit a storage crate hard.
**[Damage Taken: 15.]**
**[HP: 35/50.]**
Pain. Sharp, hot pain in my ribs.
I gasped.
It felt *amazing*.
The fear. The stakes. The fact that if I messed up in the next three seconds, I was dead.
"Yes!" I shouted, tossing the broken rifle aside. "This is it! This is the gameplay!"
The Zyloth leader stared at me. I was a Level 1 human in rags, bleeding from the mouth, laughing at a Level 22 elite soldier.
"You are insane," the Zyloth hissed. He raised the blade for a killing stroke.
He lunged.
I didn't retreat. I waited.
I waited until I could see the pores on his purple skin.
**[Skill Activated: The Admin's Favor (Console Command).]**
I couldn't rewrite reality. But I could cheat the local physics just a little.
I whispered a single word of code.
`sudo toggle_lights`
The lights in the cargo bay cut out. Pitch black darkness.
The Zyloth relied on vision. I relied on the System Map.
Even with my eyes useless, the blue interface in my mind showed me the red dot of the enemy.
I pushed off the crate. I drifted silently through the dark.
The Zyloth swung his blade wildly. *Swish. Swish.*
I floated under his guard.
I reached out. I didn't have a weapon.
But I knew Zyloth physiology from the blueprints I had downloaded. They had a nerve cluster at the base of the neck. A weak point.
I stiffened my fingers into a spear-hand strike.
I channeled every remaining point of mana into my fingertips.
**[Mana: 10 -> 0.]**
**[Skill: Mana Spike (Improvised).]**
I struck.
My fingers dug into the soft flesh of his neck. I discharged the mana directly into his nervous system.
The Zyloth went rigid. A gurgling sound escaped his throat.
The lights flickered back on.
The leader floated there, paralyzed, eyes rolling back in his head.
**[Critical Hit!]**
**[Target Stunned (Duration: 30 seconds).]**
I wrapped my arm around his neck in a sleeper hold. I didn't have the strength to snap his neck, but I could cut off the blood flow.
"Shhh," I whispered. "Go to sleep. The tutorial is over."
He struggled weakly, then went limp.
**[Combat Victory!]**
**[Experience Gained: 1,200.]**
**[Level Up!]**
**[Level Up!]**
**[Level: 1 -> 3.]**
**[Attribute Points Acquired: 10.]**
I released the alien and let him float. I panted, wiping blood from my lip. My ribs ached. My mana was zero. I was exhausted.
It was the most fun I'd had in three years.
I kicked off the wall and floated toward the cockpit door.
"Right," I said, cracking my knuckles. "Let's see what this ship can do."
***
**One Hour Later.**
**Location: Cockpit of the *Violet Shadow* (Renamed).**
**Current Status: Captain.**
The bodies of the Zyloth crew were secured in the stasis pods in the cargo hold. I hadn't killed them. They might be useful for bargaining later, or for information.
I sat in the pilot's chair. It was too big for me, designed for the taller aliens, but I adjusted the controls.
The interface was complex, but the Architect was helping me translate the alien script via our tenuous mental link.
*// SHIP SYSTEMS SECURE. ENGINES ONLINE. //*
"Thanks, Arch," I muttered.
I checked my new character sheet. Level 3. I put all my points into Agility. I needed to be faster if I was going to survive out here without my god-mode.
I pulled up the navigation map.
We were on the edge of the Zyloth Ascendancy. To the North was the Hegemony. To the South, the Free Systems.
And somewhere in the middle, hidden in the noise, was Mars.
"I can't go back yet," I said to myself. "I need resources. I need gear. And I need to level up this avatar until it can handle at least 1% of my real power."
I looked at a blinking icon on the star map.
**[Destination: Station Omega-9. Hub of the Mercenary Guild.]**
A wretched hive of scum and villainy. Perfect for a smurf account.
I engaged the warp drive.
The stars outside the viewport stretched into lines of light.
"My name is Shigu," I said, testing the feel of the name in this weak, mortal mouth.
I leaned back, resting my hand on the throttle.
"And I'm looking for a quest."
**Chapter 88 Ends.**