Kai's body didn't burn. It unraveled.
The radiation from the explosion melted his skin, stripping him down to muscle and bone.
But before death could claim him, the Violet Shard embedded in his chest pulsed.
It didn't heal him. It rewrote him.
Invisible matter poured from the shard, weaving through his melting DNA like black thread.
It replaced his biological cells with something denser.
Something that didn't obey the laws of this universe.
The pain was beyond screaming.
It was the sensation of being erased and drawn again by a shaky hand.
He hears crystal resonance faintly.
Kai gasped, his eyes rolling back, and the world faded into darkness.
As Kai's eyes close, the blurred holographic screens sharpen into crisp, curved lines.
[ One Year Later ]
"...celebrating the first anniversary of Revolutionary Day!"
The crackly voice of a radio echoed through the cavernous mine, bouncing off damp stone walls.
"It has been one year since the Awakening. Thanks to the genius of Scientist Alfred and his Crystal Extraction Method, humanity has pushed back the monster waves! "
"We also honor the 7 Heroes of Adaptability who hold the front lines..."
Kai wiped sweat and grime from his forehead.
He wasn't a Hero. He was a mule.
He hauled a cart heavy with raw Violet Crystals.
The air in the mine was thick with toxic dust, tasting of copper and despair, but Kai didn't cough.
His breath fogs when others don't. Dust avoids settling on his skin.
"Move it, Zero!"
Kai stumbled. He hadn't tripped; he was shoved.
He looked up to see the Overseer, a man with a glowing red gauntlet—a Level 16 Gravity Mage.
"You useless waste of space," the Overseer spat.
"You're slowing down the production line. The Endless Company doesn't pay you to sleep."
Kai lowered his head, hiding his eyes.
"My apologies, sir. The load is heavy."
"Heavy?" The Overseer sneered, mana crackling around his fist. "Let me show you heavy."
The Overseer raised his hand.
[SPELL : GRAVITY PRESS]
The air around Kai shimmered.
The floor beneath his feet cracked instantly under the increased pressure.
A normal Level 8 human would have been flattened into a pancake, their bones snapped like dry twigs.
Kai felt... nothing.
The Overseer's weak gravity magic washed over him like a gentle breeze.
The Violet Shard in Kai's chest hummed, effortlessly negating the force.
But Kai knew the rules of this new world. If he stood tall, they would know he was different. They would dissect him.
So, Kai collapsed. Not from the weight, but from calculation.
He reduced his muscle output to 11% and let his knees buckle.
"Argh!" Kai cried out, feigning agony.
He curled into a ball, shaking his shoulders as if his ribs were breaking.
"Please! Stop! It crushes!"
The Overseer laughed, satisfied. He canceled the spell.
"Pathetic," the Overseer muttered, walking away.
"Level Zero trash."
Kai stayed on the ground until the footsteps faded. Then, he stood up effortlessly, dusting off his knees.
His expression was cold.
He remembered a pressure that bent light. This wasn't weight. This was playground magic.
He grabbed the fallen crystals to reload his cart.
As he did, he bumped into another worker—a skinny man with a Level 13 badge.
"Watch it!" the worker snapped, shoving Kai away with genuine disgust.
"Don't touch me, Zero. I don't want your bad luck rubbing off on me."
Kai didn't argue. He just kept his head down and walked away.
As he created distance, he overheard the Level 13 worker gossiping with a guard.
"Did you hear? The Government and Endless Company are fighting over the dungeon that appear twice in the same place".
"My money is on the Endless Company," the worker whispered. "Their '7 Strongest' are monsters."
"No way," the guard replied.
"The Government has the '7 Heroes.' They have the military backing."
Hearing the word Heroes, Kai's hand started to tremble. A desperate thought surfaced in Kai's mind: Not here.
Kai tuned them out. He had what he needed.
Hidden in the seam of his glove, shielded from the cameras, was a single, tiny shard of Pure Violet Crystal he had swiped from the cart.
As kai turned away Mining tools glitched.
"That makes... the last one," Kai whispered.
[ District 9 - Kai's Apartment ]
The shift ended. The sun had set long ago.
The room was dark, illuminated only by the streetlights outside.
It was the same apartment he had lived in before the world ended—now a ruin he squatted in.
Kai knelt on the floor.
Around him were 161 small piles of crystal dust he had stolen, grain by grain, over the months.
He took the final shard, crushed it in his mechanical grip, and added it to the formation.
162.
He began to draw.
This wasn't a magic circle found in the game guidebooks. This wasn't a spell taught by the Academy.
This was a Developer's Backdoor.
It was a geometric pattern he had secretly coded into the game's physics engine years ago to test the stability of reality.
A cheat code written in dust.his hands move without conscious thought while drawing it.
He finished the drawing.
The dust pattern pulsed before he touched it. As if it had been waiting.
Kai took a deep breath. His heart hammered against his ribs—not from fear, but from anticipation.
"I will be stronger," Kai promised the silence. "Stronger than the Heroes. Stronger than the Company."
His eyes hardened.
"specifically,... Stronger than the one who thinks he owns my world."
He placed his hand on the center of the pattern.
[SYS TEM ALE RT: UNA UTHO RIZ ED ACC ESS DET ECT ED]
The font wasn't the one he designed. The alert tone wasn't the one he coded. The syntax felt… newer.
[ERR OR: ILL EGA L SY NTA X FO UND]
[INI TIA TIN G MI ND R EAL M TR IAL...]
The room didn't spin. It vanished.
Kai's consciousness was ripped from his body.
The pain hit him all at once—mental pressure, not physical. His brain felt like it was being compressed into raw data.
He collapsed on the floor, his body twitching as his mind was dragged into the matrix.
The Ritual had begun.
Somewhere, something recognized the pattern. And granted access.