"Renovation project," Kaelen whispered, the words tasting like copper in his mouth.
The world dissolved into white.
The campus, the stone sky, the screaming students—everything vanished. Kaelen wasn't standing on the grass anymore. He was floating in a void of pure, sterile light. It was silent here. No wind. No heartbeat. Just the hum of data.
A window appeared before him, simple and geometric.
[ INITIATING CLASS SELECTION ]
Three pedestals rose from the floor of the white void. On the first rested a broadsword, its steel gleaming with an impossible luster. On the second, a staff of gnarled oak topped with a glowing crystal. On the third, a pair of serrated daggers.
[ CHOOSE YOUR PATH. ]
[ LEFT: The Warrior (Strength). ]
[ CENTER: The Mage (Intelligence). ]
[ RIGHT: The Rogue (Agility). ]
Kaelen looked at the weapons. He didn't step forward.
"This is wrong," he muttered.
He walked around the pedestals. He crouched down, examining the floor of the void. It looked infinite, but Kaelen knew better. Everything had boundaries. Even a simulation had edges. Even a dream had a waking point.
He reached out and touched the "air" behind the pedestals. His fingers brushed against something hard and invisible. A wall.
[ ALERT: PLEASE SELECT A WEAPON TO PROCEED. ]
The system prompt flashed red, annoyed by his hesitation.
Kaelen ignored it. He pressed his ear against the invisible barrier. He closed his eyes. He wasn't looking for a weapon to kill a goblin; he was looking for the logic that built the room. If this "System" could encase a planet in stone, it adhered to physics. It had mass. It had geometry.
"You're not magic," Kaelen said to the silence. "You're engineering. High-level, dimensional engineering, but engineering all the same."
He tapped the barrier. Tap. Tap. Tap.
He found a seam. A tiny, microscopic vibration in the grid.
"There."
He pressed his thumb against the flaw.
[ ALERT: ANOMALY DETECTED. ]
[ SUBJECT REJECTS STANDARD COMBAT PARAMETERS. ]
[ SUBJECT IS ATTEMPTING TO DEBUG THE TUTORIAL ROOM. ]
The white void flickered. The sword, staff, and daggers dissolved into pixelated dust.
[ ANALYZING PSYCHOMETRIC PROFILE... ]
[ TRAIT IDENTIFIED: "The Fixer." ]
[ RE-CALCULATING CLASS ASSIGNMENT... ]
The pedestals sank back into the floor. In their place, a heavy, iron-bound tome and a set of spectral calipers appeared.
[ CONGRATULATIONS. ]
[ YOU HAVE UNLOCKED A RARE UTILITY CLASS: THE ARCHITECT. ]
[ CLASS DESCRIPTION: The Warrior breaks the wall. The Mage burns the wall. The Architect moves the wall. You are the master of the environment. The battlefield is your weapon. ]
[ ACCEPT? (Y/N) ]
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He slammed his hand on the [Y].
Reality snapped back with the force of a car crash.
Kaelen gasped, stumbling forward onto the frozen grass of the Ashbourne University quad. The cold hit him instantly, sharper than before. The white void was gone. The nightmare was back.
But it looked different now.
Lines.
Kaelen blinked, rubbing his eyes. Everywhere he looked, he saw shimmering, translucent lines overlaid on the world.
He looked at the brick wall of the Arts Building. A faint blue grid hovered over it, showing the stress distribution of the masonry.
He looked at the concrete awning of the library. He saw a red fracture line running through the support pillar—invisible to the naked eye, but screamingly obvious to him.
[ SKILL UNLOCKED: Structural Analysis (Passive) ]
[ SKILL UNLOCKED: Minor Reinforce (Active) ]
"Kaelen!"
A hand grabbed his jacket. It was Dr. Halloway. The professor looked terrified. He was holding a glowing wooden staff—he must have chosen Mage.
"Kaelen, look at them! Look at the students!"
Kaelen turned. The quad was a chaotic light show. Half the students were holding weapons that had materialized out of thin air. Mark, the linebacker, was swinging a massive two-handed sword, looking at it with manic glee. Others were weeping, clutching daggers or wands.
"It's real," Mark shouted, laughing hysterically. "I'm a Level 1 Warrior! Check my stats!"
SCREEEEEE!
The sound tore through the air like tearing metal.
It didn't come from the sky. It came from the ground.
Near the fountain, the pavement bulged. The concrete cracked, not from impact, but from something pushing up.
"Movement!" Kaelen yelled, his new eyes locking onto the structural disturbance. "Get back from the fountain!"
Too late.
Three creatures erupted from the earth. They were small, perhaps the size of large dogs, but skeletal and hunched. Their skin was pale, translucent grey, stretching tight over jagged bones. They had no eyes, just wide, circular mouths filled with needle-teeth.
[ ENEMY IDENTIFIED: Scavenger Imp (Lvl 1) ]
"Goblins!" someone screamed.
"Kill them!" Mark roared. He charged forward, raising his greatsword. "I got this!"
Mark swung the heavy blade. It was a clumsy, telegraphed strike.
The Imp didn't dodge. It didn't block.
It phased.
Its body turned smoky and intangible for a split second. Mark's sword passed harmlessly through its torso, clanging against the fountain stone.
The Imp solidified instantly. It leaped, latching onto Mark's leg with its teeth.
"ARGH!" Mark screamed, thrashing as blood sprayed onto the frost-covered grass.
"They aren't solid!" Kaelen realized. Structural Analysis flooded his vision.
[ TARGET: Scavenger Imp ]
[ STATE: Phasing Stability: 80% ]
[ WEAKNESS: High-Density Matter disrupts their frequency. ]
Two more Imps lunged at a group of girls near the library entrance.
"Run!" Kaelen shouted. "Get inside! Get behind heavy doors!"
The students scattered. Panic turned the quad into a stampede. Kaelen grabbed Dr. Halloway and shoved him toward the Arts Building. "Inside! Go!"
He sprinted after a group of four terrified freshmen heading for the Lecture Hall. They scrambled through the double doors, screaming.
Kaelen was the last one in. He spun around to slam the doors shut.
Through the gap, he saw the Imps. There were dozens of them now, pouring out of the ground like ants. They were fast, loping on all fours. Three of them detached from the pack and sprinted toward the Lecture Hall.
Kaelen slammed the heavy oak doors. He threw the deadbolt.
THUD.
The wood groaned.
THUD. THUD.
Claws raked against the other side. Splinters flew.
"It won't hold!" a girl cried, backing away. "They're monsters! They'll break it!"
Kaelen pressed his hands against the wood. His Structural Analysis showed the door's health bar.
[ Door Integrity: 65% ]
[ Durability: Low ]
A claw punched through the wood, inches from Kaelen's face. The grey, sickly hand grasped blindly, trying to undo the lock.
"Do something!" a boy yelled.
Kaelen took a breath. He focused. He didn't have a weapon. He couldn't swing a sword. But he was an Architect. And this door was part of his building.
"Hold," he commanded.
He visualized the wood fibers knitting together. He visualized the iron atoms in the hinges fusing. He poured his mana—a strange, cold sensation in his chest—into the door.
[ SKILL ACTIVATED: Minor Reinforce ]
[ Mana Cost: 20 ]
A pulse of silver light rippled out from his palms. It washed over the door, soaking into the grain. The wood darkened, taking on the metallic sheen of polished steel. The hinges groaned, then locked rigid.
CRASH.
The Imps slammed into the door again.
This time, the sound wasn't the crack of wood. It was the dull, heavy gong of a hammer hitting an anvil. The door didn't budge. It didn't even vibrate.
[ Object Hardness Increased by 200%. ]
[ Duration: 300 Seconds. ]
Outside, the scratching turned to frustrated screeches. After a moment, the sounds faded as the Imps moved on to easier prey.
Kaelen slumped against the reinforced door, sliding down to the floor. His hands were shaking. His mana bar hovered in his vision: [ 80/100 ].
The lecture hall was silent, save for the heavy breathing of the twenty students trapped inside with him.
"What did you do?" the girl asked, staring at the silver-sheened wood. "Did you cast a shield spell?"
Kaelen looked at his hands. He looked at the blueprint lines fading from his vision.
"No," Kaelen said softly. "I just upgraded the hardware."
He pushed himself up. He walked to the center of the room. "Everyone, check your windows. If you have a locking skill, use it. If you have something heavy, move it."
He looked at the terrified faces. They were looking at him. Not because he was strong, but because he was the only one who had done something that worked.
"We have five minutes before that door turns back to wood," Kaelen said, his voice steadying. "Start breaking up the desks. We need barricades."
The tutorial was over. The renovation had begun.