District 7 smelled like acid rain and rotting metal.
Zen pulled his hood lower as he walked past a row of burning trash cans. The neon signs from the sectors did not reach down here. This was the bottom of the Ares Domain, a place where the Vanguards military police did not bother patrolling.
"System " Zen whispered, kicking a gear out of his path. "Give me a rundown on the hosts finances. If I kill monsters in this Fracture Zone and harvest their Heart-Stones how do I turn that into cash?"
[Answering Query: Selling unrefined Heart-Stones on the black market incurs a 60% loss in value. To maximize profit, Operators broadcast their Extractions on the 'Goddess-Eye' network. Views and viewer donations generate direct Mana-Credits.]
Zen thought about this for a moment. "Right so I stream it " he said. "I'll just log into the hosts GE account. "
[Warning: Host's GE account is biometrically linked to his Academy ID. All generated revenue will be automatically seized by creditors to pay your 450,000 Mana-Credit debt.]
[Secondary Warning: The Omni Domain's surveillance algorithms monitor all registered accounts. Displaying a sudden spike in combat proficiency will result in a 94% chance of the Spymaster flagging your identity.]
Zen stopped in his tracks. "The Spymaster. Nyx."
He remembered her on the altar clutching a piece of his soul. If she was running the surveillance for the planet, logging into his hosts account was basically ringing a dinner bell for a yandere goddess.
"Okay. Plan B " Zen muttered. "I need an unregistered drone. A burner."
He tapped his comms-link. "Jax. You there?"
"Barely," Jax replied, his voice trembling through the static. "Kaelen tore your room apart. He's telling everyone in the dorms that he's going to break your kneecaps the second you show up for class tomorrow."
Zen was not worried. "Let him talk " he said. "Listen I'm at the edge of the Iron Scrap Yard. I need a GE Link-Eye drone. I can't use my official one. Where do the scavengers dump the broken magi-tech here?"
"A broken drone? Zen, what are you planning? You can't hack a GE drone! They run on Aether runes. If you mess with the circuitry, they explode!"
"Just tell me where the junk piles are, Jax."
"Alley 4," Jax sighed. "Behind the old refinery. But seriously, Zen, you don't even have an Operator license to stream!"
"I'll figure it out." Zen said as he turned down a narrow side street. "By the way how do you know much about this Fracture Zone? You said the Vanguard avoids it."
"Because I spend twelve hours a day on the GE forums instead of sleeping!" Jax said defensively. "Someone has to know where the death-traps are. Three F-Rank scavengers streamed their deaths in there week. The inside is a massive courtyard filled with piles of rusted swords, broken shields and old siege weapons. The monsters are mostly Scrap-Hounds hiding in the junk."
"Good to know " Zen said, spotting a pile of discarded technology in the alley ahead. "You're a good info-broker, Jax."
"I'm a coward who watches too many streams," Jax corrected him. "Zen, please just hide."
"I'm going radio silent," Zen said, ignoring the plea. "Kaelen might have enough credits to bribe a tech student to trace my comms signal. I'll ping you when I'm safe."
"Wait, Zen! Don't…"
Zen tapped his ear, cutting the connection completely. He was alone now.
He dug through the pile of cracked terminal screens and dead mana-batteries for ten minutes.
Finally, his bleeding hands pulled out a spherical drone about the size of an apple. The glass lens was cracked and the silver casing was scorched black.
"System. Scan this piece of junk."
[Scanning…]
[Analysis: GE Link-Eye Drone (Model 4). Condition: Critical. Power core intact. Runic array damaged.]
Zen sat down on an overturned bucket and opened the drones casing with his bare hands. Inside, instead of wires there were glowing blue symbols carved into a small crystal board.
"Aether runes " Zen said, letting out a short laugh. "Jax thinks this is advanced technology? This is Lyra's old elemental magic, dumbed down and etched into glass."
Lyra, his Grand Mage used to create massive arrays that could level mountains. Now her magic was being used to power camera drones for reality TV.
"I can bypass the tracker." Zen murmured.
He reached into the circuitry.
Without a working mana core, he couldn't cast spells, but he could still physically rearrange the flow of ambient mana.
Using his fingernail, he scratched out a specific connective rune, then rubbed a drop of his own blood over a secondary symbol to short-circuit the ID transmitter.
The drone sparked, hummed and then floated out of his hands hovering at eye level.
[Notice: Local GE Drone activated. Biometric tracker disabled. IP address masked via Omni-Domain blindspots.]
[Please enter a username for this unregistered account.]
"Ghost Scrapper " Zen said.
[Account Created: Ghost Scrapper. Current Followers: 0.]
"Good enough," Zen said as he stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants.
The drone followed him silently, a tiny red light blinking to indicate it was recording and broadcasting to the global network.
A few blocks down, the street abruptly ended. Instead of buildings, there was a shimmering, distorted wall of grey light. It looked like a mirage, rippling and buzzing with raw energy.
The Fracture Zone.
"System " Zen said. "Probability of passing through the barrier without triggering an Academy alarm?"
[Calculating…]
[Analysis: The drone's ID mask extends to your physical signature. Probability of silent entry: 100%.]
Zen stepped through the rippling grey light.
The transition made his stomach lurch. The neon lights and the smell of acid rain vanished instantly.
Zen blinked. He was standing in a massive, open courtyard. The sky above was dull with an unnatural grey color. Just as Jax had described. around him were massive piles of rusted swords, broken shields and shattered siege weapons.
But Zen did not just see a junkyard.
He saw his armory.
The stone pillars, the layout of the weapon racks... it was ruined and buried under centuries of decay, but it was unmistakably a piece of his Arclight Empire bleeding into the modern world.
"They weren't kidding " Zen whispered, walking over to a pile of metal. He picked up the hilt of a sword. It felt heavy and familiar in his hand.
Suddenly, a low metallic growl echoed from behind a mound of shields.
Zen dropped the hilt.
A creature crawled into view. It looked like a wolf, but its skin was missing in patches, replaced by jagged pieces of rusted armor that had fused with its flesh. Its eyes burned with a sickly, purple light.
"Scrap-Hound " Zen said.
[Target: Scrap-Hound. Low E-Rank. Highly aggressive. Weakness: Unarmored joints.]
[Probability of Host surviving a direct physical confrontation: 2%.]
"I'm not fighting it directly," Zen said, taking a slow step backward.
The GE drone hovered over his shoulder, adjusting its cracked lens to frame the monster.
[Stream Update: 3 Viewers have joined.]
The Scrap-Hound lunged. It crossed the distance in a second, its metal jaws snapping shut right where Zens throat had been.
But Zen was not there.
He hadn't used mana. He had simply turned on his heel using an ancient footwork technique to slip past the beasts momentum. The hound crashed into the dirt, skidding wildly.
"System " Zen said, keeping his breathing steady. "Scan the environment. Show me the Ghost Paths."
[Calculating structural weaknesses in the immediate vicinity...]
[Highlighting target zone: 15 meters North.]
A faint blue pathway lit up in Zens vision, pointing toward a massive, towering stack of rusted siege equipment.
The hound recovered and snarled, turning to face him again.
"Come on ugly " Zen taunted. He sprinted toward the tower of junk.
His lungs burned. His legs felt like lead. The F-Rank body was pathetic, but his timing was still flawless.
He reached the base of the junk pile just as the hound leaped at his back. At the last possible millisecond, Zen dropped to his knees and slid forward in the dirt.
The hound flew over his head and slammed face-first into the primary rusted support beam of the junk tower.
CREAAAK.
"Timber," Zen muttered.
The entire pile of rusted metal weighing several tons, collapsed inward. The hound let out a yelp before it was completely buried under a rain of iron and stone.
Dust billowed into the grey sky. Zen coughed, waving his hand in front of his face. He walked over to the wreckage. Underneath a massive iron shield, the hounds glowing purple eyes flickered and died.
"And stay down " Zen breathed out, resting his hands on his knees.
He reached under the shield and pulled out a small glowing purple rock from the hounds chest. The rock was warm when he touched it… a Heart-Stone.
"First drop " Zen said, feeling a little thrill of victory.
[Core Repair Material Acquired. Mana absorption ready.]
[Stream Update: Viewer count has increased to 58.]
Zen looked at the chat scrolling rapidly on the side of his System interface.
- User_992: Bro, what was that dodge? Was that a Phantom Path skill?
- MetalHead: Nah, he does not have a mana aura. He just tripped and the dog missed.
- VanguardFan1: This stream is fake. It must be scripted. Who goes into a Zone without a weapon?
ScrapRat: Wait, did he just use the environment to kill an E-Rank? That is insane for an unranked scrapper!
Zen smirked. "Let them think I am lucky," he said to himself.
"System how much is this Heart-Stone worth if I absorb it now?"
[It contains raw mana to repair 0.1% of your core.]
"It is a start " Zen said. He squeezed the stone, drawing the purple energy into his palm. It flowed up his arm, settling into the cold void in his chest like a tiny, warm ember.
"System, where is the boss of this Zone?" Zen said. "If I am going to fix this core today I need something bigger."
[Calculating... ]
[The core concentration of mana is located at the center of the armory courtyard.]
[Warning: The Zone Boss is currently engaging another Operator.]
Zen frowned. "Another Operator?" he said. "In an unmapped Grey Zone? Jax said the Vanguard stays out of here."
He crept forward, using the piles of junk for cover so his drone wouldn't alert whoever was fighting. As he got close to the center of the courtyard, he heard metal clashing and the loud boom of high-tier magic.
He looked around a rusted chariot.
In the clearing a massive, mutated golem made of gears and bones was roaring. And fighting with a speed and power that made Zen's hear stop, was a woman.
She was wearing a plain black cloak to hide who she was, but the way she swung her heavy broadsword was unmistakable. It was a style that could break everything in its path… a style that Zen had taught her five centuries ago.
"No way," Zen whispered, pressing his back against the junk pile.
He looked again. The woman in the cloak cut the golems arm off with one swing, the shockwave breaking the ground beneath her.
"System," Zen. He swallowed hard. "Tell me I am hallucinating."
[Negative. Mana signature confirmed. Probability of the individual being Valeria, Goddess of War: 100%.]
Zen closed his eyes, realizing he was trapped in a dungeon with the one woman who wanted to lock him in a cage, for the rest of eternity. "Oh fvcck."