The infinite loop barrier had bought Caelum something more valuable than gold or mana: Time. Outside, the twelve strongest warriors of the kingdom were running in circles, but inside the Azure Peak Academy, the very concept of 'Leveling Up' was being dismantled.
Caelum stood in the center of the training grounds, surrounded by a hundred students who had once been called 'unskilled' or 'low-tier'. They were now his experimental data.
"Listen well," Caelum's voice didn't just travel through the air; it vibrated through the black status windows floating in front of each student. "The world told you that you were Level 5, Level 10, or Level 15. They told you that your growth was capped. But they lied. A level is just a number in a database. And I... I have the administrator's password."
[SYSTEM COMMAND: OVERRIDE_USER_LIMITER: SUBJECT_GROUP_01]
[AUTHORIZATION_GRANTED: VOID_ARCHITECT]
A low, humming sound began to emanate from the students. Their mana, once a thin and flickering flame, began to turn a deep, pulsating violet. One student, a young girl named Elara who had been bullied for her weak 'Water Spirit', suddenly screamed as her spirit didn't just grow—it fractured.
The water around her didn't flow; it blinked in and out of existence.
[GLITCH_CLASS_UNLOCKED: QUANTUM_MAGE]
"Master!" Elara gasped, looking at her hands. "I... I don't feel the mana anymore. I feel... the distance between atoms. I can see the coordinates of the world!"
"Don't just see them, Elara," Caelum walked toward her, his shadow stretching across the entire grounds. "Change them. Delete the distance between you and your target."
Elara looked at a stone target fifty yards away. She didn't cast a spell. She simply flicked her wrist. The stone didn't break; it simply vanished from its spot and reappeared inside the stomach of a training dummy ten yards behind it.
The students gasped. This wasn't magic. This was Teleportation-Based Destruction.
"From today, you are no longer students of Azure Peak," Caelum turned to the entire crowd, his eyes glowing with the red intensity of a failing server. "You are the Shadow Council. You are the errors that the world forgot to fix. And tonight, we will perform our first 'Stress Test' on the kingdom's borders."
Caelum looked toward Kira, who was now leading a group of ten students who had successfully unlocked the 'Stealth Glitch'. They could move between frames of reality, making them invisible even to the most powerful detection spells.
"Kira, take the first squad," Caelum commanded. "The Twelve Apostles outside are confused and tired. Go and 'Harvest' their equipment. I need more raw materials to craft Glitch-Tier weapons."
Kira bowed, her body flickering like a corrupted video file. "By your command, My Sovereign."
[QUEST_UPDATE: SHADOW_COUNCIL_INITIALIZATION_COMPLETE]
[CURRENT_ARMY_POWER: TIER_1_GLITCH]
As the first squad vanished into the void, Caelum looked up at the fractured sky. He knew the 'System Audit' was coming. But by the time the Gods arrived to fix the world, he would have an army of errors ready to delete them.