The sun rose over Nawala, but it wasn't the sun Ethan remembered.
It was a pale, sickly yellow, filtered through the shimmering digital veil that now encased the planet. The streets below their "Dead Zone" were silent, save for the occasional, distant screech of a scavenger.
Ethan sat on the floor of the expanded basement, his eyes fixed on the pile of mercury-like scrap that used to be a System Seeker.
[Available Stat Points: 3]
The System is adapting faster than I predicted, Ethan thought. It didn't just send a higher-level monster. It sent a 'Stage 2' entity.
He didn't hesitate. He allocated +2 to STR and +1 to AGI.
The mental surge was violent this time. It felt like a bolt of lightning striking his prefrontal cortex. His vision blurred for a second, then snapped into a clarity that was almost painful.
[STR +2: Intelligence Resonance Triggered! INT +4]
[AGI +1: Intelligence Resonance Triggered! INT +2]
[Total INT Gained: 6]
[STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Ethan Jae Park
Level: 8
Attributes:
STR: 12 (Base 5 + 3 Natural + 4 Allocated)
AGI: 12 (Base 6 + 3 Natural + 3 Allocated)
VIT: 12 (Base 5 + 7 Natural)
INT: 40 (Base 12 + 14 Natural + 14 Resonance)
Resource (Ether): 400/400 (INT * 10)
Forty points of Intelligence, Ethan noted. I've officially crossed the 'First Threshold' of the System's logic.
"Ethan, you're doing that thing again," Krishara said. She was packing a small bag with the last of their water. "The 'scary genius' face. What did you find?"
Ethan looked at the mercury scrap. "The System isn't just about levels, Krish. It's about Stages. Most of the things we've seen the wolf-spiders, the Void-Stalkers they're Stage 1: Awakened. They're just biological shells with a bit of Ether."
He pointed to the Seeker. "This thing was Stage 2: Evolved. Its internal logic was compressed. It was ten times more efficient than a normal Level 10."
Krishara paused, her hand hovering over the bag. "And us? What stage are we?"
"We're Stage 1," Ethan said, his voice dropping to a cold whisper. "But my mind… It's already approaching Stage 3: Transcendent. I'm a high-speed processor running on a low-voltage battery. If I don't find a way to upgrade our 'Ether' supply, the System will eventually send a Stage 3 'Eraser' to delete us."
"So what's the plan?"
"We need Ether Cores," Ethan said, standing up. "The System is using the city's power grid to distribute mana. There's a substation three blocks from here. It's leaking raw energy. If we can secure it, I can use my Space Authority to 'bottle' that energy and power this Dead Zone for a month."
"Three blocks?" Krishara looked toward the stairs. "The streets are swarming, Ethan. Nethan can't run that far."
"He won't have to," Ethan said.
He walked to the center of the room and reached out his hand. The air began to ripple, not like a heat haze, but like a piece of paper being folded.
"Space Folding: Short-Range Bridge."
The far wall of the basement didn't just look different. It became different. A circular window appeared in the stone, showing a view of a concrete yard filled with humming electrical transformers.
"It's a shortcut," Ethan explained. "I've folded the three blocks of space between here and the substation into a single meter. We step through, we're there."
[Ether: 400... 340... 280...]
"Move. Now!"
Krishara grabbed Nethan, and they stepped through the "window."
The sensation was like stepping through a cold waterfall. One moment, they were in the dark basement. Next, they were standing in the blinding, sickly yellow sunlight of the substation yard.
The air here was thick with the smell of ozone. Blue sparks danced along the power lines, and the ground was covered in a strange, crystalline frost.
[ZONE DETECTED: ETHER LEAK (HIGH DANGER)]
In the center of the yard, a massive transformer was pulsing with a violent, violet light. It wasn't humming. It was screaming.
And it wasn't alone.
Dozens of small, imp-like creatures with skin made of copper wire were clinging to the machinery, "drinking" the leaking energy.
[ENTITY DETECTED: ETHER-LEECH]
[LEVEL: 4]
[QUANTITY: 42]
The Leeches stopped. Forty-two pairs of glowing blue eyes turned toward the three humans who had appeared in their feeding ground.
"Nethan! Absolute Layer!" Ethan barked.
The boy slammed his hands together. The grey barrier erupted, but this time, it was different. Because of Ethan's proximity, the barrier was infused with a faint, violet spatial glow.
The Leeches lunged, moving like sparks of electricity.
Forty-two targets, Ethan calculated. Too many for individual compression. I need a 'Mass-Delete' function.
He reached out both hands, his fingers twisting in the air as if he were turning a giant, invisible dial.
"Space Distortion: Gravity Well."
He didn't just compress one point. He created a "Vacuum" in the center of the yard.
The air rushed toward the center with the force of a hurricane. The Leeches, light and wire-thin, were sucked into the vortex before they could even screech.
Ethan's Ether bar was plummeting. [Ether: 200... 150... 100...]
"Krishara! The Core! The transformer!"
Krishara didn't hesitate. She ran toward the screaming transformer, her hands glowing with a brilliant emerald light. She reached into the violet heart of the machine, her Adaptive Vital Weave acting as an insulator against the raw energy.
She pulled out a pulsing, fist-sized crystal that glowed with the intensity of a miniature sun.
[ITEM OBTAINED: HIGH-GRADE ETHER CORE]
The moment the core was removed, the substation went silent. The "Gravity Well" Ethan was holding collapsed, and the remaining Leeches, now powerless, shriveled into piles of dead wire.
Ethan slumped to one knee, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
[Ether: 12/400]
"We got it," Krishara said, holding the glowing core. She looked at Ethan, her eyes wide with concern. "Ethan, your nose… It's bleeding."
Ethan wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. He didn't care about the pain. He looked at the core.
With this, I can upgrade the Dead Zone to a 'Stage 2' Fortress, he thought. And I can finally unlock the next tier of my Space Authority.
But as he looked up at the sky, he saw something that made his blood run cold.
A massive, dark shape was circling high above the city. It wasn't a bird. It was a gargantuan, winged eye, surrounded by a ring of rotating golden symbols.
[SYSTEM OVERSEER DETECTED.]
[SCANNING FOR ANOMALIES...]
"Back through the fold," Ethan hissed, grabbing Krishara's arm. "The System didn't just send a Seeker. It sent a Judge."
They dived back through the spatial window just as a beam of pure, white light struck the substation yard, vaporizing everything in its path.
The window snapped shut.
They were back in the dark basement, safe for now. But Ethan knew the truth.
The "First Hunt" was over. The "War of the Glitch" had officially begun.