Chapter 3: Server Zero
December 3rd arrived with freezing rain and a headache that wouldn't quit.
Nine days of practice had improved things. The SOE's Calibration Phase still showed severe desync—-20 Mech, +15ms latency, 12% combo fail—but I could feel the difference in my fingers. The reach was starting to make sense. The pinky stretch didn't surprise me anymore. The thumb-to-spacebar angle had become, if not natural, at least predictable.
Not good enough. But better.
The café filled early. Word had spread through the Glory community that the 10th Server was launching at midnight, and Happy Internet Café's prime location made it a gathering point for players who wanted the fastest possible connection.
I worked my way through the crowd, refilling drinks and resetting abandoned stations, keeping my head down. Chen Guo had the evening shift, but she'd stuck around for the launch, bouncing between tables with an enthusiasm that bordered on manic.
"Ye Qiu!"
I looked up. She was waving from across the room, pointing at the wall-mounted TV where a news ticker scrolled: EXCELLENT ERA ANNOUNCES NEW BATTLE MAGE PLAYER FOR ONE AUTUMN LEAF.
Sun Xiang.
The name materialized from memory. Young prodigy, arrogant, talented. The man who would inherit Ye Xiu's account and spend a year proving he wasn't worthy of it.
Chen Guo didn't know I cared. She thought I was just some random hire who happened to play Glory. So when she shouted "Can you believe they replaced Ye Qiu already?" with outrage in her voice, I just shrugged and went back to cleaning the counter.
I can believe it.
I watched it happen.
The clock on the wall clicked toward midnight. 11:45. 11:50. 11:55.
The café's energy shifted. Conversations died. Keyboards fell silent. Every screen showed the same thing: Glory's login interface, a countdown timer ticking down in the corner.
[Calibration Phase: Awaiting first Glory match on 10th Server.]
The SOE pulsed faintly in my peripheral vision. Patient. Expectant.
Here we go.
I slid into station three. The corner spot was open—my usual place, left empty by regulars who'd noticed I claimed it during dead hours. The keyboard was warm under my hands. The monitor showed the login screen, cursor blinking in the username field.
11:58. 11:59.
The timer hit zero.
10TH SERVER: ONLINE
The café erupted. Cheers, keyboard clatter, someone in the back yelling about getting a good character name before the rush. I blocked it all out and started typing.
Account creation. Verification. Character setup.
Name: Lord Grim
Class: I scrolled past the standard options—Blade Master, Battle Mage, Launcher, all the familiar archetypes—and found the hidden selection at the bottom of the list.
Unspecialized
The game warned me: This class cannot advance at Level 20. Are you sure you want to continue?
I clicked yes.
Because I knew what the source material didn't show—that Unspecialized was the only path that made the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella viable. That the weapon Su Muqiu had designed before his death could transform between every form in Glory, and only a character without class restrictions could wield all of them.
Starting zone: I selected the coordinates manually, typing in a region I knew would have the lowest population density during launch hour. Every other player would flood the default spawn points, grinding early levels in a chaos of kill-stealing and spawn camping.
I would be alone.
[Character created: Lord Grim (Unspecialized).]
[Entering 10th Server...]
The screen went black. Then light flooded in.
Glory's world materialized around me in first-person perspective.
The starting zone was a forest—green canopy, distant birdsong, a dirt path winding between ancient trees. My character stood at a crossroads, basic weapon in hand (a simple staff, the Unspecialized default), no armor, no skills, no resources except the knowledge crammed into my skull.
I checked the player count in the zone. Seventeen people, scattered across the map. Most would be lost, disoriented, reading tutorial popups they'd never bothered to skip before.
Good.
I started moving.
The controls felt different from the borrowed account I'd practiced on. Smoother, somehow, like the 10th Server's fresh code hadn't accumulated the lag of years. My character responded to inputs with crisp precision—though my inputs themselves were still sloppy, the desync visible in every imperfect combo.
The first mob appeared thirty seconds in. Level 1 Forest Wolf, slow and predictable, the kind of enemy designed to teach new players the basics.
I killed it in four hits. The damage numbers were pathetic—no skills, no gear bonuses, just raw attack speed and positioning. But it died, and a notification pinged:
[+10 XP. Total: 10/100.]
Let's go.
I fell into the grind.
The next hour was mechanical. Find mobs. Kill mobs. Avoid other players. Repeat. My fingers ached and my eyes burned and the SOE tracked everything silently, cataloging each success and failure like a scientist observing a rat in a maze.
Level 2 at twenty minutes. Level 3 at thirty-five. Level 4 at fifty.
The desync showed up in the details. Combos that should have chained smoothly dropped at the third or fourth input. Dodge-rolls that activated a fraction too late. Movement patterns that felt right in my head but translated wrong through borrowed hands.
I compensated with positioning. With prediction. With the years of footage burned into my memory—knowledge of every mob's attack pattern, every spawn timer, every efficient route through zones I'd never walked but had watched a hundred times.
This is what I have.
Meta-knowledge. A broken body. A system that won't activate.
Make it work.
Level 5 at one hour twelve. The starter zone's population thinned as players moved on to the next region. I pushed past them, taking shortcuts through difficult terrain that most wouldn't attempt at low level.
[Level 6 achieved. +5 Stat Points available.]
I allocated them on instinct—agility and intelligence, the stats that mattered for Unspecialized's early game—and kept moving.
The café's ambient noise filtered back into awareness around 3 AM. Someone was arguing about kill-stealing near station seven. A group of students had started a betting pool on who would hit Level 10 first. Chen Guo's voice cut through the chaos, cheerfully threatening to ban anyone who spilled drinks on her keyboards.
I tuned it all out.
Level 7. Level 8. The XP requirements climbed but the mobs scaled too, and my map knowledge let me find efficient grinding routes faster than anyone else could manage.
A message notification pinged. I ignored it.
Another ping. And another.
[Party invite from "Soft Mist."]
I froze.
Soft Mist.
Tang Rou's character name. The competitive prodigy who would become one of Happy's core members. The woman who would notice too much and ask questions I couldn't answer.
She was playing. On the 10th Server. Right now.
I checked my location. A field zone outside the second village, sparsely populated, good mob density. No other players visible on my minimap except—
A red dot. Moving toward me.
Of course.
Of course she'd find me.
I could decline the invite. Could log off. Could avoid her entirely and find a different grinding route.
But that wasn't how the source material went. In every version of the story—novel, donghua, live-action—Tang Rou found Lord Grim early. Challenged him. Lost. And that loss sparked the competitive fire that made her one of the best players in Glory.
I was supposed to be bait for her ambition.
Fine.
Let's see if these broken hands can at least fight back.
I accepted the party invite. Tang Rou's character materialized twenty meters away—a Battle Mage with starter gear and a determination in her movement that I recognized from a hundred anime clips.
[Party formed: Lord Grim, Soft Mist.]
She didn't say anything. Just closed the distance between us and stopped, her character's spear leveled in what might have been a greeting or a challenge.
I typed into party chat:
"Looking for a group?"
Her response came fast.
"Looking for a fight. Everyone here runs when I challenge them."
"And you think I won't?"
"You're the only one grinding this zone alone at 3 AM. Either you're very good or very stubborn."
Both, probably. But I didn't say that.
"What level are you?"
"7. You?"
"8."
A pause. Then:
"Arena duel. No stakes. Just want to see what you've got."
I looked at my hands on the keyboard. The desync warning pulsed faintly in my peripheral vision. Twelve percent combo failure rate. Fifteen milliseconds of latency. Numbers that would mean nothing against a casual player—and everything against someone with real talent.
Tang Rou had real talent. Enough to become a professional in under two years. Enough to challenge God-tier players and hold her own.
I wasn't ready.
But the calibration phase needed a match. And if I was going to fail, better to fail now, against someone who didn't know who I was supposed to be.
I typed:
"Arena. One round. Show me what you've got."
The duel lasted two minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
Tang Rou fought like someone who'd been born with a spear in her hands—aggressive, relentless, constantly pressuring. Her combos were rough around the edges, her positioning amateurish, but her speed was terrifying. APM that would shame most semi-professional players, execution that bordered on instinctive.
I lost.
Not badly. Not a complete blowout. But when the final hit landed and my character crumpled to the arena floor, there was no question about the outcome.
[Duel ended. Winner: Soft Mist.]
[Calibration Phase: First match completed.]
[Analyzing host combat performance...]
The SOE notification expanded, scrolling data I didn't have time to read. Tang Rou was already typing:
"Good fight. Your positioning is better than mine but your hands lag behind your decisions."
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
I typed back:
"Old injury. Working on it."
"Then work harder. I want to fight you again when you're not holding back."
The party disbanded. Her character vanished from my minimap, heading back into the grinding zones with the same tireless energy that would one day make her a legend.
I sat back in my chair and let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
[Calibration Phase complete.]
[System of Excellence: All modules now available for progression.]
[Current Rank: F. Insight Points: 0. Modules: PRD (Locked), SRM (Locked), COP (Locked).]
[Body-Soul Synchronization: 23%. Desync status: Severe.]
[First objective: Reach Level 20 without class advancement to maintain Unspecialized status.]
The notifications faded, replaced by the compass icon pulsing steadily in my peripheral vision. The SOE was awake now. Ready to start tracking, analyzing, optimizing.
And I was still Level 8, sitting in an internet café at 4 AM, nursing a loss against a woman who would one day be my teammate—if I could figure out how to become the man she was supposed to follow.
A café regular leaned over from the adjacent station, grinning.
"Not bad for a night manager."
I looked at him. Some kid in his early twenties, probably a college student, probably just making conversation.
Something in my chest loosened. The first genuine expression since waking up in this body cracked across my face—a smile that belonged to neither Steven Grant nor Ye Xiu, but something new.
"Thanks."
I turned back to the screen. Lord Grim stood at the arena spawn point, waiting for commands.
Level 20 before class advancement.
Frost Forest dungeon record.
The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella.
Team Happy.
The list stretched out ahead of me like a road map to someone else's destiny. Familiar landmarks I'd watched from the outside, now waiting to be walked for real.
I put my hands back on the keyboard.
The fingers still didn't fit. The desync still lingered. The body was still borrowed.
But the system was awake. The game was live. And somewhere in this server, a girl with a Battle Mage and too much talent was grinding toward a future neither of us could see.
Lord Grim started moving.
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