**Chapter 33: Training Arc**
**Day 1,175.**
**Location: The Atacama Desert (Surface Ruins).**
**Current Status: Level 18 Novice (The grind is real).**
**Global Anxiety Level: Critical.**
In every great story, right before the end of the world, there is a montage.
The hero goes to a remote mountain, drags a few logs around, punches a waterfall, and suddenly he is strong enough to kill God. It usually takes about three minutes of screen time, accompanied by an inspiring synth-pop soundtrack.
Reality, I have discovered, lacks the editing software to skip the boring parts.
I sat on the hood of a hover-truck parked on the edge of the salt flats, watching the sun rise over the Andes. My *Null* avatar was currently eating a protein bar that tasted like sweetened cardboard.
"Zero," I muttered, chewing slowly. "Do the math. At the current rate of progression, what is the probability of humanity surviving the Myriad Main Fleet?"
**[Calculating...]** Zero's voice was a familiar hum in my neural cortex. **[Based on current leveling curves, the combined DPS of the global player base is approximately 4.2 Petajoules per second. The estimated shield density of a Myriad World-Eater Leviathan is 50 Petajoules.]**
"So we scratch the paint," I summarized.
**[Correct. Probability of survival: 12.4%.]**
I crumpled the wrapper. "Twelve percent. That's an F-minus, Zero."
The problem wasn't potential; it was time. We had thirty-five days left. The players were grinding, yes. They were killing monsters, clearing dungeons, and crafting gear. But the grind was linear. The threat was exponential.
If this were a game, I would just adjust the sliders. I would turn on "Double XP Weekend" and leave it on until the heat death of the universe.
I paused.
"Wait," I whispered. "I *am* the game."
I stood up on the hood of the truck.
"Zero. Why are the players leveling so slowly?"
**[The primary bottleneck is recovery time. High-intensity combat drains Mana and Stamina. Players must rest for 6-8 hours to recover peak efficiency. Furthermore, the fear of 'True Death' in high-level zones causes hesitation. They play conservatively.]**
"Conservatism gets you eaten," I said. "We need to remove the brakes."
I looked up at the sky, visualizing the code of the world like a sprawling matrix of golden light.
"I can't give them free levels," I reasoned. "If I just hand them Level 100, they won't have the skill to use the power. They'll be glass cannons who trip over their own feet. They need experience. They need muscle memory."
"I need to build a Hyperbolic Time Chamber."
**[Time dilation is beyond your current capabilities, Architect. Creating a localized temporal bubble would require the mass of a black hole.]**
"I don't need to slow down time," I corrected. "I need to speed up the *density* of the experience."
I raised my hand.
"Zero. Initialize **Global Update 5.0**. Let's give them a Training Arc."
***
**Global System Announcement**
**Time: 08:00 GMT**
The notification sound that rang out across the planet wasn't the usual chime. It was the sound of a heavy iron gate slamming shut.
Every screen, every HUD, every visor flashed gold.
**[SYSTEM UPDATE: THE CRUCIBLE.]**
**[The Enemy approaches. Time is short. The Architect has unlocked the limiters.]**
**[Feature 1: The Phantom Protocol.]**
*All Major Cities now contain a "Crucible Gate." Inside, players can fight "Phantoms"—simulated constructs of past Bosses, Rivals, or themselves.
*Death inside the Crucible is NOT permanent.
*Experience Gain in the Crucible: 500%.*
**[Feature 2: The Mana Torrent.]**
*Global Mana Regeneration Rate increased by 200%.
*Stamina Recovery Rate increased by 200%.*
**[Feature 3: The Leaderboards.]**
*The Top 100 Players at the end of the week will receive a "Star-Forged" Weapon Cache.*
I added a personal note at the bottom, just to twist the knife of motivation.
*"Sleep is for the dead. You have 35 days. Make them count."*
***
**New York City**
**Central Park (Crucible Gate Alpha)**
The gate appeared as a massive, swirling vortex of white fire in the middle of the Great Lawn.
Within minutes, thousands of players surrounded it.
"500% XP?" A young Pyromancer shouted, checking his HUD. "And no True Death? I can finally try that suicide combo!"
The *US First Arcane Battalion* arrived in force. General Sterling didn't wait in line. He marched his men straight to the front.
"Company A! You're up!" Sterling barked. "Your objective is the *Leviathan Simulation*. You will run it until you can clear it in under ten minutes. If you wipe, you respawn and go again immediately. No breaks. No food. Just war."
"HOO-RAH!" Five thousand soldiers shouted.
They charged into the white fire.
Inside the Crucible, reality shifted. It wasn't a physical space; it was a mental construct hosted on the Moon Base servers. The soldiers found themselves on a digital ocean platform. The Leviathan rose from the deep.
They fought. They died. They respawned instantly at the entrance with full health and mana.
"Again!" Sterling ordered, his avatar flickering as he reformed from a pixelated death.
They charged again.
And again.
This was the meat grinder. Without the fear of death, the soldiers stopped fighting defensively. They learned to parry tentacles. They learned the exact frame data of the monster's attacks. They became machines.
***
**Tokyo**
**Ren's Apartment**
Ren read the patch notes. He was sharpening his *Star-Eater* daggers.
"Phantoms," Ren whispered.
He looked at the leaderboard. It had just gone live.
**Rank 1: BloodLetter (Damon) - Level 62.**
**Rank 2: Saintess (Elena) - Level 61.**
**Rank 3: VoidWalker (Ren) - Level 60.**
Ren narrowed his eyes. Damon was ahead. The Warlord had been grinding non-stop since the Cruiser raid.
"Null," Ren said, tapping his comms. "You seeing this?"
I was sitting in a cafe downstairs, pretending to read a manga while monitoring the server load.
"I see it," I replied. "Free XP. No risk. What's the catch?"
"The catch is the psychological toll," Ren said. "Fighting a simulation over and over again... it messes with your head. You forget what real danger feels like."
"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe it sharpens you. Are you going in?"
"I have to," Ren said, standing up. "I need to unlock the next tier of the Void tree. I need to fight something that can actually kill me."
"Who?"
"Myself," Ren said.
***
**The Crucible: Solo Instance**
Ren entered the Tokyo Gate.
He selected **[Simulation: Mirror Match]**.
The white void coalesced into a reflection of the Shinjuku rooftops. Rain fell, but it was digital rain—perfectly vertical, no wind.
Opposite Ren stood a figure.
It wore the same black coat. It held the same daggers. But its eyes weren't brown. They were voids of absolute black.
**[Enemy: Shadow Ren (Level 65)]**
"Level 65," Ren noted. "Five levels higher than me. Good."
The Shadow didn't speak. It blinked.
It appeared behind Ren instantly.
Ren reacted on instinct, ducking. A dagger slashed through the space where his neck had been.
"Fast," Ren hissed, kicking out.
The Shadow blocked the kick and countered with a *Gravity Well*.
Ren was slammed into the floor. The pressure was immense.
"You know all my moves," Ren grunted, forcing himself up. "But do you know my improvisation?"
Ren didn't try to break the gravity. He used it. He allowed himself to be pulled toward the center, gaining momentum, then triggered **[Void Step]** at the last microsecond.
He shot out of the gravity well like a slingshot, driving his daggers toward the Shadow's heart.
The Shadow parried.
Sparks of violet energy illuminated the rooftop.
They fought for hours. Ren died.
**[YOU HAVE DIED.]**
**[Respawning...]**
Ren gasped, reappearing at the start point. The phantom pain of a dagger in his lung lingered for a second before fading.
"Again," Ren growled.
He died twelve times.
On the thirteenth attempt, he stopped trying to out-speed the Shadow. He stopped trying to out-think it.
He stopped thinking entirely.
He let the Void take over. He moved not where he *wanted* to go, but where the space *allowed* him to go.
The Shadow lunged.
Ren didn't dodge. He simply wasn't there anymore. He existed in the spaces between the rain.
*Slash.*
Ren appeared behind the Shadow. The *Star-Eater* severed the Shadow's head.
**[VICTORY.]**
**[Level Up! Level 61.]**
Ren stood over his own corpse.
"Too slow," he whispered to the fading pixels.
***
**The Atacama Facility**
**The War Room (Virtual)**
I watched the global stats climb.
**[Global Average Level: 25 -> 28.]**
**[Elite Average Level: 50 -> 52.]**
**[Mana Consumption: Critical.]**
"They are drinking the ocean," Zero warned. "The Crucible servers are running at 98% capacity. The Tithe feedback loop is reaching dangerous levels."
I felt it.
The energy coming back to me from the players wasn't just a stream anymore. It was a firehose. Millions of players fighting, dying, and respawning at 500% efficiency meant I was receiving a tsunami of refined Prana.
**[Daily Growth: +18%.]**
"Eighteen percent," I groaned, floating in the center of the room. My body was glowing so bright I had to dim my own perception just to see the screens. "I'm going to explode."
"You must vent the energy," Zero said.
"I can't vent it into the atmosphere," I said. "I'll cause a hurricane."
I looked at the map of the solar system.
"The Myriad Fleet is 30 days away. But the Aetherian Empire... they have listening posts in the asteroid belt."
I grinned.
"Zero. Use the excess Prana to charge the Moon Railguns. But don't fire them. Just... let them hum. Turn the Moon into a giant mana-beacon."
"That will attract attention."
"That's the point," I said. "If the Myriad sees a massive energy spike on the Moon, they might divert their course to investigate. It buys us time. Or it forces them into a trap."
***
**Simulation Layer: The Iron Frontier**
**Joint Training Exercise**
While the solo players ground out levels in the Crucible, the armies were practicing war.
The *Arcane Battalion* (5,000 soldiers) and the *Crimson Blades* (10,000 players) were running a joint raid simulation.
The objective: Defend a fortress against a simulation of the *Myriad Swarm*.
Damon stood on the ramparts, looking impressive in his *Aetherian-Alloy Plate*.
"Hold the gate!" Damon roared. "Blades, go berserk! Don't let them touch the walls!"
Below, the Crimson Blades charged into the swarm of simulated bugs. It was messy. They were trading hits, relying on healers.
General Sterling watched from the command tower.
"Sloppy," Sterling muttered. "Battalion, show them how it's done. Artillery volley. Coordinates 4-4-Alpha."
Five hundred military mages raised their staves.
A synchronized barrage of *Explosive Fireballs* arched over the heads of the Crimson Blades and slammed into the rear lines of the swarm.
*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.*
The explosions were perfectly timed to create a wall of fire that channeled the enemies into a kill box.
"Nice shot, G.I. Joe!" Damon shouted over the comms. "Now send in the tanks!"
The two forces were integrating. The chaos of the gamers acted as the anvil; the discipline of the military acted as the hammer.
I watched from a distance, disguised as Null, looting a dead simulation bug (force of habit).
"They're getting better," I noted. "But they're getting complacent."
The simulation was predictable. The bugs had simple AI.
"Zero," I whispered. "Introduce the Variable."
"The Variable?"
"The Spy," I said. "Guest_01. He's in the system. Let's see if he takes the bait."
I lowered the firewall on the simulation server. Just a crack. A subtle vulnerability in the code that a high-level intruder would spot.
If *Guest_01* was watching, he would see an opportunity to turn a training exercise into a massacre.
***
**The Sabotage**
It happened ten minutes later.
The simulation was winding down. The Swarm was retreating.
Suddenly, the sky in the simulation turned red.
**[SYSTEM ALERT: ANOMALY DETECTED.]**
**[Difficulty Scaling: ERROR.]**
**[Safety Protocols: OFFLINE.]**
Damon froze. He slashed a bug, but instead of pixelating, it bled real, acidic blood. The acid burned his armor.
"What the hell?" Damon yelled. "Damage limiters just turned off! I'm taking real damage!"
General Sterling saw it too. One of his soldiers took a hit from a bug and screamed—a scream of genuine agony.
"Abort!" Sterling ordered. "End simulation! Log out!"
Nothing happened.
**[Logout Blocked.]**
**[Reason: Combat in Progress.]**
I stood up from my looting crouch.
The sky ripped open.
A new enemy spawned. It wasn't a Myriad bug. It wasn't a generic boss.
It was a black, amorphous shape that shifted constantly. One moment it looked like a player, the next a monster, the next a glitch in the geometry.
**[Enemy: The Glitch (Level ??)]**
"It's him," I realized. "Guest_01."
The Glitch raised a hand. The terrain of the fortress began to dissolve. The stone walls turned into lava. The air turned into poison gas.
"He's rewriting the environment," I said. "He's trying to wipe the entire leadership of Earth's defense in one stroke."
Damon and Sterling were trapped. Their armies were panicking. The poison gas was eating through their health bars, and without safeties, the neural feedback would fry their brains before they died.
I couldn't let that happen.
But I couldn't reveal myself.
"Ren!" I shouted into the comms. "Are you nearby?"
"I'm in the Tokyo Crucible," Ren's voice came back, strained.
"Bridge the connection!" I ordered. "The Iron Frontier is being hacked. I need you to *Void Walk* into the server!"
"Into the server? Null, that's insane."
"Do it! Or Damon dies!"
I didn't wait. I ran toward the Glitch.
I was Level 18 on paper. But I was the Admin.
I didn't use a sword. I used code.
I opened my inventory. I pulled out a *Debug Tool*—an item I had crafted that looked like a simple wrench but acted as a localized reality anchor.
I threw the wrench.
It hit the Glitch in the chest.
**[System Command: Freeze Frame.]**
The Glitch paused for a microsecond. The lava stopped flowing.
The Glitch turned its faceless head toward me.
*~ADMINISTRATOR?~*
It spoke in static.
"Janitor," I corrected.
I raised my hand, mimicking a spell casting motion. In reality, I was rewriting the zone parameters.
**[Zone Update: Gravity Inversion.]**
Gravity flipped. The lava flew up into the sky. The poison gas vented into space.
Damon and his men floated, confused but safe.
"Now, Ren!" I screamed.
Space tore open next to the Glitch.
Ren burst out of a Void Portal. He wasn't just an avatar; he was a tear in the simulation.
"Get out of my game!" Ren roared.
He drove his *Star-Eater* daggers into the Glitch.
The daggers didn't just cut damage; they cut connection. The Void energy acted as a signal jammer.
The Glitch shrieked—a sound of dial-up internet from hell.
*~DISCONNECTING...~*
The black shape shattered into static and vanished.
The red sky faded to blue.
**[System Restored.]**
**[Safety Protocols: Online.]**
Damon fell to the ground as gravity returned to normal. He gasped, clutching his acid-burned arm.
"We're alive," Damon wheezed. "What... what was that?"
Ren landed next to me. He looked at the spot where the Glitch had been.
"That was the Spy," Ren said.
He turned to me. I was busy picking up my wrench, looking innocent.
"And you," Ren said, pointing a dagger at me. "You froze him. A Level 18 Novice froze a hacker with a wrench."
"It's a quest item!" I said quickly. "Stuns glitches. Very rare drop."
Ren stared at me. The suspicion in his eyes was heavy. But so was the exhaustion.
"We need to talk, Null," Ren said. "For real."
"Later," I said, pointing at the army. "Right now, you have fifteen thousand people who need to know why the training dummy just tried to murder them."
***
**The Atacama Facility**
I was back in the Sarcophagus (metaphorically speaking—I was floating in the Ruins).
"Close call," Zero said.
"Too close," I agreed. "Guest_01 has Admin privileges. Or at least, he has an exploit kit."
I looked at the data log. The Glitch hadn't just tried to kill them. It had tried to upload something. A virus? A beacon?
**[Analysis: The Glitch injected a sub-routine into the Centurion Headsets. It is a tracking marker.]**
"He tagged the army," I realized. "The Myriad isn't just coming to bomb us. They're coming to hunt the soldiers specifically."
I stood up.
The Training Arc was over. The enemy was inside the wire.
"Zero, update the quest log."
"What is the objective?"
"Survive," I said.
I looked at the countdown.
**[T-Minus 30 Days.]**
"And get me a weapon," I added. "If I'm going to have to fight hackers, I need a Ban Hammer."
**[Day 1,175 Complete.]**
**[Daily Growth: +18%.]**
**[Humanity Level: Grinding Hard.]**
**[Security Status: Compromised.]**
**[Chapter 33 Ends.]**