Ash woke up with a face only tragedy could see.
His eyes were half-open.
His hair looked like it had started a revolution overnight.
And when he sat up, the blanket clung to him as if it pitied him.
The sun outside was bright.
Too bright.
"…afternoon already?" he croaked.
He rubbed his face. He looked like someone who fought a monster in his sleep and lost emotionally.
Who could blame him? Nobody could sleep properly with an explosion-like boom echoing all early morning. The steam-cloud device had roared to life , pumping siphon-mist upward through the giant pipes. HollowHearth always shook when that machine worked a full blast.
Ash stared at the ceiling.
"Hard work pays off, they say," he muttered.
"Yeah, right. If the noise doesn't kill me first."
He stretched his arms.
His joints popped in reply.
He shuffled toward the small table and grabbed the dumbphone from where he had left it last night, right beside the pillow.
He held it up.
"You little traitor."
He said it with affection.
He still remembered the thrill of discovering its illusion-energy functions, the joy of seeing holographic text, the excitement of creating tiny illusions like toys in a sandbox.
But now, there was something bugging him.
Something he recalled during the late-night experiments, but he had been too sleepy to process it.
He stared at the dumbphone.
Something… felt off.
"…why… why do I feel like I missed something stupid?"
He squinted at the device.
Then his eyes widened.
"Wait."
He inhaled sharply.
"WAIT!. No way."
He connected a thin thread of illusion energy into the phone. The screen flickered faintly.
Ash took a deep breath and spoke clearly:
"Type… Hello."
The phone typed it.
By itself.
He froze.
His jaw started to tremble.
"You're voice-controlled!?" he screamed. "YOU. ARE. VOICE. CONTROLLED!!"
He grabbed the phone with both hands, shaking it dramatically.
"I SPENT HOURS TYPING EVERYTHING MANUALLY!" he roared. "You, you little, why don't you have a manual app!? Why don't you have a tutorial!? Or a pop-up!? Or anything!?"
He threw himself backward onto the bed, defeated by technology.
"Why… why do I suffer…"
The dumbphone glowed innocently.
Ash pointed at it accusingly.
"You're worse than the rats here."
The phone stayed silent.
Ash groaned loudly and sat up again.
"Screw it. Voice control it is."
His eyes sparkled.
"Time to make something amazing."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He linked more illusion energy into the phone. This time he didn't test tiny holograms. He went straight to the idea brewing inside him.
A system.
Not a real system, not yet.
But an interface.
A frame.
A visual representation.
Something like the player menu in RPG games he used to create back on Earth.
He whispered:
"illusion project:window; type:system; resolution:classic; ui:transparent-blue"
The screen hummed soundly, projecting thin lines that formed a holographic rectangle in front of him.
He grinned.
"Oho… it works."
The window stabilized just enough to stay floating. A simple empty frame. No functions yet.
Ash's heart thumped like he just leveled up in real life.
"System… appearance… success..."
He got up and started pacing like a game developer seeing his plot twist work.
"This is only a visual," he muttered excitedly.
"But this is step one. If I can display things… I can organize things."
He looked at his hands.
Then something else clicked in his mind.
"…hang on."
Skills.
Last night, he had been chanting or gesturing for every skill he cast. Illusion this. Cloak that. Wall, clone… It was clunky, slow, and not safe during a real fight.
But what if...
"What if I program the skill into the phone?" he whispered
"And use voice activation through the energy link instead?"
He immediately typed, well, voice-typed:
skill.add {name: static clone;type: illusion;gesture: none;chant: none;trigger: voice;}
The system window blinked.
Then it refreshed with a new line of glowing text.
Ash gasped.
"No way… it registered?"
He tried again.
"Static Clone!"
A puff.
A glitchy clone of himself appeared beside the bed, flickering like an undercooked illusion, but it's still there.
Ash tried to not scream.
He failed.
"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"
He pumped both fists into the air.
"I don't need gestures anymore! I don't need chants! I just say the word and bam ....skill!"
To confirm it wasn't a fluke, he programmed the rest:
skill.add { name: wall of illusion; trigger: voice; }skill.add { name: blind; trigger: voice; }skill.add { name: invisibility cloak; trigger: voice; }skill.add { name: space storage; trigger: voice; }
Then he tested:
"Wall of illusion!"
A transparent ripple formed in front of him.
"Blind!"
A spark-flash.
"Invisibility Cloak!"
His body shimmered, turning invisible around the edges.
His voice wobbled from excitement.
"This… this will help in battle so much. No more clumsy movements. No more wasted time."
He looked at the system window he created, still plain and simple.
"Let's update you."
He declared dramatically:
"Status!"
The window refreshed into:
────────────────────────────────────────────
System v.01
Name: Ash
Age: 17y
Siphon Abilities: illusion, space
Skills: Illusion - static clone, wall of illusion, blind, invisibility cloak
Space - storage
Quest: N/A
─────────────────────────────────────────────
Ash stood there.
Silence.
Then…
"Yes, yes, yes, YES!"
He shook his hands like a madman."This is it! I made it! One of the CORE elements of a game, visual system interface!"He cackled.
"No one can stop me now! No one, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
Thud.
Squeak.
Ash froze mid-villain pose.
Slowly… slowly… he turned to see who's interrupting his moment.
A rat stood proudly on top of a bucket, staring at him like it was judging his life choices.
Ash pointed.
"You."
The rat tilted its head.
Ash's eyebrow twitched.
"I'm gonna kill you."
The rat blinked.
Then it sprinted.
Ash charged after it.
"No running! Face me like a real rat!"
The rat leaped onto the shelf. Ash tried to grab it, but the shelf fell.
The rat bounced off the wall. Ash slipped on a slipper.
The rat somersaulted onto the table. Ash tripped onto the bed.
It was a battle.
A legendary battle that will be recorded in history.
And the rat won again.
Ash, panting, hair ruined, stared at the gap the rat escaped through.
"I swear… I swear I will catch you," he muttered while picking up the mess.
He sighed deeply.
"After I get stronger…"
He started cleaning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later that afternoon, the dumpsite.
Ash arrived for training again.
His steps were steady. His focus is sharp.
He faced a pile of broken metal like it were in a dojo.
"Let's practice the presets…"
He connected illusion energy to the dumbphone.
"Wall."
The illusion wall shimmered stably.
"Clone."
A duplicate flickered beside him.
"Blind."
A small flash burst forward.
"Cloak."
His figure blurred.
He grinned.
One by one, he activated the presets, feeling how smooth the transitions were now that voice commands replaced chanting.
This was progress.
"But… I can only activate two at the same time," he said, frowning. "Why? Is it a limit of my energy? Or the phone? Or both…"
He noted the idea mentally.
Then he trained physically, running, punching, footwork, dodging, rolling across broken ground without slicing himself open. Sweat dripped from his chin.
He kept going until his arms trembled.
He didn't stop.
Hard work might not guarantee success.
But doing nothing guaranteed failure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile…
At the center of HollowHearth, the tallest building stood like a black spike against the misty evening.
Inside the top floor, Laura followed behind the Old Man, her eyes were curious.
"Boss," she said, "which bigshot are we meeting today?"
The Oldman fixed his coat, though he did it many times already.
"Your sponsor," he replied.
Laura blinked.
"My… sponsor?"
"Yes," the Oldman said. "You'll understand soon."
They reached the massive door at the end of the hallway.
Laura swallowed.
Something important was waiting behind it.
She felt that things were about to get complicated.