The first thing Aris Veratis felt wasn't power. It was the biting, rhythmic chill of morning dew soaking into his shirt.
His eyes snapped open. Instead of the sterile white ceiling of the server room or the flickering "Fatal Error" message on his monitor, he saw a canopy of emerald leaves swaying against a pale blue sky. The air didn't smell like ozone and overheated plastic; it smelled of damp earth and crushed pine.
"System... login," he croaked, his throat feeling like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper.
He expected nothing. He expected to wake up in his chair with a massive headache. Instead, a spark of light ignited in the center of his vision. A translucent pane of glass—an
Air Screen—shimmered into existence, floating a foot from his face.
It wasn't the polished, user-friendly UI of the modern-magic world. It was raw.
[ USER: ARIS VERATIS ]
[ CLASS: NULL ]
[ LEVEL: 1 ]
[ LEVEL CAP: ERROR_DATA_CORRUPT ]
[ PASSIVE: SOURCE CODE INTUITION (ACTIVE) ]
Aris stared at the "Level Cap" line. In this world—the world he had helped build from a keyboard—everyone had a limit. Warriors peaked at Level 60. Legendary Heroes might hit 100. But his screen was bleeding digital static where the number should be.
No cap? he thought, pushing himself up.
He looked down at his hands. They were calloused, younger than he remembered. He was wearing the basic, durable leather of a trainee scout—the kind of gear the Silvas Guild issued to their bottom-tier recruits.
A rustle in the bushes made him freeze.
"Hey! Over here! I found the stray!"
A man burst through the underbrush. He wore heavy, dented iron plates and carried a shield that had seen better decades. Behind him followed a woman with a staff tipped in a dull blue mana-stone.
"Kid, you're alive!" the man shouted. This was Klynn Rys, the leader of the struggling Silvas Guild. He looked older in person, his face lined with the stress of a man running a guild on its last legs. "We thought a Forest Golem got you when you went missing from the convoy."
"I... I just tripped," Aris lied easily, his eyes tracking the floating stats above Klynn's head.
[ KLYNN RYS | LEVEL 24 | CLASS: GUARDIAN ]
To the world, Klynn was a veteran. To Aris, who could see the "Source Code" vibrating in the air, Klynn's mana circuit was full of leaks.
"Tripped?" Regra Erles, the healer, stepped forward, her brow furrowed as she scanned Aris with a diagnostic spell. "You were out here for six hours in a Level 10 zone. You should be dead or worse."
"I'm fine, Regra. Really," Aris said, taking the hand Klynn offered.
As he stood, a notification pinged on his screen. It was silent, invisible to the others.
[ QUEST DETECTED: THE FIRST STEP ]
[ OBJECTIVE: REACH THE MASSIVE LOBBY (355 DAYS REMAINING) ]
[ REWARD: ??? ]
Aris looked at the forest, then at the two guild members who had saved him. He was a Level 1 glitch in a world that followed rigid rules. He knew the secrets of the dungeons, the weaknesses of the bosses, and the names of the gods who would eventually try to delete him.
But more importantly, he knew that somewhere out there, there was another "Pre-Patch" soul waiting.
"Let's go back," Aris said, dusting off his leather tunic. "I think I'm ready to start leveling up."
Klynn laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. "Leveling? Slow down, kid. You're a scout. Just focus on not getting eaten by a slime first."
Aris smiled—a small, sharp expression.
If only you knew, Klynn, he thought. The ceiling just disappeared.