Chapter 1: [1] : The Debt and The Dive, SSS-Rank Talent
Sector 7 debtor's prison was exactly as awful as it sounded.
It was a deep underground prison where people who owed the megacorps too much money went to rot. The whole place smelled like cheap nutrient paste and unwashed bodies.
Declan Vance sat on his metal cot, staring at the ceiling.
He had been down here for five years. His debt was so high it looked like a phone number. He was never getting out.
Not alive anyway.
Heavy boots echoed down the metal walkway outside his cell. Declan did not bother sitting up. The footsteps stopped right in front of his door.
The heavy steel door buzzed and slid open.
A corporate guard in slick black tactical gear stood there. He was holding a digital tablet.
Behind him stood two more guards carrying stun rifles.
"Declan Vance," the lead guard said. His voice was bored.
"That is the name on the jumpsuit," Declan replied, pointing at the faded orange fabric he was wearing.
He got used to the prison tough guy concept.
"You are being offered a way out," the guard said, tapping his tablet. "A clean slate. All debts forgiven."
Declan finally sat up and narrowed his eyes although he wasn't buying it.
"Sure. What do I lose? My eyes? My spine? Or just whatever is left of my dignity?"
"You have been selected for the Grid Dive," the guard said flatly.
"The Grid Dive?"
Declan froze. Everyone in the slums and the prisons had heard the rumors about the Grid Dive. The megacorps were testing some new mysterious virtual reality network called the Primordial Grid.
It was not a game. It was a meat grinder.
They threw prisoners and desperate people into the dive pods. The rumor was that if you survived and did well, you got your freedom and rich payouts. But the catch was brutal. If you died in the Grid, the feedback loop fried your brain in the real world.
"The survival rate is basically zero, isn't it?"
Declan asked.
"It is higher than your chances of paying off your debt by sitting on that cot," the guard countered. He held out a digital pen. "Sign the waiver. Or do not. We will just ask the guy in the next cell."
Declan looked at the pen and looked around his tiny miserable cell.
He did not want to die. But he was not really living right now either.
"Does it come with a free meal before I go?" Declan asked.
"No."
"Cheap bastards," Declan muttered. He stood up, grabbed the pen, and pressed his thumb against the tablet to sign it.
"Walk," the guard ordered.
They marched him out of the cell block and into an elevator. They went up far above the prison levels into a sterile blindingly white laboratory.
The room was filled with row after row of massive metallic pods. Thick cables ran from the pods into the ceiling. Most of the pods were empty but Declan saw a few orderlies wheeling away a body bag on a gurney.
Declan stared at the body bag as it rolled past. "Is that what I think it is..."
"Get in," the guard pointed to an open pod.
Declan climbed into the cold metal box. The interior was lined with soft padding. As soon as he lay down, mechanical clamps locked over his wrists, ankles, and chest.
"Hey, wait a minute," Declan started.
Before he could ask any questions.
A metal halo lowered from the top of the pod and clamped securely around his head.
Small sharp needles pricked the back of his neck.
"Initiating Dive," a robotic voice announced over the room's speakers.
Declan did not even have time to curse.
A massive jolt of electricity shot into his spine. His vision exploded into blinding white light. He felt like his body was being ripped apart on a molecular level. The pain was unbelievable, burning through his nerves like battery acid.
He wanted to scream but he did not have a mouth anymore.
[Connecting to the Primordial Grid...]
A blue holographic text box floated in the endless white void of his vision.
[Scanning Soul Frequency...]
[Analyzing subject data...]
Suddenly, the blue box flickered. It turned a harsh warning red. The text started glitching and characters scrambled frantically.
[ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.]
Declan's consciousness floated in the void.
He felt a weird pressure in his head like a suppressed memory trying to claw its way out.
[Anomaly Detected.]
[Soul Frequency matches a prior unrecorded dive.]
[Memory fragments fractured. Core data corrupted.]
[System protocol breached.]
Declan had no idea what the system was talking about. Prior dive? He had never been in a pod before in his life.
The red boxes vanished. A new golden prompt appeared. It glowed with a strange warm light.
[Anomaly recognized. Bypassing standard class allocation.]
[Generating Unique Talent based on Soul Fracture...]
[Congratulations.]
[You have awakened the sole SSS-Rank Talent: Boundless Enhancement.]
Declan stared at the floating golden text.
SSS-Rank? That sounded completely overpowered. He read a lot of cheap web novels back when he had free time. SSS was the top of the food chain.
[Initializing Player Profile...]
A new screen popped up in front of him.
┌──────[ Profile ]──────┐
│ Name: Declan Vance
│ Level: 1
│ Class: None
│ HP: 100/100
│ Stamina: 100/100
│ Mana: 50/50
├──────[ Attributes ]───┤
│ Strength: 5
│ Agility: 5
│ Vitality: 5
│ Intelligence: 5
├──────[ Talent ]──────┤
│ [Boundless Enhancement] (SSS-Rank)
└──────────────────┘
Declan focused his mind on the Talent.
Another box expanded detailing what it actually did.
[Boundless Enhancement SSS-Rank]
↳ Description: The rules of the Grid do not apply to your items or skills.
Declan kept reading. The system dumped a chunk of basic knowledge into his brain so he could understand the mechanics.
In the Primordial Grid, players earned Origin Points by killing monsters or completing quests. These points were the main currency. You used them to buy things or more importantly to enhance your gear.
For a normal player, enhancing an item was a massive gamble. You could use Origin Points to upgrade a weapon up to +5. That was the hard cap. If a normal player tried to push a weapon to +6, the item would instantly shatter into useless dust.
Declan's talent broke that rule.
[System Remark]
↳ Effect 1: The Enhancement Cap is completely removed. Your items and skills will never shatter from enhancement failure.
He understood what was going on immediately.
Declan blinked. 'Wait. Never?' he thought.
'So I can just keep upgrading a stick until it hits like a nuke?'
[System Remark]
↳ Effect 2: Conceptual Mutation. For every +10 enhancement milestone reached on an item or skill, it will trigger a conceptual mutation, granting it a god-tier trait that defies normal logic.
'Holy crap,' Declan muttered in his mind.
If this was a game, he had just been handed the developer cheat codes.
Before he could celebrate, the white void began to crack like glass.
[Integration Complete.]
[Dropping player into the Grid.]
[Welcome to Hell.]
-------x------
Chapter 2: [2] : Sector 4-Blight, +10 Chipped Cleaver
The void shattered. Declan felt gravity grab him and pull him down violently.
The cold sensation of reality crashed into him.
He opened his eyes.
Rain hit Declan's face. It felt oily and cold.
He was lying on his back in the mud. He sat up slowly, groaning as his muscles protested. He was no longer wearing his orange prison jumpsuit. Instead, he had on rough burlap-like pants and a simple gray tunic.
He looked around.
He was sitting in an alleyway of a ruined decaying city. Tall gothic buildings loomed over him and their stone faces were crumbling and covered in dark moss. The sky above was a sickly bruised purple color.
Thick fog rolled through the streets.
There were other people around him. About fifty of them. They were all wearing the same cheap burlap clothes. Some were crying.
Some were looking at their hands in shock.
A loud booming voice echoed from the sky. It did not sound human. It sounded like grinding metal.
"Welcome to Sector 4-Blight," the voice announced.
Everyone looked up, terrified.
"The rules are simple. Survive. Hunt. Evolve.
There are no safe spaces outside this immediate spawn zone. Trust no one. The weak will be deleted. The strong will ascend."
The voice paused, then continued.
"Equipment falls into six tiers: Scavenged, Forged, Relic, Mythic, Ascendant, and Sovereign. Find gear. Kill beasts. Earn Origin Points. Survive the Purge."
The voice cut off.
Instantly, panic erupted in the alley. A man in a suit started screaming about suing whoever put him here. A woman sat in the mud rocking back and forth. A group of three tough-looking guys immediately started bullying a smaller guy to see if he had any starting items on him.
Declan did not really panic.
He had spent five years in a concrete box.
This place was dangerous, sure, but at least he was not locked in a cell.
He stood up and wiped the mud off his face.
"Okay. Survive, hunt, evolve. Simple enough."
He had an idea of what he was going to be facing.
He needed a weapon. The tutorial voice said Scavenged was the lowest tier. He looked around the alley. There was a massive pile of literal trash and debris piled up against a collapsed brick wall near the edge of the safe zone.
While the other players were busy arguing or crying, Declan walked over to the trash heap.
The smell was atrocious. It smelled like rotten meat and rusted iron. Declan did not care. He dropped to his knees and started digging through the pile with his bare hands.
He tossed aside broken bottles, pieces of rotting wood, and twisted metal pipes. A jagged piece of tin sliced his palm.
"Ouch. Dammit," he hissed.
He ignored the bleeding and kept digging.
Finally, his hand closed around something heavy and solid. A handle.
He pulled it free.
It was a cleaver. But calling it a weapon was a stretch. It looked like it had been sitting in a swamp for a decade. The blade was heavily rusted, blunt, and had a massive chip taken out of the center. The wooden handle was rotting and splintered.
A small prompt appeared over the weapon.
[Chipped Cleaver]
↳ Tier: Scavenged
↳ Damage: 1 to 2
↳ Durability: 5 / 10
↳ Description: A piece of literal garbage. You are more likely to give someone tetanus than actually cut them.
Declan laughed. "Perfect. I am armed with a glorified butter knife."
He opened his status screen again. He noticed a small counter at the bottom corner of his vision.
[System Resources]
↳ Origin Points: 10
"Looks like the system gives everyone ten points to start," Declan mumbled.
Ten points was not much. A normal player would save it. They might try to upgrade this trash cleaver to +1 or +2 to make it slightly less terrible but they would never risk pushing it to +5 and losing it entirely.
But Declan was not a normal player.
"Let us test this SSS-Rank talent," he said.
He held the rusty cleaver in his right hand. He mentally selected the enhancement option.
[Would you like to enhance Chipped Cleaver for 1 Origin Point?]
"Yes."
A brief flash of white light covered the blade.
[System Remark]
↳ Chipped Cleaver +1. Damage increased to 2 to 3.
He looked at the blade. A tiny flake of rust fell off. It did not look much better.
"Again," Declan commanded.
[System Remark]
↳ Chipped Cleaver +2.
↳ Chipped Cleaver +3.
↳ Chipped Cleaver +4.
↳ Chipped Cleaver +5.
The light flashed four more times. By +5, the cleaver actually looked usable. Most of the rust was gone and the edge had a dull gleam to it.
[System Remark]
↳ The item has reached the normal enhancement cap. Further enhancement has a 100 percent chance to shatter the item.
"Not for me," Declan grinned. "Keep going."
[System Remark]
↳ Talent Boundless Enhancement activated. Cap removed.
↳ Chipped Cleaver +6.
↳ Chipped Cleaver +7.
↳ Chipped Cleaver +8.
↳ Chipped Cleaver +9.
The cleaver was changing rapidly now. The rotting wooden handle smoothed out turning into dark polished oak. The metal of the blade lost all its chips and rust. It became completely smooth and terrifyingly sharp.
The heavy weight of it felt perfectly balanced in his grip.
He had one Origin Point left.
"Hit me with the +10," Declan said, his heart beating a little faster.
He spent his final point.
The cleaver did not flash white this time. It flashed a deep blood-red color. The metal groaned physically warping and mutating in his hand. The edge of the blade turned a dark jagged crimson.
[System Remark]
↳ Chipped Cleaver has reached +10.
↳ Triggering ConceptualUtation...
The red light faded. Declan looked at the new stats floating above the weapon.
[Chipped Cleaver +10]
↳ Tier: Scavenged Mutated
↳ Damage: 15 to 20
↳ Trait Unlocked: Hemorrhage
↳ Hemorrhage: 100 percent chance on hit to cause uncontrollable bleeding. Drains 50 HP per second for 10 seconds. Effect cannot be stopped by standard bandages or low-tier magic.
Declan stared at the text. He read it twice to make sure he was not hallucinating.
Fifty health points a second.
His own total HP was only 100. If he accidentally cut himself with this thing, he would bleed out and die in exactly two seconds.
"This is completely broken," Declan whispered, a wide predatory smile spreading across his face.
It did not matter that his base stats were terrible. It did not matter that he was Level 1.
If he could land a single scratch on something, they were dead.
He gripped the polished handle of his mutated cleaver. He turned his back on the crying panicking players in the alleyway.
It was time to go hunting.
-----x-----
Chapter 3: [3] : The Weeping Thicket, Bleeding the Boar
Declan walked away from the spawn alley.
The system had marked a clear line on the cobblestone street with a faint blue glow. It was the border of the safe zone. Most players were huddled behind it afraid to cross.
Declan stepped over the blue line without hesitating.
The atmosphere changed immediately. The air grew colder. The fog thickened reducing his visibility to about thirty feet. The cobblestone streets gave way to dark squelching red mud and twisted dead trees.
A floating system prompt notified him of his new location.
[System Remark]
↳ Entered Area: The Weeping Thicket
↳ Warning: Level 2 to Level 5 PvE and PvP Zone. Survival rate low for beginners.
"Weeping Thicket. Catchy," Declan muttered.
He moved carefully. He kept his back slightly hunched and his eyes darted around the fog.
His +10 Cleaver was held tightly in his right hand. He knew he possessed a weapon of mass destruction but his body was still weak. A base agility of 5 meant he was not fast. A base vitality of 5 meant he could not take a hit.
He was basically a glass cannon armed with a rusty meat cleaver.
A sudden sharp scream shattered the silence.
It was a human scream filled with sheer terror. It came from somewhere to his left deep in the fog.
Declan crept toward the noise. He used the dead trees for cover trying not to make splashing sounds in the thick mud.
He peeked around a large rotting trunk.
About twenty feet away, a player was lying in the mud. Or at least what was left of a player. A massive beast was standing over the body tearing into it.
Declan held his breath.
The monster looked like a wild boar but it was the size of a small car. Its fur was made of stiff razor-sharp quills. Two massive curved tusks jutted from its lower jaw dripping with fresh blood.
[Monster Information]
↳ Feral Razor-Boar
↳ Level: 2
↳ HP: 250 / 250
The boar snorted and lifted its head from the dead player. Its beady red eyes locked onto Declan's hiding spot behind the tree.
It smelled him.
"Fuck," Declan said as he knew he was already spotted by the bear.
The Razor-Boar scraped its hooves in the mud lowering its head. Then, it charged.
It moved way faster than a creature that big had any right to. It was like a furry monster barrelling through the fog snapping small branches in its path.
Declan's mind raced. He had 100 HP. If those tusks hit him, he would instantly be ripped in half.
He did not try to block. He did not try to stand his ground.
He threw himself sideways into the mud with everything he had.
The Boar rushed past him in a blur of muscle and razor fur. The wind of its passing whipped Declan's face. It crashed into the rotting tree Declan had been hiding behind shattering the trunk into splinters with a deafening crack.
The beast shook its head and turned around to face Declan again.
Declan was on his knees in the mud. His heart was hammering in his chest. "Damn. Fast. It is really fast."
The Boar squealed and was angry now. It charged a second time.
Declan did not dive away. This time, he forced himself to wait.
Closer. Closer.
When the tusks were inches from his chest, Declan twisted his torso violently. The boar grazed his side and the razor-sharp fur sliced through his cheap burlap tunic cutting a line across his ribs.
[Biological State]
↳ HP: -15
Declan gritted his teeth against the pain. As the boar's massive flank slid past him, Declan gripped his cleaver with both hands and slashed outward.
Schwing.
The crimson edge of the +10 Cleaver bit into the boar's thick hide. It was not a deep cut. It was just a shallow scrape along its back leg.
Declan scrambled backward putting distance between them as the Boar turned around.
The Boar looked fine. It prepared to charge a third time.
Then, the mutation activated.
[System Remark]
↳ Trait Activated: Hemorrhage
The shallow cut on the boar's leg burst open.
A geyser of dark blood sprayed into the air.
The Boar shrieked in absolute agony. Its health bar plummeted.
[Biological State]
↳ HP: 200 / 250
↳ HP: 150 / 250
The beast tried to run at Declan but its back leg gave out. It crashed into the mud thrashing violently. Blood was pouring out of the tiny wound like a busted fire hydrant. The red mud turned completely crimson.
[Biological State]
↳ HP: 100 / 250
↳ HP: 50 / 250
↳ HP: 0 / 250
It took exactly five seconds. The massive beast let out one final gurgling squeal and went completely limp.
Silence returned to the Weeping Thicket save for the sound of rain hitting the muddy ground.
Declan stood up slowly and panted. He looked at the giant dead monster then looked down at his clean sharp cleaver.
"Wtf," Declan chuckled and wiped sweat from his forehead. "That is just cheating."
A flurry of system notifications flooded his vision.
[System Remark]
↳ Feral Razor-Boar Killed!
↳ Experience Points Gained: 150
↳ Level Up!
↳ Level Up!
↳ You are now Level 3.
↳ Stat Points Available: 10
Declan smiled. Level 3 from a single kill. That was the benefit of taking down something higher level alone.
He walked over to the boar's massive corpse. As he got close, the body began to dissolve into blue digital light. It left behind two items resting in the bloody mud.
[System Remark]
↳ Origin Points +25
↳ Item dropped: Tattered Trench Coat
Declan picked up the coat. It was long, dark gray, and full of holes. It smelled like wet dog but it was better than his ripped burlap tunic.
[Item Information]
↳ Name: Tattered Trench Coat
↳ Tier: Scavenged
↳ Defense: 2 to 4
↳ Description: Barely keeps the rain off.
Offers minimal protection.
Declan slipped the coat on. It was a little big but it felt good.
He opened his status screen to check his balance.
[System Resources]
↳ Origin Points: 25
He looked at the trench coat he was wearing.
He had 25 points. Enhancing this to +10 would cost exactly 10 points.
He had a weapon that could kill a god if it scratched them. Now, he needed to make sure he did not die before he could swing it.
"System," Declan said as he touched the fabric of the coat. "Enhance the Trench Coat ten times."
-----x-----