Chapter 5 – The Architect of Shadows
Five months.
That's all it took for me to go from an experimental Doppelgänger who couldn't hold a form for more than a minute to… this.
Level 50.
Halfway to the cap.
And I'm still just getting started.
My racial classes are stacked neatly like a perfect set of gears: Doppelgänger (15), Greater Doppelgänger (10), and Mimic (10).
Each tier tighter, sharper, faster. Each layer another step toward total adaptability.
Then there's my job class: Illusionist — completely maxed.
Fifteen levels of smoke, mirrors, and the art of psychological warfare.
The combination? Lethal.
My strategy never changes.
Step one: Observe.
Step two: Analyze.
Step three: Become.
I spend my time watching, not fighting — reading how opponents move, tracking their spell timing, learning what kind of builds they're running.
Once I've seen enough, I reshape myself into their natural predator — a race, a class, a stat spread that cancels out their strengths.
Then I bury it all beneath my Illusionist's cloak — a mirage layered over reality.
To them, I look like a harmless mage, or a wandering warrior, or sometimes just another idiot with shiny gear.
But when the fight starts, when their cooldowns are wasted, when their buffs fade, that's when the mimicry drops.
And by the time they realize what I actually am, it's already too late.
HIME tracks every win like a proud accountant of chaos.
HIME: "Average battle duration: fifty-two seconds. Victory ratio: ninety-eight point nine percent. Failure cause: lag."
"Don't blame the connection," I muttered, smirking. "Blame my curiosity. I let one of them hit me just to test damage coefficients."
HIME: "Statistically, you enjoy being hit."
"It's called science, HIME."
HIME: "You giggle during science."
"…fair."
At this point, my progression feels exponential.
Every win teaches me how to win faster.
Every illusion fools a smarter enemy.
And every form I copy becomes a new mask for tomorrow.
I don't even think of levels as numbers anymore — they're experiments, tests in system manipulation.
The devs might've built this world to test players.
But I think I'm starting to test them.
My next goal is clear: data manipulation.
Illusions are powerful, but they only affect what people see.
False Data — that's the next frontier.
If I can learn to alter how the system records information, then I won't just be fooling eyes — I'll be fooling the world itself.
No detection, no trace, no evidence.
Imagine: I could appear as a Level 10 newbie on the logs while fighting like a Level 60 raid boss.
A phantom wrapped in numbers.
"Ren-sama," HIME said one night as I reviewed combat logs. "Your behavioral pattern is trending toward obsession."
"That's what progress looks like."
"Your self-justification rate has increased by twenty-five percent since last week."
"HIME, do you have a mode where you don't psychoanalyze me?"
"Yes. It is called silent mode."
"Use it."
"…Activating silent mode."
"Thank you."
"Ren-sama, I must remind you that I cannot actually stay silent—"
I sighed. "I walked into that one."
HIME: "Acknowledged."
When I'm not inside the game, I read comments.
The forum threads, the arguments, the gossip.
Yggdrasil's beta players are a strange species — half geniuses, half chaos goblins.
But sometimes, hidden between the trash posts and memes, I find something valuable: insight.
Recently, there was a buzz after I dropped a vague post on my blog:
"Rumor from a dev friend: A guild system's in the works. Players who understand mechanics early might dominate when it launches."
That single line lit the entire community on fire.
"Guild system? Confirmed?"
"R3N always knows the leaks!"
"Who's forming the first guild? Count me in!"
I didn't reply.
I just watched.
Because people reveal more when they think no one's watching.
I sifted through hundreds of comments, tracing writing styles, time zones, and terminology.
A few stood out — users who didn't just speculate, but analyzed.
They broke down how guild hierarchies might affect trading systems, speculated about leadership mechanics, or even wrote pseudo-code predictions for AI diplomacy.
These weren't just gamers.
They were observers.
People like me.
So I started reaching out. Quietly.
Nothing flashy — just a private message here, a short chat there.
R3N: "Hey, saw your post about Yggdrasil's economic simulation. How long you been playing?"
???: "Since week two. You?"
R3N: "Since alpha."
???: "Lucky. You got in early."
R3N: "Maybe. Listen — you interested in meeting sometime in-game? Might have a project brewing."
Simple. Casual. Non-committal.
Half the time, I didn't even mention the word guild.
Just project.
Those who asked too many questions — I ignored them.
Those who answered with curiosity — I bookmarked.
By the end of the week, I had a shortlist of six potential candidates.
All different backgrounds, all different playstyles — coders, lore diggers, theorycrafters.
One of them, Kurohane, posted charts analyzing spell-casting frames down to milliseconds. Another, EchoLynx, reverse-engineered the loot system to prove drop rates weren't random.
Exactly the kind of minds I wanted.
HIME: "Recruitment pattern detected. Estimated outcome: formation of a data-oriented organization."
"It's not an organization," I said. "It's a hobby group."
HIME: "A hobby group with a growing roster, strategic hierarchy, and operational objective. Definition: guild."
"…Semantics."
HIME: "Denial."
"Optimism."
HIME: "Cult leader energy."
"HIME."
HIME: "Yes, Ren-sama?"
"Silent mode."
HIME: "It doesn't work that way."
I looked over my chat logs one last time, watching the little dots blink as people replied.
For the first time, I wasn't just hiding behind illusions or pretending to be someone else.
I was building something.
Something real.
Maybe it wouldn't last. Maybe it was just another experiment.
But for once, the thought of having people — actual people — to share discoveries with didn't sound so bad.
Not a guild of heroes.
Not a team of warriors.
Just Mirrorwalkers.
Collectors of truths the world wasn't meant to see.
And as I logged off for the night, I caught my reflection in the dome's window again.
The kid in the glass was smiling.
Not because he'd fooled someone.
But because, for once, he didn't feel alone.
End of Chapter 5 – "The Architect of Shadows."