In the century since the Great Anchoring, the world hadn't just stabilized; it had regressed into a state hauntingly similar to the early 21st century. The grand "Update" I had initiated hadn't created a utopia; it had simply handed the keys of reality back to the bankers, the politicians, and the CEOs.
Money was once again the blood of the world. People spent their lives chasing Yuan, dollars, and credits. Religion had returned to its traditional roots—ornate temples and cathedrals filled with people praying for health or wealth, unaware that the "gods" they petitioned were actually just dormant, pressurized pockets of the very air they breathed.
My family, the Li family, were the "Middle Status." We weren't struggling for food like the "Un-Syncs" in the slums, but we were one medical emergency or one market crash away from losing everything. We lived in a standard three-bedroom apartment in Sector 4, paid our taxes, attended the local temple on holidays, and obsessed over my grades. It was a life of quiet, stable, and utterly mundane desperation.
The Encounter at the Archive
The Old Archive was no longer a sacred site; it was "Prime Real Estate" currently tied up in a zoning dispute. I slipped past the chain-link fences and the cheap, commercial security cameras that patrolled the perimeter.
[QUEST PROGRESS: 65%]
[DETECTION RADIUS: MINIMIZED]
I reached the center of the ruins, where a single, ancient stone vault remained untouched amidst the trash and construction debris. But I wasn't alone.
Standing in the center of the clearing was a girl. She looked like she had stepped off a private jet from a different planet. She wore a high-collared coat of shifting iridescent silk—custom-tailored luxury that cost more than my father's annual salary. Her hair was pinned back with a barrette made of genuine, non-synthetic sapphire.
She wasn't looking at the ruins. She was staring at a handheld device that looked like a piece of polished obsidian—a high-end Geological Surveyor used by top-tier mining conglomerates.
"You're not a security guard," she said, not looking up. Her voice had the effortless, polished authority of the ultra-rich. "And you're definitely not a squatter. You're too... balanced."
"I could say the same about you," I replied, stepping out of the shadows. "Though, I suspect your family owns the permit to be here. My family just pays the taxes that fund the police who keep people like me out."
She finally looked up. Her eyes were sharp and held a faint violet hue—a sign of Genetic Calibration, a luxury reserved for the families at the top of the food chain to ensure their heirs were born "perfect."
"My name is Lin Yue," she said.
My heart did that strange, cold skip. Lin. The surname of the family that owned Lin-Gong International, the conglomerate that controlled 40% of the city's energy sector and half the real estate. She was the daughter of the man who effectively owned the ground I was standing on.
"I'm Li Ren," I said. "Just a student."
"A student who just walked through a motion-sensor field without triggering a single light," she noted, a small, dangerous smile playing on her lips. "Tell me, Li Ren, why does my surveyor show a 'Dead Zone' whenever you're within ten meters of it? No vibrations, no electromagnetic noise. Just... silence."
I froze. She was looking at the world through the lens of a billion-dollar data stream. To her, the world wasn't a living thing; it was an asset.
"The ground is settling," I said lamely, falling back on my father's engineering jargon.
"Don't lie. My father thinks there's a new energy source buried here. Something 'Ancient' but highly profitable," she gestured to the obsidian device. "My family wants to 'Extract' it. But every time I get close to the source, the readings smooth out... as if the earth is hiding from me."
She walked toward me, the air around her smelling of high-altitude ozone and expensive tea. "You're not just a student. You're the reason our exploratory drilling in this sector keeps hitting 'Empty' pockets. You're fixing the leaks before we can find them."
[WARNING: SYSTEM OVERLAY OVERLAP]
[ANOMALY IDENTIFIED: LIN YUE POSSESSES 'OBSERVER' STATUS]
I realized then that the "Great Anchoring" had created a world that the Lins had monetized. My "System" saw a world needing balance; her family saw a resource needing a meter.
"The world is stable, Lin Yue," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "Why is your family looking for 'manifestations'? Isn't the peace enough?"
"Peace is just another word for a flat market, Li Ren," she whispered. "My father wants to move the world forward. He wants to find the 'Key' to the old power to jumpstart the next industrial revolution. And I think... I think you're the one holding it."