Gravity dumped Derek onto the rotting floorboards of his apartment.
He landed hard and the impact jarred his broken hand and his torn hamstring simultaneously.
He bit down on his lip so hard he tasted copper. He suppressed a scream that would have definitely woken up his miserable landlord down the hall.
He lay there for a long moment and stared at the water stains on his ceiling.
The rhythmic thumping of the factory presses outside had returned. The smoggy light of the Midland Republic filtered through the grimy window.
Everything was exactly as he had left it. The eviction notice was still sitting on his wobbly table.
The Zenith Trials had ripped him out of reality, forced him to fight for his life, and dumped him back without a single second passing in the real world.
But the agony was real.
His breathing was ragged and his chest heaved as if he had just sprinted a marathon.
His stamina was draining rapidly and a deep pervasive exhaustion sank into his bones. His heart pounded wildly against his ribs.
The pain in his muscles was not just from the physical damage. It was an internal burning.
'Why am I so tired?' he thought as his vision blurred. 'The fight is over.'
He forced his mind to focus on the golden interface still lingering in his peripheral vision.
There in small text at the bottom corner of his status window, he saw the problem.
[Active Multipliers]
↳ Perception: 10x
↳ Adrenaline: 5x
↳ Base Breathing: 20x
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Derek groaned.
In his panic to survive the wasteland, he had passively amped his perception and bodily functions to keep track of the ghouls. He had forgotten to turn them off.
His body was literally running itself into the ground like an engine redlining without coolant.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his fractured hand, he focused his intent on the system.
'Dial everything down. Set all active multipliers to 1x.'
Instantly, the pounding in his chest slowed. The burning drain on his stamina halted.
The world lost a bit of its sharp hyper-focused edge and returned to the dull standard reality he was used to. The overwhelming relief was worth it.
He propped himself up against his bedframe with his right leg stretched out stiffly in front of him.
He looked at the items resting on his lap.
A small parchment scroll tied with a blue ribbon. A glass vial containing a thick glowing grey fluid. And a sharp jagged piece of dark keratin.
He picked up the parchment scroll with his good left hand.
[Agility Boost Scroll]
↳ Grade: F-Rank
↳ Functionality: Permanently increases Base Agility by 0.1.
He did not hesitate. He pulled the blue ribbon with his teeth.
The scroll immediately dissolved into a stream of warm blue light that flowed directly into his chest.
A pleasant tingling sensation washed through his body. It specifically targeted his muscles and nervous system.
It was a stark contrast to the brutal tearing force of the Multiplier.
He checked his status screen. His Base Agility had moved from a pathetic 1.0 to 1.1.
It was a fractional increase. But as Derek clenched his good fist, he felt a subtle difference.
His reflexes felt just a fraction sharper. His body felt slightly lighter.
A theory began to crystallize in his mind.
The 10,000x Multiplier was a trap if used recklessly. It amplified output, but if the output exceeded the capacity of the vessel, his body broke.
A 100x kick tore a 1.0 Agility hamstring. But what if his Base Agility was 10.0? What if his Base Physique was 50.0?
"The multiplier is the engine," Derek whispered to the empty room. "But I need to build a better chassis."
Raising his base stats is the only way his body will ever safely endure the higher multipliers.
He could not just spam 1,000x attacks. He needed a foundation. He needed to theory-craft his survival.
Curious about how to get more of these stat scrolls, Derek mentally navigated the blue interface. He looked for an information hub.
He found a tab labeled.
[Zenith Network]
As he activated it, his vision was flooded with a massive semi-transparent holographic overlay.
It was a sprawling digital ecosystem divided into Forums, Trading Platforms, and Public Chat channels.
The sheer volume of text scrolling past was staggering. There were thousands, maybe millions of other Survivors connected to this network.
Derek opened the top pinned thread on the general forum.
[Beginners Guide to Not Dying in Terra Trials]
He skimmed the text rapidly and learned two vital world-altering rules.
First, time on Terra completely stopped while a Survivor was inside a Zenith Trial dungeon. That explained why the factory presses had not missed a beat.
Second, and more importantly, non-system items could not be brought into dungeons. You had to use what the System gave you, or craft items from dungeon materials.
He closed the forum and shifted to the Trading Platform. It functioned like a global auction house.
Survivors were buying and selling weapons, armor, and most importantly, Evolution Catalysts.
He looked at the glass vial in his lap. The Ghoul Marrow.
According to the forums, Evolution Catalysts were the key to awakening secondary class paths or mutating base skills.
He desperately needed to keep it for his own growth if he was going to survive his next mandatory trial.
But then his eyes drifted to the yellow eviction notice on the table.
Three thousand credits. He was going to be thrown out into the toxic streets of Sector 4 tomorrow.
What good was an Evolution Catalyst if he died of exposure or gang violence in the real world before his next trial even started?
He looked at the second drop. The Ghoul Fingernail.
It was a secondary drop categorized as a basic crafting material for F-rank weapons.
Derek navigated to the sell tab on the Trading Platform. He scanned the listings for Ghoul Fingernails.
His jaw dropped!
Because it was a material used to craft low-level poison daggers, desperate mid-tier Survivors were paying exorbitant amounts of real-world currency to bypass the grind of beginner dungeons.
The System apparently handled currency conversion seamlessly and linked directly to global banking networks.
Derek set up an anonymous auction listing for the Ghoul Fingernail. He priced it at the market average.
[Item Trading]
↳ Item: Ghoul Fingernail
↳ Grade: F-Rank Crafting Material
↳ Buyout Price: 50,000 Midland Credits
He hit confirm. He did not even have time to take a breath before a system notification chimed.
[Transaction Complete.]
[50,000 Midland Credits have been deposited into your linked terrestrial account.]
Derek scrambled to grab his beaten-up datapad off the floor with his left hand.
He logged into his bank account. His balance which had sat at a depressing 14 credits for the last two weeks now read 50,014.
He stared at the number. A hysterical disbelieving laugh escaped his lips.
Fifty thousand credits!
He had just solved his real-world financial crisis in an instant by selling a piece of monster garbage.
He could pay off his scumbag landlord, buy real non-synthetic food, and maybe even get his shattered hand and torn leg looked at by a back-alley cyber-doc.
The Zenith Trials were a meat grinder. They were a horrifying mandatory death sentence for the weak.
But as Derek looked at the 50,000 credits, and then back up to the glowing blue interface of his Multiplier system, a cold pragmatic resolve settled over him.
The Trials were lethal, yes. But they were also his way out of the slums.
He just had to make sure he built a body strong enough to handle the power he wielded. Before he ended up like the ghouls in the wasteland.