The air inside the warehouse was three times thicker than outside.
The purple light didn't come from any source—it floated in the air like mold spores. Every breath I took felt like tiny particles taking root in my lungs. The sync monitor buzzed: 14.0% → 14.2%.
"Don't stop." Shen Xingyao's voice came through the earpiece. "Level-C1 Rift Zone erosion is very weak. This increase is within safe parameters."
She walked three steps ahead of me. With each step, a silver mark appeared on the ground—like footprints, but glowing. These marks formed a line pointing deeper into the warehouse. Tang Lan was on the left, her oscillating blade dragging across the floor, the grating sound of metal on concrete making my teeth ache, but those purple spores actively avoided the blade, as if repelled by an invisible force field.
Zhou Fang was on the right, jammer in hand, not activated. He hummed "The Coolest Ethnic Wind" off-key—way off-key. Gu Yan was at the rear, tactical tablet floating before his chest, the scrolling data streams casting his face green.
"Target location." He adjusted his glasses, "First basement floor, former teachers' lounge. Three Rule Echoes, currently gnawing on Rift Zone core fragments."
"Gnawing?" I asked quietly.
"Like you gnaw on math homework." Zhou Fang chuckled, "They eat rules as food. The more they eat, the stronger they grow."
We descended to the first basement. The stairwell walls were covered in text. Not graffiti—natural Rift Zone rule engravings, like circuits on a PCB. I reached to touch them, but Shen Xingyao yanked my hand back.
"Don't touch." She said, "These characters are alive. They'll remember your fingerprint."
"What happens if they remember?"
"Next time you enter a Rift Zone, they'll prioritize attacking you." She released my hand, "An adaptoid's fingerprint, in the Rift Zone, is called 'admin privileges.'"
The first basement was larger than expected, like a hollowed-out air raid shelter. At its center, three Rule Echoes surrounded a floating purple crystal—fist-sized, pulsing like a heartbeat. The Echoes' bodies were translucent, composed of twisted Chinese characters. Squinting, I could make out phrases like "No Entry," "High Voltage Danger," "Bear Consequences."
"They're eating safety warning signs." I quipped.
"Means this warehouse used to be a chemical plant." Gu Yan's tablet pulled up data, "Abandoned in 1987, original site had a chemical leak, three deaths. Rift Zones favor places where people died."
Tang Lan's oscillating blade was already raised: "Who moves?"
"I will." Shen Xingyao stepped forward, fingers tapping in mid-air.
Six silver marks materialized around the Echoes, locking them and the core crystal at hexagonal vertices. She snapped her fingers. The marks contracted simultaneously. Space twisted like a wrung towel. The Echoes emitted silent screams, bodies crushed into paper sheets.
"Three seconds." She said flatly.
Three seconds later, the Echoes collapsed into light points. The core crystal dropped to the ground, rolling in circles.
Zhou Fang walked over, sealing the crystal in a special container: "Mission complete, recovery successful. Time elapsed..." he checked his watch, "Nine minutes seventeen seconds. Half an hour faster than projected."
"Because Lin Jin didn't cause chaos." On Gu Yan's tactical tablet, my stick figure icon stayed inside the shield range the whole time, "Jin's Chaos coefficient zero. Rare."
I was about to relax when Shen Xingyao's earpiece suddenly emitted piercing static.
She pressed the earpiece, listened for two seconds, her face changing: "Administration headquarters sent urgent notice—the Rift Zone Original Faction is active nearby."
"Original Faction?" I froze, "What's that?"
"A bunch of lunatics." Zhou Fang's smile vanished, "They think Rift Zones are divine gifts, that Administration cleanup is blasphemy. They specifically hunt adaptoids, use our blood to sacrifice to Rift Zones."
Gu Yan's tablet refreshed data frantically: "Detecting abnormal rule fluctuations... no, this isn't Level-C1!"
The entire first basement suddenly went dark.
The purple light vanished, replaced by thick darkness. But darkness wasn't empty—it was filled with text. Golden, glowing, wriggling like maggots. It seeped from walls, emerged from floors, dripped from ceilings.
[Welcome to the True Rift Zone]
A line of text hung in midair, elegant handwriting like some old-school calligrapher's work.
[We have waited long for you, Lin Jin]
All the blood in my body ran cold.
Shen Xingyao's spatial marks instantly flared, but this time, the light was suppressed by darkness, only illuminating two meters around us. Tang Lan's shield expanded, making glass-shattering sounds. Those golden characters struck the shield like sulfuric acid, corroding white smoke.
"Enemy attack!" She roared, "Not Echoes, living rules!"
Zhou Fang maxed out his jammer. High-frequency sound waves made the air tremble. The golden characters scattered briefly from the sonic impact but immediately re-aggregated into new sentences:
[Don't be nervous, just saying hello]
[We're curious—what does a pencil that can slash through a Level-C3 Rift Zone look like]
Five figures emerged from the darkness.
They wore deep purple robes, faces covered in metal masks. The mask eye sockets were empty—not eyes, just swirling vortexes of rotating text. The leader leaned on a cane, its tip embedded with a Rift Zone core ten times larger than the one Zhou Fang just recovered, its surface covered in eyes.
"Rift Zone Original Faction, Ninth Apostle." Shen Xingyao's voice was cold as ice, "Codename: Narrator."
"Correct, little spatial marking girl." The Narrator's voice didn't come from under the mask—it directly resonated in our minds, "But today's guest of honor isn't you."
He turned to me, empty sockets aiming at the HB pencil in my hand.
"Lin Jin, 17, secondary adaptoid, synchronization rate 14.2%." He recited my data like poetry, "Used an ordinary pencil to slash open our trial ground, youngest rule re-writer in Administration history."
"Trial ground?" I seized the keyword, "That Level-C3 classroom—you created it?"
"Clever." The Narrator applauded, metal gloves clinking, "We wanted to know how fun the Administration's new toy was. You surprised us—not a toy, but a variable."
He snapped his fingers.
The first basement space began distorting. Walls melted like wax, drooping. Ground rose, ceiling descended. We were trapped in a cube, six walls of screaming golden text.
"Rule re-writer adaptoids are rare." The Narrator said, "Rare—one every fifty years. The last one was our sect's founder. He wrote his existence into the Rift Zone's base code, achieving immortality."
"So you want me to join?" I sneered, "Gifts first, then recruitment?"
"No." The Narrator shook his head, "We want to see if you're worthy of being 'written.'"
He stamped his cane. The entire cube began contracting.
Tang Lan's shield made groaning sounds of overload. Zhou Fang's jammer directly overheated and started smoking. Gu Yan's tablet screen shattered, data streams turning to garbled code. Only Shen Xingyao's spatial marks endured, but the glow was suppressed to the limit, only protecting the small patch of ground under our feet.
"Lin Jin!" She shouted, "Rewrite rules! NOW!"
I clenched the pencil, but my fingers were rigid as stone.
Rewrite what? Space? Gravity? The Narrator's existence? My mind went blank. 47 days of training turned to waste paper at this moment. Gu Yan's models, Zhou Fang's principles, Tang Lan's tactics, Shen Xingyao's marks—all useless.
"Don't be nervous." The Narrator's voice carried a smile, "Let me teach you Lesson One: Rule rewriting isn't drawing, it's narrative."
He raised his hand. Golden text gathered at his fingertip, forming a glowing page.
"For example, I could write like this—" his finger traced across the page, "[Lin Jin's existence is suspended at this moment]."
The moment the text lit up, I felt my heart stop.
Really stopped. Not a metaphor—physical cessation. Blood ceased flowing, lungs ceased expanding, even thought froze. I saw Shen Xingyao's horrified face, saw Tang Lan's roaring mouth shape, saw Zhou Fang lunging to snatch my pencil, saw Gu Yan kneeling on the ground frantically tapping his shattered tablet.
But I couldn't move.
The Narrator walked to me, metal mask nearly pressing against my face. He extended a finger, wanting to touch my pupil.
"How beautiful this silver-white is." He marveled, "This is the color of adaptoids, the mongrel hue of rules mixed with humanity."
His fingertip was one centimeter from my eye.
Then, I heard a voice.
Not the earpiece, not my mind—from inside my bones, like bone marrow grinding.
[Lin Jin, don't sleep, Teacher Zhang's calling you]
It was my own voice. Seventeen-year-old, high school senior, casually written during chemistry class daydreaming.
The pencil scorched my hand. Cracks on the barrel lit simultaneously, silvery-white light flowing like blood. I moved—not my body, my consciousness. Within the Narrator's rule, I wrote a new line:
[The priority of suspension is lower than unfinished homework]
On the golden text page, a gray lead scratch appeared.
The Narrator froze.
"What...?" He retreated a step, the vortexes in his sockets spinning madly.
I gasped for air. My heartbeat restarted, blood ramming through vessels, lungs pumping like bellows. I staggered back, crashed into Shen Xingyao. She immediately used her mark to pull me behind the shield's center.
"What did you do?" she asked in a low voice.
"I..." I coughed out blood. It was silvery-white, "I turned his rule into my rule."
The Narrator fell silent.
Then, he laughed. A hoarse laugh from under the metal mask, like two stones grinding.
"Excellent." He said, "Truly excellent."
He stamped his cane once. The cube vanished. The first basement returned to normal. The purple light reappeared. The Rule Echoes' core crystal lay quietly in Zhou Fang's container.
"Lin Jin, our invitation stands long-term." The Narrator turned. The five purple-robed figures receded into darkness with him, "When you grow weary of the Administration's 'protection,' weary of math homework and sync monitoring, come find us. We'll reserve you a narrative position in the Rift Zone's deepest layer."
His voice gradually faded, finally turning into a line of golden text carved on the warehouse wall:
[B-07 Squad, until we meet again]
[Especially you, Pencil Boy]
The text flashed three times, then vanished.
The first basement returned to dead silence.
The five of us stood there, no one speaking. Tang Lan's shield slowly dissipated. Zhou Fang's jammer smoked blue. Gu Yan's tablet went completely black. Shen Xingyao's marks dimmed to nothing.
Only I, clutching that HB pencil, its crack deepened another inch, silvery-white light pulsing like a heartbeat.
"Mission complete." Shen Xingyao finally spoke, voice hoarse, "Recover the core. Retreat."
"Wait." Gu Yan suddenly said, picking up a shard of his shattered tablet, still bearing the garbled data from moments ago, "Look at this."
On the shard, a line of data contaminated by golden text:
[Observation Target: Lin Jin]
[Synchronization Rate: 14.2% → 17.8%]
[Status: Marked by Narrator]
My synchronization rate had spiked 3.6% in that instant.
"Per Administration regulations." Shen Xingyao looked at me, silvery-white pupils showing emotion for the first time—concern, "Adaptoids marked by the Original Faction require one month of isolation review."
"Review what?"
"Review whether you've been contaminated." She turned away, no longer looking at me, "Lin Jin, starting tomorrow, you train alone. B-07 Squad, dismissed."
"What?" Zhou Fang panicked, "He just saved us!"
"Precisely because he saved us, he must be reviewed." Gu Yan adjusted his glasses, voice terrifyingly calm, "The Original Faction's rule contamination is more insidious than Rift Zone erosion. He just rewrote the Narrator's rule, meaning the Narrator could also rewrite his existence."
Tang Lan's oscillating blade remained in hand, tip pointing at the ground, "I object. B-07 doesn't abandon teammates."
"This isn't abandonment." Shen Xingyao's voice raised a notch, "This is protection. For him, for us."
She walked toward the warehouse exit, back rigid as an iron plate.
I stood there, clutching the HB pencil. Its crack had extended to the end, as if one more squeeze would shatter it completely.
"Lin Jin." Zhou Fang walked over, wanting to speak, but said nothing. Just shoved the overloaded jammer back into my hand, "I'll return it fixed."
"Lin Jin." Gu Yan also walked over, handed me the shard of his tactical tablet, "Keep it. It has your first live combat data."
"Lin Jin." Tang Lan walked over last. She unclipped her shield generator, inserted it into my belt buckle, "Borrowing this. During review, no one will protect you."
Then they all left. Following Shen Xingyao, out of the first basement, out of the abandoned warehouse, onto the helicopter.
The cabin door closed. Rotor blades thundered.
I was left alone in the first basement, clutching a pencil, jammer, tablet shard, and shield generator—synchronization rate 17.8% flashing red on my bracelet.
On the warehouse wall, the Narrator's final line slowly reappeared:
[Pen and ink cannot replace pencil and will]
[We'll wait for you, Homework Guy]
I lowered my head. In the dust on the ground, I wrote with my pencil:
[Lin Jin, 17, high school senior, Rift Zone Administration temp—FIRED (temporarily)]
The letters were silvery-white, glowing faintly.
Then I laughed, laughing uglier than crying.
Because just now, I realized something:
My first mission was complete.
But my story had only just begun.