The sun set over xxxxxxxxxxx like a bruised mango, casting long, jagged shadows across the dusty streets. The stadium lights were still humming, a low-frequency buzz that felt like a migraine in the making. Inside the modest apartment Harish shared with his family, the air was thick with the scent of fried onions and a lingering, metallic ozone.
Harish was sitting at the wooden dining table, hunched over a plate. He wasn't looking at a textbook or a blueprint. He was focused entirely on a thick slice of Black Forest cake, his absolute favorite. The whipped cream was slightly melting in the Indian heat, and he was meticulously using a fork to separate the cherry filling from the chocolate shavings, savoring the "efficiency" of the sugar intake.
"Harish? Why are you home so early? And why is there gold dust on your eyebrows?"
Kaelen stood in the doorway, her Porcelain Mask discarded on the sofa, her violet eyes narrowed with a lethal combination of suspicion and exhaustion. She looked at her brother—his hair messy, his "Astra Staff" jumpsuit stained with what looked like gold glitter, and his face beaded with a sweat that shouldn't exist on a man whose only job was supposed to be guarding a cash register.
"Oh, hey Kaelen," Harish mumbled through a mouthful of sponge cake and cream. He quickly tried to wipe his forehead with a napkin, but only succeeded in smearing a flake of matte-gold nanobot residue across his temple. "I... uh... I was just experimenting. You know how the shop roof is leaking? I was trying to see if this new metallic sealant I found in the scrap heap could double as a heat conductor. It's a... home maintenance project. Very boring."
"Home maintenance," Kaelen repeated, her voice flat as a tombstone. She stepped into the kitchen, her movements fluid and dangerous. "Funny. I just came from the Sovereign Pits. I saw a man in gold armor move exactly like you do when you're trying to find the TV remote without getting off the couch. Same center of gravity. Same 'I'm only doing this because I have to' energy."
"Coincidence," Harish said, stabbing a cherry. "Lots of people have bad posture. It's an epidemic in the retail sector."
Kaelen didn't buy it. She felt the lingering traces of "Zero-Logic" in the air—the same reality-bending pressure she'd felt in Arena 7. She decided to conduct a "Home Audit."
"Whoops!" Kaelen cried, her voice mock-surprised.
As she walked past the dining table toward the fridge, she "tripped" over the leg of a chair. But as she fell, she didn't just tumble; she channeled the Plum Blossom Seventh Form: Petal-Storm Fang. Her hand blurred, a strike aimed directly at the center of Harish's chest that carried enough force to dent a reinforced steel vault. It was an S-Rank move disguised as a clumsy flail.
Harish's internal "Auditor" HUD screamed. [Threat Detected. Impact Velocity: 42m/s. Point of Impact: Sternum. Recommendation: Tactical Parry.]
He didn't think. He couldn't afford to let his cake fly off the plate. He grabbed his metal fork and, with a flick of his wrist that used the exact geometric leverage of the Sun-Breaker's Pivot, he caught the edge of Kaelen's palm.
CLINK.
The fork met Kaelen's hand. The tines of the fork bent into a jagged "U" shape, but the force of her strike was diverted sideways, missing Harish by a hair and instead punching a clean hole through the back of the wooden chair.
"Woah! Kaelen, watch it!" Harish yelled, his voice cracking in a high-pitched, "unskilled" panic. He flailed his arms, intentionally knocking his cake plate onto the floor to make it look like he was overwhelmed. "You almost killed me! Why are you falling like a bag of bricks? My favorite cake is ruined! Look at the cream! It's all over the floor!"
Kaelen stared at her palm, then at the bent fork. "You parried me. With a dessert fork. Harish, that was a Seventh Form strike. Even a Master would have needed to flare their mana to stop that."
"I didn't parry anything!" Harish squeaked, wiping a smudge of chocolate from his nose, his hoodie clinging to his back in a damp, nervous mess. "I was just trying to keep my cake balanced! I have very high sugar-retention reflexes! It's a survival trait for people who live with sisters who 'trip' into their snacks!"
The next afternoon, the scene shifted from the cramped kitchen to the apex of luxury. The rooftop of the Grand Lotus in xxxxxxxxxxx had been transformed into a fortress of opulence. Vikas Agnihotri sat at a long table draped in Kashmiri silk, his face a mask of desperate hospitality.
Below, in the hotel lobby, the "commoners" were whispering.
"Did you see who just went up?" whispered a bellhop to a receptionist. "It's that intern from Astra Industries. The one who looks like he buys his clothes from a roadside stall. And he's with that weird guy in the oversized hoodie who smells like old ramen and fear."
"I heard the Agnihotris are trying to bribe dollar," the receptionist replied, her eyes wide. "They say the food upstairs costs more than our annual salaries. Saffron-infused water, gold-leafed paneer... and the intern just walked in carrying a plastic bag with a half-eaten packet of biscuits."
"It's a power move," the bellhop whispered. "Or he's just actually that poor. Look at the Agnihotri stocks, man. They're still bleeding. If they can't win over dollar today, the clan is going to be selling their jade thrones on the black market by Monday."
On the rooftop, the air was thick with the scent of premium sandalwood and Shahi Paneer. Vikas gestured to the gold-plated thalis.
"Welcome," Vikas said, his voice strained and brittle. "I am glad the 'Assistant' to the Great Auditor could join us. I hope this meal is more to your liking than... dented biscuits and cheap street sweets."
Harish, wearing a wrinkled shirt that he'd clearly slept in, sat down. Beside him, Takeo was squinting at a piece of Tandoori Malai Broccoli as if it were a sentient alien life form. Takeo's hoodie was pulled low, his eyes darting around the rooftop, avoiding the giant mirrors that decorated the space.
"Vikas-ji, thank you," Harish said, picking up a silver spoon and inspecting his reflection in it. "Dollar couldn't make it. He's currently... uh... auditing the humidity levels in the cold storage. He sent me and Takeo, our 'Technical Consultant,' to handle the preliminary food safety and financial negotiations."
Takeo poked a piece of paneer with a fork, his hand trembling slightly. "Master—I mean, Mr. Intern," Takeo whispered, his voice loud enough for Vikas to hear. "The molecular density of this cheese is inconsistent. The fat-to-protein ratio suggests the cow was stressed by high-decibel classical music and overpriced grass. It is... logically offensive. It's a 4/10 on the structural integrity scale. I wouldn't even use this to plug a leak in the shop."
Vikas's eye twitched. "That paneer was hand-pressed by hereditary artisans in the Agnihotri private estates! Each block costs five thousand rupees!"
Harish took a small bite, chewed thoughtfully, and shrugged. "Vikas-ji, dollar told me to tell you: paying five thousand rupees for paneer is a 400% markup on basic amino acids. It's financially inefficient. He suggests you stick to the local dairy near the bus stand; the cows there have better 'spirit-alignment' because they aren't forced to listen to Mozart while they're being milked."
Vikas leaned forward, his hands trembling with a mixture of rage and terror. Under the table, he gripped a GSC Neural-Dampener—a device the size of a smartphone that emitted a high-frequency pulse designed to disrupt the mana-circuits of anyone within five feet. If Harish was dollar, his "Radiant" aura would automatically flare up to counter the dampener, exposing his true power level.
"You speak a lot for an intern," Vikas hissed, his teeth gritted. "Tell me, does dollar ever talk about his... origins? Or perhaps he shares his techniques with you while you're sweeping the floors?"
Vikas pressed the button. A silent, invisible wave of neural interference washed over the table.
Harish felt it instantly. It felt like a dull, annoying itch at the back of his skull, like a mosquito buzzing in a dark room. [Threat Detected: Neural-Dampener Pulse. Intensity: Level 2. Recommendation: Deploy Logic-Shield or Short-Circuit Source.]
Instead of a shield, Harish "accidentally" dropped his silver spoon onto his lap.
"Oh, butterfingers! My coordination is terrible today!" Harish exclaimed, looking genuinely embarrassed.
As he leaned down under the table to retrieve it, his hand moved with the speed of a solar flare. He didn't use a "Skill." He used a Radiant Finger-Flick, sending a tiny spark of pure physical kinetic torque directly into the dampener's battery housing.
[ZAP-SPARK!]
The device in Vikas's hand suddenly became white-hot. He let out a muffled yelp, dropping the dampener, which let out a pathetic puff of blue, ozone-scented smoke.
"Oh, sorry," Harish said, popping back up with the spoon held high like a trophy. "I think your table has a static electricity problem. High-altitude rooftops, you know? Very dry air. You should really check your grounding, Vikas-ji. It's a major safety hazard. I could report this to the Astra Safety Board. We take workplace hazards very seriously."
The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of Takeo loudly slurping his saffron-infused water, making a wet, unrefined noise that echoed off the expensive jade walls.
"So," Harish said, leaning back and looking at the "Blood-Red" stock tickers visible on the jumbotron in the distance. "About that 10% discount on 'Basic Reality' lessons. Does the Agnihotri Clan want to sign up for the introductory package, or should I offer the slot to the Peng Clan? I hear Yichen is looking for a new hobby since he can't fly anymore without getting dizzy."
Vikas looked at the smoking wreck of his five-million-rupee dampener, then at the intern who was currently picking a piece of saffron out of his teeth with a toothpick. The Agnihotri heir felt a cold, soul-deep realization dawning on him. He wasn't dealing with a man. He was dealing with a glitch in the world's accounting software.
"We'll... we'll take the lessons," Vikas whispered, his pride finally bisectioned and laid bare.
"Great," Harish smiled, standing up and grabbing a handful of free mints from the crystal bowl on the way out. "I'll send you the invoice. It'll include a 'clumsy intern' surcharge and a 'ruined cake' emotional compensation fee. Spoons are heavy, and sugar is the only thing keeping me sane in this economy."
As Harish and Takeo walked out of the Grand Lotus, a group of high-level cultivators from the Murim Unorthodox were loitering near the entrance, their eyes fixed on the "Astra Intern."
"That's him," whispered a man with purple skin and three eyes, his middle eye twitching with dark intent. "The one the rumors spoke of. The 'Anchor' of dollar. If we can't kill the Knight in the arena, we kill the clerk in the street."
"Wait," whispered his companion, a woman smelling of forbidden poisons and wet moss. "Look at his walk. He just stepped over a puddle without looking, but his shoes didn't get a single drop of water on them. His rhythm... it matches the rotation of the Earth. It's too steady."
"You're imagining things," the three-eyed man growled, reaching for a poisoned needle. "He's just an intern who eats too much cake. Get the darts ready."
Harish, hearing the heartbeat of the assassins from fifty yards away through the concrete vibrations, sighed and turned to Takeo. "Hey Takeo, do you remember if we have enough 'Industrial Lubricant' left at the shop? I have a feeling the floor is going to get very slippery tonight. We should probably mop before we close."