Time in Block 17 isn't measured in hours, but in degrees of decay.
Sixty days had passed since Barnaby's murder. Sixty days in which my brain had imposed a regime on my body that bordered on self-destruction. For a Level 0 NIL, without regeneration skills or endurance buffs, training isn't growth: it's controlled sabotage.
Every fiber of my back screamed, a choir of electrical signals I tried to archive as "excess data" while pulling myself up for the final chin-up on the warehouse's rusted beam. I wasn't training for aesthetics. I was training to transform this shell of flesh into a vector capable of countering the sector's gravity.
[INTERNAL STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS] > Muscular State: Forced hypertrophy detected.
Cortisol Level: Chronic (Alert threshold exceeded).
Probability of tendon collapse (14 days): 22%
Biological Efficiency: 68%
If the System wouldn't give me a Class, I would build a machine capable of emulating one.
Noise Management
I stepped out of the shelter to fetch water from the communal cistern. Barnaby's boots were now camouflaged under a layer of grease and caked mud. In Block 17, drawing attention is a logical error paid for with your life.
The old man's disappearance had become a ghetto urban legend. Some said he'd been eaten by a monster, others that he'd found a way to climb up. The truth lay under three meters of chemical slime in the alley behind the depot.
«Hey, Zero. You look... different.»
I stopped. Kael. He wasn't a NIL. He was an E-Rank, a "Brute" Class obtained three years ago. His skin had the texture of leather, and his eyes glowed with a faint amber light, a sign of a passive perception skill.
«Subject: Kael. Level: 12. Estimated Strength: 5x mine. Probability of survival in direct combat: 0.04%».
«It's just hunger, Kael», I replied, keeping my voice flat. «Starvation accelerates the metabolism. My body is consuming itself.»
Kael stepped closer, sniffing the air. «You smell of effort, not hunger. And those boots... they look too solid for a scrap-heap like you.»
«Took them from a corpse in Block 18», I lied. It was a structured lie: Block 18 was at war with ours; no one would check. «If you want them, you'll have to deal with the fungal infection inside. I have nothing to lose. You do.»
Kael growled but stepped back. Predator logic suggested that an enemy with "nothing to lose" is a bad investment. He let me pass.
The First Signal from the Abyss
As I headed back to the shack, the base of the Country of Oakhaven above us vibrated. It wasn't an earthquake. It was a deep sound, like glass cracking in the soul.
[SYSTEM WARNING: INSTABILITY DETECTED] > [EVENT: MICRO-RIFT OPENING — GRADE F] > [LOCATION: SECTOR Z, BLOCK 17 — EAST WING]
People began to run. The runes of the Bronze Altar in the distance turned blood red. A micro-rift: a leak that allowed dungeon fragments to bleed into our plane.
I saw a shadow projected on the wall. A Shadow Hunter (Grade F), a mass of claws and black smoke, slid out of a tear in the air, targeting Elias and his daughter. Elias threw himself in the middle, using his body as a shield and activating his weak Fatigue Resistance skill.
«Enemy Analysis: Level 5. HP: 120. Skill: Shadow Dash». «My Analysis: Level 0. HP: 45. Skill: None».
I remained motionless in the shadow, watching Elias be torn apart. Illogical. Inefficient. Pathetic. He was dying to protect a genetic investment that would be dead within the year anyway. But as the Shadow Hunter feasted on his arm, the ground jolted again.
A much more violent roar shattered the silence. From the rubble of a collapsed warehouse emerged something that didn't belong to a Grade F micro-rift.
It was a Grade D "Beast", a three-meter predator made of hypertrophic muscle and bone blades, likely escaped from a Gilded transport in the upper levels. The Shadow Hunter, terrified by the power hierarchy, dissolved instantly, leaving Elias agonizing.
The real Boss had arrived.
I gripped the sharpened rebar in my pocket. I wasn't doing it for Elias. I was doing it because a Grade D monster had a mana core. And a mana heart was the fuel my "machine" needed to jump the first step of my three-year plan.
«One thousand days», I whispered. «Today is the sixty-first.»
I wasn't a hero. I was a parasite waiting for the right moment to steal death's banquet.