The outskirts of Novice Village 109 were a rolling expanse of idyllic green plains.
Hundreds of players were currently chasing after low level slimes and horned rabbits with rusty swords and wooden clubs. The fields looked like a disorganized chaotic medieval warzone fought entirely by toddlers.
Sebastian walked right past them. He didn't draw his weapon because he didn't have one! He just kept walking with his dark eyes fixed on the treeline in the distance.
He pulled the crumbling Basic Spark skill book from his inventory.
In The Ethereal Plane you didn't need to read the books to learn the skills. You just had to crush them.
He closed his fist and the book shattered into a cloud of red glowing particles that absorbed directly into his skin.
[Skill Learned]
↳ Basic Spark (Tier 0 Fire Magic)
↳ Level: 1 / 10
↳ Cost: 5 Mana
↳ Damage: 5 to 10
↳ Proficiency: 0 / 100
Sebastian pulled up his stat sheet. He had 100 maximum mana. That meant he could cast the spell twenty times before needing to sit down and rest.
Normally reaching level 2 of the skill required 100 successful casts. A normal player would spend hours just grinding this one pathetic spell on slimes to see a minor 2 percent increase in damage.
He reached the edge of the plains and stepped into the shadow of the Wailing Woods.
The atmosphere shifted immediately. The bright cheerful sunlight was choked out by towering twisted pines.
The ambient music faded into an eerie unsettling silence. It was broken only by the snapping of twigs and the low guttural growls of predators.
This was a Level 5 zone. New players were explicitly warned by the Village Chief to avoid it until they had a full party and decent gear.
Sebastian was Level 1. He was wearing starter cloth and was utterly alone!
He stopped in a small clearing. It was time to test the Nexus Glitch.
He didn't bother looking for a target yet. He raised his right hand and extended his thumb and middle finger. He channeled 5 points of his mana into his fingertips and snapped.
A tiny pathetic ember no larger than a match strike popped into existence above his thumb. It flickered weakly for half a second before fizzling out into a wisp of gray smoke.
For a moment nothing happened. The woods remained silent.
Then the system registered the action!
Sebastian's vision was violently assaulted by a cascade of overlapping system notifications. The translucent blue windows popped up so fast they sounded like a slot machine paying out a jackpot.
[Action Registered: Cast Basic Spark.]
[Nexus Glitch Activated: Proficiency x10,000.]
[Basic Spark leveled up to 10/10! Max Level Reached!]
[Evolution Requirement Met. Basic Spark evolves to Tier 1: Fireball!]
[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Fireball leveled up to 10/10! Max Level Reached!]
[Evolution Requirement Met. Fireball evolves to Tier 3: Pyroblast!]
[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Pyroblast leveled up to 10/10! Max Level Reached!]
[WARNING: Concept Threshold Breached. Magic Law Unlocked.]
[Pyroblast evolves to Conceptual Law: Forbidden Spell Solar Flare.]
Sebastian staggered back half a step. He clutched his head as the localized server data was violently downloaded directly into his cerebral cortex!
The knowledge wasn't just numbers. It was the fundamental understanding of heat and atomic friction and stellar ignition. He felt the terrifying crushing weight of a dying star settle neatly into his spell hotbar.
He opened his skill menu. He blinked away the red warning errors that the game's anti cheat system was helplessly throwing at him before being bypassed by the glitched compensation code.
[Forbidden Spell: Solar Flare (God-Tier Conceptual Law)]
↳ Level: MAX
↳ Cost: 90 Mana
↳ Damage: Immeasurable
↳ Description: You do not cast fire you command the concept of nuclear fusion. Manifests a miniature sun to incinerate all matter within the target zone.
Sebastian stared at the description. Cost 90 Mana.
He had 100. He could cast a god tier spell at level 1 with 10 mana to spare. It was so fundamentally broken that he actually let out a genuine albeit deeply unhinged laugh!
A low vibrating growl cut his laughter short.
From the thick brush surrounding the clearing six pairs of glowing red eyes emerged.
They were Demon Wolves. They were massive hulking beasts with pitch black fur and maws dripping with corrosive saliva.
They were Level 5. To them the unarmored Level 1 Drifter standing in the clearing wasn't a threat. He was a walking buffet!
The alpha wolf stepped forward. Its muscles coiled like steel springs. It bared its fangs and was ready to leap and tear Sebastian's throat out in a single bite.
Sebastian didn't draw back. He didn't adopt a defensive stance. He looked at the wolves with the same cold dead expression he reserved for the debt collectors.
"You are in the way." He whispered.
He raised his right hand again. He didn't bother aiming. He didn't need to. He allocated 90 mana from his pool and snapped his fingers.
The world went white.
There was no sound at first. The explosion was so violently sudden that it created a vacuum sucking the oxygen out of the clearing.
A sphere of pure incandescent plasma dropped from the digital sky directly onto the center of the wolf pack! It was blindingly bright and terrifyingly beautiful.
Then came the noise. It wasn't a boom. It was the localized screech of reality being torn apart!
The shockwave hit Sebastian. The spell's innate programming prevented him from taking friendly fire damage.
The heat however was visceral. The six Demon Wolves didn't howl. They didn't have time to process pain.
The moment the plasma touched them their digital flesh and bones and blood flashed into vapor. They were simply erased from the server's database!
The surrounding trees caught fire instantly. Their sap boiled and exploded like fragmentation grenades.
The earth beneath the blast radius glowed a furious molten orange. It instantly liquefied under the million degree heat.
The miniature sun vanished as quickly as it had appeared. It left behind an apocalypse in miniature.
Sebastian lowered his hand. The clearing was gone.
In its place was a perfect smooth crater of glowing melted glass! It radiated waves of distortion into the air.
The edges of the crater were lined with the charred smoking stumps of what used to be ancient pines.
The physics engine of The Ethereal Plane was struggling. The edges of the crater flickered with wireframe polygons as the server desperately tried to calculate the catastrophic terrain deformation in a zone designed for simple melee combat.
[You have slain Demon Wolf Level 5 x6!]
[Massive Experience Gained!]
↳ Level Up! You are now Level 2!
↳ Level Up! You are now Level 3!
↳ Level Up! You are now Level 4!
Sebastian dismissed the leveling notifications with a flick of his wrist. He looked down at his hand and then at the glass crater.
The absolute devastation was intoxicating but his tactical mind was already breaking down the flaws.
He was down to 10 mana. If a seventh wolf had been hiding in the woods he would have had to punch it to death with his bare hands.
The spell was an ultimate trump card but he couldn't rely on it for sustained combat. He needed more skills.
He needed passives. He needed to abuse the Nexus Glitch on physical combat and movement and stealth.
"One step at a time." Sebastian muttered to himself.
He stepped carefully around the edge of the cooling glass crater to collect the meager slightly singed loot drops the wolves had left behind.
He had the power of a god but the mana pool of a peasant. It was time to find Old Man Clay and start stealing everything not nailed down to the server floor!
.
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A/N: Creation is wild, exhausting, and sometimes my brain wants to run away. Power stones are my only bargaining chip to drag it back. If you liked this chapter, toss me one or a few, it helps more than you think.