Kai awoke before dawn.
The store was silent, bathed in a gentle golden glow from the newly restored mana lamps. A faint hum vibrated through the floorboards — the sound of power, stability, and rebirth. The System had finished integrating the Vault Expansion, and today, Kai would descend into the newest addition to his realm.
[Store Expansion: Private Vault Complete.]
Access Granted: Kai, Proprietor of the Infinite Store.Warning: Unauthorized access will trigger dimensional collapse protocols.
Kai smirked at the notification.
"Subtle," he muttered, throwing on his coat and boots.
He descended the spiral stairs that had emerged behind the rare item display, the entrance carved directly into the rock foundation below the store. The stairwell was steep, its walls lined with floating sigils and softly glowing rune-script in languages long dead. Yet the System translated it all instantly:
"Within lies power unfathomable. Store not what you cannot control. Open not what you cannot close."
At the base of the stairs was a solid black door inlaid with seven concentric circles of silver and gold. It had no handle — only a slot that responded to Kai's handprint.
As his palm touched the door, a pulse of energy surged through him.
[Verifying Identity... Match Confirmed.][Welcome, Kai.]
The door melted inward like liquid metal, revealing a chamber larger than any space had a right to be. It stretched out for what seemed like hundreds of meters, filled with tiered platforms, locked compartments, energy field cages, and artifact pedestals.
At the center hovered a glowing crystal cube.
[Vault Core Activated.]
Kai stepped forward slowly, reverently. "System, status?"
[Private Vault Active. Capacity: 0.3% Utilized.][Encryption: Multiversal Grade. Breach Chance: 0.00000003%.][Core Capabilities Unlocked:]– Store dangerous artifacts– Seal hostile entities– Bind cursed items– Open time-locked dimensional safes
Bonus: Anchor Gateway for allied stores.
Kai raised an eyebrow. "Gateway anchoring?"
[Allows allied storekeepers to link Vault space for emergency evacuation, storage trades, or cooperative defense.]
So not only was this a secure storage facility — it could become a multiversal hub. That explained why it cost nearly all the store's reserve energy to complete.
He began inspecting the Vault's rows. Some compartments were standard: containment safes, lockboxes for legendary weapons, even stasis pods. But others were different — one room bore glyphs that shifted depending on where he looked; another seemed to lead nowhere, swallowing light itself.
He paused before a half-finished dais.
[Unconfigured Slot: Legendary Artifact Required.]
"I have just the thing."
Kai retrieved the black orb he'd taken during the Veiled Synod encounter — the one the masked figure had dropped while fleeing. Its surface was like obsidian and oil, shifting and pulsing with a life of its own.
[Warning: Unstable Relic — Origin: Veiled Synod.]
Would you like to store it in a Quarantined Chamber?
"Yes."
As soon as he dropped the orb into the slot, an energy field erupted, surrounding it in a barrier of reinforced reality threads. The Vault vibrated for a moment, absorbing the object, then fell still.
[Object Contained: Synod Seed.]
Kai exhaled. "One step closer."
Later that morning, the rest of the team gathered in the common room. The repairs had finished, the store was stable again, and Jax had cooked up his usual protein-heavy breakfast — this time without accidentally summoning a meat elemental.
Kai stood at the front, behind the polished oak counter.
"I'm going to say it outright," he began. "We're not a backwater store anymore. The Council knows us. The Synod has marked us. And we've stepped onto the board where the players move planets."
Everyone nodded silently.
"Our enemies are growing bolder. Stronger. If we keep waiting for threats to come to us, we'll be outpaced."
"So we go on the offensive?" Serin asked, sipping her tea.
Kai nodded. "Exactly. But first, we need resources."
He turned to Dren. "How close are we to unlocking the dimensional coordinates of that rogue system node?"
Dren pulled out a scroll, unfurled it, and tapped a blinking sigil. "I traced the energy resonance from the Synod artifact. It pinged a dead realm about two galaxies from here — collapsed reality, full of echoes. But something's still active inside."
Kai leaned in. "A hidden system?"
"Or a trap," Dren said grimly.
"We'll find out."
Before departure, Kai visited the Vault one more time.
He placed a few high-tier health potions, a spare legendary sword from a previous barter, and a stasis container holding an unidentified glowing insect — something that had wandered in from the Fae dimension last week.
Then he activated a Vault Lockdown Timer.
[Emergency Recall Key Created.][In case of store destruction, Vault will remain sealed for 1,000 years or until authorized user returns.]
Safety, after all, came first.
The dimensional node Dren had found lay deep within a collapsed pocket dimension called Echo-79.
The store's gate flickered as it established a connection, the walls around it vibrating with pressure differentials and time skips. Ilya armed herself with spectral arrows. Jax cracked his knuckles. Dren activated a perimeter ward around the gate, and Serin summoned a blade of blue-white flame to her side.
"Everyone ready?" Kai asked.
They nodded.
"Then let's go find out who's listening."
The world on the other side was... dead.
Not in the sense of decay or ruin — more like a silence that reached into your soul and tried to stop your thoughts from forming.
Gray dust floated in the air, thick as mist, and ancient ruins of stone towers jutted out at odd angles, half-buried in shimmering crystal. Strange stars floated overhead, stationary.
"This place gives me the creeps," Ilya muttered.
"Same," Jax agreed. "Too quiet."
Kai activated his Store Link — a lifeline to return them home in emergencies. Then he stepped forward into the ruin.
They followed a fractured pathway, guided by the system tracker Dren had configured. For minutes — or maybe hours — they walked without speaking, the world around them refusing to acknowledge time.
Finally, they arrived.
A monolithic cube, black and humming with corrupted energy, stood in a crater of floating crystal. Symbols crawled across its surface like ants — constantly rewriting themselves.
[System Detected — Corrupted Node.]Warning: Artificial Administrator Present.
"Artificial… what?" Kai murmured.
Then the ground shook.
Something enormous stirred inside the cube. The air vibrated.
"Defensive positions!" Serin barked.
From the shadows emerged a figure — or what was left of one. A shopkeeper, clearly, by the remains of his store robes and badge. But his body was twisted, one arm replaced by machinery, the other bloated with black veins. His face was a mask of agony and madness.
"I... kept it running…" he whispered. "They said I could ascend…"
Kai stepped forward cautiously. "Who are you?"
"The Synod," the man rasped. "They gave me power. But it wasn't... mine to take."
Dren's eyes widened. "He's been partially fused with a corrupted system core."
Kai glanced back. "Can we help him?"
Dren hesitated. "Yes. But it will be dangerous. We'll have to sever his link to the corrupted node."
Kai nodded. "Do it."
What followed was part exorcism, part battle, and part system hack.
While Dren channeled counter-runes and Kai activated the Vault's emergency anchor to stabilize space, Serin and Jax fought off manifestations erupting from the cube — ghostly versions of failed shopkeepers, twisted customers, and malformed creatures of greed and desire.
Ilya's arrows rained light upon the battlefield, piercing shadows. Kai shouted commands to the System, rerouting mana through the stabilization matrix.
[Corruption Level: 79%... 60%... 45%...]
The shopkeeper screamed as the final tendrils of the Synod's code were torn from his mind. Then he collapsed.
[System Core Purified. AI Administrator Rescued.]
New Ally Gained: Elias — Former Shopkeeper of Hollow Vale]
They brought Elias back to the Infinite Store.
He would take weeks to recover, but already he was showing signs of lucidity. His presence also granted Kai something unexpected:
[Synod Signature Decoded. Three Locations Unlocked.]
– Obsidian Market (Veiled Synod Outpost)– Chrono-Rift Chamber (Temporal Black Site)– Synaptic Forge (System Experiment Lab)
And more importantly:
[You have become a Threat to the Veiled Synod.]
Rank: Level 1 — "Disruptor"Next Threshold: Level 2 — "Hunter" (Unlock Reward at 3 successful sabotage operations).
Kai didn't mind the title.
Because now, for the first time, they had a trail. And the Synod had a reason to fear them.
End of Chapter 33