LeoTheLion's glowing, all-caps review on The Node was like dropping a giant rock into a still pond. The ripples spread fast.
At first, most students thought it was a joke, a clever prank played by a D-Ranker who was trying to get attention. But then, the day after Leo's post, something undeniable happened.
During a public practice session, Leo, the kid whose artifact was famous for making him punch walls by accident, entered the training ring. His opponent was a bigger, stronger student who usually beat him without even trying.
The match began, and Leo threw a punch. But this time, his arm didn't fly sideways. A solid thump of energy exploded from his fist, sending the heavy training dummy he was aiming at skidding halfway across the room. He was shocked.
His opponent was shocked. Everyone watching was shocked. Leo went on to win the practice match with a newfound confidence, his once-useless [Kinetic Booster] working better than anyone had ever seen it work before.
That's when the floodgates opened.
That night, Alex's data pad didn't just ping. It started buzzing like an angry hornet's nest. Dozens of private messages poured in. They were all from low-ranked students, their messages full of desperation and hope.
< User: PlantGirl >
"Hi Oracle, is it true what they say? My artifact is a [Sunlight Glove]. It's supposed to make plants grow faster for my botany class, but it just makes them wilt. Can you help? The professor thinks I hate plants."
< User: ShieldyMcShieldFace >
"Please, Oracle, my shield artifact has a bug. Every time I get hit, there's a 50% chance it makes a really loud fart sound. It's not supposed to do that. People are calling me Captain Toots. My life is ruined."
< User: ButterFingers >
"My [Grip Gloves] are supposed to let me climb walls, but they only work on things covered in jam. It's a very specific and not very useful skill. Can you fix it?"
Alex sat on his bed, scrolling through the sad, funny, and bizarre requests with a huge grin on his face. It was a gold mine of terrible technology.
He spent the next few nights working through the requests one by one. His routine became smooth and efficient.
He would receive a data scan of a broken artifact. He'd open it up, activate [The Debugger], and look at its "source code."
More often than not, the problem was something incredibly simple that the original makers had overlooked. The plant-wilting glove had its energy flow reversed, feeding on the plant's life force instead of giving it energy.
The farting shield had a sound file from a prank program accidentally linked to its impact sensor. The jam-only gloves had a line of code that was supposed to say "stick to any surface" but had a typo and said "stick to jam surface."
For each one, Alex would write a small, elegant "patch." It was like sending a one-sentence correction to a book full of mistakes.
He would send the patch back, name his price, usually a few hundred credits, a fortune to him but a bargain for them and moments later, a payment notification would arrive, followed by another glowing review on his forum thread.
"Oracle fixed my Farting Shield! Now it just makes a cool shing sound! I can finally look people in the eye again!"
"My plants are growing so fast they look like something from a jungle movie! My professor gave me extra credit! Thank you, Oracle!"
The legend grew. Oracle became the secret savior of the lower ranks. He was the ghost in the machine who could fix the unfixable. His waiting list got longer and longer.
He had to create an automated reply system that said, "Your request has been received. You are number 37 in the queue. Please be patient. Oracle is busy."
Soon, his reputation trickled upward. The C-Rank and B-Rank students, who at first had scoffed at the rumors, started to take notice.
Their messages were less desperate and more business-like, but Alex could still sense the frustration behind their words.
< User: CrimsonBlade (B-Rank) >
"Oracle. I am told you provide a valuable service. My fire sword's edge is inconsistent. Sometimes it's a blade of pure plasma, other times it's barely hot enough to toast bread. This is... suboptimal. Name your price."
Alex analyzed the data for the fire sword and found the problem immediately. The artifact's energy regulator was poorly calibrated, like a leaky faucet.
He wrote a patch to ensure a steady, consistent flow of power. The fix took him five minutes. He charged a thousand credits.
CrimsonBlade paid without a word and, a day later, was seen cutting through a solid steel training dummy like it was a stick of butter.
Oracle was no longer just a fixer of broken toys. He was an optimizer. A performance enhancer. He was becoming an essential part of the academy's hidden power structure.
Students who had been stuck at one rank for years were suddenly showing massive improvement, all thanks to the secret services of an anonymous digital wizard.
He became an urban legend whispered in the data streams, an unseen kingmaker.
Then came the message that changed the game.
It arrived from a temporary, encrypted account with no username, just a string of random numbers. The language was cold, formal, and paranoid.
< We require a consultation. The item in question is high-level. Discretion is mandatory. Payment will be substantial. Acknowledge if you can guarantee absolute privacy. >
Alex knew instantly this wasn't a C-Rank with a wobbly shield. This was someone from the top. This was an A-Rank student, one of the elites of the academy, too proud to admit they needed help. The challenge was thrilling.
Alex replied simply: < Oracle is a vault. Send the data. >
A heavily encrypted file arrived. Alex had to spend a few minutes peeling back the layers of security. It was like unwrapping a gift that was locked in a safe.
When he finally opened it, he saw the data for an A-Rank artifact: a [Storm-Weaver Gauntlet]. It was a beautiful, complex piece of technology, an artifact designed to create and control miniature lightning storms.
The code was a work of art, leagues beyond the cheap junk he usually worked on. But even masterpieces can have flaws.
He saw the problem. It was a tiny, almost invisible bug. The gauntlet had a defensive matrix, a small shield that was supposed to protect the user from their own lightning.
But there was a flaw in the code. Under extreme stress, the defensive matrix would drain a tiny amount of power from the user's own life force instead of the artifact's battery.
It was a microscopic leak, something the user would only feel as a slight headache or a moment of dizziness after a big fight. But over time, that tiny leak could cause serious damage.
It was a dangerous, subtle flaw, the kind that could cost a Striker their life in a critical moment. And to Alex, it stood out like a red flag in a field of snow.
He wrote the most elegant patch of his career. It was just a few lines of code, a simple command that rerouted the power drain back to the proper source.
He sent it to the anonymous A-Ranker with a price tag that made his own eyes water: 10,000 credits.
He expected to haggle. He expected silence. Instead, the payment came through in less than a minute. No thank you. No review. Just the cold, hard cash appearing in his account. The anonymous A-Ranker got their fix, and their secret was safe.
That night, Alex sat in his workshop, the glorified closet and looked at his account balance. It was an amount of money that a janitor couldn't dream of making in a decade.
On the floor in front of him were the high-grade components he had bought with his earnings: a phase-shift drive from a scrapped stealth drone, a container of self-repairing nanites, and a power converter the size of his head. His pet project, Scrappy the golem, sat silently in the corner, its one good eye glowing softly, waiting for its next upgrade.
The best Strikers in the academy were secretly paying him fortunes to fix their god-like weapons, and he was using that money to bring a one-armed, dented cleaning robot to life.
The irony was delicious. He was the most influential person on campus that nobody knew existed. He was a king who ruled from a throne made of mop buckets and spare parts. And his kingdom was growing every day.