The Artificer's workshop was Elara's sanctuary. It was a place of ordered chaos, where the clean, sterile scent of alchemical reagents mingled with the hot, metallic smell of the forge and the sharp tang of ozone from active enchanting tables. Blueprints covered every flat surface, showcasing designs for devices that would have made the academy's more conservative professors choke on their tea—self-aiming crossbows, mana-condensing power cells, and clockwork automatons of dizzying complexity. This was where she was truly herself, free from the political games of the nobility and the stifling dogma of the standard curriculum.
She found Zero's package the moment she entered before dawn. It was placed so precisely on her workbench that it was less a delivery and more a statement. Her eyes narrowed. He hadn't just returned the empty vial; he had infiltrated her private, heavily warded workshop to do it. She ran a quick diagnostic scan with a handheld device. The complex, layered wards she had personally designed for the workshop were all intact, untripped and undisturbed. There was no sign of magical or physical forced entry. It was as if he had simply… appeared inside.
A shiver, one that was not entirely unpleasant, ran down her spine. The puzzle of Ashe, the F-Rank Porter, had just grown several orders of magnitude more complex.
She picked up the small, rolled parchment, her fingers deftly breaking the simple wax seal. She unrolled it.
*Not sharp enough.*
Three simple words. But in the silent, humming workshop, they landed with the force of a thunderclap. The message was a masterstroke of psychological manipulation, a perfect blend of insult, challenge, and intrigue. He wasn't just commenting on the blade's physical edge. He was critiquing her, her skills, her entire approach. He was telling her that her best, a rare and masterfully crafted enchanted weapon, was inadequate. He was goading her, daring her to do better.
And it was working.
A slow, fierce smile spread across Elara's face. This was infinitely more interesting than the fawning praise she received from her professors or the jealous whispers of her peers. This was a true intellectual challenge, a dialogue with an equal, or perhaps… a superior. The thought was both infuriating and intoxicating.
"Alright, Ashe," she whispered to the empty room. "Or whoever you are. Let's see what you're really made of."
She immediately abandoned her other projects. The mystery of the Porter was now her singular obsession. She began to work with a manic, focused energy. She didn't try to track him or spy on him again; he had already proven that was a fool's errand. Instead, she decided to answer his message in the only language they both seemed to understand: the language of applied knowledge.
She started by analyzing the problem. How had he entered her workshop? Standard teleportation spells left a distinct magical residue, which her sensors would have detected. Phasing through walls was an S-Rank shadow magic ability, far beyond any student. The only logical conclusion was that he possessed an unknown, untraceable method of infiltration. An anomaly.
Her mind immediately went to the incident in the Fen. The null-energy blast. His impossible knowledge of field medicine. His brutal efficiency. She cross-referenced these data points with her observations of the "cursed" injury her brother had sustained. No mana. No physical impact. An object appearing from nowhere. An object *retrieved* from… somewhere.
The pieces began to click into place, forming a wild, exhilarating, and completely heretical hypothesis.
"It's not about what magic he's using," she mused, her chalk stick flying across a large blackboard. "It's about the System itself. He's not just using it. He's… editing it."
The thought was blasphemy. The Divine System was a perfect, immutable gift from the gods. To suggest it could be manipulated, *glitched*, was a heresy punishable by the Crimson Purity. And it was the most beautiful, elegant theory she had ever conceived.
It explained everything.
---
Zero, meanwhile, was completely unaware of the intellectual storm he had unleashed. He was focused on his own meticulous preparations. The acquisition of his new `[Blink Dagger]` skill had opened up a new tier of possibilities. But to use it effectively, especially in combination with his other abilities, required practice. Endless, repetitive, grueling practice.
His nightly training sessions became more complex. He didn't just practice katas; he practiced movement. He would throw the dagger at a tree branch high above, and as it reached the apex of its arc, he would activate the skill.
`[Activating Blink Dagger. Stamina Cost: 30%.]`
The world would lurch, his stomach turning as reality itself seemed to fold. One moment he was on the ground, the next he was twenty feet in the air, his hand instinctively closing around the hilt of the dagger as he materialized beside it. He would then have to control his fall, rolling as he hit the ground to absorb the impact.
The first few dozen times were a clumsy, nauseating disaster. He misjudged the timing, appeared in awkward positions, and landed hard, bruising himself on the unforgiving earth. But his `[Abyssal Carapace]` would dull the worst of the pain, and his `[Blight]` skill, drawing on the life of the surrounding grass, would replenish his stamina, allowing him to practice for hours on end.
Slowly, methodically, he began to master it. The lurching became a smooth transition. The clumsy landings became silent, acrobatic rolls. He learned to activate the skill at the precise moment that would allow him to chain his next movement seamlessly. Throw, blink, drop, roll, and come up into a sprint without losing an ounce of momentum.
He began to combine it with his other skills. He would throw the dagger past a training dummy, blink to it, and activate his `[Nerve-Wrack Sting]` on the back of the dummy's "head" before his feet even touched the ground. He was becoming a phantom, a living glitch in the fabric of physical space.
His System rewarded his diligence.
`[Skill 'Blink Dagger (Lvl 1)' has gained proficiency through repeated use.]`
`[Stamina cost reduced to 28%. Cooldown reduced by 30 seconds.]`
This was the true path to power. Not just acquiring skills, but mastering them until they were an extension of his own body.
During the day, his life as Ashe continued. His first stipend of five silver pieces arrived, delivered by a beaming Professor Finch. The money was a tangible symbol of his progress. He used a portion of it to upgrade his gear. He didn't buy a flashy sword or expensive armor. He went to the Umbral Market, the undercity's black market that he knew so well, and commissioned a custom-made stealth suit from a retired assassin turned tailor. It was dyed a mottled grey and black, designed to blend with both urban and natural shadows, with reinforced joints and dozens of hidden pockets for tools and weapons. He also purchased a set of high-quality lockpicks and a spool of thin, nigh-unbreakable garrote wire. These were the tools of a ghost, not a hero.
His relationship with Professor Finch solidified into a comfortable routine. They made several more "expeditions" to the edge of the Fen. Zero would lead the professor to new, interesting, but ultimately unimportant discoveries—a rare, phosphorescent moss, a beetle with a unique camouflage pattern—enough to keep Finch's research funded and his reputation growing.
Elara never joined them again. But sometimes, as they worked, Zero would see a flicker of movement high in the branches of a distant tree, or catch the glint of a spyglass lens. She was still watching. Still gathering data.
The real test of his progress came two weeks after the Fen Lurker incident. A new notice appeared on the academy's quest board, a high-priority request commissioned by the Alchemist's Guild.
"URGENT: HARVESTING REQUEST. Seeking qualified parties to procure three (3) Shadow Panther hearts. Must be fresh. Proof of kill (pelt) required. High-risk Amber Zone mission. REWARD: 50 Gold Pieces."
Fifty gold. It was a staggering amount of money, enough to fund Zero's operations for the next six months. Shadow Panthers were notoriously difficult prey. They were large, nocturnal felines with fur that allowed them to become nearly invisible in low light, and they were fast enough to outrun a horse. They hunted in packs of three to five. The mission was considered suicide for anyone less than a full party of C-Rank adventurers.
Zero knew, from the Cartographer's Journal, the location of a specific Shadow Panther den. More importantly, he knew their weakness. The journal mentioned that their heightened senses, particularly their sense of smell, made them incredibly vulnerable to a rare plant called a 'Screaming Mandrake,' whose pollen was a potent neurological irritant to felines. And he knew a place where a patch of Screaming Mandrakes grew, not two miles from the den.
This was the perfect opportunity. A chance to test his new skills in a live-fire exercise, acquire a massive amount of capital, and further solidify his reputation in a completely unexpected way.
He walked up to the quest board and pulled the request from its pin. A group of burly third-year students standing nearby scoffed.
"Look at that," one of them said, nudging his friend. "The F-Rank Porter thinks he's going on a Panther hunt."
"Maybe he's going to carry their bags for them," the other laughed.
Zero ignored them. He walked the request over to the Guild registrar, a stern-faced woman with a permanent scowl.
"I'd like to accept this quest," Zero said, his voice flat.
The registrar looked up from her paperwork, saw his F-Rank insignia, and let out a long, weary sigh. "Son, this isn't a collection quest for mushrooms. This is a death sentence. You have to be at least a D-Rank party of three to even be considered."
"I am accepting it as a solo F-Rank," Zero stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "The rules state that any student may accept any quest, provided they sign the fatality waiver. I am prepared to sign the waiver."
The registrar stared at him, her scowl deepening. She had seen arrogant nobles and foolhardy brutes, but she had never seen this kind of cold, suicidal calm in an F-Ranker. She pushed a lengthy legal document and a quill towards him.
"It's your funeral, boy," she muttered.
Zero signed the waiver without reading it, the name 'Ashe' flowing from the quill in a steady, confident hand. He handed the document back, took his official copy of the quest, and walked out of the Guild Hall, the whispers and snickers of the other students following him like a cloud of flies.
He didn't care. Let them laugh. Let them think him a fool. The world saw a lamb walking willingly to the slaughter. They had no idea they were actually watching a wolf heading out for its evening meal.