The climb was different this time.
Before, the unnerving silence of the Dragon's Tooth Peaks had been a data point, a variable in the equation of his stealthy ascent. The lack of ambient noise was just another environmental hazard to be cataloged. Now, disarmed and physically weary from the duel, Kage found the silence had a different texture. It felt less like an absence and more like a presence. A respectful quiet.
He was tired. The dregs of adrenaline from the fight left a hollow ache in his limbs. But his mind was unnervingly sharp. The ghost of zanshin, the lingering awareness that had won him the fight, still clung to him. Every shift of the wind against the rock, every displaced pebble under his boot, registered with a clarity that bordered on distracting.
He had earned his passage. This wasn't a shortcut anymore. It wasn't a clever exploit that bypassed a game mechanic. He had faced the gatekeeper, been tested by an opponent that refused to be a simple script, and had won. The path ahead felt less like a discovered secret and more like an unlocked door.
The thought was inefficient. He dismissed it, but the feeling lingered, a warm current beneath the icy surface of his logic.
He rounded a final, sharp bend in the narrow mountain pass, and the path ended abruptly. Before him, nestled in a concave amphitheater of black rock, was the entrance to a cavern. It was not a gaping maw or a foreboding chasm, but a perfect, smooth-edged archway leading into darkness, looking as though it had been sliced from the mountain with impossible precision. This was it. The coordinates from his map. The source of the null zone.
He stepped inside.
And for a moment, Klaid the Operator, Klaid the Prodigy, Klaid the cynic who saw the world as a spreadsheet of exploitable variables… ceased to exist.
He was in a cathedral of pure, impossible crystal.
The cavern was a geode the size of a small temple, its walls composed of massive, perfectly formed crystalline structures. They were not jagged or rough, but smooth and intricately faceted, like gems cut by a divine jeweler. Light, originating from some unseen source, poured into the crystals and fractured into a thousand dancing rainbows that played across every surface. The air was unnaturally still, and cool against his skin.
The world went quiet.
Quiet was the wrong word, actually. It was a complete and total negation of sound. The crunch of his boots on the gravel at the entrance vanished the moment he crossed the threshold. The ever-present whistle of the mountain wind ceased to exist. He clapped his hands together, a sharp, sudden motion. There was no sound. Not even the feeling of the impact vibrating through his own bones. The system was not just muting audio; it was deleting the concept of it from this space.
This was a place outside of the world's recorded history. A pristine backup file hidden from the main server.
And for a fragile, infuriating moment, the Operator in Kage's mind went silent. He was no longer a gamer analyzing a dungeon. He was Klaid, the boy who once found a profound, soul-deep satisfaction in the perfect, clean lines of a kendo kata. The Prodigy, who understood beauty not as a set of pleasing aesthetics, but as the consequence of flawless form.
This cavern was flawless form.
A pang of something he couldn't name, something he had buried long ago with his shinai, resonated deep in his chest. It was a feeling of smallness, of reverence. Awe.
He crushed it instantly.
Focus, the Operator snapped, reasserting control. Aesthetics don't have stats. This is a quest objective, not a museum piece. Find the trigger.
His eyes, now cold and analytical again, scanned the space. The cavern was impossibly large, but his gaze was drawn to its center. There, in the middle of the crystalline floor, stood a single, simple object that was utterly alien to the rest of the environment.
A stone altar.
It was crude, hewn from what looked like simple grey granite. It was unadorned, unpolished, and completely out of place amidst the cavern's perfect, crystalline geometry. It was the only thing here that felt real. He walked toward it, his phantom footsteps making no sound on the glowing floor. As he drew near, the air above the altar shimmered, and letters of soft, white light began to coalesce, hanging in the still air like a newly formed constellation.
It was a riddle.
I have no body, but I can build a king or topple a crown.
I have no voice, but my children travel across the world and through the ages.
I am the seed from which all stories are grown,
And the foundation upon which all laws are known.
What am I?
Kage's mind immediately went to work. The Operator took the lead, his brain a rapid-fire processor dissecting the text for exploitable keywords.
Build a king. Topple a crown.
Power. The obvious answer. He mentally submitted it. [Incorrect]. Too generic.
Travel across the world and through ages.
Legacy? History?[Incorrect]. Still too vague. He was thinking like a philosopher, not a gamer. He needed to find the system-level answer.
He tried again, colder this time. What truly builds kings and topples crowns in a game? The game's code. The system itself.
The System, he thought, channeling his intent at the words. [Incorrect].
Code.[Incorrect].
Frustration, hot and sharp, pricked at him. This was inefficient. He was brute-forcing a conceptual problem. He took a mental step back. The riddle was the culmination of his entire journey. The clues weren't just in the text. The clues were everything that had led him here.
His mind replayed the sequence of events.
One: The Founder's Legacy vs. The Founder's Justice. Two contradictory histories of the same man. A contested story at the heart of the world's lore.
Two: The quest titles. The Sundered Crown. The Unwritten Verse.
Three: The choice. He had given up a Unique-grade sword, a tangible reward, for a truth. For a story.
Four: The reward for that choice. A quest item named The First Maker's Quill. A tool for writing.
The pieces clicked into place with the force of a physical impact.
The entire world of Crown of Destiny was a narrative. A story. The developers had written the first draft, but the history was designed to be contested, to be rewritten. The riddle wasn't asking about the engine that ran the world.
I am the seed from which all stories are grown.
And the foundation upon which all laws are known.
What is a law but a story we all agree to follow? What is a king but a character given power by a shared narrative? And what is the most fundamental, indivisible unit of any story, any law, any concept?
It wasn't a grand, sweeping power. It was something small. Something fundamental. A single building block of meaning.
He knew the answer. It was elegant. Obvious. The kind of solution he always kicked himself for not seeing sooner.
He drew in a breath, and for the first time, his voice broke the absolute, sacred silence of the cavern. It was clear, steady, and filled with absolute certainty.
"A Word."
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the glowing letters of the riddle dissolved into a shower of brilliant white light that rained down upon him. It soaked through his avatar, into his very interface.
And then the system notifications began.
[You have solved the Riddle of the First Maker!]
[You have understood the Principle of Poiesis!]
[You have met the hidden prerequisites.]
[A new path is open to you. ]
Perfect. His internal monologue was already calculating. This was the payoff. All the research, all the risk, all the meticulous planning leading to this moment.
Give me the reward. A world-first Unique skill. A Legendary weapon.
[You have completed all the prerequisites for the Legendary Class: The Architect of Verse!]
A Legendary Class. The rarest of the rare. A flicker of triumph surged through him. This was bigger than a Unique sword. This was a world-first of a different magnitude.
Then the next line appeared.
[The Legacy of the Legendary Poet - "The First Maker", recognizes you as its inheritor.]
[Fame +300]
The word 'Poet' hit his brain like a record scratch.
Wait. Poet?
No, that had to be flavor text. Some kind of thematic description. Legendary Classes had dramatic names. "Architect of Verse" was just the system being poetic. It would be some kind of super-combat class, maybe with reality-warping abilities. The system was probably building suspense.
[In accordance with the Foundational Protocol, your physical form must be reset to serve as a blank page for the new Verse.]
[Your level has been reset to 1.]
The word "reset" slammed into his consciousness like a physical blow.
But the system wasn't done. It never asked permission. It simply executed its protocol with the ruthless efficiency of an automated process.
[All attribute points have been refunded and reallocated to suit your new calling.]
[ALL ATTRIBUTES +5]
A small mercy, he thought desperately. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe the level reset came with massive stat bonuses to compensate—
[Your soul has been attuned to the art of creation.]
[ARTISTRY +20]
The bottom dropped out of his world.
Artistry.
ARTISTRY.
The stat he had specifically, deliberately, mathematically determined to be completely and utterly useless. The stat he had derided as "roleplayer garbage." The stat he had dumped to minimum value because it had zero, absolutely zero, combat application.
They were giving him TWENTY points of ARTISTRY.
[Primary Attribute Changed: Artistry (ART)]
[New Primary Resource Unlocked: Awen (AWN)]
"No," he whispered, the sound swallowed by the cavern. "No, no, no."
[Core System Unlocked: The Poet's Lexicon]
[Core System Unlocked: Verse-Crafting (First Form: One-Word-Poem)]
[The Poet's Lexicon: Primordial Starter Pack Added]
[Passive Ability Gained: Poetic Spirit]
[Passive Ability Gained: Poetic Insight]
[Passive Ability Gained: Unflinching Verse]
[Passive Ability Gained: Conceptual Purity]
[Passive Ability Gained: Storyteller's Intuition]
[CLASS CHANGE COMPLETE]
[Displaying New Character Sheet? Y/N]
He didn't even have to select 'Yes'. It slammed into his vision, filling his view with the stark, brutal truth of his new reality.
[Character Sheet: Kage]
Level: 1
Class: The Architect of Verse (Legendary Poet)
Experience 0/100
Title: -
Fame: 300
Physical Damage: 10
HP: 110/110
AWN: 310/310
Weight: 2.8/30
[Attributes]
Strength (STR): 10
Agility (AGI): 10
Stamina (STA): 10
Intellect (INT): 10
Artistry (ART): 30
He stared at the numbers. Stared until they seemed to blur and dance mockingly before his eyes.
Level. One.
Poet.
He had solved a riddle that likely no one else would even find for months.
And his reward?
A Legendary Class. A Legendary Poet Class.
And a reset to Level 1.
The two most important stats were gone. His STR and AGI, the pillars of his entire build, were slashed, despite the bonus. In their place was a mountain of points dumped into Artistry. Artistry. A stat universally regarded by every top player as a complete joke. A dump stat for roleplayers and crafting hobbyists.
His mind, which had moments ago been alight with the thrill of victory, was now a vortex of pure, unadulterated rage and disbelief.
This is a joke, the Operator screamed internally. This has to be a bug. A Legendary trolling. They took my levels. They took my stats. They turned me into a... a poet? What am I supposed to do? Kill monsters by insulting their lineage in iambic pentameter? Defeat raid bosses with strongly worded haikus?
He felt the burning, humiliating terror of the Impostor of the Heart. He had done all this to get ahead, to secure the funds for his mother. And he had just willingly, intelligently, piloted himself into a catastrophe. He had traded a high-performance sports car for a unicycle. With training wheels. And glittery tassels.
This wasn't a victory. This was a character wipe. It was the most glorious, legendary, world-first game-over in the history of VRMMOs.
He stood alone in the silent, beautiful cavern, a Level 1 Poet with a useless stat distribution and a mountain of real-world bills to pay.
The absolute, overwhelming absurdity of it all built up in his chest like steam in a pressure cooker until something had to give.
A sound escaped his lips. It wasn't a cry of rage or a wail of despair. It was a single, choked, strangled laugh—the kind of sound a person makes when reality becomes so ridiculous that their brain just... breaks.
The sound of the laugh was swallowed.
The bills. His mother. The time he was losing.
The silence of the cavern suddenly felt like a grave.
Just then, a sound that Kage had briefly tasted as his own thundered through the server, a sonorous bell that every player could hear. Golden text scrolled across the air and sky, a testament to a victory that was tangible, quantifiable, and everything he had just lost.
[WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT: The path of the warrior has been elevated! Let the world praise the player Uma for being the WORLD FIRST to complete the Trial of Fury and unlock the Rare Class: Berserker!]
The global chat, which had been a low simmer of questions about the vanished "Founder's Legacy" announcement, erupted into a firestorm.
[Global] JoeTheBoe: A-ADVANCED CLASS ALREADY?!?!? I'M STILL LEVEL 4!
[Global] Terranos: Uma! SEE! A real name! Thank god, I was so tired of hearing about that anonymous '****' winner. That was 100% a bug they had to delete.
[Global] SkrrrrA: LOL told you guys. This is a REAL achievement. Congrats Uma! Berserker spec is probably OP!
[Global] PleadingHurricane: WTS [Rusted Shortsword] signed by a guy who SAW Uma once. 5 silver!
[Global] Opar: Finally. The server has a proper frontrunner. Someone we can actually track. Well done, Uma.
Kage watched the torrent of messages, his face a mask of stone. To unlock an advanced class, Uma would have had to complete a grueling, multi-stage quest chain, likely culminating in a difficult solo trial.
Wait… Why was there no announcement when I got the class? A thought formed in his mind.
The bitter irony was a tangible thing. Uma's reward for following the developer's breadcrumbs was a Rare class. A pure combat upgrade. A weapon.
Kage's reward for breaking the trail entirely and finding a truth hidden beneath it was a Legendary class—the highest tier possible—that was functionally a joke.
it felt like the system had punished Kage for his ingenuity, mocking him with a gilded cage.
The gap between him and the top was no longer just about levels or class tiers; it was a chasm of purpose. Uma had been handed an axe to conquer the world. Kage had been handed a punchline.