Next Day
The Guildmaster didn't so much give Sai Ji a quest slip as he did seal his fate with a piece of parchment. He slapped it into Sai Ji's palm with the finality of a judge passing a sentence.
"A beginner mission," Rokan grunted, not meeting his eyes. He was staring at a crack in his ironwood desk, as if blaming it for the current state of his guild. "A fetch quest. Scouting. No combat. No surprises. Go to the North Ridge, confirm a mana anomaly reported by a shepherd, come back. It's paperwork with walking. You can't possibly break the world with that."
Sai Ji, desperate for any shred of normalcy, clutched the paper like a lifeline. "Thank you. Really. This is exactly what I—"
He looked down. The words on the slip shimmered, then dissolved and reformed before his eyes. The standard brown parchment darkened to a deep, velvety black. The ink bled from bureaucratic blue to a luminous, silver-white.
[MYTHICAL BRONZE QUEST — ???]
Nyx, peering over his shoulder, went very still. "Master. Bronze quests do not have gilded, void-black borders."
Aeliana leaned in, her brow furrowed. "And they most certainly do not… pulse."
Sai Ji held the slip away from his body as if it were a live viper. "Is it… supposed to feel warm?"
Rokan's head snapped up. He stared at the glowing parchment in Sai Ji's hand. All the color drained from his scarred face. "No," he whispered. "It is not."
He lunged across the desk, fingers grasping for the slip. "Give it back! The system's glitching—!"
His fingertips were an inch away when the parchment flashed with a light that left no shadow. A chime, deep and resonant as a planetary bell, sounded in the marrow of their bones.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
'MYTHICAL BRONZE QUEST' ACQUIRED: Cry of the Hidden Peak
Objective:Investigate the mana disturbance at Frostfall's Northern Ridge.
Danger Level:★★★★★ (Catastrophic-Class Anomaly)
Party Requirement:Minimum Average Level 40. Sovereign-tier entities exempt.
Reward:[● DATA CORRUPTED]
Note:Failure to investigate may trigger passive 'World Locus Degradation' in the Frostfall region.
Sai Ji's voice was a dry rasp. "Why… does my 'no combat' scout mission… have a catastrophic danger rating and require a level 40 party?"
Rokan slowly sank back into his chair, his eyes closed. He massaged his temples with fingers that could bend steel. "I don't know," he said, the words heavy with a profound, professional despair. "I genuinely do not know. You walk in, and the bedrock rules of reality develop… opinions. The Quest Board has a tier system. Bronze, Iron, Silver, Gold, Mythic. 'Mythical Bronze' is not a thing. It is a contradiction. It is the system having a stroke because it cannot categorize you, so it invents a new, terrifying box to put you in."
He opened his eyes, and they were bleak. "You have to go. If a Catastrophic flag is raised and ignored, the system starts applying passive debuffs to the whole zone. Crops fail. Monsters evolve. The weather turns sentient and malicious. Go. Take your… whatever they are." He waved a hand at Nyx and Aeliana. "Fix it. And for the love of all that is sane, try not to adopt whatever is causing it."
---
The Northern Ridge – Restricted Zone
The North Ridge wasn't a place; it was a warning. The cheerful snow of Frostfall City gave way here to a bladed, howling white fury. The wind didn't blow—it screamed, carving the stone into razor-edged ridges. The mana in the air wasn't just dense; it was aggressive, tasting of ozone and primal rage.
Fern and Lura led the way, their forms sheathed in frost-forged scale mail purchased (despite Sai Ji's sputtered protests) with Aeliana's seemingly bottomless purse. Fern moved with calm, lethal precision, each footfall silent and sure. Lura was a prowling shadow, her eyes glittering with a feral excitement the punishing cold couldn't dim.
"The mana here is not just high," Fern reported, his voice a low murmur that cut through the gale. "It is structured. Like a defensive lattice. This is not a natural formation."
Lura grinned, a flash of white in the gloom. "It's a lock. And we're the uninvited key."
Sai Ji huddled deeper into his cloak, the Mythical Bronze quest slip burning a hole in his pocket. "I just got registered. Why does my career start with trespassing in a place that feels… angry?"
"Because normalcy flees from you, my King," Sal Vera cooed. "It is a survival instinct."
A deafening, systemic GONG echoed, not through the air, but directly into their consciousness.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESTRICTION ACTIVATED
Area: 'Frostfire Sanctum' – Minimum Level: 40
Scanning Party…
Sai Ji: Level ??? – [SOVEREIGN-CLASS] – EXEMPT
Nyx: Level ??? – [AETHER-SIGNATURE: ROYAL] – EXEMPT
Aeliana: Level ??? – [LINEAGE: NIGHTBLOSSOM / DIVINE TOUCH] – EXEMPT
Fern: Level 132 – [ELITE GUARDIAN] – RESTRICTED
Lura: Level 128 – [ELITE HUNTER] – RESTRICTED
Applying Synchronization Protocol…
Capping attributes to Zone Maximum (Lv. 40).
Sealing higher-tier abilities…
Calibration Complete.
Fern let out a sharp, controlled exhale. It was the only sign of his discomfort as a visible, shimmering band of light constricted around his torso before fading. His immense, leonine power, usually a palpable force, was suddenly contained, pressed into a smaller, denser vessel. Lura shuddered, her multiple tails flickering and shrinking from nine ghostly shapes to three more solid, but less potent, forms.
"Level suppression," Fern stated, flexing a gauntleted hand. The air cracked around his fist, but with less finality than before. "Brutal, but efficient. We are… compressed."
Lura rolled her shoulders, a wild light in her eyes. "Heh. Caged tiger is still a tiger. This just makes it interesting, Master. We'll have to get creative."
Sai Ji felt a spike of alarm. "Are you two okay? This isn't—you shouldn't be weakened because of me!"
Fern offered a slight, respectful bow of his head. "Our purpose is unchanged, Master. The tools are merely… standardized. We will adapt."
Lura winked. "Might even be fun. Like using a training sword."
Their reassurance was cut short by a roar that wasn't sound, but a pressure wave of heat and frost. The blizzard itself parted, and a shadow descended—a Frostfire Wyvern, a creature of impossible contradictions. Its scales were obsidian etched with glowing blue frost-runes, but its maw crackled with orange-white embers. Its wings beat with gale-force winds, each feather a blade of ice. Its six eyes burned with a cold, predatory intelligence.
Frostfire Wyvern – Level 48 (Elite Boss) – 'Sanctum Guardian'
It didn't survey them. It identified them. Its gaze locked onto Sai Ji, then flickered with what could only be system-recognized confusion at the '???', before settling with lethal intent.
"Master, stay behind us!" Fern's command was calm, but absolute. He planted his feet, his now-capped aura flaring—a brilliant, disciplined gold instead of his usual world-ending black. Lura vanished from sight, only a ripple in the snow marking her path.
What followed was not a battle; it was a masterpiece of constrained violence.
The Wyvern dove, a living meteor trailing frost and flame. Fern didn't dodge. He met it, his spear a blur of perfect, economical motion. He didn't try to overpower it; he redirected it, using the creature's own colossal mass against it, guiding its claws away from Sai Ji with precise, shocking parries that rang like struck anvils.
Lura was the counterpoint. She was everywhere the Wyvern wasn't. Her blades, now mere steel instead of soul-rending shadows, found the microscopic gaps in its glacial armor—the soft membrane of a wing joint, the seam behind a leg plate. Each strike was a pinpoint of damage, a death by a thousand cuts executed at blinding speed.
They were levels 40. But they fought with the experience, synergy, and ruthless efficiency of beings who had ended wars. The Wyvern was stronger, tougher, magically superior. But it was a beast. They were artisans of death.
Sai Ji watched, heart hammering, awe battling with terror. "They're level-capped… how are they doing this?!"
"Level is a number, my King," Sal Vera whispered, her voice thick with pride. "Skill is an eternity. Their bodies are forged in Sovereign fire. The system can cap the fuel, but it cannot dim the shape of the flame."
The Wyvern, enraged and bleeding from a dozen precise wounds, unleashed its ultimate attack. It reared back, its chest glowing like a frozen star, and unleashed a concentrated beam of Frostfire—a paradoxical hellstorm meant to flash-freeze and incinerate simultaneously.
Fern crossed his arms, a golden shield erupting before him. The beam struck, and he skidded backward, boots carving trenches in the stone, his entire body trembling with the strain of holding back apocalyptic force with middling-tier stats. Lura seized the opening, leaping onto the Wyvern's back, driving both blades deep into the base of its skull.
The creature shuddered. Its furious light guttered. With a final, grating roar, it collapsed, its massive form hitting the ridge with a ground-shaking thud, the Frostfire in its veins dying to a dull, dead grey.
Silence, save for the weeping wind.
Fern lowered his arms, the golden shield dissipating. He was breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat on his brow—a sight so human it was shocking. Lura landed lightly beside the corpse, yanking her blades free with a wet sound.
And then, Sai Ji heard it. A faint, desperate sound, buried under the wyvern's rubble. Not a roar. A whimper.
He moved without thinking, scrambling over the broken ice. Behind a shattered altar-stone, he found it.
An egg.
It was the size of his head, a perfect ovoid of what looked like solidified sunlight. Its shell was not white, but a deep, translucent gold, and within, a core of liquid fire pulsed with a slow, powerful rhythm. It wasn't just glowing; it was alive with light. And it was cracked. A fine, hairline fracture ran down one side, from which leaked not albumen, but wisps of warm, cinnamon-scented smoke.
The Wyvern hadn't been guarding its territory. It had been guarding this.
Before anyone could react, the egg twitched. The crack widened a fraction.
Peeeeep…
The sound was impossibly small, impossibly clear. A lonely, scared chirp that vibrated in Sai Ji's soul.
The Frostfire Wyvern's massive corpse, behind them, chose that moment to dissolve into motes of blue and orange light, the system reclaiming it. The environmental suppression field flickered and died. Fern and Lura gasped as the restrictive bands around their power vanished, their true, monstrous auras flooding back in a wave of palpable pressure.
But Sai Ji didn't notice. He was staring at the egg. It had just… called to him.
Slowly, against every instinct screaming about unknown mythical entities, he reached out. His fingers brushed the warm, smooth shell.
The egg flared. The internal fire blazed, and for a second, the silhouette of a tiny, perfect dragon, wings outstretched, was visible within the golden depths.
A cascade of system alerts, not in blue or red, but in blinding, urgent GOLD, exploded across his vision.
MYTHICAL QUEST UPDATE
'Flame Requiem' – Objective Updated.
Secure the Anomaly. Protect the Mythical Egg.
Failure Condition:Allow the egg to be destroyed or claimed by another.
Failure Penalty:World Event – 'Drachenfall Cataclysm'
SECRET IDENTIFICATION UNLOCKED
ENTITY: [INFERNAL SUN-DRAGON – PRIMORDIAL-CLASS]
STATUS: PRE-HATCHLING – IMPRINTING PHASE
RANK: TRANSCENDENT (BEYOND SSS)
NOTE: This entity does not exist in Aetheria's known bestiary. Origin: [DATA EXPUNGED].
WARNING: Primordial-class entities imprint once. The bond is eternal, unbreakable, and alters fate.
The golden light faded, leaving the egg pulsing softly in his hands. The tiny chirp came again, softer this time, tinged with… recognition.
Peeep…?
Fern was on his knees, head bowed so low his forehead touched the snow. "A Primordial…" his voice was a reverent, terrified whisper. "A being from the First Code. Before the gods sorted the elements. Master… you hold a fragment of the world's dawn."
Lura wasn't smirking. She was staring with naked awe. "Its very presence in a 'game' is a glitch of cosmic proportions. It is a truth that should not be here."
Nyx and Aeliana had arrived, their faces pale. "Sai Ji," Aeliana breathed. "That… is not a pet."
Sai Ji looked from their stunned faces down to the warm, living weight in his hands. The egg gave a contented little shudder and seemed to nestle against his chest.
The absurdity, the terror, the sheer monumental scale of it all crashed down on him. He had wanted a simple scout mission. He had gotten a dungeon boss, a system-breaking restriction, and now… this. A cosmic toddler that could apparently trigger world-ending cataclysms if he messed up.
A faint, hysterical laugh bubbled in his throat. He swallowed it, looking at the concerned, awe-stricken faces of his companions, then down at the egg whose fate was now irrevocably tied to his own.
He took a deep, steadying breath of the thin, cold air.
"Alright," he said, his voice quiet but clear in the sudden stillness. "New priority one." He carefully cradled the egg closer, shielding it from the wind with his cloak. "We're going to need to read up on… dragon diapers. Or whatever the apocalyptic, reality-warping equivalent is."