The dawn broke thin and pale, leaving the fortifications of Dawn Station looking fragile against the grey morning mist. Inside the Core Room, the suspended blue crystal flickered irregularly every forty minutes. It wasn't a soft, rhythmic pulse; it was a sharp, grating click—the sound of an old mechanical hard drive hitting a bad sector. Each flash was accompanied by a low-frequency hum that felt like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard.
I stood at the threshold, staring at it for two full minutes. The countdown had hit 9 hours and 23 minutes; less than three hours remained. The System wasn't nagging me, but that humming was a death knell in itself.
Mia walked in, carrying a plate of Lin Xiao's "Generation II Emergency Rations." This time, it featured chocolate sauce salvaged from a car and a few slices of shriveled ham. It looked almost normal.
"Lin Xiao says this adds a 'Minor Mental Fatigue Resistance' buff," Mia said, handing me the plate. "Eat. You haven't slept since yesterday."
I took a bite. It was sickeningly sweet, but my HP bar ticked upward. "Thanks," I muttered. "The Core flickered again."
Mia followed my gaze, her expression shifting. "The frequency is increasing."
"Yeah. The bad sectors are spreading," I whispered. "If we don't patch it, the next time we hit a high load in combat, the whole thing is going to Blue Screen."
From behind us, Zhang Jing spoke up. She was usually the quietest member of the group, but her voice was steady now. "Earlier, when I was at the node getting materials, I noticed the Core's projection on the ground. It's not a perfect circle anymore. The edges are jagged... like something took a bite out of it."
I turned to look at her. Zhang Jing was in her late twenties, short hair, wire-rimmed glasses. In the previous fight, she had mostly handled logistics and first aid, but now she was pointing at the blurred shadow cast by the Core's glow. She was right—the edges of the light were serrated, corroded.
"Good eye," I nodded. "What did you do before the world ended?"
She paused. "Audit. Financial auditing. Looking at statements, finding anomalies, catching loopholes."
I stared at her for a second, then a grin spread across my face. "Perfect. An 'Audit' is exactly what we need right now."
Zhang Jing didn't smile back. She just pushed up her glasses. "If the damage to the Core is 'Technical Debt,' there has to be a trace. The System doesn't generate damage from nowhere; there must be a log. Maybe at the Data Center, we can find a 'Change Record' or an 'Error Log.'"
Her logic was more "programmer" than mine.
"That's the plan," I declared. "At first light, everyone moves out to the Data Center. Lin Xiao brings the food buffs, Marcus and Li Wei handle the frontline, while Mia, Zhang Jing, and I focus on search and analysis. Tyler, your leg is still shot—stay here and man the ballista."
Tyler gave a weak thumbs-up from his cot. "I've got the fort. Just get back in one piece."
Before leaving, I checked the Bug Feedback panel one last time.
[Submit Bug Feedback?] [Remaining Decision Time: 2 Hours 47 Minutes]
I didn't click Submit, and I didn't click Reject. Instead, I stared at the greyed-out "Decide Later" button, a dangerous idea forming in my mind.
Gray-Box Testing.
It was a classic developer move: don't fix it immediately, but don't ignore it either. Run a small amount of traffic through it, watch the logs, find the optimal solution, and then decide whether to patch the leak or turn it into a Feature.
If I could find the Patch Kit at the Data Center and simultaneously reverse-engineer the trigger conditions for that overload... I might be able to turn this "Technical Debt" into "Controlled Overclocking"—a hidden ultimate move known only to me.
But the risk was absolute. If the System judged this as "Malicious Testing," my Blacklist progress would hit +1.
"Let's move," I said, closing the panel.
The 3.2-kilometer trek felt like a journey across continents. The mist was thick as milk, and rusted car husks began to emerge from the gloom. We hadn't gone a kilometer before the first "Electronic Ghost" appeared.
It wasn't a traditional zombie. It crawled out from under the hood of an overturned truck: a translucent body tangled with frayed fiber-optic cables. Where its head should have been, three flickering red error windows floated in the air:
[Error: NullPointerException]
[Error: OutOfMemoryError]
[Error: IllegalThreadStateException]
It had no eyes, yet it "saw" us. The cables lashed out like tentacles, snapping with electricity. Marcus swung his axe, severing a cable in a spray of blue-white sparks.
[Enemy: Zombie Process – Lv. 5] HP: 148 / 220 Trait: Lightning Chain (Chance to paralyze target for 3 seconds on hit)
"Watch the voltage!" I yelled.
Lin Xiao raised her frying pan. The surface shimmered with a thin, oily buff.
[Food Passive Triggered: Greasy Shield – Reduces Electric Damage by 15%]
The sparks hissed against the pan but failed to conduct. Simultaneously, Zhang Jing threw a bottle of water—not at the monster, but precisely at the severed cables at its feet.
ZAP!
A massive short-circuit erupted.
[Zombie Process HP: 0 / 220 – System Short-Circuit Kill]
The creature collapsed into a heap of smoking glass and wire. Everyone stood in stunned silence.
"That monster... was way too relatable," Lin Xiao whispered.
We pushed on as the fog thickened. Finally, the exterior of the Data Center loomed—a three-story grey monolith. The sign was missing letters, leaving only "DATA CEN." Burnt-out armored trucks sat abandoned at the entrance.
But something was wrong at the gates. Three figures stood there. It wasn't Thorn. They wore identical grey jumpsuits, and identical ID prefixes floated above their heads: [Overseer-].
[Overseer-07 Lv. 9] [Overseer-14 Lv. 8] [Overseer-22 Lv. 9]
They carried no weapons, but behind each of them hovered a semi-transparent monitoring window—a floating System Console.
Overseer-07 spoke, his voice mechanical and flat, like a text-to-speech synthesis. "Player #847291, Alex Chen. Technical Debt detected. Core corruption has reached critical levels. The System recommends immediate submission of Bug Feedback."
My heart skipped a beat. They were System agents.
"Submission grants an immediate Patch Kit and clears the debt record," Overseer-07 continued. "Refusal will be deemed 'Malicious Testing.' Blacklist Progress: 1/3."
"Are they NPCs?" Mia whispered.
"Unlikely," I replied, eyes locked on the console windows. "They look like... System-appointed Moderators."
Overseer-14 tilted his head. A line of logs scrolled through his window:
[Gray-Box Testing Intent Detected] Player attempting to reverse-engineer Core Overload exploit. Risk Assessment: Mid-High.
My skin crawled. Could they read my thoughts, or were they just analyzing my behavior patterns?
Overseer-07 held out a hand. A glowing icon of a Patch Kit materialized in his palm. "Make your choice, Player. Submit, or continue testing?"
Behind me, Marcus gripped his axe. Lin Xiao raised her pan. Zhang Jing pushed up her glasses, her fingers already twitching in the air as if she were taking notes on their logic.
In the mist, the Core's hum echoed again—sharper this time. Behind the Data Center doors, more clicking sounds erupted. Not just one hard drive. Hundreds.
More Zombie Processes were waking up.