The exam hall was a sea of focused silence, broken only by the frantic scratching of styluses on glass tablets. I was halfway through a question about thermal expansion when the air began to taste like burnt copper—the telltale sign of an Entropy Patch being force-uploaded into the local reality.
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, THE COUNCIL HAS PULLED THE TRIGGER. 'PROJECT FIRMAMENT' IS OVERRIDING THE PHYSICS OF THIS BUILDING. PROBABILITY OF THE CEILING BECOMING A LIQUID: 65%.]
I glanced at Lin Yue, who sat three rows ahead. She wasn't writing. She was staring at her tablet, her face pale as her "Observer" status translated the data-stream. She looked back at me, her eyes screaming, 'They're doing it.'
"Ren," she whispered, her voice amplified by a localized vibration I had taught her to use. "The suppression towers are peaking. They're siphoning energy from a 'Bio-Battery' in Sector 9. If I don't hijack their uplink now, the whole campus is going to undergo a 'Format C' operation."
"Go," I mouthed back.
Lin Yue stood up, ignoring the professor's confused shout, and walked toward the back of the hall where the main server node for the building was located. She didn't need a key; she had me. As she passed my desk, I tapped the floor once.
[SYSTEM LOG: UPLOADING 'DAO-DASH' OVERRIDE SCRIPT]
[METHOD: SUB-SONIC RESONANCE VIA BUILDING FOUNDATION]
The "Patch" hit. Suddenly, the laws of gravity in the exam hall became... optional. Tablets began to drift toward the ceiling. A student in the front row yelped as his ink pen started writing in three dimensions, the ink forming a floating sculpture of a screaming face.
While Lin Yue fought the digital war, my "Earth-Heart" sense followed the energy tether back to its source. It wasn't just a machine. In a hidden facility beneath the city, the Council had moved beyond mere code.
They were using Bio-Humans—failed "Un-Syncs" whose nervous systems had been modified to act as conductors for the old Dao energy. These poor souls were being "burned" as fuel to restore the previous era. And at the center of this horrific battery was the slumbering Zhou Min, his golden aura being bled dry to power the "Entropy Patch."
The "Dark Force" behind the Council wasn't interested in stability or even profit. They were Restorationists—fanatics who believed that the "Normalization" was a prison and that the only way to be free was to tear down the world I had built, even if it meant a return to the bloody, chaotic age of warring gods.
I couldn't let them win, but I also had to finish my midterm.
I leaned back, closed my eyes, and initiated a "Force-Update" of my own. If they wanted to patch reality, I would give them a Glitched Version.
"Attention everyone," I said, my voice resonating through the hall using the building's own ventilation system. "Please remain calm. This is merely a... high-concept practical exam on 'Dynamic Structural Instability.' Please continue your tests while floating. Points will be awarded for spatial awareness."
[DAO MESSAGE: ...HOST, THAT IS THE LEAST CONVINCING LIE YOU HAVE EVER TOLD.]
Just watch, I thought.
I sent a massive, rhythmic pulse through the floor. Instead of fighting the Entropy, I "Embraced" it. I turned the Council's dark-code into a rhythmic beat. Suddenly, the floating tablets and the liquid ink didn't just drift—they began to dance. The entire room turned into a perfectly synchronized, low-gravity ballet.
Lin Yue, at the server node, laughed as she saw the Council's suppression towers begin to pulse in time with my "Vibration." She used the rhythm to bypass their firewalls, her fingers flying across her jade tablet.
"I've got the towers!" she shouted over the music of the spheres. "I'm redirecting the 'Entropy' back to their own servers! Ren, give them the 'Blue Screen of Death'!"
I grinned and tapped the floor one last time, a sharp, dissonant chord that echoed through the entire city grid.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: 'DAO-DASH' VERSION 2.0 DEPLOYED]
[EFFECT: COUNCILLOR SERVERS CONVERTED TO 'MINESWEEPER' MODE]
[RESULT: THE RESTORATIONISTS JUST LOST THEIR ENTIRE DATA-ARRAY TO A GAME FROM 1995.]
The gravity returned to normal with a soft whump. The students fell back into their chairs, looking dazed but unharmed. The professor blinked, looked at the floating ink sculpture that had now settled into a perfect 100% grade on the chalkboard, and cleared his throat.
"Well... quite a demonstration. Please... continue with question four."
Lin Yue walked back to her seat, winking at me as she tucked her tablet away. But as the humor faded, I felt a cold shadow. The "Bio-Humans" were still down there. The Restorationists had failed this time, but they had proven one thing: they were willing to turn humanity into batteries to bring back the old gods.