Elian walked back into the sunlight of the First Floor, the heavy iron door of the maintenance tunnel sealing shut behind him.
The Mask of the Stoic was invisible on his face, but its weight was immense. It was the only reason he wasn't screaming.
He looked at the sky. It wasn't a sky. It was a projection. A ceiling painted blue to keep the livestock calm.
They are batteries, the voice from the hologram echoed in his mind. We are fuel.
He walked to the inn. Valen, Seraphina, and Jax were waiting at a table, laughing over ale and roasted chicken. They looked so alive. So painfully ignorant.
"Elian!" Valen waved, his smile bright enough to rival the sun. "You took forever! We saved you a leg."
Elian sat down. He looked at them.
In his past life, he had failed because he tried to play by the rules. He tried to be the hero the System wanted.
To kill the System, I can't be a Player, Elian thought. I have to be a virus.
He couldn't tell them the truth. If they knew they were cattle in a slaughterhouse, they would break. Valen's heroism would shatter. Seraphina's kindness would turn to despair.
"Eat up," Jax said, nudging a plate toward him. "You look pale."
"We're making a Guild," Elian said abruptly.
The table went silent.
"A... Guild?" Seraphina blinked. "But you just turned down the Big Three. You said you didn't want dead weight."
"I don't," Elian said, his voice steady. "That's why we're building our own. I don't want a guild of thousands. I want a guild of monsters. The rejected. The hidden. The ones the System underestimated."
He looked at Valen. "I need ten founding members to register. We have four."
Valen grinned. "I'm in."
Jax shrugged. "Better than working for The Dynasty."
Seraphina nodded. "Where do we find the rest?"
"I know exactly where to look," Elian said.
The Recruitment: The Crafters
Elian's first stop was the alleyway behind the market.
Luna was brewing potions, humming a tune. When Elian dropped a bag of gold on her table, she jumped.
"Luna," Elian said. "Pack your things."
"E-Elian? Where are we going?"
"To the top," Elian replied. "I'm starting a guild. You're going to be the Head Alchemist. No more selling scraps in an alley. You'll have a lab. You'll have infinite funding. And you'll have protection."
Luna looked at her pathetic stall, then at Elian. She saw the cold determination in his eyes.
"Okay," she whispered, grabbing her cauldron. [Member 5 Acquired.]
Next was The Silent Anvil.
Kael was hammering a piece of steel. He didn't look up. "Shop's closed. I'm busy with a commission for The Vanguard."
"Cancel it," Elian commanded.
Kael snorted. "You got a lot of nerve, kid. Why would I—"
Elian placed a single item on the anvil. It wasn't gold. It was a chunk of Obsidian he had chipped off the wall in Floor 0. A material that predated the System.
Kael stopped. He touched the stone. His hands trembled. "This... this density. This mana conductivity. It's impossible."
"I know where to find more," Elian lied smoothly. "Join my guild, and you'll forge weapons that will make the gods jealous. Refuse, and you'll spend the rest of your life fixing rusted swords for rookies."
Kael looked at the stone. He looked at his hammer.
"I'll get my apron," the dwarf grunted. [Member 6 Acquired.]
The Slums: The Unbreakable Shield
"Six members," Valen counted as they walked through the dirty, crowded streets of the Starter Town's slums. "We need four more. Are we looking for a high-level mercenary?"
"No," Elian said. "We need a Tank. But not just any tank. We need a wall that cannot fall."
They arrived at the darkest part of the slums. The smell of sewage was strong. NPCs—the "non-player" residents of the tower—lived here in squalor. Most players ignored them, treating them like background decoration.
Elian stopped in front of a bakery.
"Hey! Get back here you little rat!" the baker shouted.
A small, dirty child sprinted out of the shop, clutching a loaf of bread to his chest. He was tiny, maybe seven years old, with matted hair and clothes that were just rags.
The baker, a burly man, caught up to the boy and backhanded him.
SMACK.
The boy hit the dirt hard. But he didn't drop the bread. He curled around it, protecting it with his body.
"Thief!" the baker roared, raising a heavy wooden rolling pin. He swung it down.
CRACK.
The blow hit the boy's back. It should have broken his spine.
The boy didn't cry. He didn't scream. He just gritted his teeth, his eyes squeezed shut, shielding the bread.
"Stop!" Seraphina cried out, rushing forward to heal him.
Elian held her back. "Wait. Look."
The baker swung again. And again. And again.
The boy didn't move. He didn't flee. He absorbed every hit. Not because he was strong, but because two smaller children—a toddler and a baby—were hiding behind a crate nearby, watching with hungry eyes. He wasn't taking the beating for himself. He was the wall between the monster and his family.
In Elian's past life, this boy, Titan, was never discovered by a guild. He died of infection in the slums at age 8.
But Elian remembered a rumor. A rumor about a "glitched" NPC in the logs of the future, a theoretical entity with a hidden stat called [Absolute Endurance].
Elian stepped forward. He caught the baker's wrist mid-swing.
"That's enough," Elian said. He tossed a gold coin to the baker. "For the bread. And for your silence."
The baker took the gold and ran.
Elian knelt in the mud. The boy looked up, his face bruised, one eye swollen shut. He gripped the bread tighter, trying to crawl toward his siblings.
"What is your name?" Elian asked.
"No name," the boy rasped. "Just... Boy."
Elian looked at the child's status. It was greyed out for everyone else. But with his Key of Truth in his inventory, Elian saw a flicker of the code beneath.
[Name: Titan (NPC)]
[Class: Locked]
[Potential: Infinite]
[Hidden Trait: The World Eater's Shell (Damage taken is converted to Defense)]
"You took a beating that would kill a grown man," Elian said softly. "Why didn't you run?"
The boy looked at his siblings. "Because... if I run... they get hit."
Elian smiled. It was the first genuine smile he had worn since leaving Floor 0.
"You have a job, kid," Elian said. "I'm going to feed your family. I'm going to give you a house. I'm going to give you armor."
The boy blinked, tears finally mixing with the dirt on his face. "Why?"
"Because I need someone to stand in front of me," Elian whispered. "And I think you're the only one in this world strong enough to do it."
Elian stood up and looked at Valen and Jax, who were staring at the battered child in confusion.
"Meet our Main Tank," Elian declared.
As Seraphina rushed to heal the boy, Elian felt the Black Cube vibrate again. But this time, it wasn't a warning.
It was a pulse of recognition.
The Cube reacted to the boy.
Elian narrowed his eyes. An NPC with infinite potential? Or is he something else entirely? A fail-safe left by the Architects?
"Seven," Elian counted. "Three more."
He looked up at the Tower looming over the slums.
"We're going to break you," he promised the sky. "One brick at a time."