The message burned in Robin's retinas long after he left the auditorium. In the hyper-connected world of 2053, an "Unknown" sender was nearly impossible. Every packet of data was supposed to be tagged, traced, and logged by the A.I.S. Central Server. To be anonymous was to be a ghost.
Robin didn't return to the Rust Dorms. Instead, he followed the signal pulse embedded in the message. It led him away from the gleaming spires of the Academy and down into the "Gutter-Sectors" of Neo-Lagos, where the neon lights flickered with the stutter of dying transformers.
As he crossed the border into Sector 12, his HUD began to glitch.
[A.I.S. WARNING: SIGNAL STRENGTH DEGRADING]
[ENTERING SEMI-DEAD ZONE: MONITORING SUSPENDED]
This was the "Grid-Edge." Here, the government's signal jammers—designed to contain rogue mana-leaks from unstable portals—created pockets of digital silence. For most citizens, entering a Dead Zone was like losing a limb; without their HUD, they couldn't navigate, pay for goods, or even check their own heart rate.
For Robin, it felt like a weight was being lifted off his chest.
He stopped in a narrow alleyway slick with oily rain. The only light came from a cracked holographic billboard advertising a Skill Book for "Basic Levitation" that had been out of date for a decade.
"You're late, Kid."
Robin spun around, his hand instinctively flying to the hilt of the training dagger hidden under his jacket. His 25 Intelligence flared. Even without a System combat-alert, his mind processed the subtle shift in the air.
A figure stepped out from behind a stack of rusted shipping containers. He was a man in his late thirties, wearing a tattered trench coat reinforced with carbon-fiber plating. But it was his eyes that stopped Robin's breath.
They weren't glowing. There was no blue A.I.S. flicker, no data-stream scrolling across the iris. They were just... human.
"You're one of them," Robin whispered, his grip tightening on his blade. "The Unshackled."
"We prefer the term 'Awake,'" the man said, a grim smile touching his lips. He looked at Robin's forehead, where the faint shimmer of a working neural link still resided. "You've got a leash on your brain, but your feet... your feet know how to dance outside the cage. That move in the auditorium? No System-user could have timed that. The AI is too greedy; it wants to control the muscles. You? You just moved."
"Who are you?" Robin demanded.
"Name's Jax," the man said. He threw a small, heavy object at Robin.
Robin's 15 Speed kicked in. Without thinking, he caught the object inches from his face. It was a dense, black cube—a Mana-Suppression Core, used to shut down A.I.S. signals in a small radius.
"I saw your rank on the board. S-Rank Void," Jax said, his voice dropping to a low growl. "The government tells you it's a defect. They tell you it's a hole. They want you to believe you're broken so you won't try to fill that hole yourself."
"I'm not looking for a mentor," Robin snapped.
"I'm not offering a lesson," Jax countered. He stepped closer, and Robin realized the man's mana wasn't being managed by a system—it was leaking from him like a raw, physical heat. "I'm offering a warning. The Academy isn't a school, Robin. It's a laboratory. They've never seen an S-Rank Void before. They're going to let you 'struggle' for a few weeks, and when you're desperate enough, they'll offer you a 'Specialized' Skill Book. Don't take it."
"Why?"
"Because once you load their code into a Void-type brain, you aren't a person anymore. You're a hard drive. They'll use your capacity to process the math they can't handle."
Robin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain. It matched the theory he had been forming in his own mind.
Suddenly, Robin's HUD turned a violent, screaming red.
[A.I.S. EMERGENCY ALERT]
[SPATIAL TREMOR DETECTED: RADIUS 50M]
[INCURSION IMMINENT: RANK E]
The ground beneath them groaned. The air in the alleyway began to tear, revealing a jagged, purple rift. A low-rank dungeon was opening—anywhere, anytime.
"Perfect timing," Jax grunted, pulling a jagged, non-system blade from his coat. "Let's see if that Void of yours can do more than just stand still. Don't use your eyes, Kid. The System is going to lie to you the moment that portal opens. Use your mind."
A pack of Shadow-Hounds—starving, multi-eyed beasts made of semi-solid mana—leaped through the rift.
Robin looked at his dagger. He looked at the rift. His Intelligence stat began to hum, mapping the chaotic geometry of the portal. He didn't have a Skill Book. He didn't have a plan.
But he had 15 points of Speed and a mind that was starting to see the world as a series of errors he could fix.
[Robin's Combat Status: Dead Zone Active]
Attribute Value Status
A.I.S. Signal LOST Manual Mode Only
Intelligence 25 Spatial Mapping: 100%
Speed 15 Reflex Buffer: Active
Strength 10 --
Mana ??/?? VOID HUNGER DETECTED