Chapter 2: First Blood

The countdown timer hung in the air like a death sentence. Around him, ten thousand people were arguing, crying, praying, and punching each other.

Jake was doing none of those things. He was reading.

While everyone else panicked at their status screens, Jake noticed something different about his interface. He saw lines of code scrolling behind the surface like the Matrix digital rain.

[PARTICIPANT_STATUS: CHEN_JAKE]
class: null
level: 1
hp: 100/100
str: 8, agi: 10, int: 14
unique_trait: ERROR_UNDEFINED
trait_permissions: ALL
system_access_level: 0 // ANOMALY FLAGGED

“System access level zero,” Jake murmured. In any system architecture, level zero meant root access — administrator privileges.

“This is a misconfiguration,” he whispered. “They did not account for someone who could actually READ the system.”

A heavy hand clamped on his shoulder. A thick-necked man in a gym tank spun him around.

“Hey, nerd. You seem calm. You know what is going on?”

“I know as much as you do,” Jake said. “But we should form a group.”

Marcus — a Marine with four tours — grunted agreement. Sarah, an ER nurse, joined them.

“Good,” Jake nodded. “We have got a tank and a healer. I will figure out the strategy.”

“And what is your class?” Marcus asked.

Where everyone else had a class name, Jake saw: [ERROR: UNDEFINED]

“I am working on it,” he said.

The timer hit zero. The world dissolved.