The silence following the launch was heavier than the gravity seals.
For three years, my existence had been defined by the imperative to *hold back*. Every breath was a calculated risk, every movement a negotiation with the structural integrity of the planet. I was a bull in a china shop, except the bull was the size of a galaxy and the shop was made of wet tissue paper.
But now, the connection was open.
I sat in the Sarcophagus suit, the servos whining in a low, tortured harmony as they fought to keep my mass from liquefying the chair. My eyes were fixed on the massive holographic display hovering in the frozen air of the server room.
**[Active Users: 184,920]**
**[Connection Stability: 98.4%]**
**[Energy Disbursement: 0.0000004% of Total Reserves]**
It was working.
But as I watched the numbers climb, a memory surfaced—the catalyst that had taken me from a brooding hermit in a hole to a digital god. It wasn't just the boredom. It was the *ruins*.
Six months ago, during a "light stretch" (which involved doing squats with a mountain range pressing down on my shoulders), I had cracked the mantle. I had slipped. My heel had driven through the crust, shattering a pocket of obsidian rock three miles beneath my living quarters.
I hadn't found magma. I had found a library.
It was a cavern of impossible geometry, lined with tablets made of a metal that didn't exist on the periodic table. It wasn't human. It wasn't even terrestrial. It was a remnant of something that had been here before the dinosaurs, a civilization that had mastered the stars and then vanished.
I remembered picking up the first tablet. To anyone else, it would have been an indestructible artifact. To me, it felt like a cracker. I had to read it by hovering my eyes millimeters from the surface, letting my enhanced perception decode the microscopic etchings.
It wasn't a language; it was a mathematical constant. It was the coding language of reality.
They called it *Prana*. *Qi*. *The Source*.
The texts described a civilization that had starved. They had built machines to harvest the energy of stars, but they lacked the biological capacity to store it. They were vessels with holes in the bottom. They withered and died, leaving their knowledge in the dark.
I was the opposite. I was a vessel that was overflowing, a cup under a waterfall that never stopped.
"Bio-Energy Transference," I whispered, recalling the diagram on the third tablet. "The conversion of raw kinetic potential into biological enhancement."
That was the key. That was the Puppet Master's Idea.
If I couldn't interact with the world physically without breaking it, I had to interact with it metaphysically. I had to lend my strength. But you can't just pour a gallon of water into a thimble. If I gave a human even a fraction of my true power, they wouldn't become a superhero; they would become a biological nuclear bomb. They would detonate.
So, I needed a regulator. A buffer.
I looked at the schematic of the VR headset spinning in the corner of the display. The "Visor of Truth."
To the 50,000 early adopters who had 3D printed it, it was just a piece of high-end gaming gear with a strangely complex neuro-link. They thought the proprietary alloy specifications were for "haptic feedback fidelity."
Fools.
The alloy was lead and iridium, designed to shield their fragile brains from the signal I was beaming into them. The "game" wasn't a game. The "experience points" weren't data.
When a player killed a monster in my virtual world of Aethelgard, the System released a microscopic valve. It allowed a trickle of my energy—my *overflow*—to travel down the connection, through the headset, and into their nervous system.
It rewrote their DNA. It hardened their bones. It optimized their mitochondria.
Level 1 wasn't just a number. Level 1 meant you could run a four-minute mile without sweating. Level 10 meant you could catch a bullet.
"Show me Player 001," I commanded.
The main screen shifted. The map of Tokyo zoomed in, resolving into a first-person perspective.
I was seeing through the eyes of Tanaka Kenji.
***
**Simulation Layer: Aethelgard**
**Location: The Weeping Woods**
**Player: Kenji (Class: Vanguard)**
It was pathetic.
Kenji was currently flailing a rusted iron sword at a creature that looked like a cross between a wolf and a briar patch. The "Thorn-Wolf" was a low-level mob I had designed. Its AI was set to 'Stupid.' It telegraphed its attacks with a three-second windup.
Yet, Kenji was losing.
"Dodge left," I muttered, my voice echoing in the silent server room. "It's leaning on its right paw. Dodge left, you idiot."
Kenji dodged right.
The Thorn-Wolf slammed into him. In the simulation, Kenji's health bar dropped by 30%. In the real world, inside his cramped apartment, his headset would deliver a sharp, localized shock to his ribs—a bio-feedback spike designed to condition his reflexes.
"Ow!" Kenji's voice came through the audio feed. "This haptic suit is no joke!"
He scrambled back, dirt flying. The graphics engine I had built was rendering the mud with molecular precision. Kenji looked at his hands. He looked at the sword.
"Come on," he panted. "It's just a game. It's just a game."
I leaned forward. "No, Kenji. It is a crucible."
I checked his biometrics on the side panel.
**Heart Rate: 140 BPM.**
**Adrenaline: Spiking.**
**Neural Receptivity: 88%.**
He was scared. Good. Fear opened the pathways. Fear made the body desperate for resources.
"System," I said. "Inject 0.0001 units of energy. Trigger the 'Adrenaline Rush' skill."
**[Acknowledged.]**
On the screen, a golden aura flared around Kenji's avatar.
In reality, a pulse of radiation traveled from my facility in Chile, bounced off a satellite, and hit Tokyo.
Kenji screamed. It wasn't a scream of pain, but of sudden, terrifying power. His muscles in the real world would be seizing, knitting themselves tighter, denser. His perception of time would be dilating.
In the game, he moved.
The Thorn-Wolf lunged. To me, it was slow motion. To the old Kenji, it would have been a blur. But the new Kenji—the Kenji running on a spark of my divinity—saw it coming.
He sidestepped. It was clumsy, unrefined, but it was *fast*.
He swung the rusted sword.
*CRACK.*
The blade bit into the digital texture of the wolf's neck. A critical hit. The wolf shattered into polygons.
**[LEVEL UP!]**
**[Current Level: 2]**
I watched the data stream. The energy transfer was complete. Kenji's bone density had just increased by 0.5%. His reaction time had shaved off ten milliseconds.
He stood over the fading pixels of the wolf, panting. Then, he looked at his hands again. He clenched his fist.
"Whoa," Kenji whispered. "I feel... awake."
I slumped back in my chair, a wave of relief washing over me. He hadn't exploded. He hadn't had a stroke. The tech from the ancient tablets worked.
I had successfully turned a human being into a semi-conductor for my power.
"One down," I said dryly. "Four billion to go."
But as I watched Kenji celebrate, doing a little victory dance in the virtual forest, a notification blinked in the corner of my vision—my *own* System interface.
**[Feedback Loop Detected.]**
**[Source: Subject 'Kenji'.]**
**[Energy Return: 0.00000001%.]**
I froze.
I pulled up the text from the ancient tablets in my memory. I had focused so much on the *transmission* of power, I had skimmed over the section on *cultivation*.
*"The stream flows to the river, and the river feeds the ocean. But the ocean evokes the rain, returning the water to the mountain."*
I stared at the blue box.
"You have to be kidding me," I whispered.
When Kenji grew stronger, he didn't just consume my energy. He processed it. He refined it through the struggle of his own biological existence. And because we were linked via the quantum entanglement of the System... a fraction of that refined energy came back to me.
It was a microscopic amount. A rounding error.
But I had 180,000 players online right now.
If they all leveled up... if they all grew...
I did the math in my head. It took a nanosecond.
By creating an army of superhumans to alleviate my boredom, I had inadvertently created a mechanism to accelerate my own growth. The stronger they got, the more energy they could handle. The more they handled, the more they fed back to me. The more they fed me, the larger my daily 10% compound became.
I started to laugh.
It was a dark, rumbling sound that vibrated through the Sarcophagus suit.
"I can't escape it," I wheezed. "I literally cannot stop winning."
The irony was perfect. A cosmic joke tailored specifically for me. I wanted to create peers, but in doing so, I was pushing myself further up the pedestal.
But then, I looked back at the screen.
Another player, this one in Brazil—a girl named Clara, judging by the metadata—was casting her first spell. She was a 'Weaver' class. She held out her hand, and a small fireball materialized.
In the real world, the temperature in her room would rise by five degrees. She was learning to manipulate thermal dynamics.
She looked at the fire with a sense of wonder that I hadn't felt in years.
I stopped laughing.
For the first time in a thousand days, I wasn't just observing the world as a fragile painting I was afraid to touch. I was *in* it. I was the fire in her hand. I was the strength in Kenji's arm.
I was the Puppet Master, yes. But a puppet master can feel the tug of the strings.
"System," I said, my voice steady again. "Open the Global Scenario Generator."
**[Accessing Narrative Engine.]**
If I was going to be the god of this new world, I needed to be a benevolent—or at least, entertaining—one. They needed a goal. They needed an antagonist.
I couldn't fight them. Not yet. I was still too much.
But I could build things that could.
"Initialize the 'Monster Foundry'," I commanded. "Use the schematics from the Sub-Basement records. Let's see how they handle a kinetic-reactive Golem."
**[Warning: Construct difficulty is set to 'Deadly'. Projected casualty rate for Level 2 players is 90%.]**
"Scale it down," I said. "Give it a weak point. A glowing red eye. Humans love glowing red weak points."
I began to type on the holographic keyboard, my movements sharp and precise. I was designing a boss fight.
For the first time, I wasn't calculating how to not break a coffee cup. I was calculating hit boxes, damage output, and loot tables. I was creating a challenge.
A notification popped up.
**[Player 49,201 (USA) has discovered the 'Hidden Shrine'.]**
I swiped the map. A player in Chicago had wandered off the path I laid out. He was poking around a digital ruin I had modeled after the library where I found the tablets.
"Clever," I murmured. "Curiosity. That's a trait worth cultivating."
I tapped the air, spawning a treasure chest in front of the player. Inside, I placed a 'Rare' item: *The Ring of Burden*.
In the game, it increased defense but lowered speed.
In reality, it would slightly increase the local gravity around the user's body, acting as a constant, low-level resistance training.
"Take it," I urged the screen. "Put it on. Get strong."
The player equipped the ring.
I felt a tiny surge of satisfaction.
My isolation wasn't gone. I was still trapped in a mountain, buried under gravity seals, unable to hold a human hand. But the silence... the silence was gone.
The room was filled with the hum of data, the biometrics of thousands of hearts beating in sync with my server tick.
I leaned back, the initial panic of the feedback loop fading into a cold resolve. So what if I got stronger? I would just have to build better toys. If I became a god of gods, I would drag humanity up to be demigods.
I checked the time.
**[Time until Daily Growth Trigger: 04:00:00]**
Four hours until the next 10% hit. Usually, I dreaded it. I spent the hours meditating, trying to empty my mind.
Tonight, I had work to do.
"System," I said. "Draft a patch note."
**[Recording.]**
"To all members of the Order of Truth," I dictated, my voice taking on the theatrical cadence I had practiced in the mirror. "Welcome to the Awakening. The Tutorial Phase is active for the next twenty-four hours. Use this time wisely. Because tomorrow..."
I smiled, and for a moment, I looked less like a bored office worker and more like the cosmic horror the universe was turning me into.
"...Tomorrow, the safeties come off. Monsters will spawn in the Safe Zones. PvP is enabled."
**[End of Message.]**
"Send it."
I watched the message ripple out across the globe. I saw the forums light up. I saw the panic, the excitement, the confusion.
I picked up the fragments of my crushed titanium coffee cup from the floor. I rolled a piece of sharp metal between my fingers, feeling it turn to dust.
"My power increases without limits," I whispered to the dust.
I blew the metal powder into the air, watching it sparkle in the hologram's light.
"And now... so does the fun."