"Assigned Class: [Formula Master]"
There it was. A glowing system message. Cold. Flat. Final.
"…Nope. Try again," I muttered, blinking hard as if I could glitch reality itself.
[Account Compromised. Character 'Reaper-X' Deleted.]
[Restoring backup...]
[Error: Backup Corrupted. Data Fragments Missing.]
[Assigning Default Fallback Class: Formula Master]
[Type: Consumption/Utility]
[Level: 1 | EXP: N/A]
My jaw tightened. I stared at the words like they'd slapped me.
Fallback Class?
That's the category where the system dumps corrupted files and "non-combat" garbage like Blacksmiths, Shopkeepers, and Shepherds. You know—the ones that are cute for roleplay but completely useless when a dragon steps on your head.
And me? I used to be an Eclipse Paladin. Top 200 leaderboard. Owned a city plot. Dual-wielded relic-class swords. Women waved. Men gawked.
Now I had… a recipe book and an apron.
Let's rewind.
I'm not a hacker. Not a dev. Not some VR god-tier solo player.
I'm a bug hunter. A guy who lives inside games and breaks them for fun—and food. Every few months, I'd submit a couple of juicy exploits to the MythBorn Online devs and cash in.
Wall clips. Mob reset exploits. Skill stack loops. Broken pathfinding. You name it.
The only thing I didn't do was report everything. Some bugs I held onto. Just in case.
And thank god I did.
Because last night, I logged in and my account was gone. Wiped. Full reset.
I sent a frantic ticket to support. The reply came in three seconds flat:
"We have detected suspicious activity on your account. Per the End User License Agreement, Section 4, Paragraph B, your assets have been liquidated. Ticket Closed."
Suspicious activity? I hadn't even logged in for two days. I was too busy sleeping off a fever.
Someone had targeted me. Not a script kiddie, but a ghost.
Anyway. Back to the disaster at hand.
I spawned in Sootheel Village, the noobiest noob zone there ever was. Dirt roads. Cow NPCs. One blacksmith. And a crowd of shirtless level 2s whacking rats with sticks.
I checked my class panel.
[Formula Master]
A deprecated class from the alchemical ages. Specializes in formulating potions and chemical reactions. EXP unavailable. Progress through "Mastery."
There was no level bar. No stat growth.
All I had were three beginner potion recipes:
Minor Healing Potion
Weak Stamina Brew
Very Slightly Itchy Bomb
…What the hell is a "very slightly itchy bomb?"
I tried to equip a rusty dagger I found on the ground.
[Error: Class Restriction. Cannot Equip Weapons.]
I tried to punch a passing chicken.
[Error: Class Restriction. Combat Skills Locked.]
I opened the skill menu. Everything was grayed out. The only thing active was a single ability:
[Formula Slot I] – Allows 1 formula to be created. Must be mastered to unlock next slot.
I laughed. Loud. It echoed across the village, a sound of pure, unadulterated madness.
"Sir?" a nearby NPC farmer asked, clutching a basket of apples. "Are you okay?"
"No," I said, wiping a tear. "I'm a Formula Master."
He looked at me like I said I collected toenails for breakfast.
Three Hours Later
I was broke, shirtless, and depressed. I couldn't even kill a slime.
The only way to increase "Mastery" was to successfully brew potions. But the system was rigged.
Each brew required rare reagents. Even the most basic potion needed "Swampblossom."
I checked the Auction House. Swampblossom was trading for 50 Gold a stalk.
50 Gold is about five hundred dollars in real-world conversion.
I currently had zero gold. In the real world, my assets consisted of a fridge containing one expired yogurt and an eviction notice due in three days.
If I didn't make gold, I didn't eat. And I couldn't make gold because I couldn't fight.
I stared at the alchemy table in the village square. There had to be another option.
Find a way around it.
See, I knew something the average player didn't. Back during the beta, there was a bug involving "item drag logic" when stacking potions. The server didn't track individual properties of every single item in a stack—just the Stack ID.
So, if I took a fake potion (like one created from a broken recipe string) and forced it to stack with a real one, the system might get confused. It might count the fake brew as a success.
Might.
I walked to the general store, bought a single cheap "Dusty Bottle" with my starter copper, and used my Formula Slot to input a completely invalid recipe:
Water + Rat Tooth + ??
The system blinked.
[Recipe Failed](Glitch)[Recipe Accepted]
[Item Created: ??? Potion (glitched)]
[Stack Detected — Assigning ID...]
I held my breath. I dragged the glitchy, flickering icon over to a real Weak Stamina Brew that a noob had dropped on the ground earlier.
They merged.
[Mastery +1]
I froze.
"…Oh."
Twelve Hours Later
I'd brewed 173 glitched potions. out of 400 tries.
I used trash formulas. I named them ridiculous things like 'Juice of Infinite Ligma' and 'Potion of 0.0001% Crit Chance'. As long as the stack merged and the item wasn't auto-deleted, it counted.
And with every glitchy "brew," my Mastery rose.
Mastery reached Level 5