The object lay cool and heavy in her palm, a miniature cosmos trapped within emerald glass. Yao knew it instantly. Her breath hitched, a sharp, silent gasp in the stale air of her makeshift sanctuary. This was no mere trinket.
"The First Sequence Gene Lock Key, S1," she whispered, the game's nomenclature surfacing from memory with crystalline clarity. "In the early game, this little beauty could auction for three thousand Green Notes on the open market. And that's if you could find one. The black-market price? That's pure demand, a number whispered in dark corners. Luck out, and you might snag it for a few thousand. Get into a bidding war with a desperate, deep-pocketed guild or a paranoid noble heir? The sky's the limit."
The monetary system of Arcane Thronewas vast but brutally logical. Copper coins, Green Notes, Blue Crests, Purple Scepters, Orange Crowns—each tier a mountain to climb, exchanging at a crushing 10,000:1 ratio. The fortune she'd inherited as Oaks, that mountain of copper, translated to barely over a thousand Green Notes. Not even half the value of this single, luminous bead.
Back in the real world, for players grinding in the game's early zones, amassing the capital for an S1 was the holy grail of the "newbie grind." It meant weeks of relentless "farming," skipping virtual meals, forgoing other upgrades, all for this one chance. Unless, of course, you were a top-tier raider who could wrest it from an elite dungeon boss's cold, dead hands, or a lottery-winning fool who cracked open a legendary treasure chest. Skill or insane luck—that was the price of admission.
Why such exorbitant cost for a marble-sized bauble?
The answer was the foundation of power in this world: the Gene-Sequence System. An individual's genetic potential was, for the most part, a locked book at birth. Environment and effort could only turn so many pages. The Gene Lock Keys were skeleton keys. The S1 was the first. It initiated the unlocking process, allowing one to "light" the first branch of their personal Gene Tree. Each branch represented a surge of latent potential made manifest—enhanced strength, keener senses, a deeper well of arcane affinity. A fully "starlit" first sequence tree was the dividing line between a hopeful and a true practitioner. And the tree had seven pages, seven sequences, each a universe of power harder than the last to unlock.
For a player, the S1 was the first, crucial step out of mundanity. For the nobility, however, it was… commonplace. Or should be. The thought pulled Yao from her elation. If this is just standard-issue noble offspring fodder, why the cloak-and-dagger retrieval? Why not just write it off?The conclusion was unsettling. The "Lord Father" likely belonged to a minor house, perhaps only a "Green-Blood" family, not even reaching the "Blue-Blood" echelon. Oaks was a bastard son with just enough value to potentially retrieve, but not enough to bother cultivating. A pawn to be kept quiet, preferably useless. The ideal outcome for them? A son who remained a talentless, ignorant wastrel.
Strange. Suspicious.The doubt was a cold stone in her gut. But it was outweighed, for now, by the sheer, dizzying thrill of holding such power. From a branded slave to the holder of an S1 key—the leap was astronomical. She forced the excitement down, the gamer's discipline reasserting itself. Think. Plan.
Carefully, she began to restore the scene. The S1 and the love letters went into a hidden inner pocket she'd sewn into her tunic. But the canister… the guards had moved it. They would surely examine the "junk" she sold. It couldn't be empty. With practiced efficiency, she wiped away all traces of her tampering. From the ornate box, she removed the cloying letters and replaced them with the most valuable items she could quickly gather from Oaks's hoard—a stack of bearer bonds from the local mining consortium and a few pieces of gaudy jewelry. The total value was a painful dent in her liquid assets, several hundred thousand coppers gone. But it was necessary ballast, both in weight and in plausibility. The searchers needed to find something, or their scrutiny would never end.
Satisfied, she sealed the canister, her movements precise, her mind already three steps ahead.
Back in her bed, the S1 a hard, promising lump against her skin, she wrestled with the next move. Carry it? Use it now?
In the game, every character had stats, skills, an interface. Did she? Did the leader and his men? She'd felt nothing, no prompts, no screens. Perhaps the Gene Lock was the trigger. The desire to crack it open, to feel that surge of power, was a physical ache. As the thought solidified, her will focusing on the orb, something shifted in her vision. Text, crisp and translucent, floated above the S1 in her mind's eye:
[Item Identified: First Sequence Gene Lock Key (S1)]
[Use: Y/N?]
[Warning: S1 catalyzes intense somatic reorganization upon genetic lock breakthrough. Significant physical strain anticipated. Recommended minimum Constitution: 10. Auxiliary stabilizing reagents advised. Proceed with caution.]
A faint, fleeting headache pulsed behind her eyes, a tiny drain. So, it IS a game interface. But only for me?She'd never heard any of the boorish mercenaries at the tavern mention "pop-up text" or "item descriptions." To them, this was simply the world. She was the anomaly, the player trapped inside.
The warning was clear. In the game, new players waited until at least Level 10, grinding basic attributes, before attempting the S1. Her current "Oaks" body was undoubtedly far below the safety threshold. Using it now would be reckless. Worse, a sudden, radical physical change would be a blazing signal to the ever-watchful leader.
But… she had reagents. The thought was a spark. Blue Star Grass, Silverroot Solution—common, low-tier alchemical components used to mitigate the somatic shock of genetic catalysts. She'd scraped together the coin for them over the past month, coin earned through gritted teeth and suppressed revulsion, hoarding tips from leering patrons. She didn't have much, but for the first, most basic branch of the First Sequence? It should be enough.
The gamble crystallized. Use it now, hidden here, with her meager safeguards? Or wait, carry this immense risk with her into the viper's nest of a noble house?
Her fingers tightened around the cool crystal. In the darkness, her eyes glinted with a hard, calculated light.
Dawn's pale, polluted light filtered into the hotel room across the street. The leader stood by a small, humming analyzer, watching as the final diagnostic reagent shifted through its spectrum. It settled into a clear, unambiguous green. A match.
A collective, almost disappointed sigh went through the men gathered behind him. "So it's really him. The young master," one muttered, the title tasting sour.
"What a master he'll be," another grumbled, voice low. "Taking orders from that… waste of skin. We bleed, we sweat, and he wins by being born."
"Enough!" The leader's voice was a whip-crack. Silence fell. He activated his communicator, relaying the confirmation to their distant patron. The response was terse, unsurprised. The focus returned to the missing item.
"We've turned his hovel inside out. Nothing. He's cunning, perhaps. Or truly ignorant." The leader chose his words carefully, planting a seed of doubt that was also a shield for their own failure.
A pause on the line. Then, the cool, disembodied voice replied, "The butler provided you with a retrieval tool before your departure. Await my command for its use. The X5 Trash Planet is under Li Conglomerate control. Given their medical interests, there will be a clinic here, harvesting… samples from the indigent. They will have his prior biometric data on file. I will have it sent. Run a comparative diagnostic tomorrow."
The leader's brow furrowed slightly. "Understood."
The morning at the Oaks residence was a spectacle of mundane finality. Servants and junk dealers came and went, hauling away the detritus of a life. Yao, playing her part to the hilt, barked orders with the entitled impatience of the suddenly important, then retreated inside with a scowl, leaving the neighbors to whisper and speculate. The mystery of the black-armored guards hung thick in the air, a cloud of unanswerable questions.
Twenty minutes later, the junk truck unloaded its cargo in a secluded yard. The leader and his men descended upon it with methodical brutality, smashing furniture, shredding upholstery. When they reached the gas canister, the leader paused. Its age was wrong. An outlier.
With practiced efficiency, they set up a perimeter. Mechanical warhorses disgorged components that snapped together into gleaming alloy shields. The leader, however, simply tapped his wrist unit. A single bead of silvery liquid, no larger than a pea, extruded into his palm. He closed his hands around it, his lips moving in a silent incantation. The liquid flowed, stretched, and solidified in the air before him into a shimmering, elliptical energy shield, anchored to his wrist. It was weightless, responsive. A display of arcane utility that was both defense and unspoken threat.
The canister was breached with a burst of force. Inside: only bonds and jewels. No luminous genetic key. The letdown was palpable. The leader's expression hardened. "We pay our 'young master' a visit," he said, pocketing a small device from his belt.
From a sixth-floor window a street away, a young man lowered a high-powered monocular. His face was pale, set in lines of grim determination. "Master," he whispered to the empty air beside him, "you're certain? Eliminating him will yield Karma Points? Enough for a hundred System Credits? For an S1… or the Arcane Missileskill book?"
To an observer, he was speaking to himself. But he saw an old man with hair white as bleached bone, his form translucent, his eyes burning with cold purpose. "The target is a blight. A parasite. His death serves justice and your advancement. Do you hesitate?"
The youth's jaw tightened. "He killed Yao. I want him dead. But his guards… that leader… I'm just beginning my path. I'm no match."
"You have my guidance," the spectral figure intoned. "And the System's favor. The opportunity will present itself."
Back in the main room of the apartment, Yao feigned wide-eyed alarm as the leader and two of his men returned. "You again? What is it now?"
"Given the… incident," the leader began, his tone diplomatically neutral, "we must ensure your safety. A full physical scan is required. To rule out any… contaminants you may have been exposed to."
Here it comes,Yao thought, her blood running cold. She had anticipated questions about the canister, about the "treasure." A physical scan, a comparison to baseline medical records—this was a sharper blade. A spike in her physical stats would be a death sentence.
She had no choice. Protest would only heighten suspicion. Letting a mask of offended modesty slip over her fear, she submitted. Stripped to her underwear in the chilly room, she stood, feeling vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with exposure. The leader approached, holding a small, disc-shaped device that hummed softly. He placed it against the scratch marks on her chest. It was warm.
"A toxin scan. Remain still."
Toxins my ass,she screamed internally, every muscle tense. The device whirred, its surface glowing. A soft beep.
The leader's eyes went to the small display first. Elevated heart rate. Nervous? Guilty?
Then, the results scrolled.
[Subject: Oaks]
[Strength: 1]
[Constitution: 3]
[Agility: 2]
[Assessment: Substandard physical development. Signs of chronic fatigue and nutritional deficit. Minor prostatitis detected. Medical intervention and physical conditioning recommended.]
The official, technological verdict hung in the air: You are weak, sickly, and pathetic.
A flush of genuine, humiliated heat spread up Yao's neck. No acting required. The guards' barely concealed sneers confirmed the reading. No hidden power here. No secret use of a Gene Key. Just a feeble, flawed vessel.
The leader's posture shifted. The last shred of uncertainty vanished, replaced by the rigid protocol of a fulfilled duty. He stepped forward and, to Yao's shock, went down on one knee. The others followed suit, a wave of forced obeisance.
"Young Master Keli," the leader intoned, his voice now layered with a performative reverence. "Your lineage is confirmed. You are a scion of the Xie Clan of Jingyang City, Brook Province. Your father, Lord Xie An, Patriarch of the clan, has commanded your return."
He continued, the script flowing smoothly. "For your safety and the security of the clan, certain protocols must be observed on the journey. We ask for your understanding in these necessary precautions."
The performance was impeccable. Loyal retainers, humbled before their newly recognized lord. Yao matched it beat for beat. Her face transformed—shock, dawning comprehension, then unbridled, avaricious glee. "The Xie Clan? A noblehouse? How… how much is the monthly allowance? By the ancestors… I'm a young master!" She paused, then added with perfect, vulgar timing, "Can I put my pants on now? It's freezing."
The guards' faces, bowed, twitched in unison.
The charade established, the logistics began. Yao, now fully embracing the role of the petulant, suddenly-empowered heir, became a whirlwind of demands. Her assets had to be liquidated, immediately, through the Li Conglomerate's local office—"Could Father perhaps negotiate a better price?" she asked, utterly serious, eliciting invisible eye-rolls. There were a dozen other petty tasks, each designed to establish her as a tedious, entitled nuisance.
"And one more thing," she announced, her voice taking on a theatrical, somber tone.
The leader, now playing the part of the patient steward, inclined his head. "Young Master?"
Yao manufactured a look of maudlin sorrow, laying it on thick. "Now," she said, the false grief not reaching her cold eyes, "I must see justice done for my beloved Yao."
The leader blinked. "…Justice?"
Fifteen minutes later, the street outside The Rusty Tavern became a scene of brutal, efficient theater. The mechanical warhorses didn't stop; they crashed through the front entrance in a shower of splinters and shattered glass. The leader's men moved with violent precision. Patrons, the leering regulars, Madam Maili, her husband, their odious son—all were dragged out into the muddy street, beaten not to death, but to the very edge of it. They were thrown in a groaning, bleeding heap.
From the wreckage of the tavern entrance, the tall JK-134 warhorse stepped forth. Astride it, looking down with an expression of chilling serenity, was Oaks.
Madam Maili, one eye swollen shut, tried to shriek a curse, but a guard's gauntleted hand clamped over her mouth.
The crowd that had gathered watched in a mixture of fear and grim fascination. Then, Oaks spoke, his voice carrying, dripping with a hypocrisy so profound it was almost admirable.
"All of you… you never knew. Yao and I… we were in love. For years." He placed a hand over his heart. "I gave her family money, so much money, to free her from your cruelty. Over two hundred thousand coppers! And how did you repay her? With poison! You drugged her! That's why she couldn't escape the flames! That's why I lost my love!"
He dismounted, his boots crunching on debris. He walked slowly towards the terrified family. His eyes found the sniveling boy, the one who had tormented the real Yao. Without a word, he reached down, grabbed a fistful of the boy's hair, and in one smooth, savage motion, slammed the boy's face into the solid wooden doorframe.
CRACK.
The sound was wet, final. Once. Twice. A third time. Each impact a terrible echo of the bullying the original Yao had endured. The parents' screams were raw, animal things, tearing from their throats.
Yao—the soul inside—felt nothing but a cold, settling satisfaction. She dropped the limp form, wiping her bloody hand casually on her trousers. As she strode back towards the ruined tavern entrance, she paused beside the stony-faced leader. Her voice, when it came, was low, flat, and utterly devoid of the performative grief from moments before.
"Break their arms. And their legs." She didn't look back. "All of them."
For every unwanted touch, every humiliating leer, every coin thrown like scraps to a dog. For a month of swallowed rage.
You will never use those hands again.
She stepped into the shadowed interior of the tavern, the raucous, terrible symphony of snapping bones and agonized wails rising behind her like a hymn to this new, brutal world. The Overseer Corps was conspicuously absent. No one would die today. This was just property damage. This was just discipline. This was the way of there, where life was cheap and power was the only truth.
In the semi-darkness, watching through a broken window as the guards carried out her order with impersonal brutality, Yao remembered the opening lines of Arcane Throne, the words that had once flashed across her computer screen. They rang in her mind now with a new, terrible weight.
"This is a world of power. A world of dominion. A paradise for the killer, a hell for the weak. When you raise your staff, arcana is the only light in the darkness. It will guide you, through the wars of sovereignty, to ultimate survival. And to the final Throne."
She had no staff yet. But she had the first key. And she had just learned how to wield a different kind of power. The lesson was etched in blood and broken bone on the dirt outside.