The heavy rhythmic thud of pressurized boots against oily mud vibrated through the rusted pylon. One hundred and twenty seconds remained before the scavengers reached the perimeter of the scrap heap.

  Soran pressed his back against the jagged metal. His right hand pulsed with a dull, throbbing heat where the skin had blackened. He did not check the wound. Instead, he adjusted the focal point of the black rectangular window hovering inches from his eyes.

  > [ADMIN LOG: PROXIMITY ALERT]

  > Entity Count: 3

  > Classification: Registered Citizens / Scavengers

  > Levels detected: 5, 7, 8

  > Distance: 18.4 meters

  The sound of a high-frequency hum cut through the wet slapping of mud. It was the sound of an Appraisal Stone charging—a standard-issue detection tool used by low-tier hunters to sweep for hidden monsters or valuable scrap. To a normal inhabitant of Dugara, the Stone was a tether to reality, a way to verify the world through the System’s eyes.

  "Empty," a voice grunted. It was rough, filtered through a cheap breather mask. "Nothing but rust and oil leaks. The sensor isn't even pinging for scrap-grade mana."

  "Keep sweeping," a second voice replied. This one was sharper, more impatient. "The collapse in the Eastern Margins should have displaced something. If we find a single intact Core, we’re clear for a month."

  Soran remained motionless. His breathing was shallow, controlled. He watched the light of the Appraisal Stone—a pale, blue-white beam—flicker through the gaps in the scrap metal. The beam moved with mechanical precision, sweeping across the ground, the rusted beams, and the pools of black sludge.

  The light hit the pylon. It climbed the metal, inching toward the corner where Soran stood.

  He didn't move. He didn't tighten his grip. He simply watched the Admin Log.

  The beam swept directly over his chest. For a standard Level 5 hunter, the Appraisal Stone should have triggered a UI overlay, displaying Soran’s name, level, and his status as a Condemned. It should have turned red, signaling a hostile entity.

  The crystal face of the stone flashed a dull, static grey.

  > [SYSTEM LOG: DEBUG]

  > External Query detected: Appraisal (Grade D).

  > Targeting Coordinate: [X: 442, Y: 112, Z: 05].

  > Result: Entity Not Found. Return Code: 404.

  > Note: Target 'Soran' possesses -10.0 System Affinity. Address out of bounds.

  "Dammit," the first scavenger hissed. He shook the device, the crystal rattling in its casing. "The Stone is glitching again. I’m getting a null-grey reading."

  "Let me see that," the Level 8 scavenger said, his boots crunching closer. He snatched the device. The beam passed over Soran’s position again, lingering on the space where his heart was beating.

  The device remained grey.

  "The calibration is off," the leader muttered, his voice thick with irritation. "This sector is too unstable. The background noise from the dungeon leak is drowning out the sensor. Let's move toward the inner circle. There’s no point wasting charges on a dead zone."

  They turned away. The vibration of their boots grew fainter as they moved South-West.

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  Soran stepped out from behind the pylon. He did not feel relief. He observed the retreating figures and compared the visual data to the log entries.

  "The problem isn't their incompetence. The actual problem is their total reliance on a failing sensor."

  He looked at his burnt palm. The skin was tight, the nerves screaming at the slightest movement. He ignored it. His eyes were fixed on a point thirty meters away, where the scavengers had just passed.

  In the mud, a faint, rhythmic pulse of violet light was flickering. It was a rhythmic strobe, timed perfectly with a low-frequency hum that didn't belong to the natural environment. To the scavengers, it would have looked like a simple environmental glitch or a piece of useless debris.

  Soran walked toward it.

  He knelt in the mud, his knees sinking into the cold, oily sludge. Buried beneath a layer of shattered glass and rusted wiring was a jagged, translucent shard. It was a Skill Shard, but it wasn't the vibrant gold or blue of a functioning System ability. It was a muddy, bruised purple, its edges flickering as if it were struggling to maintain its physical form.

  He reached out with his left hand. As his fingers neared the object, his Admin Log began to scroll at a frantic pace.

  > [NOTIFICATION: CORRUPTED DATA DETECTED]

  > Object: Skill Shard (Deprecated).

  > Data Integrity: 14%.

  > System Status: Legacy Protocol / Unsupported.

  > Warning: Attempting to interface may result in logic leaks.

  The scavengers had likely seen this and thrown it away. To a registered citizen, a "Data Corrupted" message was a dead end. The System would not allow them to click "Equip." The interface would simply return an error.

  Soran opened his Debug Interface. His vision was flooded with raw hexadecimal code, the "under-the-hood" reality of the world. He didn't look for a "Learn" button. He looked for the mounting point.

  "The data is consistent: To the System, I am a null-pointer."

  He grabbed the shard.

  A jolt of static electricity surged up his arm, locking his jaw. It felt like needles made of ice were being driven into his bone marrow. He didn't pull away. He dragged the Admin Log window over the shard, using the terminal's high-priority permissions to force a manual override.

  > [MANUAL OVERWRITE INITIATED]

  > Target: Movement Protocol (Active).

  > Source: Deprecated Skill Shard 0x88-Flash.

  > Status: Forcing Mount...

  The purple light from the shard bled into his skin, tracing the veins in his forearm with glowing, erratic lines. His burnt right hand spasmed, the scorched skin cracking under the sudden influx of raw, unfiltered energy. The System usually smoothed out this process, translating data into a seamless "level up" feeling.

  Without the System’s mediation, it was a violation of physics.

  Soran’s vision flickered. For a fraction of a second, he saw the world not as a scrap heap, but as a wireframe grid, half-collapsed and riddled with holes.

  > [MOUNT SUCCESSFUL]

  > Skill Acquired: Flash-Step v1.0 (Deprecated).

  > Warning: Kinetic Dampeners not found. Structural integrity at risk.

  He stood up. His legs felt heavy, as if they were made of lead, yet his mind felt a strange, disconnected lightness. He looked toward the jagged spires of the deeper margins. The distance was roughly fifty meters.

  He focused on the destination. He didn't call upon his "mana" or wait for a cooldown timer to tick down. He reached into the void of his -10.0 Affinity and pulled.

  "Execute: Flash-Step v1.0."

  The world snapped.

  There was no transition. There was no blur of motion.

  Soran was at the pylon, and then, in a frame-skip that defied the senses, he was fifty meters ahead.

  The impact was immediate. Because the System wasn't there to dampen the kinetic energy of the sudden stop, Soran’s momentum slammed into his own skeletal structure. He hit the ground hard, his boots sliding through the mud as his knees buckled.

  A sharp, wet crack echoed in the silence.

  He stayed down for a moment, his chest heaving. His right hand was smoking, the heat from the forced execution having charred the edges of his bandages. His muscles screamed, the sudden acceleration having torn fibers that the System would have normally protected.

  He looked back.

  His footprints started fifty meters behind him. There were no prints in between. He had moved through a space that the System had already marked as "deprecated," using a path that no longer existed in the current version of the world.

  He stood up slowly, testing his weight. His left ankle was strained, but functional. He checked the log.

  > [SKILL LOG]

  > Flash-Step v1.0 executed.

  > Cost: 15% Will.

  > Feedback: Structural damage detected in lower extremities.

  > Note: Movement was not registered by Sector 09 Sensor Grid.

  The scavengers were gone. The world was silent, save for the distant, dying hum of the dungeon core somewhere deep below.

  Soran wiped the black mud from his face with his uninjured hand. He looked at the horizon, his expression as cold and unchanging as the black screen of his terminal. The pain was just another data point. The damage was a calculated cost.

  If the System doesn't see me, then the rules are only for them.