Darkness.
Not the kind you experience with your eyes closed. Not the kind where your mind fills in the blanks with familiar shapes.
This was something deeper. A void that didn’t just lack light—it swallowed it.
Frank wasn’t floating. Wasn’t standing. Wasn’t anything.
The system had wiped him clean.
Not dead. Not alive. Just... in limbo.
Something shifted.
A vibration, like the hum of a tuning fork struck against reality itself.
Then—
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE RECALIBRATION IN PROGRESS…
----------------------------------------
Frank wasn’t sure if he had thought or felt that. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
His senses weren’t back yet. No body. No breath. No heartbeat. Just that distant hum, growing stronger.
The void trembled.
Then—
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING NEW PRIMARY RESOURCE STABILIZING…
----------------------------------------
Another shift.
For the first time, Frank felt something. A flicker of awareness. A pulse—not from a heart, but from something else.
His new core.
It wasn’t blood pumping through his veins. It was something deeper. More fundamental.
Not HP. Not Stamina. Not Mana.
Something merged.
Something better.
The system was struggling to define it.
Frank gritted his teeth.
“Come on, you piece of shit. Figure it out.”
A low thrumm rumbled through the void, as if the system had heard him.
Then—
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER FRAMEWORK STABILIZING…
----------------------------------------
His body snapped back into existence.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t gradual. It was like being slammed into place by an industrial press.
Frank gasped, lungs dragging in nothing—until suddenly, air flooded his chest like a dam breaking.
His eyes snapped open.
Pain.
Raw. Deep. Bone-deep. Like every nerve in his body had been plugged into a power grid and turned up to eleven.
He doubled over, barely able to think through the shock of returning to himself.
The cave. The fight. The Drake.
All of it crashed back in a tidal wave of memory.
He was still here.
Still alive.
Somehow.
Then, the system spoke again.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM MESSAGE RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE. USER PARAMETERS: REDEFINED.
----------------------------------------
Frank’s hands trembled as he pushed himself upright. His body felt different. Not weaker. Not stronger. Just... new.
Everything had changed.
And now?
He had to figure out what the hell he had become.
Frank’s body didn’t feel like his own.
Not in the way that meant he was exhausted, or broken, or battered beyond recognition. That was normal. That was expected.
This?
This was something else entirely.
His fingers twitched against the cold stone floor, but the sensation was… muted. Like his nerves were misfiring, registering input in a way that didn’t line up with reality. His skin felt hypersensitive and distant at the same time, like his body was still trying to sync up with whatever the hell the system had done to him.
A slow breath pulled through his lungs. It felt too deep—as if his chest had more capacity than before, as if every inhale was drawing in more air than it should. His limbs were heavy, not with fatigue, but density. His muscles didn’t ache; they thrummed, like coiled tension waiting to be released.
Something was wrong.
Or maybe—
Something was different.
Frank’s vision flickered as the system’s text finally came back into focus.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE. INTEGRATION FINALIZED.
SYSTEM MESSAGE UNCLASSIFIED ENTITY STATUS: FUNCTIONAL. NEW PARAMETERS DETECTED. ADJUSTING FRAMEWORK.
----------------------------------------
His breath hitched.
Unclassified?
No. Not just that.
The system was still adapting to him.
That wasn’t how this worked. He’d seen the system fight to force players into its predefined structure. It never allowed deviation—let alone restructured itself to accommodate an anomaly.
Frank clenched his fists, feeling something deep within his body hum in response. It was like his very existence had changed, and the system had no choice but to roll with it.
What the hell had he become?
His fingers flexed against the stone, and without even thinking, the rock moved.
Not just cracked. Not just shifted.
It flowed.
A slow, steady ripple passed through the cavern floor, like the earth itself was adjusting under his grip. No magic. No cast time. No effort.
Frank’s stomach dropped.
His control over the terrain was passive now.
His connection to the ground wasn’t a conscious effort—it was just there.
That wasn’t just an Earth Magic upgrade. That was something else.
Something far, far worse.
Frank pushed himself upright, muscles coiling, vision sharpening. His body felt strange—but at the same time?
It felt powerful.
And he wasn’t sure if that should terrify him or not.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING UNDEFINED PARAMETERS DETECTED. SYSTEM STILL CALIBRATING.
----------------------------------------
He exhaled slowly, the ground beneath him responding to the motion—like it was breathing with him.
He had questions.
But right now?
Right now, he needed answers.
And if the system was still calibrating?
Then he was going to be the first one to find out what the hell he’d turned into.
Frank stood slowly, his body settling into itself in ways that didn’t feel right. Every motion was fluid—too fluid. There was no stiffness, no discomfort, no wasted movement. It was like his limbs had been finely tuned to a new frequency, every step resonating with something deeper.
The ground beneath him reacted.
Not shifting. Not cracking. Moving.
A whisper of motion beneath his boots. A faint pulse in the rock, like a muscle tensing under his weight.
That wasn’t how Earth Magic worked.
That was never how Earth Magic worked.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER FRAMEWORK STILL UNDERGOING CALIBRATION. BASELINE PARAMETERS UNSTABLE.
----------------------------------------
Frank exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders, testing his balance. His footing adjusted automatically—not through instinct, but because the damn ground was adjusting to him.
Like the earth itself had decided he was part of it.
He grimaced. That wasn’t normal.
He needed to check his status. Now.
With a thought, the system complied.
----------------------------------------
STATUS Primary Resource: [ ??? ] (Stable) Aura: Evolution Pending Earth Magic: Integrated & Unstable Blood Magic: Integrated Regeneration: Integrated System Classification: Undefined
----------------------------------------
That confirmed it.
Integrated.
Not evolved. Not enhanced.
Integrated.
His abilities weren’t just leveling up. They were merging.
The system wasn’t separating his skills anymore—it was condensing them into something entirely new.
Frank swallowed hard. That meant his Primary Resource—whatever the hell it was—had taken over his HP, Stamina, and Mana.
Which meant he had no way of knowing how much he had left.
Frank clenched his fists, trying to summon Earth Magic the way he always had—pushing his will into the terrain, shaping it, forcing it to obey.
Nothing happened.
No delay. No rejection.
It simply didn’t work.
Instead, the moment he even thought about altering the stone—
The cavern floor rippled.
Frank’s heart hammered. He hadn’t cast a spell. He hadn’t drawn from his resource pool.
He had just thought about it.
And the earth obeyed.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING USER FRAMEWORK NO LONGER MATCHES STANDARD EARTH MAGIC FUNCTIONALITY. NEW PARAMETERS PENDING VERIFICATION.
----------------------------------------
Frank took a slow, steady breath. His hands curled, then released. The system’s wording was deliberate. Pending verification.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
That meant it hadn’t locked him into anything yet. It was still deciding what the hell he even was.
Which meant—
Frank clenched his fists, dropping into a stance.
If the system wasn’t going to tell him what had changed?
Then he was going to figure it out himself.
Frank took a step.
The cavern floor moved with him.
Not shifting—adjusting.
It was a minute difference, subtle enough that someone else wouldn’t have noticed. But Frank felt it. The way the stone beneath his boots wasn’t resisting him. The way it flowed to match his stance, like the world itself was accounting for his balance.
This wasn’t Earth Magic.
It was something else.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING USER FRAMEWORK DETECTED AS NON-STANDARD. MAGIC FUNCTIONALITY HAS ALTERED. EARTH MAGIC → ??? (Unverified)
----------------------------------------
Frank clenched his jaw. Unverified. The system didn’t even know what to call it.
He flexed his fingers, staring at the cavern wall. He needed a test. Something small.
A single, sharp thought. A spike.
The ground obeyed.
But it didn’t rise.
It unfolded.
The stone didn’t burst from the floor—it extended, stretching like a muscle pulling taut, not conjured, but rearranged. The shift was seamless, smooth, as if the cavern had always contained the shape—he had just told it to show itself.
Frank inhaled sharply.
That wasn’t a spell.
That was control.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER ABILITY HAS BEEN ALTERED. DIRECT MANIPULATION ENABLED. EARTH MAGIC → TERRAFORMING UNLOCKED. RECALIBRATION IN PROGRESS…
----------------------------------------
Frank stilled.
Terraforming.
That wasn’t just Earth Magic. That was something bigger.
Broader.
His mind raced. If he wasn’t just casting Earth Magic spells anymore—if he was directly manipulating the environment instead—then that meant…
Frank raised his hand.
The spike retracted.
Not shattered. Not dispelled.
It sank back into the ground as if it had never been there.
His breath came faster, his pulse hammering.
He had full control.
Not summoning. Not conjuring.
Just reshaping the world.
Frank exhaled, tension crawling up his spine.
This was beyond what the system had originally intended.
Which meant one thing.
It was only a matter of time before it tried to correct him.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER FRAMEWORK STILL UNDER REVIEW. PARAMETERS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. ADMINISTRATIVE OVERSIGHT REQUESTED. NO RESPONSE RECEIVED.
----------------------------------------
Frank smirked.
Still no oversight.
Still no intervention.
They were too busy.
Which meant he had time.
Time to figure out just how deep this rabbit hole went.
Frank extended his hand.
The ground moved before he even gave the command.
Not violently. Not forcefully. Just… waiting. Like a canvas, half-painted, anticipating the next stroke of the brush.
His fingers twitched.
A section of stone peeled upward.
Not like Earth Magic’s jagged eruptions. Not like the crude spikes he’d forced into existence before. This was fluid. Precise. Like he was molding clay, not commanding magic.
Frank exhaled slowly.
This wasn’t casting. This wasn’t summoning.
This was shaping.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER FRAMEWORK STILL IN FLUX. PRIMARY RESOURCE ADJUSTMENTS PENDING… TERRAFORMING FUNCTIONALITY UNLOCKED. SYSTEM CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN.
----------------------------------------
Frank curled his fingers, testing the connection. The stone followed his movements like an extension of his own body. It wasn’t just obeying him.
It was listening.
The realization sent a slow, creeping sensation through his gut. Had it always been this way? Had Earth Magic never actually been “magic” at all—but rather a diluted form of something deeper?
Something older?
He needed to test it.
Frank turned to the cavern wall.
Before, shaping terrain had always taken HP. A conversion. Mana wasn’t an option.
Now?
He reached out—not touching, but feeling. The stone responded.
No cost. No drain.
Effortless.
His stomach twisted.
That wasn’t supposed to be possible.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING USER RESOURCE CONVERSION NO LONGER REQUIRED. PRIMARY RESOURCE INTEGRATION COMPLETE. ADAPTATION PENDING.
----------------------------------------
No longer required?
Frank stared at the message, breath coming slow and measured. That meant his HP-Mana-Stamina fusion wasn’t just a workaround.
It was permanent.
His body had moved beyond the system’s default parameters.
It couldn’t limit him anymore.
A grin crept up his face.
That explained why the admins still weren’t answering.
They didn’t know what he was.
He raised a hand.
The cavern wall pulled back, forming a perfect archway.
Not cracked. Not shattered.
Just… reshaped.
Frank clenched his fist.
If this was real—if he was beyond the system’s normal functions now—
Then the next step was obvious.
See what happens when he pushes it.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER FRAMEWORK REMAINS UNDEFINED. SYSTEM STILL ATTEMPTING TO CLASSIFY. ADMINISTRATIVE OVERSIGHT REQUESTED. NO RESPONSE RECEIVED.
----------------------------------------
Frank stepped forward.
Let’s see how far we can break this.
Frank clenched his fist.
The cavern responded.
It wasn’t like before. No raw force. No jagged eruptions. Just pure, controlled motion.
A thought. A command.
The stone obeyed.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING USER PARAMETERS REMAIN UNDEFINED. SYSTEM CANNOT CLASSIFY. PRIMARY RESOURCE STABILIZED: [ ??? ] SYSTEM IS ATTEMPTING TO RECONCILE FRAMEWORK… NO SOLUTION FOUND.
----------------------------------------
He exhaled.
That was becoming a pattern.
Ever since the Young Drake fight, the system had been trying to box him in. To categorize him. To fit him into its expected ruleset.
And it kept failing.
Frank grinned.
Maybe that’s why it felt so damn good.
He lifted his hand.
A section of rock peeled upward, smooth and seamless. It didn’t crack. Didn’t crumble.
Just… moved.
Like it had never been solid to begin with.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE NEW FUNCTIONALITY CONFIRMED: TERRAFORMING CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN.
----------------------------------------
Terraforming.
Not Earth Magic. Not some basic manipulation.
Something entirely different.
Frank stared at the notification. The word felt right.
He wasn’t just commanding the environment anymore.
He was remaking it.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING NEW SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED. ADMINISTRATIVE OVERSIGHT REQUESTED. NO RESPONSE RECEIVED.
----------------------------------------
Frank laughed.
Yeah. Of course there was no response.
The system had let him slip through the cracks. And now?
Now it didn’t know what to do with him.
He crouched, pressing his palm to the cavern floor.
Instead of summoning spikes—or forcing the ground to break—
He thought about it differently.
Not destruction. Not creation.
Adjustment.
The stone shifted.
The floor lowered beneath him, smoothing out in a perfect descent. A ramp, not a hole.
For the first time, he wasn’t fighting the terrain.
He was guiding it.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER DEMONSTRATING ADVANCED ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL. NO REFERENCE FOUND. SYSTEM RECONCILIATION IN PROGRESS… PROCESSING…
----------------------------------------
Frank smirked.
Take your time.
He lifted his gaze, focusing on the tunnel ahead.
If this was real—if he was truly unrestricted—
Then he had a whole new world to reshape.
And he wasn’t planning on stopping.
Frank flexed his fingers.
The cavern pulsed beneath him. Not in resistance—but in recognition.
This wasn’t just magic anymore.
This was direct control.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM ALERT USER FRAMEWORK REMAINS UNCLASSIFIED. PRIMARY RESOURCE: [ ??? ] (STABLE). SYSTEM RESTRUCTURING STILL IN PROGRESS… NO ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSE RECEIVED.
----------------------------------------
Frank smirked.
Yeah. No response.
It had been hours since the system had first flagged him as an anomaly. And so far?
Nothing had stepped in to stop him.
That meant one thing.
He was officially outside the system’s control.
He placed his palm against the cavern wall.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER DEMONSTRATING UNRESTRICTED TERRAFORMING. NO RESOURCE EXPENDITURE DETECTED. SYSTEM ATTEMPTING TO REDEFINE PARAMETERS… PROCESSING…
----------------------------------------
Frank grinned.
Oh, this was getting better by the second.
He took a slow breath.
Then he focused.
The cavern floor shifted beneath him—
Not in the chaotic, jagged way that Earth Magic had once forced it to.
No.
This was smooth. Deliberate.
A ripple of motion sank into the stone, spreading outward like an extension of his own body.
The terrain wasn’t resisting him anymore.
It was listening.
Frank exhaled, a slow, measured sound.
This was different.
This was pure command.
And the system?
It still had no idea how to handle him.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM WARNING USER CAPABILITIES CONTINUE TO BREACH EXPECTED LIMITS. ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW REQUIRED. NO RESPONSE RECEIVED. SYSTEM FORCED TO RECOGNIZE NEW PARAMETERS.
----------------------------------------
Frank raised an eyebrow.
That sounded… important.
Then the next notification hit.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE USER NOW DESIGNATED AS A PRIMARY TERRAFORMER. NEW PARAMETERS BEING INTEGRATED.
----------------------------------------
Frank blinked.
Primary Terraformer.
That was new.
And judging by the way the system had phrased it…
It wasn’t just some generic title.
It was a system-level classification.
Frank rolled his shoulders, feeling the cavern walls vibrate in response.
This wasn’t just about shaping terrain anymore.
This was about ownership.
The ground beneath his feet wasn’t just reacting to him.
It was his.
A slow, dangerous grin spread across his face.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM ALERT USER PARAMETERS HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY REDEFINED. NEW DESIGNATION CONFIRMED: PRIMARY TERRAFORMER. SYSTEM STRUCTURE RECONCILIATED. USER NO LONGER CLASSIFIED AS AN ANOMALY.
----------------------------------------
Frank laughed.
They gave up.
The system had been fighting him for hours. Trying to force him back into its little categories. Trying to erase the contradiction he had become.
And now?
It had folded.
Not because he had broken it.
Because he had become part of it.
Frank wasn’t an anomaly anymore.
He was a rule.
His fingers curled into a fist. The cavern around him rippled in response.
This was it.
The moment he stopped being just a survivor.
He wasn’t just adapting anymore.
He was rewriting the damn system.
BONUS POV: THE ADMINISTRATOR’S DESK—WHY NO ONE’S WATCHING FRANK
----------------------------------------
LOCATION: CENTRAL TERRAFORMING OVERSIGHT HUB – SECTOR 3491
ADMINISTRATOR IN CHARGE: XEL-KARR
CURRENT TASK: MANAGING SECTOR STABILITY & RESOURCE ALLOCATION
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE ANOMALY DETECTED IN SECTOR 3491. USER: FRANK - STATUS: UNCLASSIFIED. SYSTEM RESTRUCTURING REQUIRED. ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW REQUESTED.
----------------------------------------
Xel-Karr was not having a good cycle.
First, the auto-allocation subroutines glitched, routing every ambient mana stream in his sector directly into a barren wasteland. Now?
He had one glowing mountain and zero idea how to fix it.
That alone? Annoying.
But the real problem?
His damn desk.
The latest "mandatory efficiency update" had scrambled his interface permissions, blocking him from opening any system alerts without a formal Authorization Request.
A request that was currently:
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE AUTHORIZATION REQUEST: PENDING. ESTIMATED COMPLETION: UNKNOWN.
----------------------------------------
Xel-Karr stared at the blinking console.
He tried to open the alert manually.
The screen flickered.
A pop-up message appeared.
----------------------------------------
ACCESS DENIED YOUR REQUEST IS STILL PROCESSING. PLEASE WAIT.
----------------------------------------
"Are you kidding me?" Xel-Karr hissed.
He was literally in charge of the damn sector.
But thanks to a single botched system patch, he couldn’t even read his own reports.
All because Central Administration was still paranoid after the "Galactic Payroll Incident."
One misplaced decimal—suddenly every AI maintenance bot was claiming overtime.
Now?
Nobody could access anything without an authorization request.
Including him.
And right now?
His entire sector was still redirecting mana into a mountain, an anomaly alert was flashing on his console, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
He tried again.
The console beeped at him.
Another pop-up.
----------------------------------------
SECURITY VERIFICATION REQUIRED PLEASE PROVIDE AUTHORIZATION TOKEN.
----------------------------------------
"...Token?"
He didn’t have a token.
He was the damn administrator.
He slammed his fist on the desk.
Nothing happened.
The alert continued to blink.
At this point?
Xel-Karr did what any IT professional in his position would do.
He ignored it.
"Not my problem," he muttered. "If it’s actually important, someone else can escalate it."
And just like that?
Frank’s "anomaly status" got skipped over, flagged as low priority, and sent straight to backlog.
----------------------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW REQUESTED… NO RESPONSE RECEIVED. ESCALATION DENIED: ISSUE FLAGGED AS LOW PRIORITY. SYSTEM ATTEMPTING AUTOMATED RESOLUTION…
----------------------------------------
Xel-Karr leaned back in his chair, content to ignore whatever nightmare was brewing in Sector 3491.
Because as far as he was concerned?
If it wasn’t actively catching fire, crashing the system, or sending an angry auditor to his door?
It could wait.
…Probably.