The entrance to the Sunken Temple of Ashfall was a joke. A crumbling, moss-slicked hole half-flooded with stagnant water, it was a forgotten dead-end, notorious for its pathetic experience points and worthless loot.

  Perfect.

  To me, this place was a holy grail. In my first life, it took a top-tier exploration guild four years to uncover its secret. The legendary gear within shifted the balance of power in the entire northern region. I was now standing at that same threshold, four years ahead of schedule.

  “This is it?” Liam asked, his voice echoing in the damp air. He nudged a loose stone with his boot, his brow furrowed. “The place that’s going to get us ‘properly equipped’?”

  “This is it,” I confirmed, my eyes already tracing the faint, almost invisible runes carved into the lintel—the first clue.

  Evie remained silent, a fluid shadow observing every detail. Her trust was a calculated thing, a debt being repaid with loyal service until she could reconcile my impossible foresight with reality.

  We descended into the cold, cloying dark. The first chamber held a few Luminous Slimes, which Liam dispatched with a lazy, almost apologetic bash of his shield.

  [You have slain a ‘Luminous Slime’!] [+8 EXP]

  Eight experience points. We needed thousands to level up. After a third room of the same, Liam planted his shield in the muddy ground.

  “Zane,” he began, his tone careful but firm. “I trust you. But this is a level five zone. The experience is terrible, the loot is vendor trash. Evie’s family needs money, and we need to get stronger, not… this.”

  His skepticism was valid. Healthy. He wasn’t just my shield; he was my anchor to the present.

  He sees the cost—an hour of our time, I thought, my mind’s eye picturing the rewards. He can’t see the prize. The [Aegis of Recursion], a legendary shield that will define his entire career. The [Phase Daggers] for Evie, capable of bypassing any armor. He can’t know this one hour will save us years of grinding.

  “The real reward isn’t experience points,” I said, my voice flat and certain. “We’re spending a little time now to gain an advantage that no amount of grinding could ever buy.”

  Liam searched my face, then glanced at Evie. She offered no opinion, merely watched me, her silence its own form of pressure. He sighed, pulling his shield from the muck. “Okay, Zane. I’m with you. Just… tell me we’re getting close to the good part.”

  A cold, thin smile touched my lips. “We are.”

  I led them to the final chamber’s dead-end wall. Liam’s shoulders slumped. “A dead end. Did we miss a turn?”

  “No,” I said simply. I walked to the wall, tracing the hidden outline of a door. Liam’s expression was one of pure confusion, but Evie’s eyes narrowed with sharp interest. She sensed the dormant power.

  “The real dungeon,” I said, pressing my palm against the hidden rune that served as the lock, “starts here.”

  With a low groan of grinding stone, the wall slid away, revealing a passage that plunged into absolute darkness. A different kind of cold washed over us—not the damp chill of the sewer, but the sterile cold of a place sealed from the world, a place where the rules were different. The air hummed with a low, electrical buzz.

  As we stepped through, the stone door ground shut behind us, sealing us in. Torches of pale, blue light flickered to life along the corridor, illuminating walls that were no longer stone, but a strange, black material etched with glowing, circuit-like patterns.

  “What is this place?” Liam breathed, his shield held high.

  “A glitch,” I said. “A part of the temple that wasn’t supposed to exist.”

  The corridor opened into a vast, cavernous chamber. The floor was a grid of the same black material, and in the center, a wide chasm separated us from a platform on the far side. A bridge of shimmering, translucent data once spanned the gap, but it was now retracted. On the far platform, I could see the archway leading to the final chamber.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  And then I saw the guardians.

  Floating silently above the grid were three entities that looked like torn, corrupted pieces of system code given form. They were vaguely humanoid, but their bodies were a chaotic swirl of flickering text, static, and ghostly after-images.

  [Data Phantom - LVL 15]

  “Stay sharp,” I ordered, my voice low. “They don’t attack physically. They attack your connection to the System.”

  Before Liam could ask what that meant, one of the phantoms surged forward. It didn’t brandish a weapon; it simply pointed a hand of flickering code at him.

  [WARNING: Your skill [Shield Bash] has been temporarily corrupted. Activating it will inflict 150% of its damage to YOU.]

  Liam’s eyes went wide. His most basic, reliable skill was now a poison pill in his arsenal. “What the hell?”

  “Don’t use any skills until I say so,” I commanded. “Evie, your daggers. Their core is the brightest point of light in their chest. Go.”

  Evie became a blur. The phantoms were fast, but she was faster. She weaved between their lurching movements, her blades darting out to strike at their cores. Each hit caused a phantom to recoil with a screech of digital static, but they were resilient.

  Another phantom turned its attention to me. I felt a cold pressure on my mind.

  [Your skill [Logic Overwrite] is being targeted by a hostile process…]

  Not a chance. My mind was a fortress built over a decade of war. I focused my will, pushing back against the phantom’s assault. The pressure vanished. This was my domain.

  “Liam, now!” I yelled. “Use [Provoke]!”

  “But you said—”

  “The one targeting me just tried to corrupt my skills. Its defenses are focused. It can’t corrupt yours at the same time. Now!”

  Trusting me, Liam roared, slamming his shield to draw the aggro of all three phantoms. As their attention shifted, I raised my hand, my fingers tracing a line of code in the air. “[Logic Over ??rite]: Target, floor panel G-7. Parameter: ‘Solid.’ New Value: ‘False.’”

  The panel directly beneath one of the phantoms vanished into a brief shower of pixels. The creature dropped into the maintenance shaft below with a surprised shriek, its form dissolving as it fell.

  One down.

  The battle was a strange, tense dance. Liam would draw their fire, Evie would strike at their cores, and I would manipulate the environment and defend against their data attacks. We were winning, but it was slow, draining work. Finally, Evie’s dagger plunged into the core of the last phantom. It convulsed, then exploded in a shower of light and text.

  [You have slain a ‘Data Phantom’!] [+450 EXP] [Loot: [Corrupted Data Fragment] x1]

  The experience reward was massive for our level. We had already made more progress in this one fight than in the entire hour before it.

  Liam let out a shaky breath. “Okay,” he admitted. “I see your point now.”

  With the guardians gone, the path to the chasm was clear. In front of the retracted bridge was a console with a series of floating, runic symbols. The logic puzzle.

  I stepped forward confidently, my memory of the sequence crystal clear. I reached out and pressed the first three runes: Serpent, Moon, Sword.

  A harsh, blaring alarm echoed through the chamber. The runes flashed a violent red.

  Wrong.

  My blood ran cold for a fraction of a second. The sequence was different. Another butterfly effect. My perfect memory, my greatest weapon, had a flaw. It was based on a world that no longer existed in precisely the same way.

  Before I could process this, hatches opened in the floor, and two more Data Phantoms surged out, their forms crackling with aggression.

  “They’re back!” Liam yelled, moving to intercept them.

  “Buy me time!” I snapped, turning my full attention to the console. The runes were shifting now, the sequence randomized. This wasn’t a memory test anymore. It was a real-time logic problem.

  While Liam held the phantoms at bay and Evie flanked them, I forced myself to calm my racing thoughts. Analyze, don’t just remember. I watched the patterns, the flow of energy between the runes. It was a sequence based on prime numbers, masked by astrological symbols. My mind, honed by a decade of deconstructing the System’s code, began to work.

  The fight behind me was getting desperate. Liam’s shield sparked as a corruption attempt landed. “Zane, whatever you’re doing, do it fast!”

  I saw the solution. It wasn’t just one sequence. It was three, interwoven. My fingers flew across the console, pressing the runes in a rapid, complex pattern that no one from my past life could have possibly solved this early.

  The alarm cut off. The runes glowed a soft, welcoming blue. With a low hum, the bridge of light extended across the chasm, solidifying before us. The two remaining phantoms shrieked and dissolved as the puzzle’s completion purged them.

  [Hidden Objective Complete: Deconstructed the Ashfall Logic Bridge!] [Party receives +2,000 EXP] [A hidden cache has been revealed!]

  A small compartment slid open at the base of the console, revealing a small, velvet-lined box. Inside lay a single, intricately carved silver key. It wasn’t the legendary loot, but it was the key to unlocking it. Tangible, measurable progress.

  I picked it up, the cool metal a comforting weight in my palm. I had been forced to improvise, to think instead of just remember. And we had succeeded.

  Across the newly formed bridge, the ornate archway to the final chamber beckoned. It was dark, silent, and radiated an aura of immense power. The spectral creator of this temple, and the legendary rewards it guarded, were waiting.