Chapter 2 — The Mask of the Merchant
The sky on launch day was overcast.
It felt poetic—gray, quiet, the kind of subdued canvas that let only those paying attention realize the world was about to change.
Inside the fortress-like structure of Klaus's corporate headquarters, the air hummed with precision. Every hallway was silent yet alive, filled with purpose. Employees moved like chess pieces across a grand board, unaware of the full game they served.
At the center of it all, Klaus stood in front of the main operations screen, his gaze fixed on the countdown.
[00:00:09…]
[00:00:08…]
The official launch of Infinity Realms would shatter global records. Investors, streamers, competitive gamers, and fortune-seekers were all primed to enter the most advanced virtual world ever created.
To most, it was a game.
To Klaus, it was territory.
—"Upload the pre-set identity data," he commanded.
His assistant nodded, tapping a secured tablet connected to the capsule.
—"Your primary identity will be registered as 'One,' merchant class. The sword-based secondary profile, 'Saint Sword,' is locked behind full discretion protocols. No one will be able to link the two unless permitted manually."
He nodded once.
—"Begin."
The capsule's interior closed over him like the lid of a sarcophagus. A hum of activation vibrated through his bones. He relaxed, surrendered his body, and let his mind slip forward—into the code, into the world.
**
[WELCOME TO INFINITY REALMS.]
[YOU HAVE SELECTED MANUAL ENTRY. NO TUTORIAL WILL BE PROVIDED.]
[PLEASE CONFIRM CHARACTER CREATION…]
The void around him pulsed.
A blank space. No avatars. No spinning models. Just a single line of glowing text.
He smiled.
Unlike others, who would spend hours tweaking appearance sliders and class choices, Klaus had already bypassed it all. He had constructed his identity in secret, hand-coded through backdoor permissions gained at a terrible cost.
He reached out.
[NAME: One]
[CLASS: Craftsman – Specialization: Smith (Advanced Hidden Branch)]
[TRAIT: Artisan's Vein (Unique Passive)]
[STARTING REGION: Ironvale – Outskirts]
[APPEARANCE: Confirmed]
[Begin Game?]
He tapped "Yes."
The world shattered around him.
**
Light returned slowly.
He emerged in a dimly lit shack of stone and timber, the scent of coal thick in the air. A forge crackled in the corner. The walls were lined with tools—some familiar, some foreign.
It wasn't grand. It wasn't majestic. It was… honest.
'Perfect,' Klaus thought.
He stepped forward, his boots clinking softly against the packed earth floor. His character's body felt natural—muscular, but lean. Calloused hands. A slight stiffness in the shoulders, as though he'd spent years hammering steel. Every detail was deliberate.
[You have entered Ironvale.]
[You are currently unregistered with any guild.]
[You possess no combat skill.]
[First-time bonus: Hidden class — Confirmed.]
[World Event: Player Influx — 3,200,000 players have logged in within the first hour.]
Klaus chuckled softly.
Three million players scrambling to slay rats, hunt wolves, or seek their first copper coin.
He would do none of that.
Not today.
He stepped outside the shack, greeted by a sweeping landscape of red-soil hills, smoke rising from distant chimneys. Ironvale was a minor starting region—low-tier, overlooked by high-tier guilds, but rich in what Klaus needed: resources, control, and obscurity.
NPCs moved about with a realism that bordered uncanny. One blacksmith cursed at a broken wheel. A merchant haggled loudly with a passing caravan. Children chased a floating automaton powered by arcane steam.
But Klaus saw beyond the animation.
He saw scripts. Behavior trees. Patterns.
The AI was adaptive, yes—but it wasn't omniscient.
He moved through the village like a ghost, scanning interaction possibilities, identifying future bottlenecks.
A timer ticked silently in his head.
'Two weeks,' he reminded himself. 'That's the window before the market floods. I need to dominate supply chains before then.'
His first step? Tools.
He entered the forge and approached the main workbench. Unlike other players, he didn't need to unlock the forge. His class allowed full access from the start.
[Begin Forging?]
He nodded.
A UI appeared—nothing flashy. Simple icons for metal types, forge temperature, hammer speed, and shaping options.
He selected a basic iron bar and began.
Clang.
Clang.
Each strike was deliberate. Rhythmic. Controlled.
Unlike most early-game forging, which relied on automated clicks, Klaus had unlocked the "Manual Mode" modifier—allowing for exponentially higher quality at the cost of increased difficulty.
His first product: a Steel-Bound Dagger.
[Item Created: Steel-Bound Dagger (Rare)]
[Durability: 87/87 | Sharpness: High | Weight: Light]
[Bonus Effect: +3 Agility | Piercing Damage +6%]
[Item has been marked with a unique craftsman signature: 'One']
[Local Recognition increased.]
Already, he'd bypassed the early grind.
No one else at this stage could create Rare-grade items. No one else could even reach this forge without traveling from other towns. And by the time they could… his chamber would own the entire area.
**
Meanwhile, other players flooded the world.
Streams exploded online with footage of goblin raids, treasure finds, and castle rumors. The top guilds were racing to be the first to kill elite bosses or claim town leaderboards.
But something strange began to happen.
In forums and trade channels, a name appeared.
"Who the hell is this 'One' guy?"
"Why are his items so much better than anything else we've found?"
"Someone just paid five gold for a dagger made by One. FIVE. That's more than most players have seen total."
Speculation erupted.
Was One a hidden NPC?
Was it a dev event?
No one could locate his shop.
Because Klaus didn't have a shop.
He had a system.
**
Using a secondary account, entirely unrelated to his true name, Klaus created a merchant character stationed in the central trade city of Greywood.
That character, operated by a trusted associate, listed only one item every few hours: a single rare crafted weapon signed "One."
Never the same item twice. Always priced absurdly high. And every time—someone bought it.
Because in a world flooded with mass-produced junk, quality whispered louder than gold.
Over the next twenty-four hours, Klaus crafted twelve more items—each one tailored to specific combat builds: daggers for rogues, longswords for knights, lightweight staves for mages.
[Crafting Proficiency Increased.]
[Smithing Skill Level: 2 → 5]
[Passive Bonus Unlocked: Efficiency Protocol]
By now, a rumor was born:
A mysterious blacksmith. Items better than anything found in dungeons. A ghost who doesn't speak, doesn't trade, doesn't appear in public.
Klaus fed that rumor carefully.
He left trails—hidden item descriptions, subtle lore markers that hinted at "One" being a mythical figure from the game's lost history.
Players loved mystery.
They feared what they couldn't understand.
And that fear? That hunger?
He would monetize it.
**
Three days later, Klaus stood outside Ironvale again, watching a caravan of high-level NPCs preparing to leave.
He approached the caravan leader—an armored man with a mechanical arm and a broken eye socket.
The man looked at him, scanning his forge-stained clothes.
—"You're the smith from the edge of town, eh?"
Klaus nodded.
The man paused.
—"I heard you fixed the old temple bell. That thing's been rusted for a decade."
It was a side event. A hidden trigger.
One that no player knew existed.
—"We could use a man like you where we're going. Dangerous roads. Bad wheels. Worse steel."
A new window opened.
[Special Escort Mission Available.]
[Destination: Hollowdeep – Unexplored Region]
[Risk Level: High]
[Reward: Unknown]
Klaus accepted instantly.
Not because of the reward.
But because Hollowdeep didn't exist on any known map in the public beta.
It was uncharted.
Which meant opportunity.
Before stepping onto the wagon, Klaus opened his inventory.
Inside, wrapped in black cloth, was a single item he hadn't sold.
A mask.
Crafted from mythril and woven shadow-essence, it bore no stat bonuses.
Only one effect: [Conceals identity from other players and NPCs.]
He placed it gently over his face.
A new notification blinked.
[You have assumed the identity: Saint Sword.]
[Your character's name and class are hidden.]
[Unique Title Activated: Phantom of Ironvale.]
As the caravan began to move, Klaus leaned back, arms crossed, eyes watching the horizon.
And somewhere in the heart of Ironvale, an NPC blacksmith whispered to himself, "He's gone."
And somewhere across the forums, hundreds of players refreshed the market… but no new items appeared.
No new signature from "One."
Just silence.
And questions.
And a legend beginning to take shape.
---
[Word Count: ~2,210]