I threw myself into optimization.
Not because it was smart, or safe—but because it gave me something to control.
The pain from the Hollow was gone. The UI flickers had stopped. But the sense of being watched, the SYSTEM's unnatural interest in me—it still lingered behind every cast and cooldown.
So I buried myself in spellwork.
Because if I kept moving, maybe the world wouldn't have time to look too closely.
We were back on the trail southeast of Duskridge, near a grove where mana-thick fog pooled around the roots of gnarled trees. Most players avoided it. Visual glitches, they said. Weird aggro zones. Too many respawns.
For me?
It was the perfect lab.
The Lexicon hovered beside me as I layered glyph threads across a summoned arcstone.
[Tag Configuration: Delay → Repulse → Bind]Projected Effect: Wave Trap (Tier E Prototype)Warning: Unstable Fusion – Target Drift Detected
I pushed it anyway.
The glyphs shimmered—then flared too fast.
The arcstone detonated a second early, pushing back a mob of mana-bloated spiders too soon. One slipped through the shockwave and lunged straight at me.
I ducked, stumbling—but not fast enough.
A streak of shadow passed beside me, and Lyra's dagger buried itself in the spider's thorax.
She flicked the blade clean, spun once, and rolled back to my side.
"You're overloading your tags again," she said, not looking at me.
"I'm testing limits."
"You're acting like they don't exist."
I wiped sweat from my brow, even though the game didn't simulate heat. Just nerves.
She crouched near the shattered glyph ring I'd made, inspecting the burn pattern.
"This isn't just a normal combo, is it?" she asked. "You're pushing reactions. Sequence overrides."
I nodded.
"Why?"
The question hung there.
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Finally: "Because if the SYSTEM's watching me, I want it to see that I'm ahead of it."
She stared at me for a second longer than felt comfortable.
Then stood. "Okay. But if you glitch the planet and it falls out of the sky, I'm blaming you."
"Fair enough."
We continued along the grove, clearing mobs and harvesting fragments of glyphrot for a guild vendor quest. But my mind wasn't on the loot.
It was on the way the runes pulsed when I cast too quickly. The heat lag. The shimmer before a spell either stabilized—or failed.
I activated Mirrorthread again and attempted a mirror-imprint of a live tag, mid-cast. This time, I layered the return signature with a delay trigger glyph and looped the rebound through my own position.
The spell bent sideways, then struck outward with a second pulse.
It worked.
Sort of.
[Tag Fusion: Echo Bind → Shock Return | Prototype Status: Functional]Ink Cost: +12 | Recovery Window: 3s | Target Acquisition: Manual Only
The Lexicon chirped softly as it recorded the result.
I couldn't help but smile.
Then my UI glitched.
Just for a moment.
The world paused.
Not like lag. Not like delay.
Like someone paused the script, looked directly at me, and pressed play again.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: Unexpected Signature Detected]Player Profile: Anomaly Type – Loopwalker Sync @ 0.041%Suggested Action: Adaptive Override Queued (ECHO Subprocess Watching)
The fog rustled.
No mob appeared.
Just... silence.
I turned to Lyra, who had frozen mid-step.
She blinked, then looked around slowly.
"You felt that too?"
I nodded.
"Okay," she said. "You're officially cursed."
We returned to Elderfall without speaking much.
Sometimes the world glitched. That was normal.
Sometimes you saw the code under the world.
That... wasn't.
Later that night, I sat in my dorm room with the Lexicon interface projected across my terminal screen.
It wasn't just a book anymore.
It was a mirror.
And what I saw looking back wasn't a player chasing spells.
It was someone being studied.
And maybe... reshaped.