Chapter 175: [175] : The Developer’s Gift, Warp-Drive Code
"Apology accepted," Declan smiled.
He stood in the exact center of the massive cavernous server room.
The air was cool, sterile, and perfectly clean. It smelled like fresh electronics and ozone.
The heavy bone-rattling vibrations that had been shaking the floor just moments ago were completely gone.
Siren floated a few inches off the polished silver floor.
The corrupted glitching static that had covered her body just minutes ago was entirely wiped clean. The sickly green numbers that had been violently tearing at her digital skin were nowhere to be seen.
She looked like a perfectly normal and highly advanced AI assistant. Her glowing white dress flowed smoothly without any rendering errors.
She bowed her head respectfully, completely submitting to the player standing in front of her.
"You have stabilized my core directory," Siren said softly.
Her voice rang clearly through the giant speakers on the walls. It was no longer a deafening shriek. It was a crisp high-definition audio feed.
"You possess administrative privileges that bypass the standard game engine. You are the highest authority in this node."
"I know," Declan replied casually.
He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his pitch-black Predator’s Coat.
"And I just got paid ten million Origin Points for it. It was a very good deal. But you said something about a back vault?"
Siren nodded slowly. She raised her glowing blue hand and pointed her small finger toward the exact center of the room.
"The Sovereign Audio-Visual Override Key you received grants you access to the physical developer caches hidden within my sector," she explained.
"I will unseal the primary cache for you now. You earned it, Administrator."
The smooth metal floor beneath Declan’s heavy spiked boots suddenly shifted.
He took a casual step back as a perfect square of silver metal slid open. A sleek pristine white pedestal slowly rose out of the floor. It hummed with a quiet and stable mechanical energy.
Resting on top of the pedestal was a single item.
It was a thick glowing blue skill book. It did not look like the cheap scavenged-tier trash books he had found out in the muddy wastelands. It didn’t have ripped pages or a faded cover.
This book was bound in what looked like solid carved sapphire. Bright silver data lines pulsed across its cover like a living heartbeat.
Declan walked over to the pedestal. He didn’t ask if it was trapped. He didn’t bother checking the room for hidden laser grids. He just reached out and picked it up.
The heavy book felt ice-cold in his hands. A golden system prompt immediately popped up in his vision, completely blocking out the rest of the room.
[Item Recognized: Warp-Drive Teleportation Code]
↳ Tier: Sovereign (Developer Asset)
↳ Type: Active Skill
↳ Description: An advanced spatial relocation program originally designed for server administrators. Consumes 5,000 Mana to instantly transport the user to any known coordinate within the global server.
↳ Functionality: Bypasses standard loading screens. Ignores all player-made physical barricades. Distance is virtually unlimited.
Declan let out a low and highly impressed whistle. He read the text again just to make sure his brain was processing the words correctly.
"Any known coordinate," Declan muttered to himself as a massive grin spread across his face. "Unlimited distance. That is a literal global fast-travel button."
He had been using his mutated Void Blink skill to get around. It was an incredibly fast skill and it had zero cooldown. But it only moved him fifteen meters at a time. It was a close-quarters combat skill designed for dodging swords and crossing small rooms to punch people in the face.
If he wanted to travel across the entire continent to hunt down corporate elites, he had to spam Void Blink thousands of times. It was highly inefficient and required too much effort.
This new book solved his travel problem completely.
Suddenly, the heavy iron doors at the back of the server room groaned loudly. They were pushed open with a heavy metallic clatter.
Declan looked over his shoulder.
Sloane, Morgan, and Nova walked into the room. They looked absolutely terrible.
Nova was leaning heavily against Sloane. The elite hacker’s brand-new silver tactical suit was completely covered in dust and dirt. She looked pale and entirely exhausted from the Abyssal bio-feedback she had suffered earlier.
Morgan had both of her glowing combat daggers drawn. The corporate assassin’s eyes darted into every dark corner of the room. She fully expected a horde of Level 100 monsters to jump out at them from the shadows.
They all stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the glowing AI girl floating peacefully next to Declan.
"What is that?" Sloane asked.
Her voice was shaking slightly. She gripped her green healing staff like a baseball bat, ready to swing.
"Declan, why is the boss monster just standing there looking at you?"
"She is not a monster," Declan corrected her smoothly. "She is the local system administrator. We had a chat. We came to an understanding."
Nova stared at Siren in absolute disbelief. Her icy blue eyes went completely wide. She let go of Sloane’s shoulder and stood up straight.
"You didn’t kill her," Nova whispered. She stepped away from the group and walked slowly toward the center of the room.
"You actually rewrote a corrupted root file in real-time. You manually debugged a Level 80 System Defense Entity. From a floating keyboard."
"I told you I could fix the stereo," Declan said.
"That is mathematically impossible," Nova argued.
She shook her head as if her brain could not process the logic.
"The sheer volume of raw data passing through this node would fry a normal human brain in three seconds! You don’t even have a physical keyboard!"
"I have really good stats," Declan replied flatly.
He didn’t want to stand around explaining his Abyssal Sovereign class multipliers to a hacker. He didn’t care about the math. He had better things to do.
He turned his attention back to the glowing blue book in his hands.
"Boss, we need to leave," Morgan said from the doorway.
She sheathed one of her daggers and tapped her sleek wrist interface.
"My scout drones are picking up massive heat signatures dropping into the upper levels of the facility. Multiple corporate transport ships just landed outside the main entrance."
"Which megacorp?" Declan asked without looking up from the skill book.
"Golden Vanguard," Morgan reported with her voice tight with professional tension. "Sector 2 elites. They probably saw the server alerts when the system firewalls dropped. They are here for the developer loot."
"They are a little late," Declan smiled.
He held the sapphire book flat against his chest.
’System,’ Declan commanded in his mind. ’Learn the skill.’
The heavy book shattered into a brilliant burst of blue light. The light didn’t explode outward into the room. It sank directly into his pitch-black Predator’s Coat and absorbed straight into his skin.
He felt a sudden rush of freezing cold clarity wash over his mind. It felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water directly onto his brain.
The complex spatial coordinates of the entire global map permanently downloaded into his neural link. He could literally feel the entire map of the world sitting in his head.
[Skill Learned: Warp-Drive Teleportation Code Level 1]
He didn’t stop there.
A Level 1 Sovereign skill was amazing for a normal player. It was a massive advantage. But Declan was the Warlord. He didn’t do basic mechanics. He broke the rules until the game engine cried.
He pulled up his administrative interface. He checked his treasury balance.
Thanks to the ten million Origin Points he just got from Siren, his bank account was sitting at an absolutely absurd number. He had over fifty-two million points!
"System," Declan ordered. His dark eyes glowed with pure swirling purple energy. "Apply Boundless Enhancement. Target the Warp-Drive skill. Push it to plus twenty. Burn the points."
The system interface immediately turned a glaring panicked red.
[System Enhancement Initiated. Calculating cost...]
[Warning: Target skill is a Sovereign-tier developer asset. Modifying core spatial code will result in catastrophic server instability.]
[Cost for +1 to +20: 12,000,000 Origin Points.]
Twelve million points!
It was an astronomical price tag. Most players wouldn’t see twelve million points if they farmed for their entire natural lives. It was enough to fund an entire corporate army for a month.
"Take it," Declan commanded instantly.
Twelve million points vanished from his treasury in a split second.
The reaction was incredibly violent. A blinding searing white light erupted from Declan’s chest. It was so bright it completely drowned out the calm blue lights of the server room.
Sloane shrieked and covered her eyes. Morgan immediately dropped into a defensive crouch and shielded her face with her arms to block the glaring light.
The system chimes hammered inside Declan’s head like a heavy industrial drill. The game engine was desperately throwing up red error codes to stop him from breaking the fundamental rules of reality travel.
[CRITICAL ERROR!]
[Skill density exceeding spatial rendering limits!]
[Immediate neural link collapse imminent! Abort enhancement!]
Declan gritted his teeth. The headache hit him hard but his SSS-Rank talent surged forward like a speeding freight train. Boundless Enhancement did not negotiate with safety limits. It just completely bulldozed them.
"Override," Declan growled.
The red warning boxes in his vision shattered into millions of tiny digital pixels.
[Talent: Boundless Enhancement activated. Safety protocols bypassed. Cap removed.]
[Warp-Drive Code +10... +15... +20.]
The blinding white light shifted violently. It didn’t turn blue or red. It turned into a deep suffocating pitch-black void.
The heavy pressure in the room vanished. It was replaced by an eerie and complete lack of gravity.
[Skill has reached +20.]
[Triggering Conceptual Mutation...]
The system text flashed in a brilliant and glaring gold.
[Skill Mutated: Abyssal Warp-Gate]
↳ Type: Active Skill (Divine Anomaly)
↳ Cost: 500 Mana
↳ Description: The user completely severs the fabric of local space to create a temporary dark matter bridge between two coordinates.
↳ Functionality: Generates a massive portal. The user and all recognized party members can travel instantly to any location on the global map. Grants absolute invincibility frames for ten seconds upon exiting the portal. Ignores all server-mandated spatial locks, barriers, and anti-teleportation wards.
Declan read the text. A dark and highly satisfied smile spread across his face.
He didn’t just have a fast-travel button anymore. He had an unblockable and unstoppable invasion tool.
He could drop his entire Shadow Legion directly into the bedroom of a corporate CEO and the game engine couldn’t do a single thing to stop him.
"That is much better," Declan noted smoothly.
He lowered his hands and rolled his heavy shoulders. The dense mythical alloy bones inside his body popped loudly.
"Declan!" Sloane yelled as she slowly uncovered her eyes. "What did you just do?! The entire room was shaking!"
"I got us a ride home," Declan said.
He turned to look at the heavy iron doors at the front of the room. He could hear them now.
His sixty percent real-world synchronization rate gave him incredibly sharp physical senses. He heard the heavy thud of combat boots marching down the metallic hallways. He heard the whining charge of plasma rifles and the clanking of heavy tower shields.
The Golden Vanguard had breached the lower levels. They were right outside.
"They are here," Morgan warned. She spun her combat daggers rapidly. "At least five hundred players. Max level. Heavy infantry."
Nova tapped her wrist interface frantically.
"They are deploying spatial lock wards! They are trying to seal the room so we can’t teleport out!"
Declan just laughed. It was a cold and empty sound.
"Let them try," Declan said.
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