Started with a 10,000x Multiplier in a Game World

Chapter 181: Chapter 181: The Bode Heart

Warm golden light flooded the VIP suite. It washed over the polished mahogany furniture. It bounced off the glass display cases.

Dante stared at the item resting innocently in the small hands of Aria.

[Item Appraised: Bode Heart Seed]

[Tier: Universal Anomaly (1 of 7)]

"One of seven," Dante repeated softly. He completely ignored the background chatter of his squad.

The lore of the Zenith Protocol was massive. It was a sprawling mess of forgotten gods and dead empires. Within that lore, the Seven Ultimate Hidden Items were functionally myths.

They were not weapons. They were not armor sets.

They were foundational code fragments. They were pieces of the original architecture of the system that had splintered off during the First War. Finding one was supposedly impossible until the absolute final stages of the server cycle.

Aria was a Level 15 player. She had just casually pulled one out of a woven basket because an old NPC lady told her it was pretty.

"Is it dangerous?" Aria asked nervously. She noticed the absolute silence in the room. She held the glowing seed far away from her body. "Should I throw it out the window? I can throw it out the window."

"Do not throw that out the window," Sera commanded. Her voice dropped into an incredibly serious professional register.

The studio head stepped forward. Her eyes locked onto the glowing seed.

"Dante, what are we looking at? The system will not let me appraise it."

Dante didn’t answer immediately. He opened the detailed item description.

[Description: Contains the essence of absolute sanctuary. When planted in a player-owned structure, the seed aggressively overwrites environmental parameters. It generates an impenetrable self-sustaining ecosystem.]

[Passive 1 (Bode’s Grace): All allied entities within the radius of the structure receive a permanent massive boost to passive health and mana regeneration. Completely immunizes the structure against unauthorized entry, scrying magic, and siege weaponry.]

[Passive 2 (Roots of the World): The durability of the structure is permanently locked at Indestructible.]

Dante slowly exhaled.

He had just spent a massive amount of effort completing the quest of the City Lord in the Path of Gods and Demons. He did it just to upgrade the door durability of his guildhall to two million hit points. He thought that would deter a siege from Vanguard’s Legacy.

The [Bode Heart Seed] didn’t just upgrade the doors. It made the entire building mathematically indestructible.

It turned a simple structure into an absolute un-breachable fortress. Silas could march five million players to the front steps. He could detonate a hundred nukes. The building wouldn’t lose a single point of durability.

"It is a sanctuary core," Dante finally explained. His voice was entirely flat. "If we plant this inside the Emporium, this building becomes the safest point on the entire server."

"Indestructible," Nyx whispered. She pushed her dark glasses up her nose. "That completely solves our security problem. We do not need a massive guild roster to hold the perimeter. We can just lock the front door."

"Let us plant it," Mei cheered. She slammed her frying pan against the floor. "Where does a magic seed go? Do we need dirt? I can go smash some cobblestones outside and get some dirt."

"We do not need dirt," Dante said. He looked at the system prompt carefully. "It says it needs to be planted in a player-owned structure. The Emporium has an interior courtyard on the ground floor right behind the main auction hall."

"I will clear the area," Sera said instantly. She opened her administrative interface. "I am locking the courtyard instance. Nobody gets in but us."

Dante nodded. He reached out and carefully took the glowing jade seed from Aria.

"You just officially bought your membership into Aegis Vanguard, kid," Dante told her.

Aria beamed. Her nervous energy completely vanished. "Yay! Do I get a cool guild tabard? I want a gold one!"

"We will get you a tabard," Casanova promised. He ruffled her hair. "Come on. Let us go plant a magic tree."

The squad left the VIP suite. They took the grand marble staircase down to the ground floor.

The Emporium was bustling with NPC clerks organizing low-tier inventory. But the administrative lock from Sera cleared a direct path to the rear of the building.

They pushed through a set of heavy glass doors and stepped out into a massive open-air interior courtyard.

The courtyard was currently empty. It was paved with smooth white stone and open to the bright blue sky above Aethelgardia.

Dante walked to the absolute dead center of the courtyard.

He didn’t need to dig a hole. He knelt down and placed the glowing jade seed directly onto the white stone floor.

"System," Dante commanded clearly. "Integrate asset."

The Zenith Protocol reacted instantly.

The [Bode Heart Seed] didn’t sprout a tiny green shoot.

The glowing jade seed violently exploded.

A massive blinding pillar of pure concentrated green and gold light shot upward. It completely filled the courtyard and pierced the sky.

The sheer cosmic pressure generated by the integration knocked Casanova and Aria flat onto their backs. Dante stood his ground. His Celestial armor easily mitigated the shockwave.

The white stone floor of the courtyard actively rippled and shattered.

Thick glowing golden roots erupted from the ground. They rapidly expanded outward.

They didn’t destroy the building. They seamlessly wove themselves into the marble pillars and the dark stone walls of the Astral Emporium.

The roots crawled up the sides of the structure like glowing veins. They actively reinforced the architecture with indestructible cosmic code.

In the center of the courtyard, a massive ancient-looking tree rapidly materialized.

The trunk was forged from twisted glowing golden wood. The branches stretched high above the roof of the Emporium. They were covered in shimmering emerald-green leaves that pulsed with a soft peaceful light.

The blinding flash faded. It left the courtyard bathed in a warm serene golden glow.

[System Override: Environment Altered.]

[Structure: The Astral Emporium has been upgraded to ’Sanctuary’ status.]

[Structure Durability: INDESTRUCTIBLE.]

Dante let out a slow breath. He felt the immediate effects of the [Bode’s Grace] passive.

The lingering digital fatigue in his avatar completely vanished. His stamina bar locked at maximum.

The air in the courtyard felt incredibly pure. It was completely devoid of the usual metallic scent of the game engine.

"Well," Casanova breathed. He stared up at the massive glowing tree. "That is definitely a statement piece for the lobby."

Sera was frantically checking her administrative datapad.

"The system locks are absolute," Sera reported. Her voice was tight with disbelief and immense relief.

"The Emporium is completely removed from the siege parameters. We cannot be targeted by hostile guild arrays, scrying magic, or area-of-effect bombardment. Dante, we are untouchable in here."

"Good," Dante said. He turned away from the massive tree.

He didn’t want to spend the rest of the day admiring the landscaping.

The integration of the seed secured their base of operations. This meant he no longer had to worry about Silas launching a desperate siege while he was out clearing dungeons.

He opened his party interface.

[Guild Roster: Aegis Vanguard]

[Members: 7/50,000]

He looked at his mismatched squad.

They had a tank who operated on marital frustration. They had a brawler with a frying pan. They had a chantless gravity mage. They had a flamboyant bruiser.

They also had a lethal support class disguised as an innocent teenager and two corporate analysts managing their billions.

And they had the stats to back it up.

"We are wasting time," Dante announced. He clapped his dark purple gauntlets together. "The global event is not over. There is still one exclusive Pet Dungeon left open."

Lila groaned. She leaned heavily on her Dark Demon staff. "Dante, we just cleared two SSS-Rank instances back-to-back. I have a headache, and Zephyr needs a nap."

The tiny celestial griffin perched on the shoulder of Lila chirped in agreement.

"We do not need a nap," Dante said. He was completely merciless.

"Silas is absolutely desperate. He lost the auction. He lost his army in the canyon. He failed to secure the Celestial egg in Demon Spirit Land."

"If Vanguard’s Legacy does not secure a massive win before the event timer expires, his guild is going to collapse from internal panic."

"So you want to steal his last chance at a win?" Mei grinned. She easily lifted the massive cast-iron skillet onto her shoulder.

"I do not want to steal it," Dante corrected smoothly. "I want to humiliate him while I do it."

Dante pulled up the global map. He located the coordinates for the third and final event dungeon.

"Dark Phoenix’s Last Wish," Dante read the prompt. "It is a massive twelve-man raid environment located in the active volcanic chain of Mount Ignis."

Sera looked up from her datapad.

"Dante, the system parameters for this one are different. It is not just a linear crawl."

"The global API says the boss mechanics in this dungeon actively scale based on the cosmic weight of the engaging party."

"If you walk in there with your Level 72 stats and Celestial gear, the system is going to dynamically boost the boss to match you."

"Then we will not go in alone," Dante said.

He turned to Sera. "You opened recruitment for Aegis Vanguard, right? Capped at fifty thousand members. High-level only."

"Yes," Sera confirmed. "We had over three hundred thousand applications in the first hour. I filtered them aggressively. We currently have a fully active and highly vetted roster of elite independent players."

"Draft five of them," Dante ordered. "I need a secondary tank, two dedicated healers, and two high-burst DPS. We are running a full twelve-man squad."

"You want to bring random guild members into a scalable endgame dungeon?" Nyx asked skeptically.

"That breaks our entire synergy. They will not know our rotation. They might pull aggro and wipe the party."

"We need the raw numbers to satisfy the entry parameters of the system without triggering an aggressive scalar penalty," Dante explained.

"Besides, they are Aegis Vanguard now. I want to see if the people we recruited are actually worth the ten percent EXP buff they are leeching."

Sera nodded sharply. "I will ping the guild chat and select the top candidates immediately. Give me five minutes."

"Make it three," Dante said. "I want to be at the staging area before Silas manages to organize his demoralized mercenaries."

Dante turned to Aria.

The Level 15 Soul Weaver was standing near the glowing roots of the Bode tree. She looked incredibly nervous about the prospect of a massive twelve-man raid.

"Aria," Dante said. "You are coming with us."

"Me?!" Aria squeaked. She pointed at her beginner linen dress. "Mr. Hero, I do not have any armor! If a volcano monster looks at me, my health bar is going to instantly delete itself!"

"You are Rank 2 on the Global Hidden Class Leaderboard," Dante reminded her. "You are not a squishy beginner. You are a Soul Weaver. It is time to show the squad exactly what you do."

Aria swallowed hard. She gripped her small woven basket. "Okay. But I am staying in the back!"

"You can stand right behind the red dome of Garrick," Dante promised.

He didn’t wait for Sera to finish the recruitment process.

He walked out of the serene golden courtyard of the Astral Emporium and headed straight for the bustling main plaza.

He had an ultimate 24-hour event dungeon to clear. He fully intended to make sure Silas watched him do it.