The sun over Virelia never truly rose—it flickered.
At 06:01 a.m., the light dimmed for precisely 1.4 seconds.
Lucien D'Aramitz noticed.
Not because he watched the sky—he didn't. Lucien did not waste time on clouds or colors. He sat beneath the rotting rafters of Saint Halvard's Orphanage, decoding a forbidden schematic etched in blood onto an old monk's spine. A relic. A body turned scripture.
The other orphans called him mad. The Sisters called him cursed.
Lucien called it preparation.
Then the silence came.
No, not absence of sound—silence. Real silence. The kind that feels like it was programmed in.
Crows above the chapel froze mid-flight. Wind paused in the trees like a glitch. Time had a hiccup. The last sound Lucien heard was the scrape of his own ink quill across human skin.
Then, inside his skull—
> [System Initialization Complete]
Architect's Code Detected.
User: Lucien D'Aramitz.
Tier: NULL.
Protocol: Reclamation Begins.
Choice: Accept or Be Erased.
Lucien blinked. Once.
"Not a dream," he whispered, pressing his fingers to his temple. "Not a hallucination. Perception stable. Pulse rising. Threat level: unknown. Logical assumption—first contact."
He didn't ask who was speaking. He asked why now.
The words returned, written not on paper, but over reality itself.
> [ERROR: You Were Not Supposed To Awaken Yet.]
[Override Executed. Begin Trial of Paradox.]
The world around him shattered.
Not exploded. Not cracked.
Shattered—like glass revealing a second layer underneath.
Lucien stood. Or thought he did. The floor beneath him was no longer wood. It was pure void—a sea of geometric patterns suspended in motionless time. Each step he took was on light, not matter.
Before him stood a version of himself.
Older. Smiling.
"Who are you?" Lucien demanded, his voice flat, but his eyes—razor-focused.
"I'm you, Lucien. Version 11.3." The older Lucien had no shadow. "I failed. Like the ten before me. You're version 12. Do better."
"What is this?"
"Your mind. Your prison. Your tool. It's all the same, really. The Architect built this world. We were born to hack it."
Lucien narrowed his eyes. "What is the Architect?"
"A programmer. A god. A builder. Doesn't matter. What matters is that you're the first one to reach Tier Null this early."
The older Lucien's skin began to crack—like dried code peeling from a screen.
"You'll need to decide," he said.
"Decide what?"
Then came the whisper—not from the double, but from the System:
> Trial of Paradox Initiated.
Scenario: Kill Yourself To Survive.
Failure: Mind Deletion.
Lucien's eyes widened. The knife appeared in his hand—metallic, cold, sharp.
The older Lucien didn't move. He simply opened his arms.
"You know the logic," he said calmly. "Kill me. The version that failed. Free the System. Advance."
Lucien didn't hesitate.
One step. One motion. Blade through heart.
The older version smiled. "Good."
As the double collapsed, the world trembled. The void cracked open—and from it rose the Architect's Seal, a glowing geometric sigil that embedded itself into Lucien's chest.
> [Paradox Survived.]
Tier Advanced: NULL → SCRIPTER
Skill Gained: Recursive Recall – You may access 3 alternate timelines of your past self and extract data.
Lucien gasped—not from pain, but realization.
This wasn't cultivation. This was programming consciousness itself.
And he was now part of the source code.
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