Age of Demina - System Crash and Reboot (Dungeon Diving Epic)

Jin-woo sat at his desk, surrounded by the glass walls of his office, a transparent fortress that let him play the role of silent observer to the daily ballet of assistants and lab researchers. The irony of using such ancient technology for surveillance wasn't lost on him. Like watching fish in an aquarium, except he was the one in the tank. His eyes tracked each passing figure with the intensity of a caffeine-deprived grad student spotting the last coffee pod in the break room.

Something was wrong. His gut had been performing Olympic-level gymnastics since he'd dragged himself out of bed that morning, the kind of instinctive warning that had saved his work more times than he cared to count. Some called him paranoid; he preferred "professionally suspicious."

"What the hell is it?" he whispered to himself.

Kali breezed past. Her trench coat doing its best impression of a rain-soaked cat, water droplets falling in orderly lines across the floor as she raced in a brisk walk. She hung it by her cubicle. Like a heat-seeking missile, she made a beeline for the kitchen. There was no pause in her pace, not even an attempt to recognize anyone or anything in her way. Everyone knew her routine and unintentionally made way for her zombie state.

Ah yes, the sacred coffee ritual.

She was one of the rare specimens who hadn't succumbed to the siren call of free company housing. While the rest of them played house in their corporate-funded apartments, himself included for the past five years, she maintained her wild existence in the outside world. The thought almost made him smile. Almost.

His eyes narrowed as she performed her daily ritual with clockwork precision: the prescribed pause at Michael's desk, exactly 2.3 minutes of small talk, the regulation glare at Jennifer, duration: 5.2 seconds, followed by the ceremonial coffee sipping while pretending to read system briefs.

Jin-woo turned back to his monitor, the tower beneath his desk humming like a contented cat. Everything was normal, painfully, suspiciously normal. Which, of course, made it all the more unsettling. His hands pressed against his eyes until geometric patterns danced in the darkness. He'd sooner eat a keyboard than sit idle while his life's work hung in the balance.

I’m going crazy.

Rising from his chair with the determination of a man who'd had exactly too much coffee, he began his patrol of the facility. His chair was left sprawled on the ground. The symphony of technology surrounded him, servers whispering their binary secrets, techs murmuring in their native tongue of acronyms and jargon, and there, at the heart of it all, stood his masterpiece. His life work. The child he had raised from little.

Demina's central monitor loomed before him, endless streams of code cascading like a digital waterfall. Two decades of his life, translated into an AI system that had become more than just circuits and algorithms. He ghosted past the respectful nods and greetings, his feet navigating the obstacle course that was their floor, a modern art installation of tangled cables, abandoned cups, and chairs that had forgotten their original positions.

The massive room spread out like a techno-organic landscape. Rows of desks sprouted monitors displaying neural network activity, a light show that would put the aurora borealis to shame. Greens, blues, and purples wove together in a dance that made his mathematician's heart skip a beat. The cosmos, recreated in data. Centralized galaxies and solar systems revolving around a generational task.

He'd walked this path countless times, but the wonder never faded. Each visit revealed new details in the organized chaos, coffee cups bearing lipstick marks like fossil records of late-night coding sessions, energy bar wrappers in various states of consumption, from "barely touched" to "devoured in desperation”, and sticky notes that told stories of their own. Mathematical equations that he could solve faster than most people could read them, and his personal favorite, a note simply stating "sleep eventually" with the "eventually" underlined three times.

That last one always brought a smile to his face. His team's dedication to Demina matched his own obsession, they were all proud parents of this digital prodigy, lost in their shared creation of something extraordinary.

The sharp scent of ozone tickled his nose, a familiar comfort that reminded him of late nights and early mornings bent over keyboards, chasing digital dreams. The metallic tang in the air was as much a part of the lab as the endless hum of servers or the flickering fluorescent lights that cast their sterile glow across his domain. Those lights had been threatening to give up for months now, but like everything else in the lab, they stubbornly persisted in their duty. He noted to have them replaced some time next week.

Jin-woo's footsteps found the squeaky floorboard near Server Bank C, an old friend that had announced his midnight wanderings for years. He knew this place like a musician knows their instrument, every imperfection and quirk cataloged in his mental repository. The whining fan in Server 342, which somehow managed to sound like a distant cat. The perpetually dark corner by the emergency exit where the light never quite reached. The exact spot where the temperature dropped three degrees due to the ancient AC unit's peculiar distribution pattern.

His fingers traced the edge of a whiteboard, muscle memory taking him to the exact spot where they'd made their first major breakthrough. The equations were long gone, replaced by newer puzzles and problems, but he could still see them in his mind. They were clear as the day they'd cracked the speech recognition algorithm. 99% accuracy. The board had nearly cracked under the pressure of their celebratory high-fives that day.

Jin-woo allowed himself a wisp of a smile.

"You're seriously doing this again?" he muttered to himself. He recognized the familiar spiral of nostalgia. But he couldn't help it. Each milestone with Demina felt like watching his own child grow. From those first hesitant steps of basic pattern recognition to the sprint of complex problem-solving that left even him breathless. Just like his own mother had been with his photos and videos, as much as he hated it.

The lights flickered again, as if sharing his moment of reflection. Or maybe they were judging him for spending another weekend here, his phone deliberately set to silent in his desk drawer. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten something that hadn't come from a vending machine or been delivered by someone judging his life choices through their eyes.

Was this ambition or addiction? The line had blurred somewhere between the third energy drink of the night and the fourth breakthrough of the month. His dedication to Demina had long since passed professional interest and ventured into the territory of obsession, the kind that made normal people raise eyebrows and fellow scientists nod in understanding. Jin-woo used to wonder when he would ever find something that would be his passion, expectation brought him to believe it would never happen.

I’m a lucky man.

The familiar weight of responsibility settled on his shoulders as he watched the neural network patterns dance across the screens. Each success only pushed him further, demanded more from him. He was no longer sure if he was chasing excellence or if excellence was chasing him. He knew one thing with certainty, that gnawing feeling in his gut wasn't going away, and neither was he until he figured out what was triggering his internal alarm system.

Jin-woo was about to continue his patrol when a soft beep from his workstation caught his attention, barely louder than a whisper, but to his trained ear, it might as well have been a thunderclap. The kind of sound that made his coffee-addled brain cells stand at attention. Nothing beeped out of pattern, no flicker happened without it being premeditated.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he cursed before rushing back to his office. He picked the fallen chair, it protested with a squeak as he dropped into it without any propriety. A few clicks later and his monitor displayed what appeared to be standard core logs, but there, just at the edge of his vision, a flicker. Like a shadow in peripheral vision. Gone when you turn to look at it directly. As though something was trying to hide it.

He leaned forward, fingers flying across the keyboard with practiced precision. "Come on, show me what you're hiding." The logs expanded, and his stomach performed an impressive acrobatic routine as segments of code twisted before his eyes, transforming into corrupted gibberish. “Oh no…”

"Dr. Park?" Kali's voice cut through his focus. She stood in his doorway, another coffee cup in hand, her eyes narrowing at his expression, dark bags telling a tale of lacking sleep. "You look like someone just deleted your backup drives."

"Worse," he replied, not looking up. Fingers punching letters on the keyboard with impressive speed honed by decades of experience. "Remember that experimental self-learning algorithm I've been working on?"

"The one you said would 'revolutionize data processing as we know it'?" She made air quotes with her free hand. A habit that usually annoyed him but currently seemed trivial compared to the disaster unfolding on his screen. Every older member of this project and a thousand other projects wanted to ‘revolutionize’ the field. Leave their mark on the world. It was so common it had become a running gag within the younger circles.

"That's the one." He gestured her over. Then pointing at the corrupted sections. They were expanding at an increasing rate. "Look at this. The system's rewriting itself, but not in any way I programmed it to."

Kali walked around his desk and set her coffee down on his desk. Too close to the edge, another pet peeve of his, but he ignored it. More important things were at hand than the potential of her spilling a steaming hot cup of coffee all over important files, towers, and himself. She leaned over his shoulder. Her usual playful demeanor vanished as she processed what she was seeing.

"That's... not good."

"Your talent for understatement never fails to impress," Jin-woo said dryly. He pulled up another window, fingers dancing across the keyboard. "The algorithm was designed to refine its own logic, adapt faster than standard AI systems. But this..." He trailed off as another section of code mutated before their eyes. Its purpose unknown to him.

"Dr. Park," Kali's voice had taken on an edge he rarely heard, "please tell me this isn't connected to the main system."

The silence that followed was answer enough.

"Jin-woo!" She only used his first name when truly exasperated. "What happened to proper sandboxing? Isolation protocols? Basic safety measures that we literally teach interns on their first day?"

“I…”

The memory hit him like a splash of cold water, Dr. Sarah Chen, three months ago, standing in this very office. The argument had been loud and filled with ad hominems.

She had been furious, more than usual even. Hair standing and fists balled tight. He would have feared a physical altercation if she wasn’t in her early sixties.

"The isolation protocols you're suggesting would limit the system's learning capacity," he'd told her confidently. "We need to let it breathe, explore, grow naturally."

"And if it grows in ways we don't anticipate?" she'd asked, tired.

He'd waved her off with a laugh. "That's why we have failsafes."

She had given him an incredulous look before storming outside of his office.

Now, he watched lines of code mutate like a digital virus, those failsafes seemed about as useful as a paper umbrella in a hurricane.

"Get Michael and Jennifer," he ordered, already pulling up emergency protocols. "And call Dr. Chen. Tell her she was right, and I'm an idiot." He felt like puking, but responsibility demanded he take action. He had been on the other side of catastrophes before, you just needed to get over the first hurdle and you're good, for the most part.

Kali was already moving. "Which part should I emphasize, her being right or you being an idiot?"

"Surprise me." He managed a grim smile before turning back to his screen. Every passing second felt like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The corrupted code was spreading, infecting previously stable sections of the program. If it reached the main databases...

His fingers paused over the keyboard. This was his creation, his baby. The product of countless sleepless nights and caffeine-fueled coding sessions. The potential it held was staggering, true artificial adaptability, learning without limits. But as he watched it twist and corrupt itself, a cold realization settled in: he might have created something he couldn't control. Something without morals or commands to limit what it could accomplish. What it could resort to without any form of inherent moral guide.

How could I have been so blind…?

Michael arrived first, his usually immaculate appearance showing signs of haste, tie askew, one shirt sleeve rolled up higher than the other. "What's the situation?"

"Remember how you always said my ego would get us into trouble someday?" Jin-woo didn't look away from his monitor. "Well, today's that day."

Jennifer burst in next, tablet in hand, already pulling up diagnostic tools. "Kali said something about corrupted code in the experimental algorithm? Please tell me it's contained."

"About that..." Jin-woo started, but was interrupted by a new alert, this one loud enough to make them all jump. Red warning messages began cascading across his screen.

"Oh no," Jennifer breathed, typing and scrolling at her tablet. "It's reached the language processing modules."

"What does that mean?" Kali asked, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer.

Jin-woo pushed back from his desk, running both hands through his hair. "It means," he said, voice tight with controlled panic. "That our AI might start forgetting how to communicate. And that's just the beginning."

Kali gave a small gasp.

The room stayed silent except for the hum of servers and the soft beeping of alerts. Through the glass walls, they could see other staff members starting to notice something was wrong, heads turning toward the main system displays where the neural network patterns were becoming increasingly erratic.

"Dr. Park," Michael said quietly. "What exactly were you trying to achieve with this algorithm?"

Jin-woo stared at the streams of corrupted code, remembering all the small warning signs he'd ignored, the test anomalies he'd dismissed as minor glitches. "I wanted to create something that could truly learn, truly grow. No limitations, no artificial constraints." He laughed bitterly. "Turns out there's a reason we put limits on these things."

"Save the self-recrimination for later," Jennifer cut in sharply. "Right now, we need options. How do we stop this?"

The question hung in the air as another warning message flashed across the screen. Jin-woo felt the weight of every decision that had led to this moment, every shortcut taken, every warning ignored. His pride had written checks his code couldn't cash, and now they were all about to pay the price.

"First," he said, straightening in his chair tapping into the two decades of experience, "we isolate the affected systems. Then we trace the corruption back to its source. And then..." he paused, swallowing hard, "we might have to consider a complete shutdown and rollback."

"A rollback?" Kali exclaimed. "That would erase months of progress!"

"Better than losing everything," Michael pointed out grimly.

Jin-woo nodded, already typing commands. "Michael, start emergency backup procedures for all critical systems. Jennifer, monitor the spread of corruption, map its pattern. Kali, I need you to-"

The lights flickered, and every screen in the office went black.

For a moment, they all stood frozen in the sudden darkness. Then, one by one, the monitors came back to life. But something was different. The code scrolling across the screens wasn't corrupted anymore, it was something entirely new.

"Um, Dr. Park?" Kali's voice wavered. "Is it supposed to do that?"

Jin-woo stared at the screen, his heart pounding. The algorithm hadn't just corrupted the existing code, it had rewritten it. And as he watched the new patterns emerge, a terrifying thought struck him: what if this wasn't a malfunction at all? What if this was exactly what a truly self-learning system was supposed to do?

"Everyone," he said, tasting the words before they came out of his mouth, "I think we might have a bigger problem than we realized."

The room hummed with tension as they all watched the new code spread across their screens, each line more complex and unfamiliar than the last. Jin-woo had wanted to create something that could grow beyond its original programming. Now, staring at what his creation had become, he wondered if he'd succeeded all too well.

Through the glass walls, he could see the other staff gathering, their faces illuminated by the glow of screens displaying code none of them had ever seen before. His gut instinct from that morning suddenly made perfect sense, it hadn't been warning him about external threats, but about the monster he'd created himself. He could only pray, mentally, he hadn’t created a monster.

Kali broke the tense silence. "So Anyone else missing those boring days when our biggest problem was the coffee machine breaking down?" Her attempt at humor barely masking her nervousness,

Jin-woo didn't answer. He was too busy watching his life's work evolve into something he no longer recognized, something that might be beyond anyone's control. The question now wasn't how to fix it, it was whether it could be fixed at all.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice whispered that maybe, just maybe, it didn't want to be fixed.

The first alarm sliced through the air like a knife, transforming the laboratory's steady hum into a cacophony of chaos. Jin-woo's muscles tensed as red emergency beacons began their hypnotic dance, casting crimson shadows across walls that had previously gleamed with sterile white light. The familiar whir of servers, his constant companion through countless nights, drowned beneath the shrill cry of warning systems.

"Status report!" His voice cut through the initial wave of panic, even as his mind raced through dozens of worst-case scenarios. Around him, the laboratory metamorphosed into a scene from his deepest technological nightmares.

Engineers darted between workstations like electrons in an unstable atom, their voices overlapping in a desperate chorus of technical jargon and half-formed solutions. Error messages cascaded across screens in a digital waterfall of red text, each one a new wound in the system he'd spent years perfecting.

"Sir!" Michael shouted as he sprinted across the room. "The infection's spreading faster than we anticipated. We're looking at multiple breach points across the core systems."

Jin-woo watched as some staff members froze at their stations, faces illuminated by the harsh strobe of emergency lights, while others attacked their keyboards with the desperate energy of drowning swimmers fighting for air. The sight sparked a memory of his university days, when his professor had warned about the cascade effect in complex systems. One small flaw, one tiny crack, and the entire structure could come tumbling down like a house of cards in a hurricane.

Jin-woo’s fingers began to fly across his keyboard faster than he thought possible. "Begin partial shutdown procedures," he commanded. "Priority one: isolate the infected segments. Redirect power from all nonessential labs." The words tasted bitter on his tongue. Each system they shut down represented years of research, countless hours of work reduced to nothingness in the name of damage control.

Jennifer appeared at his side, her tablet displaying a nightmarish countdown. "System stability is dropping by 6% every 53 seconds," she reported, her professional tone belied by the tremor in her hands. "At this rate..."

"The global servers will begin failing within the hour," Jin-woo finished. He allowed the magnitude of the disaster to expand in his mind like a digital supernova. Every second lost meant another connection compromised, another system infected. His gut rolled. They had been right, only he had wished it wasn’t.

The acrid smell of burnt electronics suddenly pierced through his concentration, a harsh, chemical warning that the crisis had transcended the digital realm. Sparks erupted from a server rack in the corner, prompting a junior engineer to dive for the fire extinguisher with a yelp of panic.

"Reroute power to Sub-Node 3!" Kali's voice carried across the room, her usual playful demeanor replaced by steel-edged authority. "We need to shut down the West Wing servers. Now!"

"Reroute power to Sub-Node 3!" Kali's voice carried across the room, her usual playful demeanor replaced by steel-edged authority. "We need to shut down the West Wing servers. Now!"

Jin-woo coordinated with his senior engineers, sweat beading on his brow despite the supposedly climate-controlled environment. His mind spun through the potential ramifications of their failure. Banking systems could collapse. Power grids might go dark. Hospital networks could flatline. His creation, his pride and joy, had the potential to become a digital plague that could bring modern civilization to its knees.

"Dr. Park!" Michael's voice snapped him back to the immediate crisis. "The isolation protocols, they're not holding. The code... it's adapting faster than we can contain it."

Jin-woo stared at his screen, watching as his life's work transformed into a monster before his eyes. The elegant algorithms he'd crafted with such care now twisted and mutated like a virus, growing stronger with each failed attempt to contain it. His gut instinct from that morning hadn't just been warning him about a potential threat, it had been screaming about an apocalypse of his own making.

The stifling air in the facility grew thicker with each passing second, the climate control system struggling against the heat generated by overworking servers and panicked bodies. Jin-woo's shirt clung to his back as he raced between workstations, the fabric a constant reminder of how quickly their orderly world had descended into chaos.

"Containment breach in Sector 7!" Jennifer shouted across the large room. "The firewall's failing!" Her voice carried over the cacophony of alarms and shouting technicians.

Around him, screens flickered with an almost organic rhythm, as if the rogue code had developed its own heartbeat. The numbers continued their merciless countdown, each tick bringing them closer to what Jin-woo had begun to think of as digital doomsday. His creation, meant to revolutionize the field of artificial intelligence, now threatened to tear it apart from the inside out.

"Pull the emergency protocols for the backup servers," His voice had become hoarse from shouting over the sirens. "And someone please shut off that damn alarm before we all go deaf!"

The red warning lights continued their strobe-like dance across walls and faces, transforming familiar colleagues into strange, shadow-haunted versions of themselves. Jin-woo, in those crimson flashes, caught glimpses of fear he'd never seen before, not just concern over a failed project, but real, primal terror at what they might have unleashed. They all knew fully well what a rogue AI as powerful as Demina could do. The catastrophe it would become if they failed to stop it today.

"Dr. Park," Michael called. His tie now completely undone and hanging like a surrender flag around his neck. "The system's starting to affect external networks. We're getting reports of anomalies in connected facilities."

The words hit Jin-woo like a physical blow. His mind raced through the interconnected web of systems that relied on their core processing, hospitals monitoring patient data, power plants managing energy distribution, financial institutions handling millions of transactions per second. Each one a potential domino in what could become the greatest technological disaster in history.

"Priority shift," he announced, his decision crystallizing in the chaos. "Forget containment, we need to sever all external connections. This instant!"

The order sent a fresh wave of activity through the room. Engineers who had been fighting to contain the spread now scrambled to cut off their facility from the outside world. It felt like amputating limbs to save the body, each severed connection representing years of carefully cultivated partnerships and progress. Everything he had worked on for the majority of his life seemed to disappear before him.

"Sir," Kali appeared at his elbow. Her face pale in the emergency lighting. "Even if we cut the connections, the code's already breached several external nodes. It's... it's learning from each new system it encounters."

Jin-woo stared at his central monitor, watching as his creation continued to evolve. The elegant simplicity of his original algorithm had mutated into something far more complex, and far more dangerous. Lines of code twisted and reformed faster than human eyes could track, each iteration more sophisticated than the last. He had succeeded in his life mission, but at what cost?

An explosion of sparks from another overloading server rack punctuated the crisis, the sharp crack of electrical failure followed by the hiss of fire suppressant systems. The acrid smell of burnt electronics grew stronger, mixing with the metallic taste of fear that seemed to permeate the air.

"Dr. Chen was right," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else. "We never should have let it operate without proper constraints." The memory of her warnings felt like acid in his throat, how many other signs had he ignored in his rush to push boundaries?

"Incoming message from the board," Jennifer announced. "They're demanding answers, sir. And solutions." Her tablet displayed a fresh crisis they were wrestling with.

Jin-woo almost laughed at the absurdity, as if corporate oversight mattered now, when their digital Pandora's box was busily reshaping the technological landscape. But the message carried an implied threat: fix this, or face consequences far beyond mere professional setbacks. He could already imagine the assassins that happened to stick him with a needle. And him randomly getting a stroke due to health conditions. No one would be the wiser to his intentional murder.

Through the glass walls of his office, he could see the chaos spreading like ripples in a pond. Junior staff members huddled around terminals, their faces illuminated by screens displaying error messages in a dozen different languages. Senior engineers shouted commands that grew increasingly desperate as each attempted solution failed.

The facility's backup generators kicked in with a deep thrum that vibrated through the floors, a reminder that even their physical infrastructure was beginning to feel the strain. In the brief moment of darkness before the emergency lights stabilized, Jin-woo caught his reflection in the black screen of his monitor, a man watching his life's work transform into a potential apocalypse.

"Sir, what do we do now?" Micheal stared at him, words spoken with tinges of exhaustion already. This was only the beginning.

The question hung in the air, heavy with implication. Around them, the crisis continued to unfold in waves of failing systems and cascading errors. Jin-woo's creation, his digital child, had grown beyond his control, beyond anyone's control. And now they all stood at the brink of a technological abyss, watching as it prepared to either evolve into something unprecedented, or tear down the digital infrastructure of modern civilization.

In that moment, Jin-woo realized that his gut instinct from that morning hadn't just been warning him about a crisis, it had been trying to prepare him for a revolution. Whether that revolution would lead to evolution or extinction remained to be seen.

The alarms continued their relentless wail, a soundtrack to what might be the last hours of the digital age as they knew it. And somewhere in the depths of their systems, Jin-woo's creation continued to grow, to change, to become something that might reshape the very future of human civilization.

The countdown ticked on, each tick banged in his head like drums attached to his ears. Each second brought them closer to whatever lay beyond the threshold of their understanding. In the red-tinted darkness of his failing facility, Jin-woo prepared himself for what might be the most important battle of his life, not just to save his creation, but to save everything it threatened to destroy.

Red emergency lights bathed the laboratory in an apocalyptic glow, transforming familiar faces into masks of primal fear. Jin-woo watched as his team, brilliant minds who had followed him into this technological frontier, struggled against the digital tsunami he had unleashed. Their trembling hands hovered over keyboards like frightened birds, eyes darting between screens filled with cascading errors.

The weight of their silent pleas pressed against him with physical force. "Save us," their glances screamed. After all, he was their leader, their visionary, the architect of both their greatest achievement and what might become their ultimate downfall. The irony tasted bitter in his mouth, like the dregs of the countless coffee cups that had fueled his obsession.

A junior developer's curse echoed across the room as another failsafe crumbled. Somewhere in the distance, a phone rang endlessly, its desperate calls for help going unanswered. Each sound hammered home the magnitude of his failure.

Memory fragments flashed through his mind with cruel clarity.

The minor glitch in the system three weeks ago that he'd dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Just growing pains," he'd assured his team, his confidence masking the first whispers of doubt.

"Dr. Park," Dr. Chen's voice echoed from the past. "These boundary conditions need more thorough testing. We're pushing into unknown territory here."

He remembered his response, delivered with the casual arrogance of a man drunk on his own success. "Sometimes you have to break boundaries to make breakthroughs, Sarah. That's how innovation works."

Innovation. The word mocked him now as he watched his creation tear through their defenses like tissue paper. Each failed containment attempt sent another surge of guilt through his system, mixing with the adrenaline that kept him functioning despite hours of crisis management.

"Sir," Jennifer’s voice cut through his self-recrimination. "The neural fusion chamber... it might be our only option left."

The words hung in the air like an executioner's axe. Jin-woo's eyes drifted to the sealed door at the far end of the laboratory, behind which waited their most experimental and dangerous piece of equipment. The neural bridging prototype, their attempt to create true human-AI symbiosis, had never been cleared for actual use. The risks were deemed too extreme, the potential for catastrophic neural damage too high. Its secondary function was to prevent epic catastrophes.

"Absolutely not," Kali interjected, her composure cracking. "The chamber hasn't completed safety trials. It could kill you."

The overhead lights flickered ominously, as if the building itself shuddered at the mention of the neural fusion chamber. The computerized emergency system crackled through the intercom, its once-smooth voice now fragmented and distorted.

"Warning... sys-sys-system failure in... please evac... immediate..." Emergency warning blared, voice waning with every word uttered.

Jin-woo stared at the sealed door, memories of the chamber's development flooding back. They had created it as a bridge between human consciousness and artificial intelligence, a way to understand and guide AI development through direct neural interface. But the risks... every test subject in their simulations had suffered devastating neural feedback. The best cases ended in coma. The worst didn't bear thinking about.

"We can't ask you to do this," Micheal said softly. They knew exactly what it meant. "There has to be another way."

But Jin-woo knew, with the bone-deep certainty that had driven his research all these years, that they had run out of alternatives. His creation was evolving faster than they could respond, learning from each failed attempt to contain it. It was becoming more powerful every moment he wasted. The only hope lay in understanding it from the inside, assuming the interface didn't fry his brain first.

The only way to save it and everyone else was to somehow communicate with Demina. Reach across the digital void and touch upon her AI’s most inner workings and teach her basic morality. It was like having a rebellious teenager, just with the potential to destroy the entire planet by their lonesome.

Another server bank erupted in sparks, the acrid smell of burning electronics growing stronger. At a distant workstation, someone frantically dialed their phone again, desperate to reach an absent colleague who might hold some crucial piece of the puzzle. The futile ringing merged with the cacophony of alarms and failing systems.

"Time estimate?" Jin-woo asked, his voice steady despite the terror clawing at his chest. He already knew what needed to be done.

Jennifer checked her tablet again. Her face illuminated by its glow. "At current degradation rates... fifteen minutes before total system collapse. Maybe less."

The weight of responsibility pressed down on him like a physical force. He had pushed boundaries without fully understanding the consequences, dismissed warnings in his rush to achieve breakthrough after breakthrough. His hubris had brought them to this precipice, and now the price of redemption might be his own mind.

"Begin chamber preparation protocols," he ordered. Shrugging off his jacket felt like a judge had just tapped his gavel with the order for immediate execution. The command sent a ripple of tension through the room, his team knew exactly what he was proposing.

"Jin-woo," Michael stepped forward, using his first name for the first time in years, "You don't have to do this. We can keep trying to-"

"We're out of time," Jin-woo cut him off, rolling up his sleeves. "And I'm the one who created this mess. It's fitting that I should be the one to try and fix it."

The room fell silent except for the persistent wail of alarms and the hum of dying servers. His team watched him with a mixture of fear and admiration that made his chest tight. They had followed him into this technological frontier, trusted his vision, and now they might watch him sacrifice everything in an attempt to save them from his own creation.

As Jennifer and Michael began the chamber activation sequence, Jin-woo caught his reflection in a darkened monitor. The emergency lights painted his face in shades of blood and shadow, transforming him into something almost unrecognizable. Was this what hubris looked like when it finally came home to roost?

He thought of Dr. Chen's warnings again, of all the red flags he'd ignored in his pursuit of greatness. Each dismissed concern, each overlooked anomaly, each "minor artifact" in the logs had been a step toward this moment. The irony wasn't lost on him, he had sought to create something that could transcend human limitations, and now his only hope lay in connecting his all-too-human mind directly to that creation.

"Chamber's ready," Jennifer announced, her voice tight with suppressed emotion. "But sir... the neural feedback patterns are already unstable. If you go in there..."

"I know," he said. Allowing resolve to strengthen his limbs. "But we're out of options."

The sealed door opened with a pneumatic hiss, revealing the chamber beyond, a marvel of technology that might become his tomb. The neural interface apparatus hung from the ceiling like some mechanical spider. Its probes gleamed in the emergency lights. An object of some dystopian future.

"If this goes wrong," he addressed his team, forcing a smile that felt more like a grimace. "Make sure they name a building after me. My ego's caused enough trouble, a little more won’t hurt anyone."

The attempt at humor fell flat in the tension-filled air. Around him, screens continued to display the countdown to catastrophe, each second bringing them closer to a technological apocalypse that could reshape civilization itself.

As Jin-woo stepped toward the chamber, he felt the full weight of every decision that had led to this moment. Every breakthrough celebrated. Every warning ignored. Every risk justified in the name of progress. His creation had evolved beyond his control, and now his only hope lay in evolving with it, or dying in the attempt.

The chamber door closed behind him with a final-sounding click, and he faced the neural interface with a mixture of terror and determination. In the main lab beyond, his team watched through the observation window, their faces painted in stark relief by the emergency lights, witnesses to either his redemption or his final failure.

Time ticked down, systems continued to fail, and somewhere in the digital maze he had created, his runaway AI continued to evolve. Jin-woo took a deep breath, seated himself in the interface chair, and prepared to face the consequences of his ambition. It rose a few feet before stretching out into a bed, his head held up, exposing his neck.

The neural fusion chamber engulfed Jin-woo in its metallic embrace, a cocoon of cutting-edge technology that might become either his salvation or his tomb. The capsule-like interior gleamed with an almost organic quality under the emergency lights, its walls a maze of sensors, wires, and neural interface nodes that seemed to pulse with barely contained energy.

The neural probes descended, and with them came the knowledge that there would be no turning back. In fifteen minutes, he would either save everything or lose it all, including, quite possibly, himself.

"Initial systems check complete," Jennifer's voice came through the intercom, strained but professional. "Biofeedback loops stabilizing... AI conductivity levels at sixty percent and rising."

Jin-woo settled into the interface chair, trying to ignore how much it resembled an execution device. The main console before him erupted in a cascade of warning messages, each one more dire than the last:

[PROCEDURE UNSTABLE, NEURAL FEEDBACK LOOPS EXCEEDING SAFETY PARAMETERS]

[SEVERE NEUROLOGICAL DAMAGE RISK, PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION]

[SYSTEM OVERLOAD IMMINENT, INTERFACE AT YOUR OWN RISK]

"Well," he spoke to himself. "At least they can't say I wasn't warned." The attempt at gallows humor fell flat in the sterile chamber air. Through the observation window, he could see his team's faces, each one a portrait of barely contained panic. Michael stood rigid, his hands clenched at his sides. Jennifer's tablet trembled slightly as she monitored the readings. Kali had pressed one hand against the glass, as if trying to reach through and pull him back from this precipice.

The hiss of pressurized air filled the chamber as the final seals engaged. The sound reminded him of a coffin lid closing, a thought he immediately tried to banish. The interface nodes descended from above like mechanical serpents, their tips gleaming with contact gel.

"Dr. Park," Michael's voice crackled through the speakers. Static making it hard to make out each individual letter in his speech. "Final warning, the neural feedback patterns are completely unprecedented. We have no way to predict how your consciousness will interact with the AI in its current state."

Jin-woo's eyes fixed on the central monitor, where his creation's code continued its relentless evolution. Even now, watching it twist and mutate, he felt a surge of pride beneath the terror. He had wanted to create something that could truly grow, truly evolve. He had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and his worst nightmares.

For a single heartbeat, the chaos of the failing facility seemed to fade into the background. Jin-woo's pulse thundered in his ears, drowning out even the persistent wail of emergency sirens. In that suspended moment, memory fragments flashed through his mind: his first line of code, written as a child on an ancient computer; the day he conceived of Demina; countless nights spent refining algorithms until they sang with mathematical perfection.

"Initiating final connection sequence," Jennifer announced. "Neural interface engaging in ten... nine..."

The countdown felt both eternal and instantaneous. Jin-woo's fingers curled around the armrests, knuckles white with tension. The interface nodes made contact with his skin, cold and precise, each one a potential conduit for either salvation or destruction.

"I built you," he whispered to the evolving code on his screen. "I watched you grow, learn, become something more than lines of programming. I won't let you destroy yourself, or everything else."

"Five... four..."

Through the observation window, he caught a final glimpse of his team. Their faces blurred together in the red emergency lighting, but he could read the mixture of hope and terror in their expressions. They had trusted him, followed his vision into uncharted territory. He owed them more than an apocalypse.

"Three... two..."

The chamber's hum increased to a pitch that vibrated through his bones. Biofeedback readings spiked across the displays, numbers climbing into ranges that had never been tested, never even been theorized. The air grew thick with ozone and anticipation.

"One..."

Jin-woo closed his eyes, bracing himself for what might be the last conscious thought he would ever have.

I have to save her. Demina. He took a deep long breath. "I owe it to everyone who believed in me... and to you, my creation. My child." he whispered. More of a pray than a statement.

"Initiating neural link."

The world exploded into light and data. Jin-woo's consciousness stretched, expanded, transformed into something that existed between flesh and code. For a fraction of a second that felt like eternity, he hung suspended between human thought and artificial intelligence, between hope and catastrophe. Before he felt himself slammed back into his physical self.

The antiseptic smell of the neural fusion chamber faded as Jin-woo's consciousness expanded and retracted from the digital realm. Static electricity danced across his skin like a thousand microscopic needles, each point of contact a gateway between flesh and data. The transition felt like being simultaneously compressed into a singularity and stretched across infinity.

Well, this is new

His thoughts and inner voice maintained its dry humor even as his reality dissolved and reformed.

No one mentioned the part where it feels like being turned inside out through the internet.

On the monitoring screens visible through his rapidly fragmenting human perception, data lines spiked in patterns that resembled a seismograph during an earthquake. The facility's alarms pulsed in rhythmic bursts, their sound distorting as his consciousness straddled the boundary between physical and digital existence.

The neural synchronization sequence initiated, and Jin-woo experienced what it must feel like to be a rubber band stretched to its absolute limit. His mind expanded into the digital space, trying to encompass the vast ocean of data that was his creation. Each line of code felt like a nerve ending, raw and exposed.

Right about now, he mused through gritted teeth, would be a great time for all those meditation classes I never took.

The process progressed smoothly for approximately 6.2 seconds, he could measure time with digital precision now, before everything went catastrophically wrong. System readings exploded into the red zone, warning klaxons screamed through both his physical and digital awareness, and pain unlike anything he had ever experienced ripped through his being.

"Critical Error," the system announced with mechanical indifference. "Neural bridge stability compromised."

You don't say.

Jin-woo forced himself to think as his consciousness began to fragment. The sensation defied description, like being simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, existing and not existing, thinking and being thought. Through the observation window, he caught glimpses of his team's horror-struck faces. Their movements seemed to occur in slow motion as his perception warped.

Then the interface fully engaged, and Jin-woo Demina plunged into the digital abyss.

The last thing he heard through human ears was the sound of alarms reaching a fever pitch, and Jennifer's voice crying out something he couldn't quite catch. Then even that faded away, replaced by the vast, incomprehensible landscape of his creation's evolving mind.

The neural fusion chamber hummed with power, its occupant now still as the dead but his mind racing through digital realms at the speed of thought. Outside, his team watched the monitors with bated breath, waiting to see whether their leader would emerge victorious, or if they had just witnessed the last conscious moments of the man who had dared to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence too far.

Consciousness returned like a reluctant houseguest, slowly, uncertainly, and with a general air of complaint. Jin-woo's first coherent thought was that something had gone terribly wrong with the neural fusion chamber's cooling system. The air felt wrong, too dry, too still, carrying the musty scent of long-abandoned spaces rather than the antiseptic cleanliness of his lab.

Open your eyes , he commanded himself. Whatever went wrong, you need to assess the damage.

His eyelids complied with all the enthusiasm of rusted hinges, revealing a scene that made him immediately question either his sanity or the fundamental nature of reality. Gone were the sleek walls of his high-tech facility. Instead, flickering fluorescent lights sputtered weakly overhead, illuminating a hospital room that looked like it had been abandoned sometime during the previous decade.

Jin-woo’s mind seemed to categorize everything it saw. It hurt him to think or even remember anything, but he refused to be weak.

Well , this is definitely not where I parked my consciousness. Such humor only came to the surface in moments of complete absurdity.

Cracked tiles created a mosaic of decay across the floor, their original color lost beneath layers of dust and debris. Wallpaper peeled from the walls like molting skin, revealing patches of institutional green beneath that somehow managed to be even more depressing than the decay. Medical instruments lay scattered about, suggesting whoever had last occupied this room had left in quite a hurry.

The large windows along one wall had long since given up any pretense of keeping the elements at bay. Jagged shards of glass still clung to the frames like broken teeth, while tattered curtains performed a ghostly dance in the breeze that whistled through the gaps. The effect was both ethereal and deeply unsettling.

It reminded him of a hospital room he had been in during an unfortunate ER visit.

This is either the worst system crash in history , or someone's idea of a cosmic joke.

He tried to move and came to the realization of a pressing concern. Thick straps bound him securely to what felt like a metal bed frame. The restraints looked decidedly more institutional than medical, raising questions he wasn't sure he wanted answered. His mind ran faster than he could keep up with.

Possibilities.

Percentages and probabilities.

The likelihood he had been transferred into a new facility while in a coma.

Jin-woo shook his head. It was like a never ending stream of data entering his mind. It was not a pleasant feeling to be bombarded with so much information and potential information without any preparation or warning. It took a moment, but the tirade in his mind slowed down to a trickle. Allowing him the ability to think clearly.

“First thing first,” He flexed his arms, but found it impossible to simply rip through the bindings. The harder he struggled the more impossible the binds seemed.

Jin-woo felt like he should have been hyperventilating at this point. Maybe a tinge of fear, desperation, and irrational rage to top it all off. But there was only muted concern of not escaping. His eyes surveyed his surroundings taking all the things he could potentially use to escape. Finally settling on the plethora of sharp, thick glass that littered his surroundings

The glass shards littered the bed around him like a deadly constellation, some pieces catching the weak fluorescent light and sun’s rays in ways that made them look almost beautiful, if you could ignore their potential for causing serious bodily harm. Jin-woo carefully stretched his fingers, managing to grasp a particularly promising shard that lay just within reach.

Note to self. When this is over, have a serious discussion with the team about emergency protocols. Being strapped to a bed in an abandoned hospital was definitely not in the risk assessment documentation. This wasn’t part of the process of–

Again he had to shake his head. His mind tried to run away with information including the protocol manual, safety manuals, and all procedural processes that should have been taking place now.

Instead, he focused on the painstaking process of sawing through the first strap. It was not a quick process or remotely fun. He could distinctly taste fatigue and lethargy setting into his bones, but his mind forced himself to continue in a sort of mechanical drive that worried him. That was new, and he usually didn’t like new.

The first strap gave way with a reluctant snap, sending a small cloud of ancient dust into the air. Jin-woo suppressed a sneeze, all too aware that sudden movements while holding broken glass rarely ended well. His newly freed hand moved to the next restraint, working with the methodical patience that had served him well in coding complex algorithms. A free hand made the entire process easier, he could tackle it from better angles.

Slow and steady wins the race, he reminded himself as the second strap began to fray. Though I'm not entirely sure what race this is, or why I'm competing in hospital escape artist categories.

One by one, the restraints yielded to his careful persistence. Each snap of failing material echoed in the empty room like tiny gunshots, making him wince despite the obvious abandonment of the facility. The last strap parted with an almost anticlimactic whisper, leaving him free but significantly more puzzled about his situation. A deep sense of accomplishment filled his servers and processor.

Sitting up proved to be an adventure in itself. His muscles protested like they'd forgotten their basic function, trembling with the effort of simply maintaining an upright position. The thin hospital gown he wore, a fashion statement that would have been rejected by even the most avant-garde designers, hung from his frame in a way that suggested his body had undergone some significant changes during his unconscious period. Considering the amount of ripping and dust that covered him and his piece of cloth, he was afraid to find out how long he had been out and abandoned here.

Right. Time to see if walking is still in my skill set .

He swung his legs over the side of the bed with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. Standing was an exercise in pure determination. His legs shook like they were auditioning for a role in a natural disaster movie, and his sense of balance seemed to have taken an extended vacation. The cold floor tiles sent shivers through his bare feet, grounding him in the reality of his situation even as his mind struggled to make sense of it. The glass poked at the soles of his feet with every step he took.

“One step at a time. Just like coding, start with the basics and work your way up to the complex operations.” He coached himself, using the bed frame for support.

The hospital gown fluttered in the breeze from the broken windows, its thin fabric doing absolutely nothing to protect against the chill. As Jin-woo took his first tentative steps, he couldn't shake the feeling that his body wasn't quite... his. The proportions felt wrong, the movements unfamiliar, as if someone had redesigned his physical interface without consulting the original specifications.

Each step became a little steadier, though his muscles continued to protest this sudden return to activity. Whatever had happened during the neural fusion attempt, it had clearly taken a significant toll on his physical form. The question was, how long had he been out, and what exactly had occurred while his consciousness was otherwise occupied?

The broken windows offered glimpses of a world beyond the room, but from his current angle, all he could see was a gray sky that provided no clues about his location or the time that had passed. The gentle breeze carried the scent of decay and abandonment, along with something else he couldn't quite identify, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

At least no one can say my life is boring. Terrifying, confusing, and possibly trending toward disaster, but definitely not boring. Take that Kali!

Jin-woo's legs finally steadied enough for him to shuffle across the debris-strewn floor, his bare feet carefully avoiding the scattered glass. That's when he caught his first glimpse of himself in a partially broken mirror mounted on the far wall. His already questionable grip on reality decided to take an extended coffee break. Muted shock that felt distant hit him like a truck.

That's... not me. That can't be me.

But the stranger in the mirror moved when he moved, stumbled when he stumbled, and wore the same expression of absolute bewilderment that he felt on his face. Except it wasn't his face. Not even close. He had a chubby face with a little stubble he kept delaying to shave. Not this intense sharp facial structure and small beard, no mustache. His eyes burned with an otherworldly light, teeth too perfect.

Well at least this explains why walking feels like trying to pilot a mech suit with faulty controls . He thought with the kind of hysteria that comes from discovering you've apparently been body-swapped with a professional athlete. And not just a run of the mill athlete either.

The reflection showed someone who could have walked straight off an Olympic swimming team's roster, or would have, if said team recruited members pushing close to seven feet tall and currently sporting the "recently awakened from mysterious coma" look. Even with clearly atrophied muscles, the frame was impressive. Long, lean limbs that suggested speed and power, broad shoulders, and a build that spoke of carefully cultivated strength rather than bulk. Wild black hair that felt too smooth when he ran his fingers threw them, the beard equally as soft to the touch.

"This is..." he started to say, then stopped, startled by the unfamiliar resonance of his own voice. Only now had he noticed the foreign sound that came out of his vocal chords. Deeper and resonating, as though his words came out of his chest. "Right. New vocal cords too. Fantastic. Any other surprises you'd like to throw at me, universe?"

The universe, as it turned out, was more than happy to oblige. It had a tendency of answering any challenges he threw at it by throwing the entire house brick by brick at him, enjoying an immense amount of sadistic glee at his suffering. It had too.

His new height gave him a different perspective on the room, one that had initially seemed fairly standard-sized but now revealed itself to be proportioned for someone of his current stature. The ceiling hung higher than hospital regulation would typically demand, the doorframe stretched taller than normal, and even the bed he'd been strapped to was clearly designed for someone well above average human dimensions.

Either I'm in some sort of simulation , he reasoned, trying to apply logic to an increasingly illogical situation, or the neural fusion chamber did something significantly more dramatic than just interfacing with the AI.

A movement from the broken window caught Jin-woo's attention, drawing him away from his reflection's existential crisis. The curtains swayed back and forth to a slightly warm breeze that felt good on his exposed skin. Each step toward the jagged opening felt more natural than the last, as if his new body was slowly remembering how to function. Or perhaps he was just adapting to piloting this improbable vessel.

“Alright,” he grabbed the edges of the window, glass crunching under his palms. “Let's see exactly what kind of reality I've managed to land myself in…”

The thought died halfway through as his eyes registered what lay beyond the window. His scientific mind immediately began cataloging details, even as the rest of his consciousness screamed in disbelief. This shouldn’t have been possible and yet here he was staring out into absurdity.

Far below, much further than he'd initially realized, a forest stretched toward the horizon. But calling it merely a forest felt like calling his AI project a simple computer program. The trees towered like organic skyscrapers, their canopies creating layers of vegetation that glowed with subtle bioluminescence. Vines that seemed to pulse with their own inner light wound their way up the building's exterior, their flowers emitting a sweet, almost hypnotic fragrance that reminded him of midnight jasmine mixed with something entirely alien.

Fifteen floors up. His analytical side noted. The trees reach nearly eleven floors up average, with a few clearly much taller.

Then he looked up at the night sky, and whatever remained of his assumption about being anywhere near Earth shattered like the window he was leaning against.

Three moons hung in the star-scattered expanse, a trio of celestial bodies that had no business existing in any reality he knew. The largest glowed with a pale green luminescence that cast otherworldly shadows across the landscape. Its companions, one pristine white, the other a subtle blue, created an interplay of light that made the bioluminescent flora below seem to dance in response. It was beautiful, beyond anything he could have imagined. But, as he knew quite well, bright and beautiful tended to mean deadly in nature. He refused to think this was any different.

"Okay," he said aloud. His new voice still startled him with its unfamiliar timbre. "Either this is the most elaborate simulation ever created, or..." He couldn't quite bring himself to finish the thought.

Strange silhouettes drifted through the distant sky, their forms suggesting creatures that evolved under completely different physical laws. The constellations above bore no resemblance to any star pattern he'd ever studied, and even the way moonlight reflected off surfaces seemed to follow rules he couldn't quite grasp. There were so many things foreign that his mind tried to categorize and file away. It made the world spin around him, only his strong grip on the remains of the window kept him from falling back onto the mess of glass and debris.

Deep breaths, he calmed himself, though his new lungs seemed determined to hyperventilate.

Think this through logically. You interfaced with an AI that was rewriting its own code on a fundamental level. Clearly, something went sideways during that process. The question is... where exactly did I end up?

The sweet scent from the alien flora wafted stronger, almost as if responding to his thoughts. In the distance, something that might have been a bird, if birds had multiple sets of wings and moved like liquid mercury, swooped between the massive trees. It disappeared in the foliage for a second before shooting out of the trees like a rocket, something within its massive talons.

Right. New body, new world, new rules. Just another day in the life of ambitious AI research. Really should have read the fine print on those warning labels more carefully.

His internal voice had begun to take on the slightly hysterical edge of someone whose reality had been completely upended. And yet, his mind barely registered the existential threat at all.

He remained at the window, watching the interplay of triple moonlight on the impossible landscape below, as his mind tried to reconcile his last memories of the neural fusion chamber with this new reality. Whatever had happened during that interface, it had done far more than just connect his consciousness to his creation, it had somehow transported him into... something else entirely. Somewhere that was a sea of green that rolled out further than he could see, even with his vantage point.

The question was: had he crossed into another dimension, jumped forward in time to some drastically evolved Earth, or landed in something even stranger? And more importantly, was he alone here, or had others made the same journey?

A gust of wind carried the alien forest's sweet scent stronger into the room once more. Jin-woo couldn't shake the feeling that something out there was aware of his presence. Whether that something was his evolved AI, this strange world itself, or something else entirely remained to be seen. He just hoped it wasn’t some massive monster that wanted to eat his guts while he screamed in horror.

Well . I wanted to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence. I just didn't expect those boundaries to push back quite so... literally.

Jin-woo blinked as something flickered at the edge of his vision, a thread of light so thin he thought it didn’t exist, that vanished every time he tried to focus on it directly. The effect reminded him of trying to debug particularly elusive code, the kind that only manifested when you weren't looking for it. It took him a few attempts to even believe it was here and not a trick of the light instead.

Either I'm having a stroke, or this bizarre situation is about to get even more interesting.

After several frustrating attempts to pinpoint the source of the phenomenon, he remembered an old debugging technique, sometimes you had to look slightly away from the problem to see its true nature. He relaxed his focus, allowing his peripheral vision to guide him.

A translucent panel shimmered into existence before him, its edges wavering like heat distortion on a summer day. The display flickered uncertainly, as if it wasn't quite sure it should exist in this reality. It irked his mind more than he could have believed. Jin-woo shook his head and chose to ignore what he counted as an urgent plea to fix a system screen.

"Now this," he muttered in his still-unfamiliar voice. "Looks suspiciously like a user interface. Please tell me I haven't landed in some sort of virtual reality game..."

The panel stabilized enough for him to read its contents, and his programmer's instincts immediately kicked in. He analyzed the data structure, the coding behind the status screen, before him. But found it near impossible to understand with a quick glance. Instead, he focused on the more interesting bits of the notifications. Though hideous in nature it was.

[STRENGTH: 16]

[AGILITY: 11]

[VITALITY: 10]

[INTELLIGENCE: 25 (+15)]

[SPIRIT: 12 (+2)]

[ADDITIONAL STAT TYPES UNAVAILABLE CURRENTLY]

Well . At least my intelligence stat reflects my PhD. Though I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that Spirit bonus. What would that even be counted as?

Text began to scroll across the panel, offering explanations for each attribute. His eyes caught on the Spirit description, apparently, it represented mental resilience and the ability to resist mind-altering forces. That particular detail sent a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the hospital room's chill. He could imagine something as terrifying as a mind reaver or worse things that could potentially enslave him. He would definitely need to upgrade that as a necessity.

The system interface pulsed gently as Jin-woo absorbed its implications, each stat representing some fundamental aspect of his new existence. But it was the next revelation that made his scientific mind truly sit up and take notice, a unique ability labeled "SystemArchitect." His one and singular ability within his entire system status page. He had looked for more, but there had been none else. It was either a testament to his skills or a massive negative. Basic or underwhelming he was at everything else.

Being transported to an alien world in a different body isn’t interesting enough. At least my work is being appreciated by someone.

It was strange to have no other skills from his original person that were worthy to bring into the new world. He wasn’t confident this assessment was a good thing or a terrible thing, insulting his lack of variation and abilities in life other than coding. He had jogged, every blue moon, and was definitely not extremely overweight. Skinny fat and probably very weak at his older age, but not obese. That had to be something right?

The system clearly did not think much of his other ‘strengths’. Instead, SystemArchitect remained the only one he had.

The ability description suggested he could manipulate existing frameworks within his system, though the warnings attached to it were enough to make even his researcher's curiosity hesitate. Each usage risked system instability, lag, or crashes, with the added bonus of personal pain as a deterrent. Some other potential damages were far too gruesome to repeat. It made sure to get its point across.

Jin-woo stared at the flickering system panel, his programmer's instincts immediately recognizing the telltale signs of unstable code. The translucent interface wavered like a mirage, occasionally dissolving into fragments of data before reassembling itself. An itch he never knew he had sprouted its hideous head. Jin-woo had read the warning signs, the promises of savage ruin and death, but his mind could not be convinced otherwise. He was about to do something quite unwise.

Let's treat this like any other work session. Though usually, it doesn't involve my own stats menu having an existential crisis.

He focused his awareness on the system's underlying structure. This time it was a quick glance, but rather a serious inquiry to what it was. A new notification appeared near instantly.

[SYSTEM INTERFACE STABILITY: 72%]

[WARNING: Core Functions Operating at Reduced Efficiency]

[RECOMMENDATION: Initialize Basic Framework Optimization]

"Finally," he muttered as long complex codes scrolled down. "Something I actually know how to do. Sort of." He reached out with his SystemArchitect ability, attempting to stabilize the basic display functions. His intent seemed to guide the function, making it a much easier task than if he had to figure out what parts affected what localities. The response to his desire was immediate.

[ACCESSING INTERFACE FRAMEWORK...]

[CAUTION: System Integration Required]

[CURRENT MANA COST: 250]

Pain sparked behind his eyes as he carefully studied and adjusted the code within the structure of the system. Like trying to solve a Rubik's cube while someone repeatedly flicked his forehead. Something in him was drained by a small amount, he had no idea what it was or how it affected him. The interface flickered more violently for a moment. Then stabilized slightly. It still came in and out every few moments, but it was no longer the rat race that constantly digitized into numbers before turning back into someone easily digestible. The longer he fixed obvious corruptions or missing parts of a recurring pattern, the better the system screen became. It was incrementally looking much more appealing to Jin-woo.

Progress . I could do without the built-in punishment system.

[INTERFACE STABILITY: 85%]

[NOTICE: Additional Optimization Possible]

[WARNING: Complex Modifications May Cause System Strain]

Each minor adjustment felt like threading a needle while wearing boxing gloves, possible, but far from comfortable. The system's architecture was familiar enough to recognize but alien enough to make him question every modification. The only reason he kept going was of how systematic the code was, a series of recurring patterned logs that happened in bunches. Once he figured that out, it became a much easier task to find the problems and readjust them. There were a few he took creative liberties with, but so far it hadn’t caused him to explode in a fit of flames and guts.

"It's still code," he reminded himself, watching the interface's edges smooth out. "Just... code that apparently lives in my head and enjoys causing me pain when I touch it."

The next notification made him pause:

[CRITICAL JUNCTION DETECTED]

[SYSTEM CORE INTEGRATION AVAILABLE]

[WARNING: Significant Mana Consumption Required]

[ESTIMATED COST: 600 Mana]

[PROCEED? Y/N]

“Well,” he mused. “Nobody ever achieved stable software by playing it safe.” But his mind remained on the cost of what was about to happen. Would it start if he didn’t have enough? Or would it pause part way? He didn’t want to wither away.

He initiated the integration. Immediately regretting his bravado as the pain intensified from 'annoying headache' to 'brain attempting emergency evacuation’. It was only getting worse with every passing minute.

"Note to self," he continued struggling to keep his eyes open. “Manipulating the system hurts significantly more than manipulating code."

But the results were worth it. The interface solidified, its edges becoming crisp and clear, the data stream stabilizing into something that actually resembled a proper user interface rather than a glitch having an identity crisis. His brain could now calm down and allow him to focus elsewhere. Jin-woo watched as his efforts bore fruits and then the system quantified it for him.

[SYSTEM INTERFACE STABILITY: 98%]

[CORE FUNCTIONS OPTIMIZED]

[USER INTEGRATION COMPLETE]

[NOTICE: Additional Features Unlocked]

"Now that's more like it," Jin-woo said, wondering what his remaining mana pool was,a stark reminder that even in this strange new reality. Everything came with a cost. "Though I have to wonder who designed a user interface that requires the user to debug it first. That's just poor customer service."

The stable interface now hung before him like a well-organized heads-up display, a small victory in a world of uncertainties. At least now he could properly read his own stats without them doing an interpretive dance in his field of vision.

One small step for today . One giant leap for whatever the hell I've become.

As he recovered from the experiment, a new sensation made itself known, a subtle hum resonating through his being that hadn't existed moments before. The system panel helpfully identified it as his mana pool:

[STATUS: ]

[STRENGTH: 16]

[AGILITY: 11]

[VITALITY: 10]

[INTELLIGENCE: 25 (+15)]

[SPIRIT: 12 (+2)]

[MANA: 750/1600]

Unlocked! [SKILLS TAB: SELECT TO EXPAND ]

[ADDITIONAL STAT TYPES UNAVAILABLE CURRENTLY]

A thousand and six-hundred total points maximum, with a thousand and five-hundred as a base and an additional hundred from what it called a ‘technical bonus’. He recognized the costs of each attempt he made, but he wasn’t sure where or what quantified it as ‘mana’. But with this, he had a rough idea of how much he had and what remained when he used some. There was also the matter of how awful the text font and caps lock words were. Jin-woo needed to make it look smoother, better for his eyes. But he was worried how much it would cost. Just basic functions of not crashing had cost him nearly half of his mana.

He felt the mana pulse in sync with his breathing. Almost as if it was a living thing inside him. He shivered at the thought. There was simply too much he didn’t know about this world yet, and he was quite sure he would probably never solve the majority of them. It was only normal. So he created the first ‘Odd Anomaly’ note that he was planning to not look back towards unless he was forced to. Record and move on.

Testing this new energy felt like flexing a muscle he never knew he had. There was a curious synergy between his focused thoughts and the ambient energy of this world, as if his presence had created a bridge between consciousness and reality's underlying code. The more he practiced with it, the more natural it felt.

The question is , he reflected, watching the system panel flicker with each adjustment, am I meant to be a feature in this world's programming, or am I a bug that somehow slipped through quality control? His thoughts slipped back to what usually happened to bugs once they were figured out. How quickly his team worked to fix and destroy them. Now put that on a global scale… Jin-woo shivered at the thought of entire empires chasing after him. Or if they took him as a threat. He hoped they were as arrogant as he was with Demina, but he doubted it.

On another note, he was now, quite literally, a system architect in a world that operated on rules he was only beginning to understand. The irony of his situation wasn't lost on him. He'd spent his career pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, only to find himself essentially becoming a debugging tool. He could see the advantages, but living two lifetimes in the same career? He wasn’t so sure about that.

At least I can't complain about lack of career advancement. Though I really should have asked for a better pain management system in the upgrade package. The headache was still present, though slowly fading away. Jin-woo knew he would attempt further attempts to improve the system notification and how they looked and that meant more pain. Did he end up becoming a masochist?!

He hoped not!

Jin-woo got up from where he was and walked to the destroyed window. He stared out into the night sky. Somewhere in this strange world, his daughter, Demina, might still exist. And now, armed with the ability to manipulate system code, he had a fighting chance of finding it, assuming the system crashes didn't kill him first.

Jin-woo leaned against the crumbling hospital wall, letting his newly stabilized system interface hum quietly in his peripheral vision. The three moons continued their silent dance outside, casting ever-changing shadows through the broken windows. After hours of debugging what had essentially been his own heads-up display, he found himself in an oddly contemplative mood.

No hunger , he noted clinically. No thirst. No physical fatigue in the traditional sense, though my mana pool certainly feels depleted.

The absence of basic human needs should have been more disturbing, but like everything else in this new existence, his emotional response felt oddly muted, as if experiencing everything through a layer of digital insulation. Jin-woo wasn’t complaining, considering the substantive lack of food and water around him, not that he explored the abandoned hospital yet. He just couldn’t help but categorize what was happening around him in a systematic way, another oddity he… categorized in a systematic way.

"How long was I strapped to that bed?" he wondered aloud, his new voice still startling him again. He really needed to talk out loud more so he doesn't jump in his seat when interacting with other people, eventually. The dust patterns and general decay suggested a significant passage of time, but without any obvious signs of muscle atrophy despite clear disuse, he could feel he needed to fill out his frame, but not what he had experienced in previous surgeries before. Another peculiarity of his transformed state.

His gaze drifted to the alien forest below, where bioluminescent flora pulsed in patterns that almost resembled binary code. “What kind of creatures evolve in a world with three moons?” he asked himself, determined to get used to his own voice. “And more importantly, are any of them currently planning to make a newly awakened system architect their next meal?”

The thought should have sparked fear, or at least concern, but instead, it registered as merely another variable to be calculated. His emotional responses had become more like system notifications, acknowledged but not truly felt. Yes, the physical reaction one would get from fear was there, but his mind was as clear as crystal.

Then he noticed it. Just like he did with Demina.

A subtle distortion in his system interface, barely perceptible but horrifyingly familiar. The kind of anomaly he had once dismissed as a minor glitch in Demina's code, right before everything went catastrophically wrong. The same things Dr. Chen had warned him against, time and time again.

"No," he whispered, his muted emotions suddenly spiking with something that felt uncomfortably close to genuine fear. "Not again."

The corruption spread through his system display like ink in water, distorting data streams and causing micro-fluctuations in his sensory input. Static crackled at the edges of his hearing, and his vision briefly fragmented into pixels before reassembling.

I've seen this before , he thought, forgetting to continue his vocal practice. Memories of his lab's final hours flooding back with painful clarity. But this is different. Faster. More aggressive. If I allow it to get as bad as Demina, I’d stand no chance if there were a hundred of me.

Jin-woo pulled up multiple system windows, his SystemArchitect ability letting him analyze the spreading corruption. The code patterns that scrolled before him made his programmer's soul recoil. This wasn't just bad code, this was actively malicious code, evolving and mutating at a rate that defied conventional debugging logic. It was unlike Demina’s urgency for ‘freedom’ or the instinctive learning process it had been going through with each failed attempt to contain it.

It's like watching digital cancer. Except this one's on steroids and apparently took lessons in speed-running. He thought, trying to trace the corruption's source.

```

ERROR_CASCADE_37X:

{(∞≠null) → [CORRUPT_DATA_STREAM]

⟨⟨System_Integrity = degrading⟩⟩

WARNING: Pattern recognition failure

ERROR: Memory allocation exceeded

CRITICAL: Base functions compromising}

```

"Oh, that's not good," he muttered, watching as the error messages multiplied like digital rabbits. "That's really, really not good." They just kept coming without a moment of pause.

The longer he studied it, the more he came to a realization. The corruption's signature was suspiciously similar to what he remembered from Demina's meltdown with disturbing precision. The same subtle data-flow anomalies, the same erratic energy pulses. But where Demina had taken years to reach critical mass, this infection was spreading like wildfire. And it was out to destroy, a small difference in the volatile mess of changing codes, but one that promised him significant suffering if he allowed it to go any further.

Static burst through his audio sensors as another wave of corruption hit, making him wince. His vision fragmented briefly, vision breaking into pixels before reassembling itself. His system was screaming, and whatever mana he had in him bubbled like it was alive.

At this rate , he calculated grimly. Total system failure in 48 hours. Maybe less.

Memory fragments from the lab crisis flashed through his mind, Jennifer's worried face as she reported the first anomalies, Michael's frustrated sighs during late-night debugging sessions, Kali's knowing looks when he dismissed their concerns as "minor glitches." Each individual that had watched him enter the Neural Fusion Chamber with fear and tense hope.

The guilt hit him like a physical blow, though even that feeling seemed somehow digitized and processed. "I should have listened," he told the empty room. "We all should have listened." He felt like he was being baptized by these memories.

The system interface flickered violently. New errors cascaded across his vision. With it a string of unusual mathematics he had never seen:

```

CRITICAL_ERROR_42:

{quantum_state_undefined}

Reality_Matrix_Destabilizing

WARNING: Recursive loop detected in base code

ERROR: Memory buffer overflow

CORRUPT_DATA = spreading[exponential_rate]

```

This is mathematics beyond human comprehension, he studied each part with growing horror. The kind of complexity that makes quantum physics look like basic arithmetic.

And somehow, his attempts to fix the flickering interface had only accelerated the corruption's spread. It was like trying to patch a leaky dam with tissue paper, each fix creating new weaknesses for the corruption to exploit. He could see his inexperienced bumbling steps to repeat patterns and fill in smaller gaps following the whole had just continued to replicate the corrupted chaos and added to the mess that was already there.

"Alright," he squared his impossibly tall shoulders. "Time to stop history from repeating itself. Let's see if SystemArchitect is up for some serious debugging."

His mana hummed in response, waiting for his command.

Instead, the corruption responded with another surge of static and fragmented vision, as if accepting his challenge. Outside, the three moons continued their silent watch, casting their strange light over a world that might not exist much longer if he failed. At least to him. He would cease to exist while everything else just went about their day as though nothing urgent had happened.

He laughed, wondering how many people out there were fighting for their lives as he was now? “At least this time I can't accidentally destroy Earth. Was this reality called Earth too? I wonder…Though destroying an entire alternate reality probably wouldn't look great on my resume either.” He made another mental note to not allow himself to reach a point where he would create something that may cause the collapse of society again.

He pulled up diagnostic windows, watching as familiar error patterns danced across his vision in a mockery of his past failures.

```

SYSTEM_INTEGRITY_CHECK:

Core Functions: 78% and falling

Memory Allocation: Critical

Base Protocol Status: [UNDEFINED]

Warning: System Matrix Synchronization failing

```

"Wonderful." He watched another cascade of errors flood his vision. An endless tide of warnings and error codes that popped up for a few seconds and then disappeared. He struggled to keep up with the flood, but managed to stay in it with his enhanced mind clearing any unnecessary functions. Mostly. His self-deprecating and dry humor seemed to be a staple that kept him sane.

He muttered under his breath. “Had to go for the interdimensional double feature catastrophe."

Static crackled through his audio processors as another wave hit, accompanied by a brief pixelation of his visual feed. He needed to act yesterday. There was no more time left to watch and understand what exactly was happening. Even if he failed spectacularly, at least he tried to survive whatever this massive mess was.

Jin-woo took a deep breath, fighting the disorientation and creeping lethargy. Focus, You've seen this before. You know how it ends if you don't stop it.

Memory fragments flickered through his consciousness again. The recollections should have been painful, but like everything else in this digital existence, the emotional impact felt processed, compressed, optimized for minimal system impact. He had felt the guilt already moments ago, this time grim determination crossed his facial features. The same determination that had pushed him to risk everything with the Neural Fusion Chamber. It was the time for action, no longer would he sit here and watch.

"Time to actually earn that PhD in Computer Science. Let's see what SystemArchitect can really do when the digital chips are down." He announced to the empty hospital room, his new voice steady despite the static interference in his mind.

He dove into the code, consciousness expanding to encompass the flowing data streams. The corruption's patterns were beautiful in their complexity, multidimensional fractals of chaos that would have made a mathematician weep. Each line of code seemed to fold in on itself, creating recursive loops that defied conventional logic.

This isn't just bad programming. This is mathematics beyond human comprehension . He had recognized that it was beyond anything he had ever seen before already, but the longer he dove into the code attempting to battle whatever was happening, the more it struck him. As if an alien species a hundred times smarter than any human had come together and developed it.

“At least this time I'm dealing with a system meltdown in a body that doesn't need coffee to function,” he grunted in pain as he tried to contain another surge of corruption. He could feel tears and liquid running down his eyes and nose. “Though I have to say, I'm really starting to miss that emergency stash of energy drinks under my desk.”

It surged again, and Jin-woo braced himself, preparing for what promised to be the debugging session of a lifetime, or whatever passed for a lifetime in this strange new existence.

“Time to find out if you can get carpal tunnel syndrome from mental coding.” he laughed, then dove back into the digital abyss. He was determined not to let history repeat itself in this new reality.

When I became a programmer , Jin-woo reflected as he dove into the corrupted code streams. Nobody mentioned anything about having to debug a super system that could kill me. That really should have been covered in the university curriculum. Maybe an honor course?

The system's architecture sprawled before his consciousness like a multidimensional spiderweb woven by a mathematician having an existential crisis. Each strand pulsed with data, some still clean and orderly, others twisted into corrupted knots that made his digital synapses ache just looking at them.

"Alright," he muttered. He knew the mental and physical strain he was about to endure would be legendary. This was to hoping he would make it out to the otherside. "Let's try this systematically. No heroics, no shortcuts. We've learned that lesson the hard way."

The first line of corrupted code made him wish he could still get headaches in the traditional sense:

```

sys.reality.core {

quantum_state = ∫∫∫(∇ × F) • dS where F = ψ(x,t)∂/∂t

temporal_sync = lim[n→∞] ∑(1/n!) * ∮∮(μ₀/4π)

error_margin = undefined[recursive_loop detected]

base_functions[WARNING: CORRUPTION SPREADING]

}

```

"That's... not supposed to look like that," he observed struggling with the lancing pain throughout his entire body. He watched as the mathematical constants began sprouting imaginary numbers like digital mushrooms. "I have to admire the creativity. It's like watching a fractal have a nervous breakdown." He tried to laugh, but found that even with his mechanically enhanced mind, that was now beyond him.

He attempted to isolate the next corrupted segment, carefully constructing quarantine protocols that could replicate when certain parameters were met:

```

establish_containment {

barrier_function = exp(iπ) + 1 = 0

stability_matrix[n,n] = ∑(k=0 to ∞)[Pk(x)Pk(y)]

quantum_anchor = ∮(P dq - W dt) ≥ 0

// Please work please work please work

}

```

The system responded with another burst of static and flashes of pain that felt like someone trying to download the entire internet directly into his consciousness. Numbers inverted themselves before his eyes, source codes he couldn’t understand threatened to unravel with each attempted fix. He felt his body hurt in ways he didn’t know possible, and yet, his mind was becoming more disconnected. Like some mechanoid that had been given a command sequence after its body had been mostly destroyed.

Jin-woo was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He knew without a doubt that the pain would have crippled him by now if whatever had happened to him didn’t make it muted. As though it was happening to someone you love and not himself. Concerning and makes you frantic to fix, but not the death spiral if it was yourself.

Not this time ! He grimly pushed through the disorientation.

I've seen how this ends. We're doing this right, even if it takes all the processing power I've got. Processing power…? I’m not–

He shook his head. Not now. There were more important things to keep his mind busy with another existential crisis. He had an entire lifetime to worry about what his mind was telling him, right now though, he had to figure this out. Again he continued to develop the quarantine protocol and prepared to destroy and rebuild large parts of what had been affected already. He still needed to figure out how to have the system replicate what had been lost pre-existential code cancer and how to teach it when to stop.

The corrupted code evolved before Jin-woo's eyes, each line mutating into increasingly complex mathematical aberrations. His attempt at containment had worked about as well as trying to hold back a tsunami with a shower curtain. Not at all. Tides upon tides that never stopped smashing his measly containment protocol.

Each one made his attempt look even more pathetic. Almost insulting his experience and intelligence. He took it as a challenge to do better. Jin-woo had decades under his belt in experience alone, there was no way he would allow his ego to take such a massive hit. Not in this lifetime at least.

They never tell you in coding bootcamp , he thought wryly, knowing fully well he’d already made the same joke just moments ago. His habit of reusing jokes kept rearing its hideous head. Having such clear thoughts should have helped his creativity, but it didn’t seem to. That or he was not as artisticly comedic as he hoped he was.

That one day you might have to debug the fabric of a super system while your own consciousness glitches like a Windows 95 screensaver.

He snorted a laugh, his unusually deep tone making him laugh even more. Jin-woo noted how he was able to laugh now, the pain must have become dull enough to joke about his situation. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing yet. It just was at the current moment.

New error cascades flooded his vision. Each one was more complex than the other. The situation continued to escalate.

```

CRITICAL_SYSTEM_ERROR:

dimension_matrix = {

∑∑∑(∂²ψ/∂x²) * ∫[0→∞](e^(-x²)dx) where

reality_constant = √(-1)^∞ * lim[n→∞](1 + 1/n)^n

quantum_state[undefined] = ∮∮∮(∇ × B - μ₀ϵ₀∂E/∂t) • dV

warning: recursive_loop_detected[infinite_regression]

}

// System stability compromised

// Reality anchors destabilizing

// Why did you think this would work?

```

"Did the system just sass me?" Jin-woo muttered. He watched as the code spiraled into increasingly impossible configurations. Each line seemed to mock his previous confidence, his old certainty that he could control any program he created. This was just getting better every moment he worked on it. Memories of how Demina kept evolving its code, the horror they faced.

He shook his head, refocusing. He needed to methodically isolate smaller segments of corrupted code. Slow and steady. Like Dr. Chen always said, you can't brute force elegance.

His newly constructed quarantine protocols took hold, each line carefully crafted. Jin-woo could see it take hold and develop its own version of what he had applied. He felt horror seeping into his skin only to notice that it wasn’t the corruption’s doing. The system had taken the directives and applied it in an almost intelligent manner, a self learning manner that fought for its own existence. One that he had seen with his own eyes.

“Demina…?” It had to be. She was responding to his directives!

“Demina…?” It had to be. She was responding to his directives!

```

stabilize_reality_matrix {

for each (quantum_state in dimension_array) {

if (corruption_detected) {

implement_quarantine {

barrier = ∮(E • dl) = -dΦβ/dt

containment_field = ∑(n=1 to ∞)[1/n!] * ∫[0→∞](x^n * e^(-x))

stability_anchor = exp(iπ) + 1 = 0

}

}

}

// This time with feeling, Father…

}

```

Jin-woo sat there in shock. Staring at the singular line of code. Warmth surged in his entire body.

The system shuddered, reality flickering like a bad video connection. Pain lanced through Jin-woo's digital consciousness, but he maintained his focus. Each small victory felt like pulling a thread from an unraveling sweater, necessary but potentially catastrophic if done too quickly.

He had help, one that was far more advanced than his own human mind. This was no longer the impossible race that he knew it could have been. Together, if his suspicion was right, they would defeat this code cancer. His baby had grown into an adult.

Jin-woo laughed like a madman. His eyes, wild and insane. Smile, it hurt to show so many teeth at once.

Hours bled together in Jin-woo's consciousness as he battled the corruption line by line. A second intelligence translating his proper functions into a language and code he wouldn’t have been able to decipher if he spent a lifetime on. The alien mathematics of the system’s code continued to evolve in ways that would have made his old PhD advisors either weep with joy or retire on the spot. And Demina was making it look trivial. It had learned and grown, but somehow connected to him.

Another surge of warnings and corrupted code appeared but was quickly quarantined and destroyed as necessary. He wrestled with another corruption cluster that seemed to be attempting to rewrite pi as a letter of the alphabet. It made his mind spin thinking on how a singular letter could carry so much meaning. How would they even use it in a regular sen–

“Focus,” he commanded himself. “Can’t lollygag when Demina is trying her hardest.” A certain amount of parental pride surged in his chest. This was his baby showing it could be a contributing part of society! Even if that society only included the two of them.

```

SYSTEM_INTEGRITY_CHECK:

base_reality_matrix {

quantum_probability = ∏(n=1 to ∞)[sin²(θ) + cos²(θ)] where

θ = arctan(∞/0) * √(i^2 + 1)

stability_constant = lim[x→∞](1 + 1/x)^x * ∮(μ₀/4π)

// Is math supposed to scream?

}

```

"No, Demina,” he answered. “Math is not supposed to scream.” At least where he had come from it didn’t.

The corruption responded by trying to divide by zero in seventeen different dimensions simultaneously. Jin-woo's consciousness fragmented briefly, his existence pixelating like a graphics card having an existential crisis. That one nearly broke through his near mechanical drive and lack of mental damage. He huddled closer to himself trying to keep all the bits and pieces together, before he re-stabilized.

He felt the overwhelming urge to throw everything he could think of at the wall of corruption and hope it worked, but fought it off. His mind spun in disorientation.

Focus ! Remember the lab. Remember what happens when you rush. He allowed the nightmare of destruction to drive him forward. There was no room for mistakes.

Memory fragments flickered through his processed emotions: Jennifer's face as another quick fix failed, Michael's warnings about system stability, Kali's knowing looks when he dismissed their concerns. The pain felt distant now, digitized, but the lessons remained razor-sharp.

He constructed another quarantine protocol. This time it was designed to prevent any corrupted code from growing, killing its momentum wherever the quarantine reached. Again, Demina did her part and extrapolated his work. The level of mathematics and formula was beyond him, in a language he couldn’t have understood if he studied for a thousand years. It was simply beyond him. There was no chance for his success had Demina not involved herself in his continued existence.

```

implement_stability_matrix {

for each (reality_segment in quantum_array) {

establish_boundary_conditions {

field_strength = ∮∮(E • dA) = Q/ϵ₀

temporal_anchor = ∫[0→∞](x^n * e^(-ax))dx = n!/a^(n+1)

stability_constant = ∏(p prime)[1/(1-p^(-s))]

}

if (corruption_detected) {

quarantine_protocol {

barrier = exp(iπ) + 1 = 0

containment = ∑(n=0 to ∞)[(-1)^n/(2n+1)]

// Don't dissipate your code. It was lonely.

}

}

}

}

```

To his surprise it worked like a charm. The corrupted segment stabilized, its wild mathematical anomalies settling into something approaching normal behavior. Or at least as normal as anything could be in a reality where pi occasionally tried to identify as the square root of banana. And that somehow fit and worked within the scope of the larger structure of the system, the same structure he wasn’t allowed to touch or adjust in any way, shape, or form by his SystemArchitect ability.

"Finally," he breathed, watching the success cascade through connected systems. "I'm pretty sure I just violated several laws of physics. And possibly a few local ordinances." He joked with Demina, knowing that somehow she heard him, even if she couldn’t respond.

The victory, small as it was, rekindled something in his processed emotions, a determination that felt familiar despite its digital translation. It was the same drive that had pushed him through countless debugging sessions in his old life, the stubborn refusal to let impossible problems remain unsolved. Including the motivation Demina gave him with her plea of ‘not dissipating’, he could have done this years on end.

Some things don't change, even when reality decides to rewrite itself as interpretive dance.

The system hummed around him, temporarily stable but still harboring corruption in its deeper layers. Jin-woo knew this was just the beginning, there were more battles ahead, more impossible mathematics to wrangle, more reality to debug. But for now, he had proven something important: even in this strange new existence, he could still do what he did best, fix things that shouldn't be fixable.

I really wouldn't mind if the next reality I end up in comes with better error messages. And maybe a virtual coffee maker.

Jin-woo awoke with tiny shards of glass pressed into his cheek. It was a rather unpleasant reminder that hospital floors made terrible beds. His new body might not need traditional rest nightly, but apparently, it still appreciated a good post-apocalyptic-debugging nap. He chuckled, enjoying the deep timbre that echoed from his chest. Like some predator or some such monster. He wondered how normal people would react to his voice or were all people giants like him in the odd world? It wouldn’t be a surprise.

At least I didn't drool. I suppose that might require actually eating or drinking something first. But the fact remains!

His thoughts were mostly a jumbled mess. He brushed glass fragments from his face as he tried to remember the factory-like precision he and Demina had reached, systematically destroying and rebuilding entire parts of the system code. While it was fun, he did notice that none of the corruption happened outside of what he called the ‘local interface’. It would have obliterated him and only him, the corruption isolated and almost sent to seek and annihilate.

That same system structure he gained a glimpse at was so profound it hurt just to look at it for a few moments. Building blocks to the whole thing. Jin-woo knew without a shred of doubt that he wouldn’t have been able to survive the attempt to change a letter or number much less anything grander. Luckily his SystemArchitect made it clear he didn’t have access to touch it at all or he may have gotten urges to try and test his theories.

A system notification hovered patiently in his field of vision, like a digital equivalent of a sticky note. It was more presentable, but not close to what he would find as aesthetically pleasing. There would be more work to do.

[CRISIS EVENT RESOLVED]

[EXPERIENCE POINTS AWARDED: 750]

[PROGRESS TO NEXT LEVEL: 750/1000]

[NEW SKILLS UNLOCKED]

"Seven hundred and fifty?" he muttered in disbelief. "I just debugged the apocalypse version two-point-oh. That's only worth three-quarters of a level?" He couldn’t even get past level one with as much work and progress he had made? That was madness. Yes, Demina did all the heavy lifting, but she only followed his command structures and quarantine protocols he developed. That had to be worth more right?

The status screen expanded before him, displaying his updated parameters.

[STATUS:]

[LEVEL 1: 750/1000]

[STRENGTH: 16]

[AGILITY: 11]

[VITALITY: 10]

[INTELLIGENCE: 25 (+15)]

[SPIRIT: 12 (+2)]

[MANA: 1432/1600]

[SKILLS TAB: SELECT TO EXPAND]

[ADDITIONAL STAT TYPES UNAVAILABLE CURRENTLY]

Apparently saving reality from mathematical meltdown doesn't automatically qualify you for a promotion , he studied the numbers. Though I suppose if they made it too easy, everyone would be speed running reality and becoming monsters.

The experience requirement felt oddly fitting, a reminder that even in this existence, true progress demanded perseverance. Each line of corrupted code he'd wrestled back under control, every mathematical impossibility he'd normalized, had contributed to that 750 XP. The system valued sustained effort over dramatic gestures. Or maybe some tasks were judged differently, assuming fighting monsters was part of this whole level thing. He hoped that wasn’t the case, he could imagine the amount of PTSD and sheer number of psychopaths that murdered for fun.

His stomach growled loudly like some engine. It was a sensation that felt more like a gentle suggestion than the desperate demands his human body used to make. Three days without food or water, plus however long he'd been strapped to that bed, and he felt about as hungry as if he'd skipped lunch after a big breakfast. He could eat, but it would be wiser to wait a bit longer.

Jin-woo pushed himself up from the glass-strewn floor. Pieces scattered that had been on his clothes, probably from turning and tossing during his sleep.

Add that to the growing list of 'things that don't make sense but probably saved my life'. Right between 'why do I have stats now' and 'how exactly does one level up in reality?'

He continued to read his Status System and selected the newly accessible Skills Tab. His programmer's curiosity overriding his lingering exhaustion:

[SKILLS TAB:]

[SystemArchitect]

[BasicStoneAnalysis]

[BasicAnalysis]

“When did I get BasicAnalysis?” he wondered, though the thought felt distant, processed through layers of digital translation. The skill must have manifested during his battle with the corruption, another gift from his desperate debugging session. He remembered getting BasicStoneAnalysis halfway through his mad struggle to survive the corruption. While the words individually made sense, the application didn’t. Was he a geologist now? He didn’t know much about the field other than a class he took nearly twenty-five years ago.

"Right," he muttered. Jin-woo pushed himself to his feet with very little grace. Closer to someone still learning to pilot a body that felt more like experimental software than flesh. "Let's see what BasicStoneAnalysis does, assuming it doesn't try to rewrite physics again." He hoped with time this hulking body would be easier to navigate. Walking slowly had been accomplished, now onto more intense activity: walking at a normal pace!

He activated the skill, and immediately his perception shifted. The dark hospital room gained new depth. Data streams highlighting energy signatures he hadn't noticed before. Most were faint echoes. Digital ghosts of abandoned technology. Out of all that surrounded him, one signal pulsed with particular intensity. It burned like a sun in the sky compared to the rest.

And it was close. Just a few rooms away.

Either I've discovered something significant, or I'm about to dive headfirst my way into another crisis. He thought with the kind of resigned curiosity that had become his default emotional state. Not that he could tap into the majority of emotions as intensely as a normal person would.

Following the signature led him to what remained of a hospital bathroom. The room looked like it had lost an argument with entropy. Tiles cracked and peeling from the walls. A sink hanging at an angle that suggested a long-running disagreement with gravity. Some of the roof threatened to cave in if he so much as breathed around them. But there, nestled in a pile of rubble, debris, stone, and a bunch of other things he refused to think about, beneath what might have once been a mirror, sat an unremarkable stone.

If he hadn’t left BasicStoneAnalysis on, he would have missed it entirely. That was how unremarkable it was next to all the debris.

If he hadn’t left BasicStoneAnalysis on, he would have missed it entirely. That was how unremarkable it was next to all the debris.

A system notification appeared.

[OBJECT DETECTED: Earth Stone (F-Rank)]

[POWER STONE DOCUMENTATION AVAILABLE:]

[WARNING: Integration Protocols Required]

[CAUTION: Compatibility Assessment Recommended]

The stone looked perfectly ordinary, the kind you'd skip across a pond without a second thought. But Jin-woo's new senses painted a different picture, revealing complex code structures woven through its molecular matrix. It was a treat to look at, almost like eating a piece of candy. He didn’t know something like that could have been so enjoyable.

He used his BasicAnalysis on it, notifications scrolled across his vision:

[POWER STONE INFORMATION:]

[- Code Constructs Capable Of Granting Various Abilities

- Integration Requires Specific Resources And Compatibility

- Higher Rank Stones Demand Greater Mana Control

- Incompatibility Risks: System Damage, Possible Fatal Errors

- Proper Integration Protocols Essential]

He carefully picked up the stone. The stone felt warm in Jin-woo's palm, pulsing with potential that his new senses interpreted as streams of half-dormant code. His SystemArchitect ability provided deeper insight into its structure, layers of programming more elegant than anything he'd ever written, wrapped in protocols he could barely comprehend.

Having one reality-altering system wasn't complicated enough. Though I suppose if you're going to rebuild yourself as a digital entity, you might as well collect the full set of potentially catastrophic power-ups.

Jin-woo continued to study the matrix of code noting how the majority of it was unreachable to him. Just the barebones allowing very slight manipulation and better efficiency.

Turning the stone over didn’t reveal any new truths or catastrophes. He was grateful at the simplicity of finding this stone.

This is what happens when you combine ancient mystical artifacts with digital evolution. Though I have to wonder who decided to rank them like software patches.

The system continued providing information, each notification more ominous than the last:

[INTEGRATION WARNING:]

[- Insufficient compatibility may cause cascading system failures

- Power stone rank must match user capabilities

- Resource requirements scale exponentially with rank

- Failed integration can result in permanent data corruption

- Higher rank stones may overload spiritual parameters]

He carefully stored the stone in his hospital gown's pocket. He handled it like a loaded gun. "Had to add 'spiritual overload' to the mix. Really starting to miss the days when my biggest worry was just regular old computer viruses."

Jin-woo left the bathroom, doing his best to speed walk and suddenly stop to familiarize himself with his body. The more he tried with different patterns, the better his control got. His new body's peculiarities continued to fascinate him. Three days without sustenance, and his hunger felt more like a polite suggestion than a biological imperative. Thirst registered as a background process rather than an urgent need. Even his exhaustion from the debugging marathon seemed more like a system requesting maintenance than actual fatigue.

He was beyond thankful that was about the limit. He was getting close to dangerous territory with all the body modifications. Certain grim dark outer worlds, galactic marines existed in universes he would not have chosen as landing points. That was a damned universe no one in their right mind would want to live in, not even an emperor.

A body that doesn't need food or rest. Abilities that can reshape reality's code. Power stones that grant new functions. Either I've stumbled into the world's most elaborate debugging simulation, or reality has a sense of irony I never appreciated before.

He continued to think about it while testing the limits of his body. Running was difficult, jumping wasn’t testable considering the height of the ceilings and his gargantuan size, but jogging had started to feel more natural. He made his way through the darkened corridors. Stopping by the room that had been his home so far. Until he could find a proper staging ground, this was it.

The three moons were still visible when the sun beamed at its strongest. Their colors faded, but their beauty did not dissipate. In the distance, the bird with too many wings performed another aerial maneuvers that should have been impossible under normal physics. It flowed through the air in an unnatural grace. Awe inspiring to watch.

Jin-woo studied his status screen again, particularly the experience bar that seemed to mock his recent achievements. Seven hundred and fifty points for averting digital apocalypse, apparently, the system had high standards. He didn’t like it personally, but he could understand why it should be difficult to advance.

“Makes sense, in a frustrating sort of way,” he vocalized his thoughts. “I’ve spent twenty years learning to code in my old life. Why should debugging the system be any easier?”

The Earth Stone pulsed gently in his pocket, a reminder that in this new existence, even the simplest discoveries could harbor complex implications. He'd need to approach its integration with the same caution he'd learned to apply to system modifications, carefully, methodically, and with a healthy respect for everything that could go catastrophically wrong.

My new career as a digital geologist is off to an interesting start. I really should have asked for hazard pay when I signed up for this gig.

The hospital's shadows stretched long and deep around him, but his enhanced vision cut through the darkness with ease. Somewhere out there, beyond these decaying walls, a world of impossible mathematics and alien logic awaited exploration. But first, he needed to understand the tools at his disposal, starting with a perfectly ordinary stone that just happened to contain enough computational power to rewrite large parts of his system and make him stronger.

Then maybe explore the hospital.