Chapter 3: System Online

Leo scrambled up from the floor, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The persistent blue interface remained locked in his vision, a ghostly overlay on the familiar, worn-out reality of his apartment. He stumbled into the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. He opened them. The interface was still there.

In the top left, a simple bar labeled [STA: 100/100]. In the right, [SP: 100].

“This isn’t real,” he said, his voice a strained whisper that the cracked bathroom mirror threw back at him. He looked haggard, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and manic disbelief. He saw his own reflection, but layered over it, he saw the System.

His programmer’s mind, trained to find patterns and debug errors, kicked into overdrive. It wasn’t a hallucination. Hallucinations were fuzzy, inconsistent. This was crisp, pixel-perfect, its fonts rendered more cleanly than anything on his cheap laptop screen. It responded to his focus, highlighting whatever he looked at with a faint blue outline. It was an operating system for reality. His reality.

He stumbled back into the living room, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. How could he control it? How could he access it? In the games he used to play, you just had to think the command.

Status, he thought, focusing the word in his mind with desperate intensity.

A new window bloomed in the center of his vision, so suddenly it made him flinch.

[Leo Vance] [Title: Novice Auctioneer (Unassigned)] [Level: 1] [Experience: 100/1000] [System Points (SP): 100]

[Attributes]

• Analysis: 8 (Your ability to process data and identify patterns.)
• Timing: 5 (Your instinct for split-second decisions.)
• Composure: 3 (Your resistance to pressure and emotional bidding.)
• Luck: ?

His composure was a 3. That felt insultingly accurate. He had let his anger drive him into a reckless gambit that, while satisfying, had left him with nothing. The System seemed to have been watching, judging. The 100 SP and the experience points were clearly the reward from his stunt with the scooter.

Skill tree, he thought, feeling a sliver of control return.

The status window was replaced by a complex, branching diagram. Most of it was greyed out, locked behind level requirements and prerequisite skills. But the names of the branches made his breath catch. [Data Warfare], [Psychological Manipulation], [Market Prediction], [Resource Management]. At the very base of the tree, one skill was blinking faintly.

[Basic Data Analysis - Lvl 1] (Active): Allows the user to perform a surface-level scan on auction data, revealing bidding patterns and user history.

It was an extension of what he used to do for a living, but now it was a superpower. He could spend his 100 SP to upgrade it, but a new notification slid into his view before he could act. It chimed with a soft, clean tone that seemed to echo directly inside his skull.

[New Quest Issued!]

[Quest: Analyze Your Enemy]

• Objective: Use your [Basic Data Analysis] skill to perform a deep scan on the user ‘KingMidas75’. Uncover the core logic of his bidding bot.
• Rewards: 200 EXP, 50 SP, 1 Attribute Point.
• Accept / Decline?

There was no choice. This wasn’t just a quest; it was a lifeline. It was the only way to understand what was happening and, more importantly, to understand the enemy who had inadvertently triggered all of this.

He focused on the ‘Accept’ button. It glowed brightly and vanished.

Leo sat back down at his laptop, his earlier despair replaced by a sharp, focused energy. He pulled up the Aura Auctions website again, navigating to KingMidas75’s public profile page. It was just a list of wins, a monument to greed. To his naked eye, it was just text on a screen.

He took a deep breath. Activate Basic Data Analysis, he commanded mentally.

The world seemed to sharpen. The list of auctions on his screen was suddenly overlaid with the System’s blue-tinged interface. Glowing lines erupted from the name ‘KingMidas75’, connecting to every item he had won. Data streams, invisible a moment ago, now flowed across the screen.

[Scanning Bidding History…] [Identifying Algorithmic Patterns…]

Timestamps, bid increments, and session durations appeared next to each auction. It was all there, laid bare for him to see. The bot wasn't just fast; it was brutally efficient. It operated 24/7. It targeted dozens of categories, from collectibles to bulk electronics, all high-turnover items perfect for flipping. It never overbid its hidden maximum, and its standard counter-bid was always, always 75 cents on bids over $100, and a mere 25 cents on anything under.

His own attack on the scooter auction showed up as a glaring anomaly in the data—a single item where the final price was 400% over the estimated market value. A red flag in a sea of green profit.

The scan delved deeper, moving past the what and into the how. A new window popped up, displaying snippets of what looked like code logic.

[Core Logic Parameter Detected: ‘Minimum Increment Win’] [Value: $0.75 USD] [Condition: Override inactive unless manual input is received.]

The bot was rigid. It was programmed to win as cheaply as possible. It had no flexibility, no ability to recognize when it was being played. Its only directive was to be the highest bidder before the timer hit zero, using the smallest increment necessary. It was a hammer, and it treated every auction like a nail.

And then, the System delivered the killing blow.

[Analysis Complete! Flaw Detected!]

A specific line in the bot’s logic was highlighted in brilliant, pulsing gold.

[Vulnerability: ‘Market Value Assessment’ Subroutine]

• Description: The bot cross-references an item’s title and description with a static, outdated database of market prices to set its maximum bid ceiling. It does not analyze images or consider an item’s physical condition. It bids on keywords, not context.

Leo stared, his mind racing. It was sloppy coding. Arrogant coding. The kind of coding you do when you believe you're the only genius in the room. KingMidas75 hadn't programmed a smart AI; he'd programmed a fast, dumb one, relying on its speed to beat human opponents. It couldn’t tell the difference between a mint-condition collectible and a box of broken junk, as long as they shared the same keywords.

As if on cue, the System chimed again.

[Opportunity Detected! Matching Vulnerability Profile!]

An auction was instantly pulled up and highlighted on his screen. The title was “Vintage Lot - AXXON 386/486 Processors and Motherboards.” The picture was a blurry photo of a cardboard box filled with dusty, corroded-looking electronics. It was e-waste. Garbage. Worth maybe twenty dollars in scrap metal.

But the System’s overlay showed him what the bot would see.

[Keyword Match: ‘Vintage Processor’, ‘AXXON 386’] [Bot Database Value (Mint Condition Collectible): $800 - $1200] [Actual Item Value: <$25]

A slow, predatory smile spread across Leo’s face. The bot wouldn't see the rust. It wouldn't see the broken capacitors in the blurry photo. It would see the keywords, access its database, and assign the auction a potential value of over a thousand dollars.

The quest window reappeared, a green ‘Objective Complete!’ checkmark glowing next to the text. He had his reward, his points, but more than that, he had a weapon.

KingMidas75 thought he was a king ruling his digital kingdom with an iron fist. He didn't know a ghost was about to haunt his machine. A ghost who knew the precise flaw in his perfect, glittering armor.