The hum of the monitor was the only sound left in Rin Arvale’s dorm room.
Empty ramen cups littered the desk, stacked like trophies of poor life choices.
On the screen—lines of code scrolled endlessly, a fortress of syntax between him and sleep.
ACCESS OVERRIDE: LEVEL 9 FIREWALL DETECTED.
WARNING: Unauthorized intrusion attempt.
Rin smirked, brushing his bangs out of his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah… warn me harder.”
He cracked his knuckles, typing with machine-like precision.
For months, he’d been chasing this specific firewall—rumored to belong to a secret defense AI project.
Most hackers gave up at phase three. Rin was on phase nine.
His laptop fans screamed, LEDs flashing red like a cockpit before detonation.
Every instinct told him to stop. But the more the system fought back, the more his curiosity ignited.
He entered one final command.
RUN: SYSTEM_OVERRIDE.exe
The cursor blinked. The room fell silent.
Then—his screen erupted in a cascade of symbols, characters no programming language should produce.
They pulsed, rearranged, and formed what looked like… runes?
“What the—?”
The lights flickered. His dual monitors distorted, showing fragments of strange landscapes:
a tower floating in clouds, a sea of glowing script, a human silhouette chanting words that rippled through the air like code execution.
Rin grabbed his mouse—but it wasn’t responding.
Even Task Manager refused to open.
His speakers crackled with a low, human voice—digitized yet echoing:
“Unauthorized user detected. Access granted.”
His pulse froze.
“Granted?”
The monitor burst into light—no, not light. It was as if every pixel had turned into liquid glass.
A hand—made of pure blue code—reached out from the screen and pulled him in before he could even scream.
Silence.
Then—static.
Rin’s eyes snapped open. He was lying on grass… except the grass glowed faintly, like phosphorescent circuitry.
Above him stretched a twilight sky of purple clouds, threaded with streams of golden runes moving like data through fiber cables.
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His laptop was gone. His hoodie and jeans were intact—but a faint interface flickered across his vision:
[Mana Thread Detected]
[Initialization Complete]
He sat up, breath shaky.
“What the hell… did I just—compile myself?”
The surrounding air shimmered in response, forming glowing glyphs that rearranged into text he could read:
[Syntax Accepted: Spoken Command Recognized.]
“Spoken command?” he muttered.
The text pulsed.
A tiny spark of light shot from his palm, sizzling the grass.
Rin froze.
Then—his lips slowly curved into a grin.
“Oh. Oh! This is so much better than sleep.”
The spark from Rin’s hand still danced in the air, fading into blue motes.
He stared at his palm, his mind racing faster than any CPU he’d ever built.
That wasn’t lightning. It compiled.
He raised his hand again, focusing on the memory of that glowing interface.
“Run… spark?” he muttered experimentally.
[Syntax Error: Missing Argument]
A sharp tone rang in his ears.
“Okay… so you’re strict with syntax. Noted,” he said, smirking.
He crouched, tracing lines in the dirt with his finger—bits of glowing residue formed where he touched, almost like writing on a touchscreen.
if (mana > 0) { cast("spark"); }
The air vibrated. A small arc of lightning snapped above the text.
Rin’s grin widened.
“Oh, I like this IDE.”
But his debugging session was cut short by the sound of armored footsteps approaching from behind.
“Identify yourself!” a sharp voice commanded.
Rin turned to see three figures in navy-blue cloaks—two young men and a girl about his age, all wielding long staffs glowing at the tip like charged circuits.
The crest on their uniforms showed a tower surrounded by floating runes.
Students? He thought. Or soldiers?
“I could ask you the same,” Rin said casually. “But since I’m the one surrounded, I’ll guess you’re the local firewall?”
The girl frowned. “Firewall?”
The tallest of the group stepped forward, scanning him with a glowing crystal lens.
“No aura signature… and yet, your mana field is unstable. You must be the anomaly reported by the Arcane Grid.”
“Anomaly, huh? That’s one way to say ‘new user,’” Rin muttered.
“What domain are you from?” the girl demanded. “Your mana signature doesn’t match any registered nations.”
“Domain?” Rin glanced around the floating runes in the sky. “Uh… localhost?”
The group blinked, clearly confused.
The leader’s staff began to glow brighter. “Enough riddles. You’re coming with us to the Academy for containment and analysis.”
Rin sighed, raising his hands.
“Containment, huh? You could’ve at least offered coffee first.”
[System Prompt: Incoming Binding Spell Detected.]
[Counter-script Available: Override()]
A glowing circle appeared beneath him, trying to trap his movement. But instinct—or maybe sheer curiosity—kicked in.
RUN Override(Bind);
The magic circle shattered like glass.
All three students froze.
The leader’s eyes widened. “He just—cancelled—my spell?!”
Rin flexed his fingers, sparks flickering along his arm.
“You should patch your security protocols.”
He didn’t notice the faint shimmer forming above him until it was too late—a massive golden seal, descending fast.
[Administrator Access Detected.]
Rin’s smirk vanished.
“Wait, what’s—”
The seal erupted in light.
To be continued in Scene 3: “The Administrator of the Arcane Grid.”