The metallic taste of blood and raw flesh still lingered in the back of his throat, but An had no time for disgust. The warm feeling of leveling up, of energy flooding into every muscle fiber, was an undeniable truth. It felt more real than the hazy memory of burnt coffee from his old office. He sat down on the damp earth, leaning his back against a rough tree trunk, and forced himself to think. Panic was a luxury he could not afford. He was a data analyst. Data was all he had.
"System," he mumbled, and the familiar blue screen appeared again. It was still full of errors, a chaotic mess of useful information and meaningless characters. But to An, a messy set of data was still better than no data at all. He began the work he did best: analysis.
He ignored the stats and skills. They were simple and easy to understand. What caught his attention were the bugged lines. Intelligence: ?? (Error: Incompatible Value). Main Quest: Survive through ▯▯▯▯▯▯▯.
"Incompatible value," he repeated. "Why incompatible?".
He tried hopelessly, focusing his thoughts on the error message as if trying to double-click an icon on a computer screen. "Open system log. Open help file. Diagnose error.".
Nothing happened. This System clearly had no voice or thought-controlled interface. It simply displayed information. But in his intense focus, he accidentally "touched" a corner of the interface screen, a place he had never noticed before. A tiny, almost transparent icon that looked like a torn page.
A new window popped up, overlapping his status panel. Most of it was garbled code, but in the middle were a few readable lines of text.
System Log 0.1.3b:
...calibration...failed...
...Cultivation protocol [Qi Refining] incompatible with Level interface...
...assigning temporary label: Body Tempering.
Initiating sync...
...Critical Error! [span_31](start_span)Cannot retrieve Realm data., [Core Formation], [Nascent Soul]...data fragmented...
...System operating in minimal mode.
Good luck, Test Subject.
An read the words over and over, his heart beating faster for a reason other than fear. This was a breakthrough.
Cultivation. Realm. Qi Refining. Body Tempering.
The words were foreign, but they suggested a structure, a system of rules that lay deep beneath the simple "Level" interface he was seeing. His "leveling up" was not the essence of his progress. It was just a translation, a shell temporarily assigned by the System because it couldn't process the original concept.
And then there was that last line: Good luck, Test Subject.
He wasn't a player. He was a lab rat in a failed experiment. This System was not a divine gift. It was a broken, abandoned tool. The question was no longer "How do I survive?". The question was now, "Who made this thing, and why?".
A savage growl cut through his train of thought. An was startled, immediately activating Peeking. He cautiously looked toward the source of the sound. Not far away, a group of about five goblins identical to him were tearing apart the carcass of something that looked like a wild boar. They snarled and bit at each other, fighting over every scrap of meat.
That was his tribe. A cold, clear truth dawned on An as he watched the scene. He didn't belong here. He might share their form, but his mind was human. Staying with them had only one outcome: becoming an animal, or getting killed in a meaningless power struggle. He needed a society, a civilization. He needed knowledge.
He looked into the distance, through the dense canopy, where a faint mountain peak pierced the clouds. That was a goal. A reference point. A direction.
He stood up, brushing the dirt from the ragged clothes this body wore. He was no longer An, the data analyst who died from overwork. He wasn't some nameless goblin, either. He was a Test Subject, trapped in a glitched system. And he would find a way to break it.
With one last look at the snarling pack of goblins, he turned his back and began to walk. Each step took him away from the familiar forest and into a much larger, more dangerous world. But this time, there was no panic in his eyes. Only the cold determination of someone who had just found his purpose.