Chapter 77: The Largest Map He Had Ever Seen
Chapter 77: The Largest Map He Had Ever Seen
The avatar had lost nothing.
Stored Growth, Skills, Loot, and Combat Records Retained.
Everything Glitch had earned in Rustwater remained stored away. Corrosion Resistance. Acid Breath. Every scrap of battle experience he had fought for.
The real Glitch slept in Jin’s lap while the day’s emotions slowly wore off. He was still a 2-Star Grey Rock Lizard, with none of those gains synchronized into his actual body.
Corrosion Resistance, Acid Breath, and all the stored growth sat behind a Sync Jin could not perform inside an armored transport full of strangers. Privacy was only part of the problem. Even alone, he lacked enough beast food to deal with the hunger the process would create.
There was no rush.
The gains would stay there. They always did.
Messages continued to arrive during the trip.
Elsa: Prove you still have your documents. Photo. Now. I don’t believe you haven’t lost them already.
Elena: Did you eat the food I packed?
Arthur: Pay attention out there. Arrive safely. That’s all.
Jin replied to each one.
He photographed the sealed pouch for Elsa.
Jin: Satisfied?
Elsa: No.
For Elena, he sent a yes. It was even honest. He had already eaten half of what she packed.
Arthur received a brief I will.
With that done, Jin glanced between the view outside and the phone in his hand.
Beyond the window waited the dangerous world humanity had surrendered. On his screen sat an innocent puzzle icon concealing an impossible reserve of power.
A thought surfaced, and Jin would have preferred it hadn’t.
He had always treated the Engine as a way to avoid this sort of life.
Glitch could grind while Jin remained in his room. His beast could become stronger without Jin putting his own body at risk. The Engine took Jin’s preferred lifestyle and made it useful instead of something other people called a defect.
The problem was that the dungeons kept growing harder.
Better rewards required stronger enemies. The Engine had taken them from the slime-filled Beginner Hollow into Rustwater Drain, with each dungeon pushing them another step upward.
Now it was scanning an entirely different shelter.
The Engine could make approaching the world’s dangers safer.
It was not going to let him hide from them forever.
Eventually, it would drag him farther into this world.
Jin would like the record to show that he had no desire to become a heroic explorer of the wasteland. His goals remained food, safety, a screen, and a room with a door that locked.
All very reasonable.
Unfortunately, somewhere underneath those sensible wishes, a small ambition had started growing without waiting for his approval.
Glitch slept against Jin’s chest, unconcerned with any of this and probably dreaming about things he could bite.
Then Meridian came into view, and the scale of the world changed.
Shelter 7 had been protected by one vast barrier. Meridian had several. Defensive walls surrounded it in ring after ring, enclosing a shelter so large that the place where Jin had grown up seemed tiny by comparison.
Its transit lanes were wider, more numerous, and packed with movement. Association Tamers stood in plain sight everywhere. They weren’t distant gods occasionally glimpsed from the Outer Ring. Here, they were part of the normal crowd.
That ordinary presence said more about Meridian’s strength than any wall could.
The students made the difference even clearer.
As the transport joined the arrival network, Jin watched them pass through the terminals with beasts walking beside them.
Bronze-quality beasts.
Silver-quality beasts.
His appraisal recognized some immediately. Others were too much for it to read properly.
Students his own age moved beside partners that made 2-Star Glitch look exactly as weak as his registration claimed.
Even the air felt better.
It was cleaner, and the overhead light shone white, warm, and bright. Meridian used high-end artificial sunlight instead of the failing neon Jin knew from home.
Then he noticed the plants.
Real plants.
Green, healthy, carefully arranged beds of them filled parts of the terminal for no practical purpose beyond looking pleasant.
That stopped Jin harder than the walls had.
In Shelter 7, people grew food. Otherwise, they grew nothing. Water, soil, room, and light were too valuable to waste on decoration.
Meridian spent all four on beauty and apparently considered that normal.
Huge buildings rose beyond the terminal. Some belonged to schools, some to the Association, and some might have belonged to both.
Digital displays filled the concourse with shifting light. Every advertisement targeted Tamers.
Equipment.
Beast gear.
Training resources.
Not a single one mentioned factory work or water rations.
Still, the place was not paradise.
Jin could see that beneath the shine.
Security was heavier here, not lighter. More scans. More armed personnel. More checkpoints.
The hierarchy was obvious too. It showed in the beasts students owned, the condition of their uniforms, and the way certain people crossed the concourse as though everyone else was only borrowing the space.
Meridian might not be kinder than Shelter 7.
It simply owned far more and knew exactly what that meant.
Jin looked down at what he had brought with him.
A worn bag.
A repaired shirt.
A supposedly Iron-quality Grey Rock Lizard perched on his shoulder.
For the first time, he saw the three of them as Meridian would.
Obviously poor.
Obviously from the Outer Ring.
Obviously unimpressive.
Back in Shelter 7, he had been the boy whose supposedly worthless lizard achieved a national qualifying score.
Here, he was a scholarship student in mended clothes with a trash-tier beast. One of the smallest fish in a pond that was both enormous and offensively rich.
Glitch looked over Meridian’s wealth, towering structures, and superior beasts with complete calm.
He had never believed himself inferior to anything.
There was no sign he planned to begin now.
At least one of us isn’t intimidated, Jin thought.
As the transport linked with Meridian’s regional network, his phone came alive inside his pocket.
This time, the Engine did not quietly announce that something had been lost.
Its screen filled with more activity than Jin had seen throughout all his time in Shelter 7.
[New Region Detected: Meridian Shelter]
[Local Environment Scan Initiated]
[Multiple Compatible Dungeon Signals Detected]
[Available Downloads: 7]
Jin stared at the screen.
Seven.
Shelter 7 had provided only the Beginner Hollow and Rustwater Drain. Two dungeons total, and Jin had squeezed every available drop of growth from both.
Meridian already had seven compatible signals waiting for him before he had even left the arrival terminal.
Seven dungeons.
Seven new grinds.
Seven more possible sources of fragments, skills, and growth like those that had brought Glitch this far.
Shelter 7 had given Glitch one drain, one boss, and Acid Breath.
Meridian was offering seven downloads before Jin had even reached the school.
For the first time since the transport carried him away from his family, Jin smiled.
It was small, genuine, and impossible to stop.
A grinder had reached the edge of the largest map he had ever seen.