Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse

The transition back to the real world was like waking up from a freezing nightmare only to find yourself in a dark suffocating oven.

”Gahh!” Sebastian gasped. He ripped the VR helmet off his face.

He sat up in the reinforced pod inside the terminal room of Warehouse 4. The air was heavy and smelled strongly of hot metal from the massive Storm Core powering the facility.

He was drenched in cold sweat. His real-world muscles violently twitched as the twenty percent physical synchronization struggled to process the phantom fatigue of carrying a hundred-ton sword.

”Boss?” Wraith’s raspy voice echoed from the shadows of the room.

The Assassin had already logged out and was standing guard by the door. His real-world physical form looked just as lean and dangerous as his digital avatar.

”I am good,” Sebastian grunted. He pushed himself out of the pod. His boots hit the concrete floor heavily. ”Where is the princess?”

”Valerie is in the main hall,” Wraith reported. ”She is monitoring the refugee intake. The outer perimeter is holding but the Void monsters are getting more aggressive. They can smell the mana.”

”They are about to smell a lot more,” Sebastian muttered.

He did not bother changing out of his sweat-soaked clothes. He focused his mind on the digital tether connecting his physical brain to his Ethereal Plane inventory.

He reached deep into the data stream and visualized the massive pulsing blue organ he had just looted.

”Manifest.”

The air in the center of the room violently warped.

The physical laws of 2077 reality shrieked in protest as the system forced a piece of a Level 50 World Boss into existence.

THUD.

The Dragon’s Heart dropped onto the concrete.

It was massive and was easily the size of an engine block. It looked like a cluster of glowing blue crystal and dense freezing muscle.

It beat with a slow heavy THROOM THROOM that instantly dropped the temperature in the room by twenty degrees. Frost immediately began to form on the walls.

”Grab a dolly Wraith,” Sebastian shivered and rubbed his arms. ”We are taking this to the basement.”

Ten minutes later, they stood in the subterranean Guild Core room of Sanctuary.

The True City Core which was the massive golden diamond floated above its obsidian pedestal.

It pulsed with a warm comforting light that violently clashed with the freezing blue aura of the Dragon’s Heart sitting on the floor next to it.

Valerie rushed into the room holding her tablet.

”Sebastian! The system just threw a massive warning prompt on my UI! What are you doing?!”

”I am paying for the premium subscription,” Sebastian said dryly.

He stepped up to the pedestal. He placed both of his hands flat against the True City Core.

”System,” Sebastian commanded. His voice echoed in the chamber.

”Initiate Tier 2 Citadel Upgrade. Consume resources. One hundred thousand gold. Ten thousand tons of refined material. And one Dragon’s Heart.”

BING!

[Processing Request...]

[Resources Confirmed.]

[Warning: Massive Architectural Shift Imminent. Brace for physical rendering.]

”Hold onto something!” Sebastian yelled.

The Dragon’s Heart on the floor suddenly liquefied.

It turned into a stream of pure blinding blue energy that shot upward and violently slammed into the golden diamond of the City Core.

The Core absorbed it.

And then, Sanctuary exploded with power.

RUMBLE!

The earthquake was ten times worse than the initial rendering.

Valerie screamed and dropped her tablet. She clung to the heavy stone frame of the door.

Wraith dropped to one knee and drove his dagger into the floor just to anchor himself.

Above them, the physical reality of the fortress was aggressively rewriting itself.

The sound was apocalyptic. It was the deafening screech of millions of tons of stone, steel, and magic aggressively expanding.

The fifty-foot basalt walls of the outer perimeter violently shot upward. They doubled in height to a towering one hundred feet of impenetrable black rock.

The inner courtyards expanded and crushed the remaining rusted ruins of the industrial district outward.

On the ramparts, Galleon’s makeshift railguns were suddenly encased in sleek heavy titanium housing. They automatically wired themselves directly into the new massive mana conduits pulsing beneath the floorboards.

The golden dome of the safe zone flashed a brilliant blinding white. It expanded its radius to cover a full ten miles.

The hostile Infected pressing against the barrier were instantly and violently vaporized into ash by the upgraded holy magic.

The entire process took a full agonizing minute of non-stop architectural violence.

[Upgrade Complete!]

[Sanctuary is now a Tier 2 Guild Citadel.]

[New Facilities Unlocked: Grand Forge, Arcane Observatory, and the Resurrection Altar.]

Sebastian leaned heavily against the pedestal panting. A thin trickle of blood leaked from his nose.

The physical strain of forcing the system to render that much mass was devastating.

”We did it,” Valerie breathed. Her eyes were wide with awe as she looked around the expanded glowing room. ”It is a real fortress now.”

”Yeah,” Sebastian wiped his face. ”But check the fine print Princess. Read the specs on the new Altar.”

Valerie picked up her cracked tablet. She swiped through the newly updated guild management menus.

She found the facility tab and opened the description for the Resurrection Altar.

Her face instantly drained of all color.

”Oh my god,” she whispered. Her hand was trembling.

”What?” Wraith asked and stepped forward. ”Is it bugged?”

”It is not a holy miracle,” Sebastian said. His voice dropped into a cold cynical rasp as he looked at the Assassin.

”In the game, when you die, you just respawn. But this is the real world. Real bodies do not just pop back into existence.”

Valerie read the text aloud and her voice was shaking.

[Resurrection Altar: Allows guild members who die within the territory to be revived once per week. Warning: The process requires forcibly dragging the soul from the Ethereal ether back into the physical vessel. The physical vessel will be violently and magically repaired to accommodate the soul. Subjects will experience 100% of the phantom pain of their death. Severe psychological trauma guaranteed. Subjects will wake up violently purging bodily fluids.]

Wraith stared at the screen and his stoic facade cracked.

”It rebuilds the meat-suit while you feel it happening?”

”Exactly,” Sebastian said. A dark humorless smile touched his lips.

”It is not salvation. It is a localized necromancy loop. We get to bring our soldiers back from the dead, but they are going to wake up screaming, vomiting blood, and remembering exactly what it felt like to have their intestines eaten by giant spiders.”

Sebastian turned away from the glowing Core and looked at his two horrified lieutenants.

”Welcome to immortality guys,” Sebastian deadpanned. ”It is going to suck.”