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

Gold is a funny thing. For thousands of years, humanity killed, betrayed, and enslaved each other for the shiny yellow metal. It was the absolute cornerstone of civilization. It bought armies, it bought kingdoms, and it bought politicians.

Sebastian sat at the massive obsidian war table in the command room of Sanctuary. He was staring at a towering pile of pristine, glittering gold coins. There were tens of thousands of them. He had completely drained Imperator’s guild bank after forcing the Warlord into submission.

He picked up a single coin, rolling it across his knuckles. It felt heavy. It looked valuable.

”It’s entirely fucking useless.” Sebastian muttered, tossing the coin back onto the pile.

CLINK.

”What do you mean it’s useless?” Valerie asked, walking into the room. She was holding her solar powered tablet, her eyes scanning the massive pile of wealth.

”Sebastian, you just extorted the biggest Warlord on the West Coast. We have enough capital to buy out every remaining auction house listing on the server.”

”Have you checked the global market today, Princess?” Sebastian asked, leaning back in his ornate throne. He crossed his arms, his black leather coat shifting slightly.

Valerie frowned, swiping her finger across the tablet to pull up the integrated Ethereal Plane market interface. Her blue eyes widened.

The listings were completely dead. The thousands of pages of weapons, armor, and crafting materials that had populated the auction house just yesterday were gone. In their place were a few desperate listings asking to trade high tier swords for clean water, or rare spell books for antibiotics. Nobody was asking for gold.

”The system shifted.” Sebastian explained, his voice flat and analytical. ”When the server fully merged with reality, the economic baseline updated. The game doesn’t care about shiny rocks anymore. Gold doesn’t build walls. Gold doesn’t feed the starving. And most importantly, gold doesn’t give you experience points.”

”So what is the currency now?” Valerie asked, setting the tablet down.

”Suffering.” Sebastian said simply.

He opened his digital inventory. The air above the table warped slightly as he pulled out a small, glowing jagged crystal. It wasn’t a mana core. It radiated a deep, pale grey light. It felt cold to the touch.

”A Soul Shard.” Sebastian said, holding the horrifying object up to the light. ”Dropped by high level mobs, and more importantly, dropped by players when they die in the new reality. It is literally condensed agony. It’s the raw data of a life violently ending.”

Valerie took a step back, her face paling. ”That’s disgusting.”

”It’s capitalism.” Sebastian corrected smoothly. ”But a raw Soul Shard is dangerous. If a regular player tries to absorb it for the experience points, the mental backlash of experiencing someone else’s death will completely fry their brain. They’ll go insane. Which is where we come in.”

Sebastian stood up. He walked over to the corner of the room, where a makeshift alchemy station had been set up for him. It was littered with crushed herbs and empty glass vials.

”I need a spell.” Sebastian muttered to himself. He bypassed his apocalyptic damage laws and dug through the trash tier of his memories.

He found a basic Necromancy utility spell. It was a pathetic hex used by roleplaying warlocks to extract the souls of dead digital rats to power low level novelty lanterns.

[Basic Soul Extraction]

[Tier: 0 Utility Hex]

Sebastian didn’t even bother tracking down a physical skill book. He just visualized the code, channeled his limitless mana, and forcefully forced the system to recognize his intent.

[Action Registered: Cast Basic Soul Extraction.]

[Nexus Glitch Activated: Proficiency x10,000.]

The beautiful, violent blue screens erupted in his vision.

[Basic Soul Extraction leveled up to 10/10! Max Level Reached!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Basic Soul Extraction evolves to Tier 1: Spirit Siphon!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Spirit Siphon leveled up to 10/10!]

[Evolution Requirement Met. Spirit Siphon evolves to Tier 3: Essence Distillation!]

[Proficiency Overflow Detected! Essence Distillation leveled up to 10/10!]

[WARNING: Concept Threshold Breached. Metaphysical Law Unlocked.]

[Essence Distillation evolves to Conceptual Law: Soul Synthesis.]

A wave of freezing clarity washed over Sebastian’s brain. He didn’t just know how to pull a soul out of a corpse anymore. He understood the absolute, mathematical composition of a soul. He knew how to strip away the trauma, the memories, and the personality, leaving behind nothing but pure, unadulterated experience data.

”Watch this.” Sebastian said, a dark smirk touching his lips.

He tossed the wailing Soul Shard into a heavy iron mortar. He activated his Chaos Talent, [Forbidden Alchemy]. His body became the crucible.

He didn’t use a pestle. He pressed his glowing, silver tinged hands directly over the iron bowl. He activated [Soul Synthesis].

FZZZZT!

The sound was like a television violently losing its signal. The pale grey crystal shattered, not into physical pieces, but into pure liquid light. The horrifying wailing sound instantly cut off. Sebastian funneled his limitless mana into the bowl, forcibly scrubbing the agonizing death data from the shard.

He grabbed a handful of cheap, Tier 0 Wilted Mudroot from the table and tossed it into the swirling liquid light. The organic matter acted as a physical binding agent.

A moment later, the blinding light faded.

Resting in the bottom of the iron bowl was a pool of glowing, iridescent silver liquid. It looked like liquid starlight. It smelled like fresh rain.

Sebastian pulled an empty glass vial from the rack, scooped up the liquid, and popped a cork into it. He tossed it to Valerie.

She caught it, her eyes wide as she read the system prompt hovering over the glass.

[Item Crafted: Potion of Absolute Experience]

[Tier: Divine]

[Effect: Grants a massive, flat sum of pure Experience Points upon consumption. Bypasses all leveling bottlenecks below Level 50. No mental backlash. No toxicity.]

”Holy shit.” Valerie whispered, her corporate brain instantly doing the math. ”Sebastian... this is...”

”A monopoly.” Sebastian finished for her, leaning against the table. ”The world is terrified. People are trapped in their safe zones. They can’t go out and fight Level 20 monsters to level up because they will get eaten alive. They are stuck at Level 5, weak and desperate.”

He pointed a finger at the glowing vial.

”But if they drink that, they get the stats. They get the power to survive, without having to risk their lives in the meat grinder. We aren’t just selling potions, Princess. We are selling the only safe progression path on the server.”

Valerie’s eyes gleamed with that familiar, ruthless corporate light. The Arcane Valkyrie wasn’t just a battlefield commander, she was a logistics god.

”We corner the market.” Valerie said, her voice dropping into a rapid, excited cadence. ”We set the price. We don’t take gold. We take raw materials. We take heavy munitions. We take loyalty. If the Warlords want their elite guards to hit Level 30 so they can actually fight the Void Crawlers, they have to buy from us.”

”Exactly.” Sebastian smiled, crossing his arms. ”Imperator has an army of three thousand men. Let’s see how long it takes for him to realize he works for me now.”

By the end of the week, the global economy had entirely shifted. Sanctuary was no longer just a safe zone. It was the central bank of the apocalypse.

The heavy titanium gates of the Citadel saw a constant stream of heavily armed convoys. They didn’t come to attack. They came to beg. Representatives from the Golden Lions, the Iron Covenant, and dozens of newly formed Warlord factions arrived dragging massive trailers of refined steel, pallets of medical supplies, and literal truckloads of raw, unprocessed Soul Shards harvested from the wastelands.

They traded mountains of blood soaked resources for a single crate of Sebastian’s glowing silver vials.

Down in the Sanctuary courtyards, the refugee population had swelled to ten thousand. They weren’t starving anymore. The labor division expanded the walls. The medical division cured the Infected. Sebastian sat at the top of his towering black citadel, watching the world burn, entirely secure in the knowledge that he owned the fire extinguisher.

”Boss.” Wraith’s voice buzzed over the comms one evening as Sebastian was looking out over the horizon. ”Convoy from Sector 4 just arrived. They brought four tons of titanium plating and a thousand raw Soul Shards. They want ten Experience Potions.”

”Tell them the price went up.” Sebastian replied deadpan, pulling a piece of lint off his black leather coat. ”Fifteen hundred shards, or they can go try punching a Phase Spider. I hear that builds character.”

”Copy that, Boss.” Wraith replied smoothly.

Sebastian let out a slow, satisfied breath. The system had tried to reset the board, but he had just bought the entire casino.