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

The air inside the heavily reinforced bunker hummed with the rhythmic chaotic energy of Corbin’s engineering station.

Sebastian stood in the center of the room and casually rolled his shoulders.

The thirty percent physical synchronization felt incredible. The phantom aches, the heavy exhaustion, and the terrifying sensation of his digital flesh unraveling were completely gone.

He felt entirely bulletproof.

”Alright, stubby,” Sebastian said as he looked over at the twitchy code-smith. ”I’m cured. Now, where is the hardware to get me out of this Juncture?”

Corbin practically vibrated with manic energy. He scurried over to a heavy lead-lined safe in the corner of his workshop.

He spun the mechanical dial with practiced ease, pulled the heavy door open, and carefully extracted a small heavy object wrapped in a static-proof cloth.

He walked back and placed it on the scarred mahogany table with the reverence of a priest handling a holy relic.

”Behold,” Corbin whispered as he pulled the cloth back. ”The Server Spoofing Drive.”

Sebastian stared at the device.

It was not a sleek futuristic USB stick. It looked like a brutal jagged piece of torture equipment.

It was a rectangular block of dark unrefined iron roughly the size of a deck of cards.

Protruding from its base were six thick incredibly sharp biometric needles designed to interface directly with a user’s nervous system.

The metal was etched with aggressively glowing green runes that seemed to shift and rewrite themselves every second.

”It’s ugly,” Sebastian noted deadpan.

”It’s beautiful!” Corbin sounded deeply offended. ”It’s a localized self-contained firewall!”

”Do you have any idea how hard it is to mask an Anomaly tag from the System’s root surveillance? This baby doesn’t just hide your IP, it violently projects a false narrative to the server you’re entering.”

Gwen leaned over the table and eyed the jagged needles. ”So, he plugs that into his wrist, and the outer servers think he’s just a normal player?”

”Exactly,” Corbin nodded frantically while tapping his stained fingers on the table.

”Right now, Sebastian is flagged as a hostile virus. If he steps into a standard transit portal, the destination server’s automated defenses will instantly delete him.”

”But with this drive, the server will scan him and see a totally boring, low-level, unaligned NPC merchant. It’s the ultimate digital fake ID.”

”Good,” Sebastian said as he picked up the heavy iron drive. The metal felt cold and dense.

”Because I need to go shopping for a Regional Core, and I don’t want the local police breathing down my neck.”

”Speaking of shopping,” Gwen said and pulled up a holographic projection from the war table. ”Where exactly are we going? The Juncture connects to thousands of assimilated worlds. We need a server with a high enough economy to actually hold a Regional Core.”

Sebastian looked at the massive swirling 3D map of the multiverse.

Thousands of glowing orbs representing different Ethereal Plane servers floated in the projection. Most were dark and entirely consumed by the Void. Some flickered with desperate dying light.

He didn’t care about the dying ones. He needed a fully established high-tier civilization.

He needed the administrative power to lift the barrier around Earth and cure Valerie’s coma.

She was currently locked in a deep magical stasis on the Resurrection Altar back in Sanctuary, her soul forcefully held in queue because their Tier 2 Citadel didn’t have the juice to rebuild her shredded avatar.

To save her, he needed to upgrade his base. To upgrade his base, he needed a Regional Core.

Sebastian reached out and tapped a highly secure heavily warded brilliantly glowing blue orb near the center of the multiverse map.

”There,” Sebastian commanded.

Corbin squinted at the projection. He visibly paled.

”Server 112? Boss... are you out of your mind?!”

”I’ve been told that a lot today,” Sebastian sighed. ”What’s the problem?”

”Server 112 isn’t just a world, it’s a hyper-militarized corporate dystopia!” Corbin practically shrieked as he waved his hands wildly.

”It’s governed by a strict hierarchy of elite Guilds and a ruthless Military Police force! They have planetary firewalls! They don’t just delete anomalies, they trace the signal back to the source and blow up the origin server!”

”Sounds like my kind of town,” Sebastian smirked. His silver eyes reflected the blue light of the hologram.

”He’s right, Seattle,” Gwen warned. Her voice dropped into a serious tactical tone.

”Server 112 is endgame territory. The players there have been merged for decades. They have fully integrated sci-fi tech and high-tier magic.”

”If you go in there throwing black holes and gravity wells around, their orbital defense grids will lock onto you in seconds. You can’t just punch your way through this one.”

Sebastian stared at the glowing blue orb.

He knew she was right. His 10,000x multiplier and his conceptual laws were absolute, but he wasn’t invincible against a coordinated planet-wide strike.

If he drew the aggro of an entire world’s military force, they would eventually chip his health bar down to zero.

He had spent the last week acting like a god by casually dropping mountains on armies and eating World Bosses.

Now, he had to go back to playing the game. He had to be the infiltrator.

”I’m not going to punch them,” Sebastian said quietly. ”I’m going to dismantle them from the inside out.”

He looked at Corbin. ”Will the Spoofing Drive hold up against their scanners?”

”Y-yes,” Corbin stammered. He was intimidated by the sudden intense focus of the Sovereign.

”As long as you don’t use any of your conceptual laws! The moment you alter the physics engine, the drive’s masking code will short out. You have to play by their rules. You have to use standard spells, standard weapons, and keep your head down.”

”Play by the rules,” Sebastian repeated. A dark humorless chuckle escaped his lips. ”I can do that. I’ll play the quiet unassuming Drifter.”

He turned to Gwen. ”You’re coming with me.”

Gwen blinked and her hand instinctively rested on her pistol. ”Excuse me? I’m a smuggler, Seattle. I don’t do suicide missions into corporate servers.”

”I need a local guide, and I need someone who knows how to navigate black markets without drawing attention,” Sebastian stated smoothly while entirely ignoring her protest.

”You get me to the underground auction houses in Server 112, you help me secure the Regional Core, and I will personally pay you enough gold to buy your own planet.”

Gwen stared at him. She looked at the raw terrifying power radiating from his perfectly still posture.