NOVEL NEXT Chapter 560: Code 789
Alex considered his choice, then finally decided. 'There's no way I can do this without triggering an alert. In that case... my best path is to trigger it on purpose.'
Since he couldn't avoid it, might as well do it while controlling the result like he wanted. Alex's abilities churned as he planned his next move, then he started.
A faint surge of mana pulsed, triggering a subtle change in the liquid.
In the next instant, Alex returned to the game world.
His eyes opened, locking onto Jack's mother. With a single motion, he put her to sleep, then gently laid her on the bed. "Now I just need to see the result."
The moment he returned, alarms blared across the entire room. An anomaly had been detected.
In one of the chambers, a translucent pod stirred. Aira ripped off her VR headset. "What the hell is happening now!?"
"Lady Aira, anomaly has been detected inside the extraction chamber. Prevention measure will be implemented shortly. Code 789."
"Code 789!? Are you nuts?! NO! Abort, quickly!" Aira shouted in panic, her fingers flying over the console as she opened the system logs.
All her annoyance vanished, replaced with dread. Code 789 meant full emergency shutdown of the entire facility.
If this went through, her father would kill her—no matter how much he doted on her.
Well, kill might be an exaggeration... but things would definitely turn ugly. Worse, they'd all be in serious danger.
Their position might be privileged—way better than the fate of most of humanity—but in reality, they were nothing more than employees working tirelessly to meet the energy quotas. And lately, those targets had been climbing every damn month.
All thanks to the terrorist group Avalanche, who kept destroying facilities like this one, pushing the burden of energy production onto the rest.
In fact, Aira suspected that's exactly why her father was out of the city right now.
Reading through the logs, her face turned pale. "I'm FUCKED."
The energy harvested was even lower than expected.
Based on projected calculations, it would barely be enough to fill the quota if everything went smoothly.
But now? With this shitshow?
It'd be impossible.
"Just how the hell did this happen!? Bastards—does no one do maintenance anymore?!"
It was clear to Aira now—there was some kind of bug in the nutrient system. Resulting in malnutrition of the players in-game.
In the past, this kind of thing was a nightmare for the player, but for the system, it barely affected the energy output.
The error ratio was only 4%.
But now? When every single bit of energy mattered?
This was a damn disaster.
"Send a drone to check the nutrient system. And I want you to trigger the Cataclysmic Event."
"Order confirmed. Please enter the master password."
"FUCK—what's the password!?" Aira panicked, her mind spinning. Her father never told her the master password.
'Focus, Aira... it's my father. What would he use? What's important to him...?'
Without hesitation, she gave the date of her birth.
"Password accepted. Cataclysmic Event will be triggered in the Warforge Virtual World. Does Lady Aira have any special request or preference?"
"Yes," she replied instantly, firing off a stream of custom instructions to ensure the entire event would unfold under her control.
Cataclysmic Events were world-ending scenarios. There were multiple variations—ranging from full-scale alien invasions to scattering ultra-rare classes among a few chosen kings, triggering devastating wars between factions.
With war came chaos. And with chaos, more players would level up faster—generating more energy to harvest. But it came with a caveat.
Bigger war meant more casualties.
What Aira was doing now… it was like taking a loan to pay off her debt. She wasn't solving the problem—just delaying it. Pushing it to become someone else's problem tomorrow.
Less living players meant less energy harvested. Sure, she'd probably get more than enough to meet this month's quota…
But next month? That was going to be a nightmare.
Still, for Aira, this was the best option she had. That's why she wanted to log in herself—make sure the casualties stayed as low as possible.
If things went well, and the players actually won against the Cataclysmic Event…
That would be the best-case scenario. It was rare, but not impossible—and the energy output from such a victory was off the charts.
After finishing the setup, she began creating her own avatar. "Log me into the Warforge World—and keep me updated on the nutrient system's progress."
"Yes, Lady Aira."
Meanwhile, Alex remained oblivious to everything going on outside. He didn't bother checking. Right now, it was far too dangerous. He was sure they were scrambling to check every anomaly in the data stream.
"Now, I need to fix my stats too," Alex muttered, pulling up Jack's stat window.
***
[Name = Jack Rasefield
Gender = Male
Class = Soldier
Faction = Kingdom of Evermore
Level = 30
Exp = 500 / 160,055
Life = -1 / 3]
***
"I need to fix my Life stat. Minus one is definitely gonna trigger a flag."
Alex took a deep breath, focusing on the data flow from the server. 'Based on what I've learned so far, Life changes based on event triggers… but that doesn't mean I need the event itself. I just need to manipulate the result directly.'
The game's system relied heavily on emotional cues—it tracked emotion-based triggers to simulate player experience.
So if Alex could simulate the right kind of emotional state—something tied to a massive reward—then anchor it to a flag related to Life…
That might do the trick.
"Now the next problem… how the hell do I find that flag?"
Normally, he'd have to scan all the game's memory, then filter through the data and isolate the right change.
Thankfully, his current form was a soul in the virtual world. He'd already peeked into a lot of the game's backend while investigating Jack's mother's condition. "This should work."
Energy pulsed out from Alex's body. For a moment, the environment glitched—flickering, warping—then returned to normal.
[Name = Jack Rasefield
Gender = Male
Class = Soldier
Faction = Kingdom of Evermore
Level = 30
Exp = 500 / 160,055
Life = 1 / 3]