The Legendary Programming Mage

Valentina didn't need additional context for my words.

She quickly rose from the floor and sat behind me, her slender palms pressing against my back.

"See, gay bestie, I don't understand what's happening, but it seems the blood I drew out is now affecting you."

I tightened my jaw.

'It hurts like hell.'

The pain was excruciating.

It felt as though my heart was trying to tear itself out of my chest.

But I had to endure it.

Just a little longer.

Argh…

I suppressed another strangled scream.

"Val, make sure my condition stays stable."

If it were anyone else, I would have hesitated to entrust them with my life. But this was Valentina.

She was a demonoid obsessed with my blood.

And as long as that obsession remained, I knew she wouldn't harm me.

I stretched out my trembling hand and emptied one bag of mana stones.

The bag resembled a pouch, holding thirty blue mana stones and twenty green ones.

In Meltonia, there were four types of mana stones:

Common, Normal, Rare, and Legendary.

The higher their rank, the harder they were to find in rifts.

Blue mana stones were Common grade, while Green ones were Normal.

With this pouch, I was confident I could form a core.

Holding two mana stones in my hand, I attempted to inject them into my body, but since I couldn't sense mana, they remained inert.

Valentina swiftly channeled mana into my hands, making the stones shimmer faintly.

Whoosh.

Like a rushing torrent, the mana surged into my arms.

Mmm…

I bit down on my lower lip so hard that blood trickled onto the ground.

The agony was unbearable.

Nothing in my life had ever felt so excruciating…

Not even my death.

Gradually my mind began to blur once more.

'Damnit…!'

I squeezed my eyes shut, cracks forming on my skin, as if the rampant energy was trying to find a way out.

Somehow, I could see inside my body—and it was chaos.

Purple codes drifted through me, colliding with serene blue ones.

Behind my formless spirit was a glitching wall—or rather, a membrane—encasing the space I occupied.

This was my body.

Those were the words I wanted to utter, but nothing left my lips.

The burning in my chest endured, but I forced my gaze forward.

I was Allen Park. No matter the agony I felt, I would never yield.

My nonexistent eyes scanned the projection of my body.

I immediately recognized the sight before me.

The wall was my body's firewall, and judging by its state, it had long been breached.

Or rather, someone had forced it open and sealed it shut again afterward.

My attention then shifted to the purple codes.

No god needed to explain what they were.

The most vile thing in any computer—viruses.

Someone had embedded a virus inside Allen's body, and it was slowly killing him from within.

The blue codes represented the operating system of my new body and the residual mana, still locked in a desperate struggle to resist.

And at the very center of the entire system was…

My core.

It was grotesque, covered in pulsating purple growths.

Yet beneath it all, a faint blue glow persisted.

It could be restored.

I could repair my body.

Though the pain still gnawed at me relentlessly…

I had finally discovered hope.

But how exactly am I going to fix it?

One thing was knowing it could be fixed, and another was actually fixing it.

I tried placing my hand on my chin, but failed.

Should I control the codes?

If I controlled my system's code, then it was definitely possible for me to fix my body.

I could patch my firewall.

Then try to erase the virus.

But I still didn't have a real body.

Hmm...

I tried moving closer to the codes and virus, only for one of the purple codes to slam into me.

Argh...

It hurt...

It really hurt...

However, the side of my arm that had been hit now bore a strange symbol.

And...

A visual projection.

I could see my left shoulder now, though the pixels were still missing.

How could I have forgotten?

I stretched out my nonexistent arms, letting the little mana I had flow into my immune system.

The control was all scrambled, but control wasn't what I was seeking.

As if drawn to my mana, the blue codes began moving toward me like magical ink.

They swirled around me...

Then, my body began levitating in the hovering space.

The glowing binary codes plunged into me before I could even react...

Huh?

It was warm...

Not cold...

Hot?

I wasn't sure how it felt; however, what I did know was that it felt good.

Really good.

I closed my eyes as the codes entered me as if they were part of me...

Technically, they were part of me, but this time it felt like we had merged.

Gradually, the energy settled, and my body began glowing a bright blue light.

The energy flowed around me without my control, and as it reached the shoulder that the purple virus had touched, it began glowing red.

Argh...

The warm sensation around me started fading.

Mmmhh...

I held back a scream as the blue light fought against the purple viruses in my body.

However, the way they were fighting was far too inefficient.

Instead of launching a full attack against the viruses, they waited for it to strike before defending.

They had the numbers, but they weren't designed to combat these viruses.

That meant I had to do it myself.

I plunged my arm into my chest as a loud scream escaped my lips.

I could finally speak—now I wished I couldn't.

Gradually, I began moving the codes with my own arms.

I wasn't trying to form a formation with them or anything.

I needed an antivirus.

If I had that, then facing the viruses here would be far easier.

Furthermore, I doubted the thing around my core would just let me clean it off.

I clenched my fist and began coding.

Let's see if you can beat antivirus.