Zee didn’t hesitate. He immediately opened the commercial trade network on his interface, searching through the rare scrap listings with his newly acquired 500 Creator Points.
Deep in the obscure black market sub tab, a single item caught his eye.
[ ITEM: FRACTURED CONSCIOUSNESS CRYSTAL ]
[ TIER: UNSTABLE / HIGH-RISK ]
[ PRICE: 450 CREATOR POINTS ]
[ DESCRIPTION: A RESIDUAL MEMORY MATRIX PULLED FROM A FALLEN CELESTIAL ENGINE. ]
The listing had been sitting untouched for months. No sensible creator would touch a fractured memory matrix, it was notorious for causing catastrophic core corruption.
Zee bought it instantly.
A faint spatial flash deposited a small, jagged crystal into Zee’s palm.
It didn’t shine with steady light. It flickered erratically, pulsing with pale violet veins that looked shockingly like a biological nervous system. The moment his bare skin touched the crystal, a strange static echoed in the back of his mind.
Zee brought the crystal toward his dark sphere of compressed mud and gravity ore.
The dark core hummed softly, its heavy surface parting slightly like a mouth waiting to be fed.
Before Zee could insert the crystal, his red tinted system interface flared with a violent, flashing warning banner that covered his entire field of view.
[ CRITICAL SYSTEM WARNING ]
[ DETECTED ATTEMPT TO INSTALL: FRACTURED CONSCIOUSNESS CRYSTAL ]
[ RISK ASSESSMENT: CORE DESYNCHRONIZATION / ARCHITECT COGNITIVE FAILURE ]
[ RECOMMENDED USE: DO NOT INSTALL ]
Zee stared at the bright red warning text.
The System was telling him to stop. The standard manuals said it was suicide. Gen had called it an absurd fantasy.
Zee looked past the warning screen, staring directly into the dark, heavy heart of his planet.
If I follow their rules, I’m just another F rank creator waiting to be wiped out.
“Recommended use ignored,” Zee whispered.
He shoved the Consciousness Crystal straight into the center of the dark core.