The virtual crosshair hovered over the cold, damp masonry. It pulsed with a calm, digital rhythm, completely at odds with the violent torrent of magic currently screaming through Leo’s system.
```
[Coordinate_Output_Test]
-> Target Locked: Vector3(14.2, -2.4, 8.7)
-> Current Buffer Allocation: 10 Mana (Default Test Value)
-> Execute? [Y/N]
```
"Ten mana," Leo murmured, his thumb hovering over the virtual 'Y'. "Let's start with a safe baseline. Unit testing 101: never deploy a patch with maximum load on the first run."
He tapped **[Y]**.
*Zzt.*
A tiny, brilliant spark of blue light snapped into existence right on the surface of the brick wall. There was no sound, no flash of light, and absolutely no strain on Leo’s body. The coordinate utility had simply spawned ten units of raw mana at the designated location. The brick now bore a tiny, perfectly round black scorch mark, about the size of a coin.
Leo’s breath caught in his throat. He looked at his hands, then back at the scorch mark.
"No meridian channeling. No spell chants. No physical backlash," he whispered, a wild, ecstatic grin spreading across his face. "I'm literally drawing directly on the canvas of reality."
But before he could celebrate his successful unit test, a low, wet hiss echoed from the darkest corner of the cellar.
Leo froze. His gaze shifted down to the crumbling iron grate of the cellar's drainage pipe. Two small, bead-like eyes, glowing with a sickly, malevolent crimson light, glared back at him through the rusty bars.
The grate violently rattled. With a sickening crunch of rusted metal, a creature squeezed its way out of the pipe.
It was a rat, but calling it a rat felt like an understatement. It was the size of a hunting dog, its mangy fur covered in patches of jagged, frozen ice. Its front teeth were elongated, curved like daggers, and dripped with a viscous, smoking green fluid that hissed as it struck the stone floor.
```
[Hostile Detected: Frost-Fanged Venom Rat (LVL 3)]
[HP: 60/60]
[Threat Level: Low (For Awakened Nobles) / LETHAL (For You)]
```
"A level three tutorial monster," Leo muttered, his heart hammering.
In his weak, unawakened physical state, one bite from those toxic fangs would liquefy his organs in seconds. The beast crouched, its muscular hind legs tensing as it prepared to spring across the cellar.
"You're a fast mover, aren't you?" Leo hissed, his fingers flying across the holographic developer interface. "But you're still just a mob. And I have admin privileges."
He didn't have time to write a complex script. He dragged the **Current Buffer Allocation** slider on the Coordinate_Output_Test menu. He didn't stop at twenty. He didn't stop at a hundred.
He slid the bar all the way to the right, dumping a massive chunk of his overflowing, glitched mana pool into the output command.
```
-> Current Buffer Allocation: 5,000 Mana [WARNING: Exceeds standard diagnostic safety parameters!]
```
"Deploying the patch," Leo growled.
The Frost-Fanged Venom Rat lunged, its jaws snapping open to reveal a maw of freezing death.
Leo swiped his hand forward, locking the target reticle directly onto the beast's skull in mid-air, and slammed his hand down on the execution command.
```
[Executing Output Test...]
[Mana Expended: 5,000][span_36](start_span)[span_36](end_span)[span_37](start_span)[span_37](end_span)
```
*BOOM!*
The cellar didn't just shake; it screamed.
A pillar of pure, solid neon-blue light erupted from the empty air directly in front of Leo. It wasn't a firebolt or an icicle; it was raw, uncompressed, unstructured database energy forced into physical existence.
The pressure wave alone flattened the straw on the floor and threw Leo backward against the stone wall. The sheer, blinding brilliance of the discharge painted the entire room in sharp, violent shades of sapphire.
The Venom Rat didn't even have time to shriek. The moment the five-thousand-mana particle render intersected with its physical coordinates, the creature's molecular structure was instantly overwritten. It didn't burn; it simply ceased to exist, dissolved into a cloud of sparkling blue pixels that vanished into the air.
But the beam didn't stop there.
The unconstrained magical force slammed into the reinforced stone wall of the cellar. The thick, ancient granite blocks, designed to withstand siege engines, disintegrated like wet paper. A perfectly smooth, circular tunnel, glowing with melted stone and crackling static electricity, now cut straight through the foundation of the manor, opening up a direct path to the snow-covered forest outside.
Silence fell over the ruined cellar, broken only by the whistling of the cold winter wind rushing through the newly made tunnel.
Leo sat in the dirt, ears ringing, coughing slightly as dust swirled around him. Slowly, a series of golden system notifications began to cascade down his vision.
```
[Hostile Neutralized: Frost-Fanged Venom Rat (LVL 3)][span_52](start_span)[span_52](end_span)[span_53](start_span)[span_53](end_span)
[Experience Gained: 150]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 2.]
[Attributes Increased: Vitality +1, Agility +1]
```
Leo stared through the smoking hole in the wall, out at the vast, dark forest lit by the pale moonlight. He looked back down at his status sheet. His mana bar was already rapidly filling back up to forty-five thousand, the glitched sleep loop continuing to pump infinite energy into his broken core.
A slow, dangerous smile crept onto his face.
"Yeah," Leo whispered, dusting the dirt off his trousers. "This game is definitely getting broken."