Leveling Up in Reality... by Slaughtering Chickens!?

Chapter 002

By the time Glen Johnson dragged himself out of the dark, the sun had already set, leaving the city steeped in shadows. He blinked, his vision swimming as the harsh, flickering fluorescent lights of the community clinic burned into his retinas. The sterile smell of rubbing alcohol and old linoleum hit him, a scent he knew intimately—he’d been lying in this exact same cot just a few days prior, sweating out a brutal fever. A cold IV drip was taped securely to the back of his hand, steadily pumping clear fluid into his veins.

"Oh, thank God. You're finally awake!" a strained voice rasped.

Ryan Sink, who had been slumped in a cheap plastic chair at the foot of the bed, jolted upright. He looked like a man who had narrowly avoided a heart attack, letting out a massive, trembling sigh of relief. "I thought that bat caved your skull in for good. If you died on my watch, I’d be in deep shit, man! What the hell were you thinking, provoking those street thugs? Not only did they beat you half to death, but they smashed half the rigs in my studio to pieces! Who the hell did I offend to deserve this kind of nightmare?".

Before Glen could even force his dry throat to croak out a single word of explanation, Ryan shoved his hand into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled wad of cash, and slapped it hard onto the thin mattress.

"Look, man... my studio is an absolute wreck, and I’ve got to spend all of tomorrow cleaning up your mess," Ryan said rapidly, his eyes darting nervously toward the clinic's exit. "So, when that IV finishes, don't bother coming back. Go wherever you want. I packed your bags—they're shoved right under the bed here. That’s your salary for the month, and I threw in an extra two hundred bucks for the medical bills. From this second on... we don't know each other. Got it?".

Not giving Glen a single second to argue or negotiate, Ryan spun on his heel and bolted out of the clinic like a man fleeing a burning building.

Glen stared at the empty doorway, the cold, heavy reality settling over his throbbing head. He was unemployed. Again.

Part of him thought Ryan was a pathetic coward—they were just a bunch of petty street thugs. Instead of calling the cops or suing for property damage, his boss's first instinct was to completely sever ties with the victim. But as the painkillers slowly kicked in, Glen couldn't entirely blame him. The studio had been running fine, churning out a steady profit, until Glen brought a literal gang war to their doorstep. Ryan wasn't demanding compensation for the smashed computers; he just wanted a walking disaster out of his life. Fair enough.

Glen rubbed his heavily bandaged temples, wincing at the sharp spike of pain. Going back to the studio was completely out of the question, but that left a glaring, immediate problem... where the hell was he supposed to sleep tonight?.

Suddenly, a freezing, synthetic voice—devoid of any human emotion—echoed directly within the confines of his skull.

"Data modeling complete. Upgrade Chest soul-binding successful...".

Glen froze, his breath catching in his throat. Wait... what soul-binding?.

His concussed mind raced backward, fighting through the fog. Right before the wooden bat had connected with his head, he had heard a similar robotic voice. Between the blood, the shock, and the adrenaline, he hadn't processed it. But now... the implications were terrifying. He had looted a bizarre, rainbow-tier Upgrade Chest in a virtual reality game, and somehow, defying all laws of physics, it had bound itself to his actual soul.

The exact moment the thought of the 'Upgrade Chest' crossed his mind, the air in front of him rippled and flared.

A strange, archaic wooden box materialized out of thin air, hovering silently in the dead space directly above his lap. It possessed five distinct slots carved into its ancient surface, looking identical in every single physical detail to the digital asset he had just looted in Realm Conquest.

Glen’s jaw dropped, his eyes widening in absolute shock. He quickly glanced around the small clinic ward, half-expecting someone to scream. But a nurse walking past the open door didn't even blink. She couldn't see it. The soul-bound chest was visible only to him.

How could a virtual gaming tool exist in the real world?. Was his brain bleeding? Was he trapped in a coma?. He reached over with his free hand and pinched his own arm, twisting the skin hard. The sharp, grounding sting of pain confirmed it—this impossible phenomenon was really happening.

His heart hammered relentlessly against his ribs. Looking closer at the floating artifact, he noticed a sleek, LCD-like panel seamlessly embedded into the top of the wooden lid. Glowing text hovered clearly on the screen:

Upgrade Chest: (Level 1)

Uses Remaining: (0/10)

Host Level: (Level 1)

Equipped Gear: (None)

Host Honor Points: (1 Point)

EXP to Next Level: (0/100)

Directly below the glowing screen were four distinct, grayed-out buttons, deeply engraved with ancient-looking characters: Material Synthesis, Gear Fusion, Star Enhancement, and Auto-Craft.

Did this mean the chest actually retained its reality-bending crafting functions here in the real world?.

Adrenaline surged through his veins, temporarily masking the pain in his head. He was itching to test it out, to press a button and see what happened, when the icy system voice chimed in his head once more.

"Upgrade Chest subsidiary Omni-Leveling System activated. Please select a Crafting Class. Selection is permanent and cannot be altered. The selected Crafting Class must reach Level 5 to unlock the Host's Main Class!".

Glen blinked, utterly stunned. What the hell?.

A subsidiary system? And an 'Omni-Leveling System' at that? It sounded incredibly overpowered, the kind of mechanic that broke games.

But there was one massive, glaring problem. The prompt had completely ended. The system hadn't bothered to list what Crafting Classes were actually available for him to choose from!.

"Are you kidding me?" Glen muttered to the empty air, throwing his hands up in frustration. "That is way too irresponsible!".