My Level Is 1, But My Damage Is Infinite

Flagged

Chapter 4: Flagged

The hum of the Ascension Authority’s central monitoring hub was a constant, low-frequency vibration that most employees stopped noticing after their first week. It was the sound of a thousand servers processing the life data of every registered hunter in the city. Blue light from holographic displays washed over the faces of analysts who moved like ghosts in the darkened room.

"Hey, Miller, check the feed on sub-sector four. The needle just hit the red and stayed there for three seconds."

"Must be a sensor glitch, Sarah. Nothing happens in the slums except for rats and bad deals. Check the calibration again."

"I did. Three times. It’s not the sensor. Look at the energy signature on the playback. It’s a localized kinetic discharge. We’re talking high-yield. Like, upper A-rank territory."

Miller rolled his chair over, his brow furrowing as he squinted at the scrolling lines of code. "That’s impossible. There are no A-rankers registered in that sector tonight. The closest one is Kaelen, and he’s currently at a gala in the high district. Wait... zoom in on the ID attached to the proximity pulse."

Sarah’s fingers danced across the holographic keyboard. A grainy, top-down image of a leveled street appeared, followed by a status window that flickered with a persistent error message.

"It’s... Eka Pradana?" Sarah whispered, her voice trailing off.

"Who?"

"Eka Pradana. Level 1. Rank F. Profession: Porter."

Miller let out a sharp, jagged laugh that echoed too loudly in the quiet room. "A porter? Sarah, come on. You’re telling me a Level 1 guy just put out enough kinetic force to level a warehouse? That’s like saying a candle just put out the heat of a supernova."

"Look at the readout, Miller! The system flagged it as 'Damage Infinity' because it couldn't calculate the multiplier. It broke the logic gate."

"Shut it down. Flag it as a Tier-1 system error and move on before the supervisor sees it. If we report a Level 1 doing this, we’ll be the ones getting audited for incompetence."

"Too late for that, I’m afraid."

Both analysts froze. The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees as a man in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit stepped out of the shadows. His hair was slicked back, and his eyes, cold and calculating behind rimless glasses, didn't seem to blink.

"Director Hoang," Miller stammered, nearly tripping over his chair as he stood up. "We were just... we were just investigating a potential sensor malfunction, sir."

"Is that what we call 'Damage Infinity' flags now, Miller? Malfunctions?" Hoang leaned over Sarah’s shoulder, his gaze fixed on the flickering image of the ruined alleyway. "Play it back. Slow it down to five percent."

Sarah’s hands shook as she hit the command. The screen showed a blurred figure in the middle of a dust cloud. For a fraction of a second, a golden ripple of light was visible before the entire frame turned white.

"The sensor was overwhelmed," Sarah explained quietly. "But the data recovery shows a massive discharge of stored energy. It wasn't mana-based. It was pure kinetic conversion."

"And the ID?" Hoang asked.

"Confirmed, sir. Eka Pradana. He’s been in the system for six years. He’s never moved past Level 1. His stats are... well, they're non-existent. He’s a zero across the board."

Hoang tapped a rhythmic beat against the edge of the desk. "A zero that can erase a block. Interesting. Tell me, Miller, what happens when a system is forced to contain more pressure than it was designed for?"

"It... it explodes, sir?"

"Usually. But sometimes, it transforms. It becomes something the designers never intended. This isn't a glitch. It’s an outlier. And the Authority doesn't like outliers we don't control."

"What do you want us to do?" Sarah asked.

"Keep this off the main server. If the guilds find out there’s an unranked kid walking around with the power of a tactical nuke, they’ll start a war just to draft him. Transfer the file to my private terminal. And get Isabela on the line."

"Agent Cruz? Sir, she’s currently finishing a high-profile surveillance on the Crimson Dawn guild. You want to pull her for an F-rank?"

"I’m not pulling her for an F-rank," Hoang said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I’m pulling her for a ghost. Now, do it."

*

The top floor of the Ascension Authority was a temple to glass and steel. Director Hoang stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the city lights flicker below. Behind him, the door slid open with a soft hiss.

"You have five minutes, Hoang. I was in the middle of something actually important," a woman said, her voice sharp and impatient.

Isabela Cruz walked into the room, her heavy trenchcoat still damp from the night air. she didn't look like a typical agent. Her hair was a messy bob, and she had a permanent look of boredom that hid a mind like a razor blade.

"I have a case for you, Isabela," Hoang said without turning around.

"Let me guess. Another guild leader is skimming essence stones from the vaults? Or did someone lose a C-rank artifact in a poker game again?"

"I need you to audit a Level 1 porter."

Isabela paused, a half-smirk playing on her lips. "You’re kidding, right? You called me all the way up here to talk about a porter? Send a junior auditor. Send a janitor. Why am I here?"

"Because this porter just survived three Shadow Hounds and a B-rank physical trauma event without a scratch, and then proceeded to delete a street. Also, he just sent a Level 20 Brawler through a concrete ceiling with his index finger."

Isabela’s smirk vanished. She walked over to the desk where a thin tablet was glowing. She picked it up, flicking through the pages of Eka’s file. "Eka Pradana. Six years as a porter. F-rank. No recorded skills. No mana affinity. This file is a joke. It’s blank."

"That’s the point," Hoang said, finally turning to face her. "He’s a black hole in our statistics. For six years, he’s been the guild's favorite punching bag. He’s taken more physical damage than most frontline tanks, yet he’s never been hospitalized for more than a day. Today, something changed. The 'battery' got full."

Isabela stared at the photo of Eka. It was a standard ID shot—tired eyes, messy hair, the look of a man who had given up on the world a long time ago.

"You think he’s been hiding it?" she asked.

"No. I think he didn't even know he had it. The system usually grants skills based on potential. But what if his skill was purely reactive? What if it required years of abuse to even activate for the first time?"

"So he’s a walking bomb that gets stronger every time someone kicks him," Isabela mused, tossing the tablet back onto the desk. "That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. It goes against everything we know about leveling and experience points."

"Exactly. Which is why this is an 'audit.' If he’s a threat to the stability of the ranking system, he needs to be contained. If he’s a tool... he needs to be ours."

Isabela crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing. "And if he doesn't want to be 'yours'?"

"Then he’s a malfunction. And we fix malfunctions. You have full jurisdiction. Disguise the investigation as a standard rank-verification audit. Don't let him know we saw what happened in the alley or the fight club."

"The fight club?" Isabela’s heart skipped a beat, but she kept her face a mask of indifference. "You have eyes in The Iron Lung?"

"We have eyes everywhere, Isabela. Don't pretend you weren't there tonight. I know you saw him."

Isabela felt a prickle of annoyance. She had hoped her extracurricular scouting hadn't been noticed. "I saw a kid with a lot of luck and a very fast twitch reflex. I didn't think he was an S-rank anomaly."

"Well, now you know. Find out how he’s doing it. Find out if there’s a limit to how much he can store. Most importantly, find out who else knows."

"Fine," Isabela said, turning toward the door. "But if this turns out to be a fluke or some experimental drug he’s taking, I’m billing you for the overtime."

"One more thing, Isabela."

She stopped, her hand on the door frame.

"Be careful. If our theory is right, the more you try to force him into compliance, the more dangerous he becomes. Don't push him unless you're prepared for the kickback."

"He's a Level 1, Hoang. I think I can handle a porter," she said, before stepping out into the hall.

As the elevator descended, Isabela pulled a small, private data-pad from her inner pocket. She pulled up the footage she had recorded herself from the rafters of the fight club. She watched the moment Eka tapped the Brawler. It wasn't a punch. It was a release.

She zoomed in on Eka’s face. In the grainy footage, right before the impact, she saw it—the orange glow in his eyes. It wasn't the glow of mana. It looked like molten metal, something forged under immense pressure.

"Eka Pradana," she whispered to herself.

She swiped to the next image in the official Authority file. It was a high-resolution photo taken from a street cam near the alleyway incident. Eka was walking away, his clothes in tatters, looking like a man who had just crawled out of a grave.

She froze. She recognized that look. She had seen him earlier that night, even before the alley. He had brushed past her in the transit station, looking so small and insignificant that she hadn't even bothered to check his rank. He had looked like just another piece of the city's background noise.

"Wait," she muttered, her eyes widening as she compared the photos.

The man in the alley. The kid in the ring. They were the same person, but the energy was different. In the first photo, he looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. In the second, he looked like he was ready to throw it back at someone.

"You've been hiding in plain sight for six years, haven't you?"

She closed the file, a strange, uncharacteristic spark of excitement lighting up her chest. She had spent her career tracking down arrogant A-rankers and corporate spies. This was different. This was a mystery that defied the very laws they lived by.

"Level 1," she said, a small, predatory smile finally touching her lips. "Let's see just how much damage you can really take."

The elevator doors opened to the garage. Isabela stepped toward her sleek, black interceptor bik

e. She had a location on his last known address in the slums. It was time to pay a visit to the world's most dangerous nobody.