Wealth Accuracy

The air in the Synchronization Arena was cold, sterile, and hummed with a low-frequency energy that vibrated in Roewi Verdent’s molars. It was the sound of power, of potential, a sound that for everyone else was a symphony of promise. For him, it was a funeral dirge.

Before him, the holographic interface of the System Core shimmered, a beautiful, intricate lattice of light waiting to be awakened. Around him, the muted sounds of other students successfully syncing filled the cavernous space, the sharp zing of a weapon manifesting, the triumphant chirp of a familiar digital taking form, the excited murmurs of approval from the observing instructors.

Roewi took a shaky breath, the scent of ozone and anticipation filling his lungs. He placed his palm on the cool, crystalline surface of the podium. The familiar, dreaded sequence began. Lights danced across the interface, scanning his biological signature, probing his neural pathways.

[Initiating Synchronization...]

The text, a calming blue, floated in his vision. This was the moment. Every cell in his body yearned for the connection, for the unity that every other human in this new era took for granted. He focused, pouring every ounce of his will, his desperation, into the link.

For a glorious, fleeting second, he felt it, a spark. A tendril of connection, warm and inviting, brushing against his consciousness. His heart leapt. This time. Please, this time.

Then, it happened.

The spark sputtered and died. The warm tendril recoiled as if burned. The interface, once a serene blue, flashed a violent, uncompromising red.

[Host rejected.]

[System Core Incompatibility: 100%]

[Synchronization Failure.]

The message was blunt, final, and public. A wave of heat rushed to Roewi’s face. The muffled sounds of the arena seemed to sharpen, zeroing in on him. A snicker came from his left. Then another. It was a ripple of humiliation, and he was the epicenter.

“Look, it’s the Zero Percent,” a voice, laced with mockery, cut through the air. It was Ereun Solas. He stood a few podiums away, not even bothering to look at his own interface, which displayed a flawless [Synchronization: Prime Chrono Drive - Active]. His gaze was fixed on Roewi, cold and analytical, like a scientist observing a failed experiment. “Still trying to force a square peg into a round hole, Verdent? Some things are just not meant to be.”

Roewi’s fists clenched at his sides, his knuckles white. He kept his eyes locked on the damning red text, refusing to give Ereun the satisfaction of seeing the shame in his eyes.

“Ignore him, Roewi.” A softer voice this time. Kaira Telnor. Her synchronization had been a masterpiece of efficiency, her interface blooming with complex data streams. She looked at him with an expression he’d come to despise: pity. “The calibration might just be off today. The system has been glitchy.”

She was trying to be kind, but her words were salt in the wound. There was no glitch. The glitch was him.

An instructor, his face a mask of bored disappointment, waved a hand. “Step away from the podium, Verdent. You’re holding up the queue.”

The dismissal was worse than Ereun’s taunts. It was an institutional confirmation of his worthlessness. He was a bottleneck, an error in the academy’s perfect code. He stepped back, his movements stiff, and merged with the shadows at the edge of the arena. He became a spectator in his own life, watching as others claimed their destinies while his remained locked away.

The rest of the day was a blur of silent humiliation. In Theoretical System Dynamics, he understood the concepts better than anyone. He could diagram neural-link protocols in his sleep. But knowledge was worthless without the power to apply it. During combat drills, he was relegated to the sidelines, tasked with logging data while others sparred with blades of hard light and shields of condensed data. He saw Kaira, elegant and precise, her technopathic abilities effortlessly disarming an opponent. He saw Ereun, a blur of controlled motion, his Chrono Drive allowing him to perceive and react to attacks before they even began.

“Kaira, that was incredible!” a classmate cheered.

“Ereun’s speed is inhuman!”

No one looked at Roewi.He was a ghost.

As the evening bell chimed, signaling the end of classes, the students streamed out of the academy’s grand halls, their laughter and excited chatter about new skill unlocks echoing around him. Roewi lingered, letting the crowd dissipate. He couldn't face the walk back to the dormitories, the inevitable whispers, the way people would subtly move away from him, as if his failure was contagious.

He found himself on a secluded balcony overlooking the sprawling, neon-drenched city of Nexus Prime. The towers pierced a sky perpetually stained with the glow of data streams and holographic advertisements. This was a world built by and for the System, a world he was forever barred from.

Why? The question was a constant, gnawing ache in his chest. What was so fundamentally broken inside him that the Core, the very heart of human progress, found him so utterly repulsive?

“Kau bahkan bukan pengguna sistem. Kau cuma error yang berjalan.”

You're not even a system user. You're just a walking error.

Ereun’s words from weeks ago echoed in his mind, each syllable a fresh cut. The anger that rose in him was hot and sharp. It wasn't just anger at Ereun, or at the instructors. It was a deep, seething rage against the entire world—a world that had so coolly decided who was worthy of power and who was meant to be discarded. This wasn't fair. This wasn't right. The feeling was a fire in his gut, the only warm thing in his cold existence.

He finally trudged back to his solitary dorm room. It was small, austere, and silent, a stark contrast to the vibrant, system-enhanced chambers of his peers. He tossed his datapad onto the bed and slumped into the chair at his desk, the events of the day playing on a torturous loop in his mind. The rejection. The laughter. The pity in Kaira's eyes.

He was so lost in his misery that he almost missed it.

A flicker. A subtle shift in the quality of the silence.

The main lights in his room dipped, then returned to normal. A common occurrence, a minor power fluctuation in the academy's vast network. But then, the personal holo-terminal on his desk, which had been dark, suddenly flared to life. Not with the gentle glow of a boot-up sequence, but with a violent, blinding flash of static.

Roewi jerked back, his heart hammering against his ribs. "What the...?"

The screen resolved not into his familiar desktop, but into a deep, endless black. And in the center, lines of text began to form. They were not the clean, standardized font of the System Core. This was jagged, archaic, burning with a malevolent crimson light.

[Network Anomaly Detected.]

[Scanning...]

[Unique Bio-Signature Identified: Roewi Verdent.]

[Frequency Analysis... Match.]

Roewi could only stare, his breath caught in his throat. This wasn't supposed to happen. His terminal wasn't even properly synced to the network. It was a basic model, barely capable of running educational software.

The text on the screen dissolved into a new, terrifying message.

[Vextor Protocol detected.]

A cold unlike any he had ever known seeped into his bones. Vextor. He’d seen that name once, buried in a forbidden archive file about decommissioned pre-Collapse systems. Classified as Forbidden. Unstable. Sentient.

[Authorization bypassed.]

The words hung in the air, final and absolute. The screen went completely black for one heart-stopping second. Then, a voice, smooth as polished glass and cold as the void between stars, echoed not from the terminal's speakers, but from deep within the fabric of his own mind. It was calm, ancient, and carried an weight of authority that made the System Core's announcements feel like childish whispers.

[Welcome, Host.]

Roewi sat frozen, his world reduced to the darkness behind his eyes and the echoing voice in his skull. The rejection, the shame, the anger, it all fell away, replaced by a primal, terrifying understanding. The system hadn't accepted him.

Something else had.

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