The weight of that revelation sat in my chest like a stone.

  Someone had orchestrated my entire destiny. From the moment I'd stepped into that dungeon, claimed the Classless card, unlocked Multiskill, none of it had been chance. I'd been a pawn on someone else's board.

  Vorn's face had been unreadable when he'd told me. "The Wild Card chooses its wielder. It has never been wrong. If it merged your stats, there must be a reason."

  I'd wanted to scream at him. To demand answers. But the Ace of Veil was still out there, and the Crimson Safehouse defenses wouldn't hold forever.

  Now, three days later, I stood in the heart of Grimvale's market district, the hood of a borrowed cloak pulled low over my face. Vorn had insisted I leave the safehouse,"You're a target as long as you stay in one place".and find a way to the capital. Qora. Where my mother's letter promised answers about my uncle.

  Where the shadow man was waiting.

  The market was crowded, merchants hawking their wares, players haggling over card prices, children darting between legs. Grimvale wasn't a large city, but it was busy enough that I could disappear in the crowd. That was the idea anyway.

  "You there! Cloak boy!"

  I kept walking. Definitely not talking to me.

  "Hey! I'm speaking to you!"

  A hand grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around. A heavy-set man in guild leathers stood there, the silver wolf head emblem on his chest catching the afternoon light. Iron Wolves. Of all the rotten.

  "You're that kid from the safehouse," he growled. "The one the Veil are hunting." His eyes gleamed with greedy recognition. "There's a reward for information on you. Twenty gold coins. Not bad for a noob."

  Around us, the crowd began to slow, to stare. A small circle formed. This was bad. Very bad.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," I said, keeping my voice flat.

  The Iron Wolf laughed, loud and crude. "Sure you don't. Come on, kid. Don't make this difficult. I know you have the Classless card. Hand it over, and maybe I'll let you run before the Veil dogs arrive."

  The crowd murmured. I saw faces I recognized from my time in Grimvale, shopkeepers, other players, people who'd watched me grow up. Now they watched me with a mix of curiosity and pity.

  A Classless card. The most valuable card in existence. And this Iron Wolf thug was demanding it in the middle of the market like I was some farmer selling turnips.

  "I don't have it," I lied.

  The Iron Wolf's face twisted. "Don't insult me, boy. Everyone knows you took it from the dungeon. Everyone knows you killed Core Spawn to escape. The whole city's talking about it." He leaned in close, breath reeking of ale. "You're a noob with a legendary card. That's not luck. That's theft. You stole something that belongs to the powers that be."

  The crowd's murmuring grew louder. I saw approval in some eyes, the Iron Wolf was speaking the truth as they understood it. A noob shouldn't have power. A noob certainly shouldn't have the Classless.

  "I took nothing that wasn't offered," I said quietly.

  The Iron Wolf's fist connected with my stomach before I could react. The blow doubled me over, pain exploding through my midsection. I tasted bile.

  "Feisty," he laughed. "I like that. Makes it more fun when you break."

  He wound up for another punch, and stopped.

  A young woman in silver armor had caught his wrist. She was tall, dark-skinned, with close-cropped hair and an insignia I didn't recognize. Not Iron Wolves. Something else.

  "Guild business," the Iron Wolf snarled. "Piss off, Sapphire."

  The woman's grip tightened. "Assaulting a civilian in broad daylight? That's not guild business. That's a crime."

  "He's a Classless holder. He's fair game."

  "He's a player in a city governed by the Player Code." Her voice could have frozen lava. "Which your guild agreed to uphold. Unless you'd like to explain to the Council why you're attacking an unarmed civilian?"

  The Iron Wolf wrenched his arm free, rubbing his wrist. His eyes darted to the crowd, now larger, more attentive, and something in his expression shifted. He wanted the card, but not badly enough to make a public scene.

  "This isn't over," he hissed at me. "The Iron Wolves remember those who embarrass them. You'll regret ever leaving that dungeon."

  He pushed through the crowd and disappeared.

  The silver-armored woman turned to me. "Are you alright?"

  "I'm fine." I straightened, ignoring the lingering ache in my gut. "Thank you."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  She studied me with those sharp eyes. "You're Dere Rene. The Classless holder."

  I tensed.

  "I'm Sia," she said. "Sapphire Guard. We've been looking for you."

  The Sapphire safehouse was nothing like the Crimson one, where Crimson was all warm reds and hidden passages, Sapphire gleamed with polished marble and obvious wealth. Guards at every corner. Reinforced doors. A show of power.

  Sia led me to a private chamber, where an elderly man waited. His suit was immaculate, his silver hair combed back, and his eyes held the weight of someone who had seen too much.

  "Young Rene," he said. "Please, sit."

  I sat. Sia remained standing by the door.

  "I'm Lord Aldric, representative of House Sapphire in Grimvale." He folded his hands on the table between us. "We've been tracking the Classless card for some time. As I'm sure you're aware, its emergence has... unsettled the established order."

  "You want the card too."

  "I want to understand it." He smiled thinly. "There's a difference. The Veil would use it to consolidate power. The Crimson want to protect you, which is interesting, given their usual neutrality. But the Sapphire? We simply want knowledge."

  "I'm not a scholar. I just got the card because I was in the right dungeon at the right time."

  "Were you?" His eyes seemed to look through me. "The Classless card has appeared in seventeen documented instances across history. Every holder was either killed or disappeared within a year. The Veil have hunted each one, desperate to claim its power for themselves." He leaned forward. "And then there's you. A noob from a backwater city. Someone with no connections, no training, no prospects. Yet you survived where professionals failed."

  I said nothing.

  "You killed a Core Spawn," he continued. "Single-handedly. While injured. Using skills that shouldn't exist at your level. And now the Wild Card has merged your stats into something... unique." His gaze dropped to my hands. "FIT, I believe they call it now. Tell me, young Rene, what does it feel like?"

  The question caught me off-guard. "What?"

  "The merged stat. What does it feel like? Most players never experience stat fusion. It's considered too dangerous, too unstable. Yet here you are, with more raw potential than most Skilled players."

  I thought about it. The FIT stat sat in my core like a coiled spring, 41 points of accumulated strength waiting to be used. When I'd focused on it in the safehouse, I'd felt something, a versatility, an adaptability I'd never known before. I could draw on strength, speed, or endurance in the same motion. They weren't separate anymore. They were one.

  "It feels like... options," I said finally. "I can do anything. Everything. Just not all at once."

  Lord Aldric nodded slowly. "Fascinating." He rose. "I have a proposition for you, young Rene. The Sapphire family would like to offer you protection. Complete protection. Training, resources, sanctuary, all of it. In exchange, we simply ask that you allow us to study your... condition."

  "You want to use me as a test subject."

  "We want to understand the Classless. The same as you do." He spread his hands. "The Veil will keep hunting you. The Iron Wolves will sell you out for a copper. Even the Crimson have their own agendas. But the Sapphire stand for stability. For knowledge. We have no interest in using you as a weapon, just in understanding what you are."

  I thought about Lena, who had saved my life. About Vorn, who'd given me the chance to escape. About the scarred man who'd set all of this in motion.

  "What happens if I say no?"

  Lord Aldric's smile didn't waver. "Then you walk out that door, and you face the Veil hunters alone. Perhaps you'll survive. Perhaps not. But I suspect you already know how that story ends."

  I left the Sapphire safehouse an hour later.

  Not because I'd accepted their offer, I hadn't, but because I'd learned something valuable. The Veil weren't the only ones interested in the Classless. The entire power structure of Qora was watching, waiting, calculating. I was a wild card in more ways than one.

  The sun was setting as I made my way through the evening market, hood still up, face still hidden. I had perhaps two days before the Iron Wolves found me again. Maybe less.

  I needed to leave Grimvale. Tonight.

  But first, I needed to settle one score.

  The Iron Wolves' guild hall was a converted warehouse near the eastern gate. Imposing, but not fortified, not like the Crimson or Sapphire strongholds. A message had been sent, carefully, anonymously. Dere Rene would be at the old mill outside town at midnight. Alone. Bring the card if you want it.

  It was a trap. Obviously. But greed made people stupid, and the Iron Wolves were nothing if not greedy.

  The old mill creaked in the night wind. Moonlight painted the clearing in silver. I stood in the center, waiting, my cloak discarded, my face visible.

  They came with torches. A dozen of them, led by the same heavy-set man who'd attacked me in the market. His face split into a cruel grin when he saw me.

  "You came. Stupid, but I appreciate the gesture."

  "You hurt me," I said quietly. "In front of everyone. You thought I was weak. A noob with a fancy card."

  "That's because you are weak. You're nothing but a lucky farmer's kid who stumbled into something bigger than,"

  I moved.

  The FIT stat exploded through my body, and for the first time, I understood what I really was. Not a noob. Not a Classless holder. Something else entirely.

  My fist connected with his solar plexus before he could finish the word. He doubled over, gasping, and I grabbed his head, slamming it down into my rising knee. Blood sprayed. He crumpled.

  The other Iron Wolves froze.

  I straightened, rolling my shoulders, feeling the power that wasn't strength or speed or endurance but all three at once. The man who'd punched me in the stomach, I'd barely felt it now.

  "Who's next?" I asked.

  They charged.

  Void Slice carved through the first two, shadows severing limbs before they could react. Shadow Step let me slip between attacks, my body moving like smoke, like memory. Every blow I landed was devastating. Every blow I received barely registered.

  This was what the Wild Card had given me. Not just a merged stat, but a merged potential. I could feel my body adapting, optimizing, becoming more efficient with every passing second. The man who had walked into this fight and the man walking out were not the same.

  When it was over, eleven Iron Wolves lay in the dirt, groaning, broken, alive only because I'd chosen to let them live.

  I walked away from the mill, leaving them to their shame.

  Tomorrow, I'd leave Grimvale. Head for Qora. Find the shadow man who had orchestrated my destiny.

  But tonight, I let myself smile.

  The message reached Lord Aldric by morning.

  He read it twice, then set it down carefully, his face pale.

  "What does it say?" Sia asked.

  "The Iron Wolves' eastern guild hall," Aldric said slowly. "Every member present that night... they're all down. Shadow wounds that won't close. None of them will be fighting for weeks. Whoever did this, used shadow magic and... something else. Something that doesn't match any known skill."

  Sia's eyes widened. "The Classless holder?"

  "Apparently so." Aldric stared out the window at the rising sun. "It seems we've underestimated young Rene. Severely."

  "And the Veil?"

  "They'll have heard by now. Ace will want to accelerate the hunt." Aldric turned away from the window. "But I don't think they'll succeed. Not anymore."

  He picked up a different message, one that had arrived that same morning. A summons. From Qora. From the Sapphire family's master.

  Bring the boy to the capital. By any means necessary.

  Aldric smiled grimly. It seemed the game was changing. The wild card had finally started playing back.

  [SYSTEM]

  Skill Gained: [Shadow Lunge Lv.1]

  Void Slice upgraded to Lv.2

  FIT increased to 43 (+2 from combat adaptation)