[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-started-with-a-10-000x-multiplier-in-a-game-worl":3,"chapter-started-with-a-10-000x-multiplier-in-a-game-worl-started-with-a-10-000x-multiplier-in-a-game-worl-chapter-105":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Started with a 10,000x Multiplier in a Game World",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},1136149,1466,"Chapter 105: A Familiar Stance","started-with-a-10-000x-multiplier-in-a-game-worl-chapter-105",105,"\u003Cp>The transition out of the Zenith Protocol was seamless in the upgraded military-grade VR capsule.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dante opened his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sterile white ceiling of his high-security corporate penthouse greeted him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The air in the room was cool. It was scrubbed clean by atmospheric filters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn’t feel the heavy agonizing physical exhaustion that usually accompanied an eight-hour dive in his old apartment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The advanced nutrient drips and muscle stimulators in the new rig had kept his physical body perfectly regulated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He sat up and pulled the neural cables from his neck.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He climbed out of the pod and walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling windows.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sprawling neon-lit skyline of Veridia stretched out before him. It was completely oblivious to the digital slaughter he had just orchestrated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and drank half of it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He picked up his datapad from the kitchen island.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Veridian internet was completely broken.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The standard news feeds, social media platforms, and financial networks were entirely overwhelmed by a single topic: Overture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Specifically, they were obsessing over the live stream of the Siege of Ironhold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cipher, the independent info-broker, had captured the siege event.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The screenshot of the glitching red [-540,000! OVERKILL!] damage number was plastered across every single major media outlet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Trend 1: #WhoIsDan]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Trend 2: #HalfMillionDamage]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Trend 3: #VanguardFraud]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dante scrolled past the endless stream of panic, conspiracy theories, and demands for the system developers to patch the obvious exploit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn’t care about the reaction of the general public.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They didn’t understand the complex combat math required to trigger that number.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But not everyone watching the stream was a casual observer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>***\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>High above the commercial district of Veridia, Silas sat at the head of a massive mahogany table.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was in the heavily fortified and soundproofed boardroom of OmniCorp Tower.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy wasn’t wearing his shiny Silver-grade armor. He wore a perfectly tailored and incredibly expensive three-piece suit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He looked absolutely terrible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His eyes were bloodshot, his tie was loose, and he was aggressively rubbing his temples.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The massive holographic projector in the center of the boardroom was playing the live stream of Cipher on a continuous loop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It showed the gold-armored Outworlder blinking into the dark dome, raising the massive black greatsword, and instantly deleting the Dark Demon boss.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sitting across from Silas was a woman.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She wasn’t a standard corporate executive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She wore a sleek and unassuming gray pantsuit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But her posture was incredibly rigid. It displayed a military discipline that made the private security contractors standing by the door look like amateurs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and her gray eyes tracked the looping footage with intense unblinking focus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her name was Elara.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She was the chief strategic advisor of Silas.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She was hired directly by his board of directors to ensure Vanguard’s Legacy secured a monopoly on the Overture server.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Turn it off,\" Silas finally snapped and waved his hand at the projector. \"I have seen it fifty times. He hit a half-million damage cap. He is hacking the physics engine.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elara didn’t turn it off.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She tapped a control panel on the table and slowed the video feed down to a fraction of its normal speed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The footage paused on the exact frame right before Dante swung [Voidsever].\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"He is not hacking, Silas,\" Elara said. Her voice was sharp and completely devoid of sympathy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The Zenith Protocol operates on an absolute and self-contained closed-loop system. It cannot be externally breached.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"If he generated that much damage, he did it using internal and mathematically verifiable system mechanics.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Then explain it to me!\" Silas yelled and slammed his hand on the table.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I have three thousand players trapped in a swamp! I lost the Ironhold siege!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I am burning millions of credits a day to keep this guild running, and one guy in gold armor is making me look like a joke!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Look at the screen,\" Elara commanded coldly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silas glared at the frozen hologram.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I see a guy with a ridiculously oversized sword,\" Silas muttered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Look at his feet,\" Elara instructed and zoomed the localized projection in on the iron boots of Dante.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Look at the angle of his hips. Look at the specific asymmetrical grip he uses on the hilt of the weapon.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silas frowned and leaned closer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The stance was strange. It wasn’t a standard balanced Warrior guard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The lead foot was angled sharply inward while the back leg carried almost the entirety of the weight of the avatar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sword was held low and almost casually. It completely ignored standard defensive posture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It is a aggressive stance,\" Silas noted. \"So what? A lot of high-tier PvP players customize their animations.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It is not a custom animation,\" Elara said. Her gray eyes narrowed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It is a highly specific and fundamentally flawless martial discipline. It minimizes the physical travel time of a horizontal strike while maximizing the kinetic force generated from the core.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elara tapped her datapad. A secondary holographic projection opened next to the first one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a heavily degraded and grainy video file. It didn’t look like standard Zenith Protocol footage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The graphics were significantly lower resolution, and the user interface was entirely different. It lacked the sleek modern design of Overture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old footage showed a player wearing completely unremarkable and low-tier leather armor. He was fighting a massive and towering beast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The player dropped into a stance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silas stared at the two projections side-by-side.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The stance in the grainy footage was a perfect and flawless mirror of the stance Dante was using in the modern Overture stream.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The exact same foot placement. The exact same asymmetrical grip.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"What is that?\" Silas asked. His voice dropped to a whisper. \"Where did you get that footage?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"That footage is heavily classified,\" Elara stated flatly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It was recorded twenty-five years ago. During the highly restricted beta-test of the original Zenith Protocol.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silas froze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The beta-test. The First Cycle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a myth on the dark web forums.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Rumors claimed that decades before the system officially drafted the general population of Veridia, the automated system had pulled a tiny select group of individuals into the servers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were meant to test the combat math and stress-test the environment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You are telling me Dan is a beta-tester?\" Silas demanded. \"A First Cycle player? That is impossible. He would be in his fifties.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The player in the old footage is not Dan,\" Elara said. She paused the grainy video right as the player swung his sword.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The combat discipline he is using is called the Aether-Blade Arts. It was a custom hard-coded localized martial form designed specifically by the top-ranked player of the First Cycle.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elara looked directly at Silas.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The player who invented that stance,\" Elara continued. Her voice was grim. \"was known as Kaelar. He was the undisputed Sword-Saint of the beta-test.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"He completely dominated the servers and entirely bypassed the intended progression curves of the system.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silas stared at the two identical stances. The implications were terrifying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"If Dan is not Kaelar,\" Silas asked slowly, \"then how does he know a highly classified twenty-five-year-old localized combat style?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"There are only two possibilities,\" Elara said and closed the projections.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Either Dan is a system anomaly who somehow acquired the hard-coded data of Kaelar from a corrupted lore drop...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elara paused and leaned forward across the mahogany table.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"...Or Dan was taught the Aether-Blade Arts in the real world.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silas felt the blood completely drain from his face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The realization hit him like a physical blow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dante wasn’t just a lucky player who stumbled into a broken skill multiplier. He wasn’t a random glitch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was using a combat style that had been systematically scrubbed from the history of the server.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Vanguard,\" Silas whispered and ran a hand through his hair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He remembered the early days of Aethelgard. He remembered fighting alongside Dante in the beginner zones.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dante had never used standard localized system skills.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had always fought with a fluid and terrifying precision that completely broke standard game logic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had always held his sword with that exact asymmetrical grip.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Dan is Vanguard,\" Silas confirmed. His voice trembled slightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I watched his capsule fry, Elara. I saw his health bar hit zero. He should be brain-dead in a slum apartment right now.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Clearly, your execution method was flawed,\" Elara noted coldly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"He is using a beta-test fighting style,\" Silas panicked and stood up from his chair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"He is connected to the First Cycle. If he knows the underlying math of the system, we cannot beat him in a straight fight! He is going to dismantle my entire economy!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Calm down,\" Elara ordered sharply.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The military discipline in her voice forced Silas to stop pacing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"We are not fighting him in the game. You tried that. You lost three armies and a regional capital.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elara stood up and straightened her gray jacket.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"If he was taught the Aether-Blade Arts in the real world, it means he has a physical connection to Kaelar,\" Elara deduced rapidly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The Vanguard of the First Cycle was heavily monitored by the original corporate architects of the Zenith Protocol.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If we dig into the classified and archives of the beta-test, we can find out exactly who Kaelar was.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silas looked at her. \"And then?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"And then we find his family,\" Elara said. Her gray eyes were completely devoid of warmth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"If Vanguard survived a lethal capsule overload, it means his real-world hardware has been modified to bypass the execution parameters of the system.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"We track the hardware. We find his physical location.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elara walked toward the boardroom doors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"We do not fight anomalies in a digital sandbox, Silas,\" Elara stated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"We pull the plug on their power source. I will initiate the archive breach immediately. Keep your guild entirely out of his way until I have his coordinates.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The heavy mahogany doors slid shut behind her and left Silas completely alone in the massive boardroom.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Guild Master looked back at the blank holographic projector.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dan wasn’t just a player. He was a legacy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He needed to pull his armies out of the swamps. He needed to avoid any conflict with the anomaly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He just had to wait for Elara to find the address.\u003C\u002Fp>",1722,"2026-06-03T12:02:19.066Z","2026-06-03T12:02:24.780Z",1,"novelbin.me","0b073f8ee710fbe3e826d549a2b99ab72463e3b42356e333649b525ef86972a6","started-with-a-10-000x-multiplier-in-a-game-worl-chapter-106","started-with-a-10-000x-multiplier-in-a-game-worl-chapter-104",109,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fstarted-with-a-10-000x-multiplier-in-a-game-worl-cover.jpg"]