“What the hell is he doing?” barked a squat, broad-shouldered dwarf hunched over a crystalline console, his voice sharp and tinged with disbelief. The glowing runes on the monitor flickered as a figure—Max—tossed in his sleep beside a campfire. “He’s not supposed to be able to find that cave yet. What if he decides to poke around instead of sticking to the shoreline like he’s supposed to?”

  “Then we’ll have to make sure the portal’s concealed now, won’t we?” came a deep, gravelly reply. A second dwarf entered the room, taller and broader than the first, his salt-and-iron beard braided into thick cords. This was Gemly, the senior overseer of Tutorial Realm 5728.

  Unlike his grumbling subordinate, Gemly moved with calm purpose. His eyes swept the projection screen, noting Max’s proximity to the cave with a frown. “I can’t block the portal completely—at least not without tripping a system alert—but I can mask it. We just have to hope the kid doesn’t get curious and start poking at shadows.”

  The control room around them buzzed with quiet activity. Other dwarves moved between glowing displays and humming crystal pillars, murmuring to one another in clipped, professional tones. The walls were carved from solid granite, etched with ancient runes that pulsed gently in time with the System's rhythm. Screens projected dozens of other tutorial instances in motion—other individuals scattered across other landscapes, each living their own guided introduction to the multiverse.

  Gemly tapped a command rune on the console and stepped through a shimmering archway in the corner of the room. A heartbeat later, he emerged from a glowing portal inside the very cave Max had collapsed in.

  The air was humid, tinged with salt and moss. The stone underfoot was cool and ancient. The faint sound of waves echoed through the cavern, giving the space a still, timeless quality.

  “Why do we always put the access node so damn close to the starting zone?” Gemly muttered, tugging at his thick gloves as he took in the scene. “One day, one of ‘em’s gonna roll in here drunk on beginner’s luck and we’re gonna have a multiversal incident.”

  He glanced down at Max—this world’s first confirmed Tricore Traveler. A rare anomaly. A system fluke. Or perhaps something else entirely.

  Gemly wasn’t one to speculate. His job was to manage the realm’s integrity, not question the System’s design. But even he had to admit, this one was different. Only about 10% of a worlds population had the mutation for a split core. Only 1% of those people could get a Tricore. The chances of one being in his tutorial realm was tiny. Maybe 1% chance, probably less with how many tutorial instances are going on at the same time across the newly integrated universe.

  The human slept soundly, arm curled under his head, oblivious to the monumental implications of his existence. Tricore alignments were almost unheard of in Tier 5 integrations. Hell, they were almost unheard of at any Tier. But here he was—barely a week into his tutorial and already stirring ripples across the Realm Watchers.

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  Gemly crouched next to Max for a moment, eyeing him thoughtfully. He’d reviewed the footage himself. The boy had survived encounters that should’ve at least left scars. He wasn’t just lucky—he was adapting, quickly.

  “Could be instinct,” Gemly murmured. “Or the Core's waking up faster than expected.”

  He turned toward the portal nestled just around the bend. It shimmered faintly—barely visible in the dim cave light. From a distance, it looked like nothing more than a shallow crease in the rock, an optical illusion of shadow and depth.

  Too exposed. Too close.

  With a deep breath, Gemly extended his hands. Runes spiraled along his wrists as he summoned Earth Manipulation, coaxing the cave walls to shift and mold under his will. A smooth, natural-looking curve of stone rose from the ground, curling upward until it sealed the bend in a wall of jagged granite.

  It looked untouched. Ancient. As if no one had stepped foot here in centuries.

  He stepped back, brushing stone dust from his hands.

  “There,” he grunted. “That’ll keep curious feet from wandering where they shouldn’t.”

  He surveyed the space once more—checking for footprints, residual magic, anything that might give away his presence. Satisfied, he reached into his belt and pulled out a shimmering silver tablet etched with dwarven glyphs. He activated it, and a beam of soft blue light surrounded him. With a quiet hum, he vanished.

  Back in the control room, the crystal screen refocused. Max still slept, blissfully unaware.

  Gemly let out a long breath and folded his arms.

  “These humans,” he muttered. “Always breaking the rules before they even know what the rules are.”

  The first dwarf looked up from the monitors. “You really think this one’s gonna make it off the island?”

  Gemly didn’t answer immediately. He stared at the flickering image of Max, eyes narrowing slightly.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “this one’s going to cause us a hell of a lot of paperwork.”

  He turned and walked toward a raised dais in the back of the chamber, where a massive crystal orb floated within a ring of runes. It was the Central Nexus, a relic from before even the dwarves understood the System’s full reach.

  Gemly placed his hand on the orb.

  A series of projections flickered to life around him—Max’s current stats, kill counts, choices made, unlocked affinities, core alignment status. He scanned them quickly.

  “Already influencing multiple class paths... Mana manipulation… early freeform casting… no registered trainer contact…” Gemly frowned. “And not a hint of corruption. That’s… rare.”

  The dwarf beside him whistled low. “So what do we do?”

  “We watch,” Gemly said simply. “We don’t interfere unless he breaks something big enough the System can’t clean it up on its own.” We don’t need the Primordial Accords sniffing around again. Not after that mess on Seris-Five…”

  He tapped the orb again, and Max’s image reappeared—still sleeping, unaware, poised on the brink of something none of them could quite predict.

  “Mark my words,” Gemly muttered. “He’s going to go places. The question is whether he takes the rest of us with him—or burns the whole damn path behind him.”

  And somewhere deep within the stone walls of Tutorial Realm 5728, the world continued spinning—watched, managed, and subtly guided by the unseen hands behind the curtain.