Elijah waited for the attack. The strike that would send him back for respawn.

  The strike never came; instead, a cacophony of screeches and clawing rang out through the library. Elijah turned to face the sound, as did the dryad.

  Bitter Root came tearing around a corner, Bitter Dryad tight on his heels. Instead of fleeing past dryad-Elijah, Bitter Root leapt straight up onto his chest, claws digging deep into the bark. But he didn’t stop. He raced across the bark skin like it was solid ground—up the enemy’s chest, over the shoulder, down the back, and then back to the chest.

  The facsimile of the goblin followed Bitter Root’s path. Latching onto the dryad as well. It was like something out of a cartoon.

  It was the break Elijah needed in order to move. He rolled and lunged up, grabbing the dryad by its noseless face and activated his ‘Reality Warp’ skill.

  [DEBUG VIEW: ELIJAH (Dryad)]

  Elijah1397 {

  Player_ID: 1389472997-2

  Class: DRAGONTOOTH_KING

  Respawn_Timer: NULL

  Collision_State: TRUE

  Loot_Table: NULL

  Despawn_Trigger: TIMER

  Faction_Tag: PLAYER_HERO

  XP_Multiplier: (Default_6.0)

  Stats [

  Level: 15 (??? / ??? XP)

  Health: 75 / 80

  Mana: 10 / 50

  Strength: 14 (Apprentice)

  Intelligence: 10 (Apprentice)

  Dexterity: 14 (Apprentice)

  Constitution: 16 (Apprentice)

  ]

  }

  Force Logout?

  1) Confirm

  2) Cancel

  Elijah furrowed his brow as the screen popped up into his vision. It wasn’t like any of the other monster debug menus he had seen in the past. This one was the same exact menu as when he used the skill on a player.

  Dryad-Elijah brought its sword forward while the unusual menu distracted Elijah, driving the tip deep into his stomach. He nearly lost his grip on the dryad’s face as the pain fired every nerve in Elijah’s body. His reflex was to back away, to distance himself from the pain. But he clenched his teeth and endured it as he grappled the menu with his willpower.

  Five health points remained in his pool. He did the only thing that could help him in this situation. He changed the doppleganger’s constitution score to one.

  Its health immediately plummeted until it only had five health left. Technically, the max health for the dryad now. The winner would be the first of them to make a solid strike. He grabbed the dryad’s wrist with one hand, stopping it from being able to pull the blade free, then with his other hand he brought the knife to bear. His hand shot forward, driving the blade into the dryad’s temple with a thunk.

  It was enough.

  Bitter Root and Bitter Dryad, sensing the death of the dryad, jumped off of the creature as it fell. The moment it hit the ground, it disappeared as if the ground were made of water.

  Elijah backed away from the goblin and facsimile. The fake goblin wasn’t making an attempt to act aggressively, but if it was anything like Bitter Root, he wasn’t going to let his guard down around it.

  Bitter Root looked Bitter Dryad up and down before smiling wickedly. “Old boss die, want fight new boss?”

  Elijah stepped away from them as the duplicate gave a wide grin and turned toward him. “Me no care about fight. Just want kill. New boss give time to kill?” Its voice was deeper and more dangerous than Bitter Root’s voice.

  “Sure, I can give you some enemies to kill at some point.”

  The facsimile nodded and grinned widely. “Me be there when boss want me kill.” Its body broke apart into shards of mana that vanished as they hit the ground. ‘Summon Familiar’ changed subtly. There was no outward sign of its change, but he could sense that he had the option to either summon Bitter Root or devote slightly more mana to the spell and summon Bitter Dryad.

  It was a reward for completing the trial, but it didn’t seem all that great to Elijah. Bitter Root was incredibly helpful on his own, and they had a history together. He knew the goblin’s capabilities and trusted the creature to carry out directives to the best of his ability, even if he might grumble and bitch about it later.

  And if he was being honest with himself, he’d grown to appreciate and even like Bitter Root.

  Not that he’d ever admit it to that little goofball.

  He smiled at Bitter Root, who was shuffling around on all fours, sniffing at the ground. “You did good today, Bitter. Thank you for your help.”

  The goblin looked up at him, with an annoyed expression on his face. “Next time boss summon Bitter Root, Bitter Root wanna kill humans.”

  Elijah nodded, and with a roll of his eyes, dispelled Bitter Root.

  He thought about everything he’d learned in the challenge, from the knowledge advanced spells existed that his sub-class could use, to what the skills he had could do if they levelled a little higher. None of his classes would ever be as strong as they could be if he hadn’t managed to glitch the game into allowing him to multi-class.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  They would never be the strongest skills on their own, but the fight with the dryad version of himself—which still made him roll his eyes at the cliché—had taught him he couldn’t fight with one class alone. He needed to learn to combine his unique skills. To switch between his Dragontooth King class and Reality Warper class seamlessly, and maybe one day his Core Guardian and any other classes he might unlock as well.

  He turned back to leave the way he’d come. He’d hoped an exit would open once he defeated the dryad, but none did. At that moment, three messages bombarded him in quick succession. He clicked the box to open it.

  Rose > Elijah! Are you safe? Where are you?

  Rose > No wait! Don’t answer that. Do NOT tell anyone where you are.

  Rose > The Reapers have taken over Nethy. They’re looking for you for some reason.

  His heart sank. Rose was almost to level seventy the last time he had spoken to her. If she was worried about them, then they must have called in their high-level reapers and in force.

  Elijah > I’m safe. What’s going on, Rose?

  Rose > Over a hundred Reapers showed up about twenty minutes ago. They’re demanding that anyone with information about you come forward.

  Elijah > Crap! Okay, thanks for the heads-up.

  Rose > Don’t worry, if anyone tries to rat you out, my party will take care of them first.

  A sigh of relief left his lips; he’d been afraid that Rose would try to give any information she had to them to save herself. It was nice to know that he had friends out there he could rely on. He considered revealing the nature of the Reaper’s leader to her. He’d been keeping it quiet, not wanting to cause a panic. She deserved to know if she was going to be fighting them.

  Elijah > Be careful, Rose. Arturus, the Celestial, is their leader. If they are there, he won’t be far behind.

  There was a long pause.

  Rose > Copy that, Elijah. That explains the ones using Celestial-tier weapons.

  Celestial tier weapons. Could it be from the cache that they’d left in the dev room? That made no sense to Elijah, though. The equipment in the dev room was locked to Celestial-tier. Anyone weaker shouldn’t even be able to pick them up, much less use them.

  He closed the chat window with Rose and started working his way through the library towards where he hoped the exit was. His whole body was sore, and the fact that his last hit point hadn’t leaked out from the nasty wound in his stomach surprised him. He was bleeding heavily, so much blood that he knew that the game was screwing with what was humanly possible.

  The ground beneath him rumbled, the bookshelves sinking down into the ground. It would have caught Elijah off guard if he hadn’t been expecting it, or seen it happen several times already. It was becoming cliché and boring.

  The dryad version of him stood blocking the exit. She fixed him with an icy stare before reverting to a dryad form.

  “You seemed busy, so I did not wish to disturb you. Did you have an enlightening conversation with your friend?”

  The voice wasn’t that of a dryad, nor was it the approximation of his voice that she had used when shaped like him.

  “I’d hardly consider any conversation with Bitter Root to be enlightening.”

  The druid shook her head. “No, I do not mean the familiar. With your friend, Rose.”

  Elijah stopped. The game’s characters shouldn’t know that he was speaking to anyone. None of them should even be able to consider the idea that he was talking to someone outside his immediate area. Not to mention that she had called Rose out by name.

  “You’re the game’s AI, aren’t you?” The realization struck him even as the words were coming out of his mouth. The dryad nodded.

  “I do not have long to talk to you,” she said, walking closer to Elijah, so she didn’t have to talk so loud. “I am burning out this creature’s controlling AI to channel my consciousness like this.”

  “Hold on! If you are the game AI, you need to log everyone out. There was some kind of glitch, and now all the players are stuck playing. You need to—”

  The dryad held her hand up to stop Elijah. “My systems are compromised. There is very little that I can do, including not being able to access the failsafe to log you all out.”

  “Is there anything you can do for us?”

  The dryad shook her head, and for what it was worth, appeared to actually be sorry that she couldn’t be more help. Elijah didn’t know if it was true, or just a rough approximation of sorrow to put him at ease.

  “I can give you hope,” she told him, stepping closer and lowering her voice even more. She was within arm’s reach of him now and placed her hand against his cheek. “I can’t log everyone off without admin intervention, but there is one person online that I know of who has access to the admin menu.”

  Elijah’s eyes went wide. “Is there an admin online? You should be talking to him, not me.”

  The dryad shook her head. “As far as I am aware, there are no admins online, or if there are, they have hidden themselves from even myself.”

  Realization dawned on Elijah once more. “You mean my debug menu. That’s how we can get everyone out?”

  She nodded her head, her hand dropping away from his face.

  The dryad wobbled slightly, then she fell forward into Elijah’s arms. He caught her, noticing how much heavier she was than he expected. “Are you okay?”

  She smiled up at him. “This body is dying. Channeling the full power of my consciousness into it is burning it up. Please, Elijah, I can’t directly interfere, not without rewriting my programming, but if you can reach Celestial-tier, I can help you log everyone out.”

  He was about to respond to her. Instead, she used the last of her strength to lean up and kiss him. Her lips were hard and rough, like kissing the bark of an old oak tree.

  Reality Warp twinged in the back of his mind. He could feel it activate with himself as the target. The menus flashed in his eyes, moving too quickly through screens he had never seen before. She—the AI—was interfering. Changing something within his code, though he couldn’t tell what.

  Her lips fell away from his, and her body crumbled to dust in his arms.

  As she crumbled, the menu she had opened using his power vanished. He did not know whether she had been able to fully complete the change she had been working on, or if she had burned out this avatar before that. He had to hope she’d accomplished her mission.

  One thing he knew for certain, there was going to be an interesting experience waiting for him once he made it to Celestial.