The early sunlight filtered gently through the cream drapes of their temporary home. Elian sat at the dining table, freshly prepared coffee in hand, tapping the number on his phone.
"Good morning, sir," a kind voice responded. It was the Camella's customer liaison.
"Hi. This is Elian Reyes. We finalized a property under my name—Lot 8, Block 14 in Camella Terraces?"
"Yes, Sir. I remember! "The three-bedroom corner unit."
"I just wanted to confirm," Elian explained. "We're relocating in five days. "I've already settled everything."
"I understand, sir! We will have it completely cleaned, keys ready, and a walkthrough scheduled on your selected day. "Hello, Camella."
Elian terminated the call with his heart pounding steadily and fully.
Today was Day 1 of his optimization project. And he had exactly five days until they moved into the home his family had only dreamed of weeks before.
His new system hummed to life in his room: dual monitors, an ergonomic chair, and fast fiber internet. VPN is enabled. Credentials are authenticated. He connected to the client's development server after a brief prayer.
The.NET 4.5 monolith codebase was a maze. Everything was closely connected and form-based, with business logic, database operations, and user interface all tied up in monstrous.aspx.cs pages.
He started with performance profiling.
The /Admin/Report.aspx and /User/TransactionLog.aspx pages were taking more than 12 seconds to load.
He used SQL Profiler and browser DevTools simultaneously. The observations were damning.
There are too many repeated queries.
Excess ViewState bloat.
Dozens of SELECT * queries within loops.
Elian addressed the inefficiencies with laser-like precision.
He cached redundant searches with in-memory storage.
I refactored bloated stored methods and replaced some of them with efficient views.
Trimmed viewstates—eliminated large serialized items included in each postback.
By the time he finished working at midnight, he had saved 4-5 seconds on important page loads.
Day 2,
At 10:03 a.m., a message arrived.
[Emil: Just checking. You have not blown up the client's development server, correct? "]
[ Elian:"Not yet." But I could blow up ViewState instead." ]
[Emil: "Good." Also, do not touch the PayrollService class. "It is cursed."]
Later that afternoon, Emil requested a live code review.
"Damn," Emil mumbled while scanning through the Git diff. "This looks like a different codebase."
"You're not just optimizing," he said. "You're refactoring logic that has been untouched for seven years." This is courageous."
"I couldn't help it," Elian explained. "I get itchy seeing logic this tangled."
"You have intuition. Simply pace yourself."
Elian smiled. "I am pacing at warp speed."
Day 3,
Today was about the interface.
Elian removed the table-based layouts and replaced them with Bootstrap Grids. There are no more inline styles or pixel-pushed divs. He created reusable modal components, redesigned the navigation, and implemented responsive designs.
The typography was redesigned with clean, sans-serif fonts. He replaced alert() popups with toast notifications. The color contrast was changed for accessibility.
He incorporated Chart.js to provide visually appealing reports instead of the unsightly export-to-Excel format.
Previously, the app felt like 2010.
After: it seems like something someone would want to use in 2025.
That night, Emil pinged again.
[Emil: "You rebuilt the UI layer in a day?" "]
[Elian: "Three years of UI irritation compressed into one day's revenge."]
Day 4,
Today was about hardening.
He discovered passwords in plaintext configuration files.
Legacy cookies were not marked HttpOnly.
If a logged-in user changed the concealed fields, they could see the admin pages.
Elian implemented full lockdown.
Encrypted sensitive keys.
Implemented proper role-based access.
Added protection against XSS, SQL injection, and session hijacking attacks.
He updated the previous session cookies with a prototype token-based validation to prepare for future SSO integration.
By midnight, the system no longer felt like it was holding together with duct tape.
Day 5: Submission,
Elian awakened early. His parents and sister were gone for a hospital consultation, so he had the place to himself.
He poured coffee into his favorite cup, which said "Eat." Code. Sleep. Repeat, then sit at his beautifully kept desk. The dual monitors blinked awake. Sticky notes surrounded his keyboard, like battlefield reminders.
He cracked his knuckles.
"Let's finish this."
There were no distractions. There's no noise—only the peaceful hum of his equipment and the steady beat of his thoughts.
One final pass.
He decoupled the bloated Page_Load methods, splitting their functionality into distinct services. Logic that had previously spanned hundreds of convoluted lines was now simplified into razor-sharp execution routes.
He refactored the inline SQL spread throughout the system into secure, parameterized stored procedures.
Then came the structural rework—a clear separation of roles. He created repositories, injected services, and used view models to separate data from logic and display.
The finished architecture was not groundbreaking, but it was substantial. Clean. Testable. Fast.
Yes, it is a legacy system, but it has been optimized, hardened, and, most importantly, made maintainable.
He ran his final test suite, including unit tests, regression sweeps, and load simulations. It's all green.
He took a deep breath, zipped the deployment bundle, attached the amended documentation, and pushed it to the client's Git repository.
He opened his email, typed rapidly, and clicked Send.
Subject: [Delivery] Legacy Optimization: Completed Ahead of Schedule
Then he shut his laptop and leaned back.
As he grabbed for his coffee, his phone buzzed with a new notification.
Meanwhile, at NovaTech HQ, 11:27 AM.
The boardroom on the 12th floor was full with quiet anxiety. A long, oval glass table reflected the figures of those seated around it, including NovaTech's President, CTO, many department heads, and a few senior project leaders.
Emil stood in the heart of it all, blazer off, sleeves rolled up, hands resting on the table's edges.
"Here's what we assigned," he added, showing a presentation labeled Legacy Government System Optimization. "Fourteen days." Refactor, modernize, and secure.
The CTO frowned. "Didn't six senior developers try to abandon this last quarter? "
Emil nodded. "They did."
"Why did you believe this was worth revisiting? "A member of the quality assurance team inquired.
Before Emil could respond, a voice in the back mumbled, just loud enough to be heard: "It's a cursed system. Everyone understands this. "Only Page_Load has PTSD."
Light giggles spread over the crowd.
"I know how it sounds," Emil remarked, unconcerned. "But I had a hunch."
He advanced to the next slide.
Assigned Full-Stack Developer: Elian Reyes
"Who? Someone close to the DevOps team whispered.
"The guy who aced the one-hour challenge," Emil joked. "I gave him this as his project by fire."
"Wait, wait," the same QA head interrupted. "You're saying you gave that system to a fresh graduate? "
"Impossible," the Infrastructure Director stated frankly. "It took us a month just to trace the authentication bug last time."
The room muttered.
Emil's phone vibrated in his pocket. He took a quick peek at it.
A smile appeared on his face.
He silently mirrored his screen to the projector.
The email had just arrived.
From: Elian Reyes
Subject: [Delivery] Legacy Optimization: Completed Ahead of Schedule
Attachments: DeploymentGuide.pdf, Git repository link, ReleaseNotes.md
Somebody scoffed. "What? This kid is already sending a delivery email. That is arrogant.
Emil opened the deployment report. "Let's find out."
He clicked the Git link. The room tilted in. Lines of tidy, documented commits moved across the screen.
The authentication module has been refactored. Administrative reporting is modularized.
I removed all superfluous database calls.
The UI has been optimized with Bootstrap.
A security patch was released, which included additional role checks.
More than 42 recorded bugs were fixed.
Unit and regression tests have been added.
"Sweet Jesus," the DevOps leader muttered. "Did he actually use PayrollService?" "
Emil chuckled. "He rewrote it."
"He's either insane," said the same voice from before, "or—"
The president raised his hand. "Stop. Let's put it to the test!"
Someone from IT started up the staging server. Fingers flew over the keyboard. The new build has been deployed.
They accessed the system.
The login screen now has role-based visibility.
The Admin > Reports page loaded in 1.7 seconds. It used to crash around 11.4.
They moved through the user management, transaction logs, and reporting modules. Everything worked. Smooth. Responsive. Mobile-ready. Secure.
The hush that ensued was deafening.
"Are we certain this is the same system?" " the CTO inquired.
"No, sir," the Infrastructure Director said, visibly surprised. "This feels like an entirely different platform."
The President looked at the television and then at Emil.
"You said two weeks."
"He did it in five days."
Take a breath.
"Give him the complete evaluation report. I want Elian Reyes on the core team. "Make it happen.
Elian's phone chimed again at home.
A new message has surfaced.
[Hidden Mission Completed.]
Mission: Finish a Two-Week Legacy Project in Under 5 Days.
Reward Unlocked: Toyota Fortuner 4x4 2.8L LTD AT
Claim Instructions: Pickup is available in 2 days at Toyota Global City. Vehicle registration and papers will be available upon arrival.
Elian stared at it.
A top-of-the-line SUV to pursue his passion?
He gave a quick, astonished laugh.