The insistent, high-pitched
beep-beep-beep
tore Jay from a dream of iridescent scales and roaring skies. He slammed a hand blindly against the worn-out alarm clock on his bedside table.
"Six AM. Already?" A grunt escaped his lips as he stretched, his muscles protesting slightly from yesterday's long trek outside the Enclave walls.
"System, snooze," he mumbled, his voice still thick with sleep.
"Affirmative, Host. Snooze initiated for five standard minutes. Current Energy reserves at 87%."
The crisp, synthetic voice sounded directly inside his head, audible to no one else.
Jay rolled onto his back, staring up at the rough-hewn ceiling of his small room.
His "room"was really just a section of a much larger, sprawling metal structure – his shop. And his sanctuary. The very walls around him hummed with a faint, imperceptible energy. Safety. Invincibility, even.
Here, within the shop's confines, no monster claw, no dragon flame, no human bullet could touch him. It was his secret, his greatest asset.
A pale, ethereal blue panel shimmered into existence before his eyes, floating just inches from his face. Transparent to anyone else, but for Jay, it was as solid as any screen.
Dragon Growth Progress, Resource Inventory, Shop Reputation, Active Quests. A notification blinked – a new quest.
"Right, let's see what fresh hell the system has cooked up for me today," he muttered,
Reaching out. His finger passed through the panel, yet the display reacted instantly, zooming in on the quest details.
QUEST: Hatchling Rearing - Phase 2
Current Objective: Introduce 50kg of High-Calorie Bio-Pellets to [Juvenile Inferno Drake: Pyro].
Reward: 500 Shop Experience, 1000 Credits, 1x Rare Material Pouch.
Status: Incomplete.
"Bio-Pellets, huh? Pyro's going through another growth spurt, then."
He could already hear the faint, distant grumbles from the lower levels of the shop – the tell-tale sign of a hungry, rapidly growing drake.
Feeding Pyro was always a production; the little guy, barely the size of a large dog now, had the appetite of a full-grown rhinoceros.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, feeling the cool metal floor beneath his bare feet.
The air in his shop was always strangely temperate, regardless of the scorching sun or freezing rains outside. Another one of the system's perks.
"System, status report on the eggs in Hatchery Bay Gamma-7," he commanded, pulling on a clean, patched tunic.
"Acknowledged. Hatchery Bay Gamma-7: All four Wyvern eggs remain stable. Incubation progress at 78.3%. Estimated hatch time: Approximately 72 standard hours."
The system's voice was calm, precise, utterly devoid of emotion, as always.
Jay grinned. Three days. Three days until a new batch of juvenile wyverns. It was exhausting work, dangerous work, even with the shop's invincibility. But the rewards… immense.
Not just the credits that funded his reclusive lifestyle, but the sheer satisfaction of watching these magnificent, deadly creatures grow under his care. And of course, the grander goal that still felt like a distant, impossible dream: breeding a true Dragon. The ultimate, untamable force of this new world.
He grabbed a worn leather satchel from a hook by the door. Time to head down to the lower levels. Pyro was waiting, and a hungry drake was never a patient one.
He took a deep breath, the familiar scent of ozone, bio-pellets, and something vaguely reptilian filling his nostrils. The main corridor of the shop was dimly lit. Concrete floor, reinforced steel walls, pipes snaking along the ceiling – his domain.
As he reached the heavy, insulated door leading to the first of the breeding enclosures, his thoughts drifted back. It had been years since it first appeared, so many years that it felt almost like another life.
He had been a scrawny, unremarkable high school kid then, scrambling for survival like everyone else in the fortified Enclave of New Dawn.
He remembered the exact moment. Lunch period. Sitting alone on a cracked concrete bench, picking at a nutrient bar that tasted like recycled cardboard. A sudden, sharp pain lanced through his right wrist, a feeling like a million tiny needles pricking his skin.
He almost cried out, clutching his arm. Then, a voice, clear as a bell, though no one else seemed to hear it, echoed directly in his mind.
"Synchronization complete. Initiating Host Protocols. Welcome, Host. You have gained access to the Universal Breeder Shop System."
His head snapped up, scanning the noisy courtyard. Kids laughed, guards patrolled, nothing out of the ordinary.
Yet the voice persisted, and a faint, shimmering outline of a panel flickered at the edge of his vision, gone as soon as he tried to focus.
He'd spent weeks convinced he was going insane. Whispering to himself, experimenting in the dead of night, trying to make the invisible panel reappear, trying to get the voice to respond. It took time, frustrating, isolating time, filled with false starts and moments of despair.
He learned that focusing his intent, truly focusing, could make the panel solidify. He discovered that the voice responded to direct commands, but only when spoken aloud, even if just a murmur.
He learned about "Credits" and "Shop Experience" and "Resource Inventory" long before he even understood what a "Shop" meant, or how it could be connected to him.
The invincibility had been the greatest shock, the most terrifying and exhilarating discovery.
A training dummy's blunted practice sword had harmlessly bounced off his chest inside what the system called his "Temporary Shop Domain," a small, barely stable area it had initially manifested around him in his cramped room. His heart had hammered against his ribs for hours that night.
It wasn't a gift given freely, the system made that clear. It was a tool, a means to an end. The ultimate goal, as revealed in cryptic early messages, was the "Re-establishment of Prime Genetics." Back then, he hadn't known what "Prime Genetics" even implied, but he had quickly grasped the concept of "breeding."
Breeding the local monster fauna for better traits, for survival. And eventually, the impossible dream: Dragons.
He'd spent every waking hour outside of mandatory Enclave duties learning, experimenting, pushing the boundaries of what the system could do. He devoured every piece of biological data the system offered, every cryptic hint about spatial energies and genetic manipulation. It had become his life, his obsession, his secret world.
His hand, still on the cold steel door, tightened. The system's voice cut in, sharp and alarming.
"WARNING! UNFORESEEN SYSTEM ANOMALY DETECTED."
Jay froze. "Anomaly? What are you talking about?" The system never had anomalies.
It was precise, infallible. His brow furrowed.
A new panel, stark red and pulsating faintly, bloomed over his main display. It overshadowed his quest log, demanding his full attention. The synthetic voice, usually so calm, now had a subtle, almost imperceptible static beneath it.
"SYSTEM PROTOCOL OVERRIDE INITIATED."
"Protocol override? What the hell?" Jay's heart gave a jolt. This was new. And not good. He felt a strange tingling sensation, unsettling, originating from the small, hidden device on his wrist that served as the system's core interface.
"System, report! Immediately! What's happening?"
"NEW PRIMARY OBJECTIVE ESTABLISHED."
The red panel shifted, text scrolling rapidly, then settling on a single, bold line. Jay squinted, reading the words that seemed to burn themselves into his vision.
"No way," he breathed, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
"That's… that's impossible." His mind raced, trying to grasp the implications. This wasn't just a new quest. This was a complete game-changer.
The humming of the shop, the distant grumbles of Pyro, even the very air around him seemed to crackle with an unspoken tension. He couldn't move, couldn't look away from the impossible command now emblazoned before him.