The morning sun warmed the polished concrete floors of the Quantum Nexus R&D lab, the air still and humming with quiet intention. Elian sat at his terminal, wearing the familiar BCI headset. He leaned back for a moment, taking in the blank canvas of the digital workspace before him—until something flickered across his vision.
A new tab.
Not a prompt. Not an alert.
A full menu.
[SYSTEM DASHBOARD – VERSION 1.1.0]
He blinked. "What the—"
He hadn't touched anything. No new upgrades installed. No unlocked theories pending. But there it was, hovering like it had always belonged: a neatly categorized UI panel, floating inside his mental interface. Clean. Intuitive. Impossible.
He focused on it, and the system unfolded like a lotus blooming in his mind.
[USER PROFILE]
Name: Dr. Elian Rho
Tier: I
System Points: 14
Upgrade Tokens: 1
Tier Progress: 62%
"What is this?" he muttered aloud.
It didn't stop there.
[TECH TREE – TIER I]
ENERGY & PROPULSION
— Nuclear Fusion Power
— Ion Propulsion Engines
— Compact Quantum Chips
PLANETARY ENGINEERING
— Asteroid Mining
— Terraforming Prototypes
— Ocean & Climate Control Systems
MEDICAL & NANOTECH
— Atomic 3D Printer
— Nanobot Swarms
— All-Disease Cure Toolkit
— Extended-Lifespan Therapies
SPACE & DEFENSE
— Interplanetary Space Flight
— Planetary Defense Grid
COGNITIVE SYSTEMS
— BCI Signal Translator (Installed)
— Psionic Interfaces (Locked)
[POINTS MENU ENABLED]
Remaining Points: 14
Unlock Token: 1
[REWARDS LOG]
— Room-Temperature Superconductor: +3 Points
— Muse Integration Stack: +2 Points
— BCI System Build: +3 Points
— Tier I Theory Upload: +6 Points
— Chapter 20: Romantic Milestone ❤️
Elian stared.
"Are you kidding me?" he muttered. "This was here the whole time? No menu? No points indicator? Not even a 'Congratulations, you're building a civilization' popup?"
His fists clenched. "I've been manually typing half this research like an idiot. They gave me god-tech and shipped it with a beta interface."
He paused, then narrowed his eyes at the air in front of him.
"Oh, I see how it is. Just keep the brilliant human in the dark while he unlocks Type I advancements using a UI from 1996. Real classy, you interdimensional clowns."
He extended one middle finger to the invisible system. "Next time, ship it with tooltips."
—
Elsewhere...
In the metadimensional echo of an infinite gallery of observers, the Dokaversals flinched.
Zaruun Null floated toward the observation pool, clutching his celestial stress sphere. "He's on to us."
"He doesn't know for sure," muttered Vr'N'gul-42. "He's just angry."
"He gave the system the middle finger!" Boop squeaked. "That's basically a declaration of war."
Zaruun glowered at the pool. "You realize what this means, right? He's figured out the UI was a patch job."
Boop whispered, "He almost figured out we screwed up."
"We don't screw up," Vr'N'gul insisted.
The Author's voice echoed from behind a ripple in spacetime. "You did this time."
The three Dokaversals turned in horror.
"You patched the interface after four chapters of manual suffering," the Author said. "He nearly reached Tier II using command-line garbage. That's divine malpractice."
Zaruun growled. "We are elder architects of probabilistic causality!"
"You're also UI-challenged," the Author said, unimpressed.
Boop peeked at the timeline logs. "Guys… his future self? Tier VI. I just got pinged."
"Yeah," Vr'N'gul said, shifting uncomfortably. "His future self just pinged across a causality axis."
Zaruun turned pale — or whatever the conceptual equivalent of that was for a retired cosmic architect. "Already?"
Boop peeked at a scanline. "Yeah. Future Elian. Tier 20 or higher."
The room went silent.
Then Boop added: "He's probably smarter than all of us combined."
Zaruun drained his mug in one long, miserable slurp. "He's going to be unbearable."
"Should we go visit him? " Vr'N'gul muttered.
"Yeah, that is a good idea Vr'N'gul, but in a future chapter" The Author
—
—
Back in the lab
Elian was still fuming, but now with intent. He opened the points allocation screen and ran a mental sweep across his available options.
He selected:
Nuclear Fusion Power – 5 points
Compact Quantum Chips – 2 points
Asteroid Mining Infrastructure – 3 points
Atomic 3D Printer – 2 points
Extended-Lifespan Therapies – 2 points
[14 Points Allocated. Updated Tier Progress: 30%.]
[Token Unused.]
He grinned. "Now we're getting somewhere."
Jenna entered the lab carrying a coffee and some protein bars. "Hey. You've been staring at nothing for twenty minutes. Did Muse crash?"
"No," he said. "System just… improved. Quietly. Like it didn't want to admit it screwed up."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about the weird interface you never let me see?"
"Exactly that."
She handed him a bar. "Sounds suspicious."
"Oh, it is. But now I've got full system access, tier tracking, and a blueprint list that actually scrolls. It's beautiful."
Jenna smirked. "And all it took was yelling at the sky?"
"I think I scared a god."
She grinned and sat beside him. "Good. They deserved it."
He smiled faintly, still scrolling the elegant interface only he could see. For once, the system didn't feel like a mystery.
It felt like a partner.
A silent one.
With patch notes.