Dante navigated the wide, cobblestone streets of Ironhold.

The sprawling frontier city was a massive upgrade from the muddy, chaotic Outpost 404.

Towering buildings of dark gray stone and reinforced steel lined the avenues.

Massive steam vents hissed quietly from brass pipes running along the rooftops, casting a hazy, industrial fog over the commercial district.

The city was entirely empty of players. Because Dante was the very first Outworlder to clear the Spire and enter the main server, he had the entire capital to himself.

He didn’t waste time sightseeing. He pulled up his digital map, tracking the waypoint for the Class Advancement district.

Even though he was Level 55 and possessed an SSS-grade talent, his baseline class was still registered as a standard ’Warrior’.

In the Zenith Protocol, reaching Level 20 unlocked the first Class Advancement, granting massive permanent stat boosts, a specialized skill tree, and a localized title.

He was thirty-five levels overdue for an upgrade.

He arrived at the Class Advancement hall. It wasn’t a standard building; it was a massive, open-air pavilion surrounded by towering, polished marble columns.

Standing in the center of the pavilion were seven elderly NPCs.

They were the Class Advancement Masters. They were dressed in immaculate, flowing robes of various colors, each representing a different core combat discipline: Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric, Summoner, and Brawler.

They all sported long, perfectly groomed white beards and carried an aura of intense, unyielding wisdom.

Dante approached them, expecting the standard, highly scripted greeting.

He was about thirty feet away when his system interface chimed faintly.

[Passive Stat Check: Intuition (100)]

[Success. Enhancing auditory perception.]

Dante paused. His maxed-out Intuition stat suddenly sharpened his hearing, allowing him to easily pick up the hushed conversation the seven seemingly dignified old men were having among themselves.

"I’m telling you, Master Chen, the odds were completely rigged," the Mage Master whispered furiously, leaning heavily on his wooden staff.

"The Ruby Lotus Brothel has been loading their dice for weeks. I lost three hundred gold pieces last night. Three hundred! If my wife finds out, she will literally turn me into a localized puddle of frost."

"Keep your voice down, you absolute idiot," the Rogue Master hissed, glancing around nervously.

"You aren’t the only one in debt. Madam Silk has explicitly threatened to break my kneecaps if I don’t pay my tab by the end of the cycle.

Do you know how hard it is to dodge a kneecapping when you have arthritis?"

"We need a mark," the Warrior Master grunted, rubbing his heavily armored belly. "We just need one naive, rich Outworlder to wander in here.

We hit them with a massive ’processing fee’ for the advancement ritual, skim the top, and pay off Madam Silk before she sends her bouncers."

Dante stood behind a marble pillar, completely stunned.

The Zenith Protocol prided itself on highly advanced, dynamic system for its NPCs. But this was absurd.

The designated, supposedly ancient and wise Class Mentors were heavily indebted degenerate gamblers who were actively plotting to extort players to pay off their bar tabs at the local brothel.

"The system really needs to run background checks on these guys," Dante muttered.

He stepped out from behind the marble pillar, his heavy iron boots clicking loudly on the polished stone floor.

The seven old men instantly snapped to attention. The hushed, frantic whispering vanished completely.

They instantly morphed back into their dignified, wise personas. They stroked their long white beards thoughtfully, staring at Dante with profound, empty gazes.

Dante walked up to the Warrior Master.

"Greetings, Outworlder," the Warrior Master boomed, his voice echoing with artificial, majestic depth. "I sense great potential within you.

You have braved the trials of the beginner zones and arrived at the precipice of true power. Have you come to seek the path of the Vanguard?"

"I’m here for my Class Advancement," Dante said flatly.

"Excellent," the Warrior Master nodded sagely, closing his eyes. "The path of the sword is arduous. It requires discipline, sacrifice, and a deep, fundamental understanding of one’s own limits.

To initiate the sacred ritual of advancement, you must prove your dedication."

The Warrior Master opened his eyes and held out a calloused hand.

"The sacred ritual requires an offering of one hundred gold pieces to appease the spirits of the forge," the Master stated, without breaking character for a single fraction of a second.

Dante stared at him.

One hundred gold pieces. For a standard Class Advancement. In the Zenith Protocol’s baseline economy, the system automatically processed Class Advancements for free.

The entire interaction was a blatant, hard-coded scam orchestrated by the dynamic system.

Dante didn’t yell. He didn’t pull out [Voidsever] and threaten to cut the old man in half.

He just leaned forward slightly, resting his hand casually on the hilt of his sheathed [Crimson Edge].

"One hundred gold," Dante repeated, keeping his voice incredibly calm. "That’s a steep price for a ritual.

Does that fee cover the advancement, or is it going straight to Madam Silk at the Ruby Lotus to save Master Chen from getting frozen by his wife?"

Dead silence fell over the pavilion.

The dignified, wise persona of the Warrior Master completely shattered. His jaw actually dropped.

Master Chen, the Mage, visibly flinched, dropping his wooden staff onto the marble floor with a loud clatter. The Rogue Master instinctively took a step backward, looking frantically around the empty pavilion as if expecting the brothel bouncers to jump out from behind the pillars.

"How... how did you hear that?" the Warrior Master stammered, the majestic sound completely gone from his voice.

He sounded like a terrified old man caught stealing from a cookie jar.

"My Intuition stat is very high," Dante smiled pleasantly. "It lets me pick up on environmental details.

Like the fact that the seven most respected martial masters in the Veridian Alliance are currently running an illegal extortion racket to pay off their gambling debts."

The seven old men exchanged panicked, desperate looks.

"Listen, boy," the Rogue Master hissed, stepping forward and lowering his voice. "You don’t understand how things work in Ironhold.

The cost of living is astronomical. And Madam Silk... she isn’t a normal NPC. She’s ruthless. If you report us to the City Lord, we’ll be deleted."

"I don’t care about the City Lord," Dante said, crossing his arms over his Gold-tier armor. "But I do care about efficiency.

If I have to walk away and file a bug report on the forums about a NPC extortion ring, it’s going to severely delay my progression."

The Mage Master, Chen, scrambled forward, grabbing Dante’s gauntlet with trembling hands.

"Please, honored Outworlder!" Chen begged, tears actually forming in his digitized eyes. "Do not report us! We will waive the sacred offering fee! We will process your advancement immediately! Just keep your voice down!"

"Waiving the fee isn’t going to cut it," Dante said smoothly. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

"I want the premium package. And I want compensation for the emotional distress you caused me by attempting to defraud my account."

The Warrior Master swallowed hard. "Compensation?"

"One hundred gold," Dante stated, throwing the exact number right back at them. "Each."

The seven Class Masters looked absolutely horrified.

"Seven hundred gold?!" the Brawler Master finally spoke up, clutching his chest. "We don’t have seven hundred gold! If we had that kind of money, we would have paid Madam Silk!"

"You’re the Class Masters of the capital city," Dante pointed out logically. "You have access to the localized treasury reserves for processing administrative tasks. I know how the system economy works. You can skim it."

"The City Lord audits the treasury every month!" the Warrior Master argued desperately.

"That sounds like a problem for next month," Dante smiled. "Madam Silk is a problem for today. If I walk away, I’m posting your exact dialogue logs on the global forums.

The entire server will know the Ironhold mentors are degenerate gamblers."

The old men completely cracked. The threat of global humiliation and structural deletion was too much for their dynamic logic boards to handle.

"Fine!" the Warrior Master hissed, frantically pulling a heavy leather pouch from beneath his flowing robes. "Fine. Here. Take it."

He shoved the pouch into Dante’s hands.

Dante didn’t even open it. He just activated the [Band of the Void-Walker] and vacuumed the contents into his infinite inventory.

The system interface pinged immediately, registering exactly seven hundred raw gold coins adding to his already massive wealth pool.

He had successfully mugged the system’s designated mentors.

"Pleasure doing business with you gentlemen," Dante said, adjusting his heavy, pitch-black cape. "Now, about that Class Advancement. I assume the paperwork is ready?"

The Warrior Master glared at him with absolute, unadulterated hatred. He didn’t say a word. He just turned around, walked over to a small stone pedestal, and yanked a heavy piece of parchment out of a slot.

He marched back over and forcefully shoved the parchment into Dante’s chest.

"Place your hand on the seal, Outworlder," the Warrior Master ground out through clenched teeth. "And may the system have mercy on whatever poor soul has to deal with you next."

Dante ignored the insult. He placed his iron-plated gauntlet flat against the glowing silver seal on the parchment.

The parchment dissolved into a burst of golden light, wrapping around his avatar. The system interface triggered, generating the standard Class Advancement prompts.

He was finally getting his upgrade.

But as the golden light washed over him, Dante noticed the Warrior Master’s expression suddenly change.

The old man wasn’t glaring at him anymore. The anger and humiliation had completely vanished from his weathered face.

His eyes were locked onto Dante’s shoulder, staring intently at the small, intricate insignia etched into the pauldron of his armor.

It was the [Zenith Epaulet], a unique, cosmetic proof-of-clear granted only to the entity that survived the Abyss-tier Spire.

The Warrior Master’s eyes widened in absolute, unfiltered horror.

"You..." the Warrior Master whispered, taking a slow, trembling step backward. "That mark..."

Dante looked down at the epaulet. "Yeah. What about it?"

Before he could respond, the system interface violently hitched. The standard, golden Class Advancement prompt shattered, turning a bruised, pulsing black.

[System Error: Class Advancement Rejected.]

[Reason: Target entity possesses a cosmic weight exceeding baseline Vanguard parameters.]

[Action Required: Manual Override.]