Shh, shh, shh—

  Nate stood before the mirror, brushing his teeth and freshening up.

  The toothpaste he had created through Aether Weaving was indistinguishable from any store-bought product. In its settings, Nate had added features like whitening and breath-freshening—all of which worked fwlessly.

  “Aether Weaving—the power to modify reality’s data!”

  “Rather than creating something from nothing, making toothpaste is more like extracting something ‘false’ from the Magic Net and manifesting it in reality.”

  Turning virtual items into real-world objects was just one effect of Aether Weaving.

  After pondering for a moment, Nate came up with a brilliant idea.

  Once he finished brushing his teeth, washing his face, and changing out of his pajamas, he snapped his fingers. Activating his space-time magic—Flying Thunder God—he teleported to the [Dragon Hunter] game world.

  Open-pit coal mine.

  The Coal Dragon y on the ground, snoring thunderously.

  Suddenly, a golden fsh appeared, and Nate stood before it.

  “Long time no see, Coal Dragon.”

  “Hmm?”

  The Coal Dragon opened one massive eye, locking its gaze on the tiny human before it. A puff of bck coal dust shot from its nostrils.

  “It’s you again, you bastard!”

  It could only curse; it didn’t even bother trying to attack anymore. It couldn’t win, after all. Thanks to the cursed seal restricting its movements, the Coal Dragon was effectively trapped in a cage.

  “I’ve been pondering something for a while,” Nate said with a smile, ignoring the dragon’s anger. “Your kind is too powerful. Even with a forty-pyer team, it’s nearly impossible to defeat you.”

  The term pyer team no longer fazed the Coal Dragon. With a snort, it scoffed:

  “Pitiful humans will need another 10,000 years to defeat me!”

  Except for the one in front of it—this guy was no mere human.

  Nate chuckled.

  “I just thought of a way to fix this problem.”

  Waving his hand, he activated Aether Weaving and summoned a control panel. His fingers flew across an invisible keyboard, quickly writing lines of code.

  “Between strengthening pyers and weakening bosses, weakening your kind seems more practical.”

  He began inputting debuffs:

  Weakness Impntation

  Defense Reduction

  Speed Reduction

  Attack Reduction

  After compiling these debuffs, Nate pressed a glowing red Confirm button.

  In the next moment, a beam of purple light descended from the sky, striking the Coal Dragon’s head. The purple light consisted of strings of code—on closer inspection, it was actually a stream of data.

  “Aaaah!”

  The Coal Dragon convulsed as if being electrocuted, letting out a pained cry.

  “You bastard human! What did you do to me?”

  “You were too strong,” Nate replied casually, “so I slightly adjusted your attributes.”

  Using his Six Eyes, he observed the dragon carefully before nodding in satisfaction.

  “You’re at the perfect difficulty now. The next team of pyers should be able to defeat you.”

  The Coal Dragon smmed its cws against the ground, rising to its feet.

  “A curse? Impossible! A mere curse shouldn’t affect me!”

  Dragons were naturally resistant to magic—especially curses. Yet the Coal Dragon could undeniably feel its strength diminishing. What it didn’t realize was that this wasn’t a curse at all; it was a direct modification of reality’s data.

  Nate thought to himself, Aether Weaving is incredibly useful.

  Then his thoughts turned to another problem.

  In [Dragon Hunter], the issue of defeating bosses was resolved. But now there was another concern: Why defeat the boss in the first pce?

  According to the game’s lore, pyers were Dragon Syers summoned by a Great Sage from a parallel world to save a dragon-ravaged nd. While a sense of duty could motivate pyers, it wasn’t enough on its own. There had to be a tangible reward. After a hard-fought battle, no one wanted to walk away empty-handed.

  “Looting corpses is an essential part of any game!”

  Nate mused aloud.

  “If I use the Magic Net to create pyers’ gear in the virtual world, then utilize Aether Weaving to ‘extract’ it into reality, it could work just like the toothpaste. Pyers would receive real-world rewards for their in-game victories.”

  This idea was feasible, though it would consume a significant amount of magic power. Fortunately, thanks to Fairy Heart—an infinite source of magic—Nate no longer worried about his reserves. To be honest, he hadn’t checked the Magic Net’s magic reserves in ages.

  “Equipment will also have tiers. A one-star boss drops one-star equipment, while a five-star boss drops five-star equipment. Pyers can start with lower-difficulty bosses, collect equipment, and then challenge higher difficulties.”

  As a game designer, Nate put himself in the pyers’ shoes, considering the challenges they might face. Beyond equipment, there’s another issue: mounts.

  In a reality-based game, the map was enormous, and relying solely on walking or horse-drawn carriages would make travel painfully slow. Spending all one’s time just traveling between dungeons would be tedious, so bosses needed to drop mounts.

  Nate turned his gaze to the Coal Dragon, locking eyes with it. One human and one dragon stared at each other. Suddenly, Nate smiled.

  “Coal Dragon, what’s your name?”

  “Brunfield!”

  The Coal Dragon snorted.

  “Human, what do you want? You’ve sealed me in this pce, constantly sending those immortal Dragon Syer mages to their deaths. Is this some kind of twisted training?”

  Nate didn’t answer. Instead, his fingers danced across the invisible keyboard, crafting a new program. It took him three full minutes to complete. In simple terms, Nate created a new drop item:

  [Brunfield’s Rein]

  Type: Flying Mount

  Effect: Summon or dismiss a rideable Coal Dragon.

  Drop Rate: 0.7%

  Satisfied, Nate pressed a button. Instantly, countless 0s and 1s converged before him, forming what looked like a dragon generated by a 3D printer. The newly created dragon was identical to the Coal Dragon—completely indistinguishable at a gnce.

  “What... is that?!”

  Brunfield stammered, dumbfounded.

  “I copied your data and created a mount. What do you think?”

  Nate chuckled.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just a mount. Other than flying quickly, it has no special abilities.”

  He snapped his fingers. The mount fpped its wings and took flight, circling within the sealed bck sphere before nding gracefully. Nate nodded in satisfaction.

  “Pyers work hard to defeat you, so they deserve some rewards, right? I set the drop rate pretty low—only 0.7%. You’re in the SSR tier when it comes to rarity.”

  The drop-rate system was inspired by gacha mechanics from games like [Celestial Pokémon Pokémon], where the probability wasn’t fixed; chances rose with repeated attempts. Each pyer’s probability was calcuted independently, and the overall team rate would average out.

  In short, mount drop rates would be tiered: the cooler the mount, the stronger the boss, and the lower the drop rate for the reins.

  The Coal Dragon’s face darkened even more.

  “Mount? Reins?! Human, what exactly are you trying to do?”

  “Turn this world into a game.”

  Nate snapped his fingers again, and the flying Coal Dragon mount vanished without a trace.

  Smiling, he added:

  “As for dungeon repeats, Brunfield, remember: a dragon’s value lies in its bor. Make sure you work hard.”

  Bleam