Chương 123: Chapter 122: The Founder's Files, and a Family Tree of Deadbeats

The massive holographic screen at the center of Station 50 crackled with static, then flared to life in pale blue light. The archive timestamp used Tower-local chronology; its matching Earth-standard field was corrupted. The same brown-haired, disheveled man appeared again — white lab coat over a t-shirt printed with some cartoon character, round glasses perched on his nose.

He was typing on a mechanical keyboard with one hand and slurping from a steaming bowl of instant noodles with the other, talking to the camera in a tired, half-checked-out voice:'Project operations log, entry 4, 028... So today corporate back on Earth officially pulled all research funding for the Hyperion Global Ecological Restoration and Entertainment Project. Apparently our open-world game was burning through too much power, and they want us to shut the servers down.

But I've got three years sunk into coding the World Tower's climate cycle system, and I'm not letting that go to waste. So — screw it. I'm just going to leave the servers running quietly in the background overnight.' The man on screen dug a finger in his ear, then took a bite of a sausage.

'Funding for a writers' room dried up too, so I was too lazy to design a proper political system from scratch. I just copy-pasted a Western feudal structure and some wuxia sect stuff I found online and let it run itself. While I was at it I threw together a boss called the Demon Lord for the Demon Realm, tossed in a couple of Saintesses and Heroes so it'd hit all the trending tags. I left an emergency maintenance account under the Vance name for whichever descendant finds it.

It is scoped to station repair, not ownership of people, countries, or their property. Hope none of my unlucky future grandkids gets eaten by some monster I slapped together in five minutes... Anyway, shift's over. Going to bed.' Click. The recording ended. The screen faded to a calm blue. Lucian stood frozen in front of the central console.

He grabbed his own head with both hands, tipped his face up at the ceiling full of fiber-optic cable, and screamed until his voice cracked: You absolute disaster of an ancestor! You were so lazy you nearly got your own great-great-grandson eaten alive by a Demon Lord you slapped together in your spare time! Evelyn, still in the leather swivel chair, was doubled over laughing so hard tears streamed down behind her silver-framed glasses. She pounded the desk with both palms. This book is hosted on another platform.

Read the official version and support the author's work. Ha! I told you! This whole maintenance layer is an unfinished software build somebody shoved straight into production with zero upkeep! At the edge of the glass floor, Eleanor stood frozen solid, both hands clutching the royal scepter like a statue. The First Princess's blue eyes were fixed wide on the rotating world-structure diagram on the screen. She turned to Lucian, voice shaking. So... countless generations of Solaris rulers.

Our founding institutions began as political scaffolding your ancestor copied into an unfinished project? Lucian turned to her, cleared his throat, and waved his hands in a hurried attempt at comfort. Don't overthink it. At least your family turned a lazy template into a functioning dynasty. That's an excellent return on terrible source material. Eleanor glared at him, cheeks burning red with equal parts embarrassment and fury. She stepped forward and thumped a silk-gloved fist lightly into his arm.

"You absolute menace." WHRRM! The central console suddenly flared with brilliant gold light. A metal biometric scanning tray slid out in front of Lucian: [VANCE LINEAGE ADMINISTRATOR VERIFICATION REQUIRED]. Lucian pressed his right hand flat onto the scanner. A red laser swept across his fingerprints, reading down into the blood in his veins. Ting! Ting! Ting!

The Station 50 biometric console shuddered, gold text bursting across its display: [VANCE-LINEAGE CREDENTIAL VERIFIED] [STATION 50 MAINTENANCE CONSOLE UNLOCKED] [AUTHORIZED TOOL: SOURCE CODE REFACTORING] Scope: Diagnose and repair documented Station 50 subsystems only. Sealed floors, property registries, and world-scale rules remain outside current authority. [ENERGY SOURCE IDENTIFIED] Station reserve quota — infrastructure power, not Host Mana. Available only through approved maintenance operations. BOOM!

A deep, resonant hum rolled through all fifty of the World Tower's lower floors. Maintenance maps for lower-floor mineral surveys, titanium refineries, and the cross-realm rail network unfolded across the display, each still carrying its existing owner, charter, or treaty restriction. Behind him, Sylvia stared at the infrastructure map while Astra kept eating her ice cream. Sylvia swallowed.

"Lucian... your bloodline left you maintenance access to an ancient station." Astra nodded at the console.

"Useful. Can it fix the ice-cream machine?" Lucian stood in the middle of the control room, looking out at the endless sea of clouds through the reinforced glass. The old prophecies suddenly looked less like divine fate and more like ten thousand years of people interpreting neglected machinery. Whatever the Founders had intended, the inhabitants had long since made this unfinished world their own. BEEP BEEP BEEP! WOOO... WOOO... WOOO!

The red alarm lights on Station 50's ceiling suddenly began flashing in a frenzy. The automated defense system's mechanical voice screeched through the room: [MYTHIC-TIER SECURITY ALERT!] The Automated Judgment Engine on Floor 60 has begun an automated wake cycle. Trigger: Overdue-account maintenance credential detected. Purification system: arming; firing sequence pending a legacy authorization check. Evelyn jerked upright and smacked a palm against her forehead.

"Damn it! The server's auto-defense bot thinks you're running a pirated copy — it's about to nuke the entire continent, Lucian!" Lucian rolled up his sleeves and pulled out a silver dagger, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Great-great-grandfather... you left me an unpaid subscription, and now your own descendant's gotta go fix the bug with a knife."