Tyler's fingers flew over the keyboard in a blur, a soft clack-clack-clack echoing like rapid fire across the quiet apartment.
"A function here... a string there… another variable…" he murmured, his eyes scanning dozens of lines per second.
The screen flashed with code. Complex algorithms formed and reformed, compiled, debugged, executed, tested—over and over, all in the span of seconds. His old laptop now ran like it had a soul of its own, warped by his superspeed aura and somehow keeping pace with his unnatural tempo.
Tyler sat shirtless at the desk in his living room, a half-eaten pancake on the table next to him and a chaotic tangle of energy drinks stacked like trophies nearby. His eyes gleamed with manic focus.
The moment Tracy left for work, he'd jumped into motion, executing the plan he had refined throughout the night—while she slept just a room away, unaware of the quiet experiments he ran in the shadows.
It had started as a simple thought.
But then… it clicked.
He could copy everything.
Not just powers.
Knowledge. Muscle memory. Physical capabilities.
He was sure of it. After sleeping with Tracy, things in his body shifted. Limber in ways he never was before. Some of the positions they'd tried were straight-up yoga acrobatics—positions he never thought were humanly possible, let alone pleasurable. But his body adapted, moved like hers. Fluid. Loose.
And that's when the real idea hit him.
Money.
Not by robbing a bank. Not by gambling. Not yet.
He would build something.
A videogame.
Fast, clean, profitable. All he needed was a keyboard, a plan, and the copied knowledge of every top software engineer in the state.
So, using his superspeed, he ran to every major software company—Google Dev Wing, ZypherSoft, Infinity Engine Studios—even that shady building where the lights never turned off. He ran in, copied their developers' skills when no one was looking, touched a shoulder here, brushed a hand there.
And then ran home.
Now, Tyler was the best game developer in the world.
And he had a game to prove it.
"Ashen Crown."
A fantasy open-world MMORPG unlike anything that had ever existed.
No artificial limits.
Players would spawn as nameless wanderers in a continent of living history—Aeserya, a vast, breathing world of warring kingdoms, ancient relics, secret cults, and eldritch gods sleeping beneath the earth. Every single character had a backstory, every city pulsed with a rhythm of its own, and no two playthroughs would ever be the same.
It wasn't just a game.
It was a world.
Infinite exploration: From glacial mountains to jungle-covered ruins, from drowned cities to floating isles in the sky, the world stretched with no loading screens and no borders.
Endless classes: Classic ones like Warrior and Mage… but also unique combinations: Chrono Alchemist, Dreamweaver, Blood Monk, Iron Chef. And most of all—Hidden Classes—locked behind secret quests, cryptic riddles, or obscure in-game behaviors.
Advanced NPC AI: Every NPC responded with dynamic personalities. They learned. They remembered. Betray a town, and its guards would be on edge next time. Save a child, and she might grow up to lead a revolution in your name.
Player choice mattered: Morality sliders? Outdated. Ashen Crown tracked every action across hundreds of variables. Overthrow a tyrant? Sure. But was he the only thing keeping a demonic plague at bay? Your ending would reflect it.
Combat and skill trees: Fluid, brutal, deep. From swordplay to spirit summoning, Tyler programmed over 10,000 animations by hand—and stitched them together with an adaptive combat engine that responded to player style and reaction speed.
Leveling? Yes. But in more than numbers. Skills evolved with use. Swordplay got sharper. Magic gained quirks. Speak to enough NPCs and your charisma unlocked hidden dialogue options. Mix enough potions and your hands remembered recipes.
Graphics? Unreal. Every droplet of rain, every ray of moonlight filtered through trees, every gust of wind bending a field of grass—it all looked better than real life.
Tyler leaned back and cracked his knuckles, the glow of the title screen dancing across his face. "ASHEN CROW" pulsed in ethereal letters, a massive obsidian castle looming in the background, shrouded by shifting clouds and arcane lightning.
He smirked.
Game finished.
He had spent the last three hours, running simulation after simulation in superspeed, diving into every potential questline, killing and saving kings, burning down cathedrals and rebuilding temples, unlocking secret classes and then deliberately dying to see what came next.
He'd played his game harder than anyone ever could.
And he fixed every bug. Every inconsistency. Every framerate dip.
It was perfect.
Without hesitation, he opened Steam Developer Tools, zipped the game's master build, encrypted the anti-cheat, added the watermark system, filled in the publisher data, naming his studio "Zero Studios" on a whim, then uploaded everything.
Click.
Upload Complete.
The store page populated. A trailer he'd auto-generated with AI-enhanced footage began processing. The description was simple, vague, and mysterious, just enough to make the forums speculate wildly. Then he hit the final button.
"SUBMIT FOR REVIEW."
Now the Steam moderators just had to approve it.
Tyler stood up, arms stretching above his head, joints cracking in a satisfying rhythm.
He stared at the screen, at the "Pending Approval" banner.
He already knew.
Once this went live, it would break the internet.
He had built a living world.
And soon...
He would be rich.
...
Tyler blinked awake, disoriented for half a second.
The apartment was dim now, the only light a soft orange hue bleeding through the blinds. His laptop still hummed faintly on the desk, the fan working overtime after hours of abuse. He'd meant to close his eyes for just a minute—but superspeed or not, his brain had finally demanded downtime.
Then—ping.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand beside him.
He sat up groggily, rubbed his eyes, then snatched the device and unlocked it with a swipe.
An email notification sat at the top of his inbox.
[SteamWorks Notification: Your game "Ashen Crown" has been reviewed and approved.]
His eyes widened. He sat up straighter.
"This fast already?" he muttered, thumbing through the details. "Don't they usually take, what, two to five business days for reviews?"
But there it was. Greenlit. Live.
The store page was already up.
Excitement surged through his chest as he scrambled back to his desk. His fingers moved on instinct, the keyboard lighting up beneath his touch as he opened Steam and refreshed his Developer Dashboard.
And then he saw it.
Ten copies sold.
In one hour.
At forty bucks each.
$400 in sixty minutes—with zero marketing. No ads. No streamers. Just a cryptic game title, an eerie trailer, and some screenshots that looked pulled from another dimension.
Tyler exhaled a laugh, low and disbelieving.
He was going to get rich.
Not next year. Not someday.
Now.
Fast.
To be continued...
***
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How was this chapter? Liked it?
Since some of you suggested me to make him rich, I found this way, I mean, there are a lot of other ways to get super rich with his powers, but I thought this was the most intriguing.