Kain Harker barely registered the storm raging outside his dorm room as he sat hunched over his computer. The soft glow of the screen illuminated his face, lines of code flying by as he hacked into his favorite game, World of Eternis. The game was a massive VMMORPG set in a sprawling medieval world filled with monsters, magic, and adventure. Kain wasn't a regular player, though—he preferred bending the game's rules, creating characters with god-like stats, and hacking the system to his advantage.

Tonight, he was working on his most ambitious project yet: hacking a character to have infinite strength, speed, and magical ability. The code was almost ready. All that was left was to execute it.

A loud clap of thunder shook the dorm, but Kain didn't flinch. His fingers hovered over the "Enter" key, ready to unleash his creation. But just as he pressed the key, a blinding flash of light filled the room.

BANG!

The surge of electricity hit him before he even realized what was happening. His body tensed up, and pain shot through his chest as his computer exploded in a shower of sparks. He could barely move, barely breathe, before the darkness swallowed him whole.

---

Kain felt weightless, as though he was floating in a sea of nothingness. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was dead or dreaming. Slowly, he became aware of sounds—a rush of water, distant shouting, the feeling of being pulled, and then…

The world around him was cold and blurry as Kain Harker gasped for air. He coughed up water, feeling his lungs burn, his chest heaving. A small, panicked voice called out to him from nearby.

"Kain! Please wake up!"

He forced his eyes open, seeing a boy his age standing over him, tear-streaked and frightened. Kain blinked, confused. His whole body felt wrong—small, weak. It wasn't his body. As he lay on the wet riverbank, the events of the past few moments were a haze in his mind. The storm, the lightning... his computer exploding. He remembered dying.

But now... he was alive. Or was he?

"Kain, are you okay?" the boy whimpered, shaking him. "You fell in the river!"

Fell in the river? Kain thought, still disoriented. He glanced around, recognizing the riverbank, the grassy hills beyond, and the faces of two adults—his parents—running toward him. His body trembled with cold, but something else surged through him: foreign memories, images, and sensations.

He wasn't Kain Harker, the college student and hacker, anymore.

He was a five-year-old boy in a medieval village. The memories of his life as this boy flooded his mind—the sound of his father's stories by the fire, tales of knights, dragons, elves, and demons. Memories of playing with friends, running through the fields, and watching adventurers pass through the village filled his mind, blending with his own. Kain now knew that this world wasn't just a random medieval setting.

It was the world of Eternis—the very game he had once hacked.

His head spun with the realization. The game, the one he'd spent years playing, was now his reality. Somehow, he had been reincarnated into this boy's body after nearly drowning in the river.

---

His parents reached him, worry etched on their faces. His mother, a kind-faced woman with soft brown hair, knelt beside him, cradling his face in her hands. "Kain, oh thank the gods, you're awake!" she cried, her voice shaking with relief. "What were you thinking, playing near the river?"

Kain looked up at her, her name springing into his mind "Elena" His mother. And behind her, the man whose strong, weathered hands now rested on his shoulder "Darren" his father.

"I'm fine," Kain muttered, still dazed. His voice sounded small, childish. He sat up slowly, his body trembling with both cold and confusion. He wasn't used to this body—this boy's body—but the memories helped guide him. Darren gave him a proud smile, though his face was stern.

"You've got to be more careful, boy. You're not old enough to be jumping into rivers like that," Darren said, his tone gruff but full of concern.

Darren was an adventurer, one who often returned home with scars and wild stories of beasts and battles. From him, Kain had learned about the world, about the creatures that roamed it—the elves, dwarves, dragons, and demons. It was all familiar to Kain now, not only because of the boy's memories but because this world was the very game he had once hacked. He knew it inside and out.

I really am inside the game, he thought, his heart pounding with disbelief. His head buzzed with questions. How? Why?

But there was no time to figure that out now. He needed to adapt.

---

Later that evening, after being dried off and fed, Kain sat in his small bedroom. The modest home his family lived in felt cozy yet small, and he could hear the crackling of the fire and the faint murmur of his parents' voices from the other room.

His memories were still settling, the knowledge of this world blending with what he knew from his past life. His father's stories made him realize the truth—he was in the Kingdom of Arathia, one of the human kingdoms in the world of Eternis, a world filled with monsters, magic, and endless adventure.

He sat up on his bed, staring at his small hands in disbelief. How do I get back? he wondered, though a part of him was thrilled by the idea of living in a world of magic and swordplay.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, a faint light flickered in the corner of his vision. He froze. Floating in front of him was a system interface, similar to the ones he used to see in the game. But this one was different—it was his Programmer's Virtual Toolbox.

The one he had used to hack the game.

> Programmer's Toolbox

Status: Active

Tools available: IDE, Debugger, Java, C++, Python, Code Execution

Level up by training or defeating monsters to unlock advanced capabilities.

Kain stared at the interface, heart racing. It was here. The toolbox he had used to manipulate the game's code was now part of his reality, too. Every tool he needed to hack the game's rules was at his disposal.

I can change anything, he thought, the possibilities flashing through his mind.

For now, his abilities were limited by his level, but he knew how this worked. As he trained and grew stronger, more features of the toolbox would unlock. He could even write new code to alter his stats, tweak the game world, and give himself advantages.

However, his body was still weak—a child's body. He remembered how stats worked in the game; even if he hacked his strength or agility, he'd still need to train his body to handle those changes. Without training, his body wouldn't know how to utilize the power properly.

Kain's mind raced with ideas. He could already access the basics: tweak his strength, speed up his learning, or even modify his abilities. But he'd need to be smart about it. If he didn't train, his body would reject the stats—he wouldn't be able to handle the power.

His mouth curled into a small smile. I can work with this.

He brought up his stat window, another familiar feature from the game. As expected, they were abysmally low.

> Kain

Level: 1

Age: 5

Strength: 2

Agility: 3

Intelligence: 15

Mana pool: 15

Skills: None

His intelligence was his only decent stat, but that was no surprise. He hadn't been much of a fighter in his previous life. But he could change that now. With the Toolbox, he could make himself stronger, faster, and smarter than anyone in this world.

But first, he needed to take things slow. He didn't want to attract attention too soon. The memories of the boy's life told him that this world was dangerous. He couldn't just go around flaunting powers beyond a normal human's capabilities—at least, not yet.

Closing the interface, Kain lay back on his bed, staring at the wooden ceiling of his room. He was in a completely new world, with a second chance at life and a system that allowed him to manipulate it however he wanted.

All I have to do is play my cards right.

Tomorrow, he would start his journey—both to grow stronger and to learn how to truly take advantage of the Programmer's Toolbox. And as he drifted off to sleep, he couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement bubbling within him.

The world of Eternis was his to hack, and he was just getting started.