When a game NPC gains self-awareness, is it a bug or evolution?
Li Wei was once an ordinary blacksmith NPC in the game Black Tower, until a data fluctuation awakened him. He realized that he was living in a world built from code, and that the “official rules” as players saw them were nothing more than shackles to restrain the awakened.
Spatial resistance is his shield, and rule piercing is his weapon. To evade the authorities’ “data purge,” he joins forces with like-minded awakened beings, including a nun who wields holy light, an old man who knows tomb raiding, and a girl who can tame wolves. Together, they fortify the “Mirror Village,” a place no one knows about:
