By the end of the first week, seventeen people had tried to kill him.
Not all of them understood why. Two of them had been hired by someone who did. The rest were operating on rumor — the whisper that had spread through the faction networks with the speed of anything people weren't supposed to know: an unranked class with no ceiling, no faction, and no recorded history. To the factions, that translated to either a threat or a resource, and the factions had very specific opinions about resources that weren't yet controlled by anyone.
Marcus had spent the week learning his abilities by using them in a running state.
[Sovereign's Edict: Passive. Any command issued by the Sovereign carries systemic weight. NPCs and System-adjacent entities process commands as authoritative. Effect scales with level and Intent.]
He had discovered, on day three, that Intent was a variable with a broader definition than he'd expected.
The faction scout in the alley had not expected a Level 1 to tell her to stop and have it work. Marcus hadn't either, honestly. But the System was apparently very literal about its own descriptions.
"You should know," she said, frozen mid-draw by something she clearly didn't understand and resented, "that there are forty-three people looking for you right now."
"Forty-four," Marcus corrected, because the one behind him had been there for six minutes. He turned to look at him. "Tell your employer I'm not available for recruitment."
He left her unfrozen, because threats you let walk away carry a different message than threats you don't.