The Unbound Dungeon

Arcadia City is a glittering fortress of glass, ego, and marketing—built behind a wall everyone treats like a tourist attraction, even though the world outside is trying to eat them.
Noah Parker is just another exhausted research student until a breachling incident flips his life into something far worse than hero paperwork: a sarcastic System in his head declares him ADMINISTRATOR: NOAH PARKER and grants him ACCESS: PRIVATE DUNGEON (UNBOUND).
Loot becomes real. Rules become physics. And the System’s idea of “support” is heckling him while he bleeds.
Keeping it secret should be simple—except Noah’s lab partner Emily Zhang is smart, stubborn, and already demanding the truth.
Together they discover the dungeon doesn’t just offer power… it offers time: what feels like more than a day inside can pass as minutes outside.
That kind of advantage draws attention—from celebrity heroes like Skylark, from dangerous power-players like Selene Arkwright, and from the people who run Arcadia’s defenses.
Now the city wants what Noah has. Quietly. Officially. They ask him to use his “domain” to help create a covert initiative that could decide whether Arcadia survives the next wave from beyond the wall.
Noah can refuse… but the System keeps hinting he’s already building something bigger than a dungeon—something with an invoice attached.
In Arcadia, the real question isn’t whether you’ll awaken. It’s whether you’ll stay human after you do.