He opened his browser. First stop: the Autodesk account page. After two-factor authentication, a captcha that asked him to identify every bicycle in a 4x4 grid, and a brief existential crisis about his own password memory, he was in.

He had won. Not by talent or speed—but by sheer, stubborn survival of the install.

At 3:15 AM, a red error flashed:

He imported the CAD file of the Tokyo tower. The wireframe snapped into place. He pressed "Render."

The installation restarted. 15%... 48%... 79%... The fan on his PC whirred like a jet engine. At 4:48 AM, the progress bar hit 100%.

The first tile of the render began to calculate. Leo leaned back, smiling. The deadline was still three hours away.