17 April 2135

People claimed that Earth was fully explored though, if you actually looked into it, you would find many islands that were visible in sight but were hidden from the public.

One of them was Lithus. A Top-secret research island owned by an international company. On the island, many things existed, though were built underground or around walls to protect from prying eyes.

One of them included an extremely tall building, though not from the ground.

The Mystique

Extending upto 5 floors high, it looked exactly as how you would expect a housing complex to be, just with a little futuristic touch. Below it though, was its true length. With a total of 22 floors underground, the Mystique was used as the headquarters of this island and served as the perfect cover.

Inside a room below the building, a couple of people were present in an area that looked like a lab. It was divided into two halves, the left side and the right side. There was a big glass wall separating the two, with a small door that required what seemed like a biometric code to access.

The left side of the room contained four completely brown metallic cabins. They took up barely any space. These things looked like escape pods to get out of a spaceship. The only thing which gave the knowledge that they were cabins was the fact that the front was made of glass with the same metal border.

The right side had an enormous control board. The board looked like a desk and covered the boundary of the two sides, facing the glass. It had many colorful buttons and wires leading to the rest of technological stuff in there.

To the opposite of the board were four desks. Each had a 2 monitor computer setup. The first one depicted a beautiful and realistic snow covered area. The second and the third depicted sales and marketing data with the former being upto 510%. The final one depicted a completely blank screen covered with greyish blocks.

There was also an extremely large screen just above the computers.

There were 4 people in the right side currently. Two of them were wearing business outfits. The man looking at the marketing and sales figures had slightly tanned skin, jet black hair and blue eyes. He looked to be about 30 and was leaning on the desk instead of sitting on the chair. An air of superiority came from him, but instead of arrogance, it had a base to support itself.

The other man was staring at the big screen. He had an extremely light skin tone, black hair with tints of brown, black eyes and an unreadable expression. He looked to be about 35. From him one could sense an unbreakable wall impression.

The other two were wearing casual outfits and were working on the computers. Random pieces of code occasionally came up on their screen and it looked as though they were coding.

The one on the right looked like the type of guy to stand out in just about anything. He had slightly blue hair and an extremely laid back vibe was coming of him.

The other one was the complete opposite of his partner, he wore glasses and was somehow able to blend in with people even if he wore clothes weirder than anything else. He had a scar on left arm and if one made eye contact with him, it would feel as though they were looking at a predator.

“Sword Master IV’s sales are doing great.”

One of the people reported. The person who spoke was the one who was previously checking the data in the computers.

Hearing the words, the man staring at the screen looked relieved for a moment but his expression immediately went back to normal.

“Bring them in.”

On his words the door towards his right connecting the room to rest of the building opened and four people wearing black suits came in. The suit was made of nano-elastic and had red lines on it. It also contained a red H symbol with a lightning shaped sign just above it, on the left side of the chest, just above the heart.

The four of them had an excited expression and looked as though they couldn’t wait to do whatever they were going to do.

They went towards the biometric door and opened it using some symbol engraved on their suits and went inside the left side.

“Are you sure we should do this? After all the world is still blank and we have at most, a few features presets.”

The one who asked the question was the coder who worked on the right side of the room and had a scar.

“Our goal is 100% simulation, if we can’t even do that, how will we create another world.”

The reply came from the man in the business suit, who was staring at the big screen. His eyes also had an air of seriousness while he spoke those words, though they soon got normal.

The words coming out of the man’s mouth might have shocked just about everyone. This whole lab was a test for a completely immersive VR game.

Known as Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), the game industry expanded extremely due to them. A total of 12 MMORPGs existed in the world but none had the VR tag before it.

Hearing Ozund’s words, Erk looked like he still wanted to argue but then thought better and left the issue.

He went over to the main circuit board and started to tap many buttons. With a very silent whoosh, the doors of the cabins on the other side opened up.

The people then walked towards the cabins and slowly got inside them. After everyone was settled, the doors once again closed.

“We’re good to go.”

Erk called out while tapping a couple more buttons and then walking back to his computer.

The big screen was then switched to the world. However, it was not blank anymore and instead was being filled with greenery at an extreme speed. A few mountains here and there also popped up.

Ozund, who was looking at the screen, maintained an eye contact even though the changing lights were enough to cause people five seconds of blindness.

“Ozund, were good to go.”

Erk called out once again.

“Huh, yeah go ahead.”

The second call out made him snap from his trance and he looked at the screen with a scary-serious light on his face.

“Alright.”

Erk sighed and then tapped a button on his computer. Afterwards, he took a key and inserted it in a slot just beside the monitor.

“Alright, full simulation test 24 commencing in 10 seconds.”

His voice was transmitted throughout the room due to him opening the microphone.

Seeing Erk’s hand on the key, his partner also tapped a few buttons on his keyboard and then clicked a green button. Chuckling, he spoke out.

“Ready when you are Erk.”

Seeing him behave like this Erk shook his head, but twisted the key towards the left side. Then he immediately he turned his attention towards the computer.

Inside the recently created world, four people dressed in shirts and shorts had appeared.

“Whoa dude, this is so realistic.”

“Yeah wonder how the company created this?”

The people inside started chatting with each other immediately.

“Can you hear me Arnold?”

“Huh, yeah boss but where the heck are you?”

“Alright, now try running and jumping.”

Ozund dismissed Arnold’s question and asked him one of his own.

“Sure boss”

He then jumped putting as much force as he could muster. Due to it being a completely different world, his legs were completely perfected for a human being and were capable of output at the level of Olympic athletes or even better.

“Whooah!”

His jump broke 1000 meters high in one second and he accelerated even farther.

Meanwhile, Erk and Lox were monitoring the in-game parameters and completely keeping track of the changes.

“He’s going upto 10 km now… and he just passed it, thankfully he’s slowing down.”

Chuckling, Lox kept updating the height of Arnold. Seeing this extremely weird situation, Ozund asked Erk.

“Any idea why this happened?”

“No, but it should be cause it’s not taking the real life parameters”

Hearing his words Ozund’s expression once again became worried.

‘We have to make this world completely realistic, otherwise it won’t work. And we only have 15 years.’

The more Ozund though about this issue, the more worried he became. And just when he was at the end of his thoughts.

“He’s about to come down, and that too at a speed of about 500 mph (Miles per hour).”

Lox’s announcement came in.

Looking at the picture inside the big screen, Ozund’s eyes were soon greeted to an extreme dust storm.

“He’s crashed, good enough that the pain receptors are all off in their cabins or he would have fainted from the pain.”

Lox once again reported the situation

“Yeah, that’s the only good thing I suppose.”

Erk replied and was about to continue when the monitors blared red. A male robotic voice came from the whole room.

“ERROR! ERROR! CRITICAL ERROR!”

“AREA 1’s SYSTEM INTEGRETY IS AT 50%. LEVEL: CRITICAL”

“STABILITY IS AT 12%. LEVEL: CRITICAL”

“AS 2 MAIN PARAMETERS ARE CRITICAL ACTIVATING PROTOCOL 9001.”

“IMMEDIATE EJECTION CONFIRMED.”

After the announcements were over, all the cabins door opened by their own and the area where the subject was supposed to lie pushed out 4 human beings.

“What? What happened?”

“Yeah, weren’t we in the game. How did we get out?”

Immediately after getting out, the people felt disorientated. But that was immediately fixed and they started chatting about what happened.

Looking at this from the other side, Ozund ordered Lox to open the gate and allow the people to go out.

“What happened? Check it out Erk. Now”

Hearing Ozund’s words he immediately picked up his speed in decoding what happened inside the game.

The main world was built upon an AI called Robin. To make sure the game ran smoothly and to also keep fixing the random bugs that popped over time, the AI was connected to a virtual terminal. As the AI monitored the complete game, the virtual terminal also received all its parameters.

“Hmm, it seems like the stability couldn’t hold on due to the virtual load of the users. It also looks like the quantum stability went to an all time low.”

“*Sigh* Ozund, this thing is going to cause a lot of trouble to you and I’m not gonna persuade you to give up, I know you won’t. I’m just saying, maybe there is another option for us?”

Hearing Erk’s words the usually expressionless expression was removed from his face.

“It’s not that I don’t want to look for another one, it’s just that we don’t have another option. Everything else has been tried.”

Sighing, he rubbed his temples and turned off the screen.

“Shut down the lab, the test is suspended till we figure out a way to get the stability and quantum networks to be stable.”

Saying so he walked over towards the big circuit board, pulled out a key and inserted it in a spot hidden from most eyes. He then twisted the key left.

With a small click sound, a hidden drawer went a little bit outwards. Opening it, Ozund removed piles of sheets and then finally got to the bottom.

At the very end, a small black box was kept. With a slight push of his hands, he popped open the box and removed a green crystal.

The crystal was in the shape of a emerald, completely symmetrical on both sides and glowed green from time to time.

Looking at it with a serious expression, Ozund thought to himself.

‘I’ll make sure to complete this program and save you. We still have 15 years left’

He then walked towards the door, tucking the crystal inside his coat pocket.