As he slowly came to , Vernon took a look outside, wondering what the time was.

He shakily got out of the pod, yawning as he took out some clothes and grabbed a Nutrient Solution from his mini-fridge, which was just beside his desk.

Drinking it, his mind finally relaxed enough, for him to think.

'Dang, I accidently fell asleep after logging out. The strain on the brain must have been insane for me to sleep for quite some time. My body's nutrients also seem to have been used up at an insane rate. Wonder why?'

Walking upto his desk, he wore his watch and finally checked the time.

21:12

Blinking, he rechecked the time making sure he was not reading it wrongly.

'What? I was not in the game for more than 2 hours, which should have at most put me at 6 pm. This means that I slept for 3 hours??'

This was a quite a considerable shock, considering humans could now live normally with around 4 hours of sleep. Even this was to help relax the mind.

Yawning again, Vernon recalled the events earlier, thinking on what could have been done better.

As he reached the end, he uncontrollably jerked again.

'Wait a second... Why exactly am I adapting to this so easily. I just killed three people and that's not even the main problem. I adapted to an unfamiliar fighting world way too quickly. I have completely become unbothered about the weird fantasy stuff, which should have taken me around 10 hours to do so, in just 1/5 of that time.'

Running a hand through his hair, Vernon thought on this issue for quite some time, before deciding to call someone on his watch, to help distract him.

Quickly, he found his best friend's number, and told him to meet at their common coffee shop, by 21:30.

Taking a glance around his house, he left and drove his electric bike to the shop.

…

In about 5 minutes, he reached his destination, 'The Blakey Cafe'.

Parking his vehicle, he walked inside the shop and noticing Giles wasn't there, he walked up to the register and decided to order two black coffees.

The register was being manned by an unimpressive looking man, with quite a big beard.

“Two black coffees for today Shaw. Make one of them a bit sweeter.”

“You got it Vernon. Is your friend, what's his name... ahh! Giles coming?”

“Yeah, so we'll also be needing a table for two.”

“Got it”. The man waved over one of the waiters. “Go ahead and guide this friend here, to a table for two.”

The waiter nodded and motioned for Vernon to follow him, as he walked towards one of the window tables.

“Thanks Shaw. See you”

“See you as well. Now, if you'll excuse me.”

Getting his sign, Vernon turned around and walked to where his waiter was standing.

The shop, though it was late, was still filled with many people, with some still arriving.

Taking his seat, he thanked the waiter and the man bowed at him and went to do whatever it was he needed to.

While waiting for Giles, he checked the cafe. The store was quite nicely built, made out of rosewood. Plants covered some parts of the walls, with many tables spread over the area of 1000 sq. Feet.

Looking over, he noticed groups of friends talking and laughing as they discussed whatever was the gossip.

Chuckling silently, he gazed around the shop, as his mind slowly wandered to what he saw in the newspaper earlier today.

Unfortunately, before he could think too deeply, a loud noise took him out of his daydream.

“Stop gazing aimlessly. Seriously, what would you do if not for me huh?”

A man was sitting in front of him. He looked around 25, with a small but organized mustache. He also sported a good muscle figure, with black hair and black eyes.

Smiling, Vernon took out his hand as he greeted his friend.

“Nice to see you too Giles. Though, you need to fix that beard. Even though you're only 18, you look like a 30's divorcee.”

Shaking his hand awkwardly, Giles looked at him with a serious gaze for a few seconds before smiling.

“Do I really? Well, I couldn't care less. Besides, you're the one who needs facial care. Why do you look like a panda?”

Vernon's smile froze for a second, before he sighed and rubbed the back of his head while starting to narrate the day's events.

Meanwhile, Giles listened intently, making sure he missed nothing. Only after Vernon was done, did he speak.

“Alright, that was nice to near. But, care to tell me why you're playing this?”

Taking a sip from his coffee, Vernon stayed silent for a while before sighing.

“I found her Giles.”

Giles stared at Vernon as if he was looking at an idiot. Then he sighed and took a sip from his coffee before speaking.

“I've heard that line 12 times. All of them were dead ends. You need to forget her Vernon. You can't live the rest of your life fixated on a promise and a girl.”

“I know, but I really saw her.”

“Of course you did. The next day, you're gonna be marrying her aren't you?”

Smash!

Vernon slammed his hand on the table, nearly breaking it in the process.

Giles continued staring at Vernon, doing nothing to stop the outburst, much less speak.

“Look... I know I might have been too fixated with her at some point. But, I really saw her. Check the newspaper. She's a Beta Tester for Integration.”

With those words, Giles finally displayed a bit of a surprise full expression.

“Newspaper? Alright, I'll see if you really found her this time.”

He waved over a waiter and told him to the get today's newspaper. Meanwhile they both continued to stare at each other, before Vernon broke the silence.

“I know you have your connections. Even if Beta Testers aren't saying much, you must know some stuff. Care to tell me what others have explained.”

“Sure. Honestly, you have a big headstart because of your early systems activation. So far, even I haven't heard about anybody else doing so. Anyways, let's get to it.”

“People seemed to have randomly spawned in different areas. Some are in villages, with some in flying cites and things of imaginations. They all seem to have some different stories as well. From what I could gather, I've come to a hypothesis.”

He leaned forward as he continued to speak.

“It seems that the level of things accessible to the player is directly proportional to the level of the area. This means, those in fancier areas are more likely to have higher options for exploration. Of course, from your experience, the risk also increases as per the level. Basically, fancier area is equal to high risk, high gain.”

Stopping, he started sipping his coffee again, as the waiter brought the newspaper over.

Giles took a long time reading over it, slowly drinking his coffee, as he turned the pages. Finally, he reached the entertainment section and his gaze stopped at one part.

Drinking another sip, he exhaled.

“Yup, that's her. That's Sophie.”

Vernon's face switched to a small smile as he heard his words.

“I knew that would get you. So, now that you see why I was playing the game, care to join me in finding her?”

“Hah, no. You found her in a game, that's who knows how long. It could be nearly enough impossible to find her. Have you considered that?”

“I have and I already have the answer. I used one of my three chances with the weird man to ask how to track a person. If I'm the first person to tier up, I'll get a chance to create an item, that can do that.”

“Oh boy. You're telling me, you used one of the three chances to ask fundamental questions, on a tracking device??”

“Yeah, besides I thought you were opposed to me playing games. What happened?”

“That was before I found that you actually found her. Besides, the amount of promotion into this game and the fact that it they just announced it as part of the 'VR Help' program is a pretty big attraction.”

“Wait. They made it a part of the help program? So there is a real money to virtual money exchange system?”

“Yup, just announced 10 minutes ago. It's a 100:1 ratio, with real money being more valuable. Besides, you can't exchange real money into virtual.”

“Can players sell other's game currency for real currency?”

“Maybe, but the game's still in it's infancy and literally all functions are locked. Though, most are convinced this will be the next big hit, maybe even the ultimate hit. Heh, the potential prospects make even me want to play it.”

“Join it then, The game goes live in 6 days. I'm sure you can get yourself a cabin, can't you?”

“Maybe. But, I'm going to wait for another week before deciding.”

Giles went quiet, taking some more sips out of his coffee as Vernon started thinking about what he had heard.

The 'VR Help' program was the first big step by the governments towards completing the second life program.

Launched 3 years ago, the program made it so that any VR game launched could register with the government, allowing them to create a virtual to real economy exchange rate.

The registered game would even be advertised and depending on it's user count, that could range from a product to the news.

Of course, those benefits didn't come for free. Each registered game had to pay 15% of it's total profits to the world bank, which was then distributed among the governments of the world. Of course, for a backbone like Hauss, the rate would proabably be lower.

'Hmm, if the governments are also promoting the game, then this doesn't make it a lossless thing. My position was already at risk and this now provides me a good backup. Though, for it to be accepted by the help program in less than 12 hours, just how many governments are supporting Hauss?'

Exhaling, Vernon took a sip of his own coffee as he looked up to meet Giles face.

“So, what is your next plan? Going to keep up your advantage? Hunt for her? Or just quit?”

Slightly stunned at his question, Vernon thought for a minute more, before finalizing.

“I'm going to log in a bit later tomorrow. Send me any other information you receive by 1 pm. As for looking for her? Yeah, I'm not stopping until I meet her at the very least.”

Wearing an awkward face, Giles looked at Vernon one last time, before downing his coffee in one gulp and getting up from his chair.

Looking towards Vernon, Giles spoke his last sentence as he turned around and walked away.

“Let her go man. It's not worth it. But, if you do reach her, what will you say to her? Huh?”

Watching as Giles left the shop, Vernon sat there for a couple of seconds before gulping his coffee and heading to the register.

There, he scanned his watch on the paying device and wished Shaw goodbye before leaving and heading back home.

While travelling on his scooter, Vernon kept looking at the sights around the city. The nightlife of the people continued onwards, looking like a lantern in the dark.

The past century with it's chaos had caused continents to shift around a lot more than they should have and now, the map looked nearly the inverse of the previous one.

Chersey was part of the Dominion Republic, a country formed from the mixture of the Balkan and European states, controlling what was called Valkos, a continent formed from the splitting of Asia and mixture of Europe.

The Infinitarian War 112 years ago caused many cities to be destroyed all around the world, and the sudden splitting of the globe afterwards did not help the situation. So, the newly formed or surviving governments decided to band together, even if it was for a decade at most.

They systematically deconstructed the old structures and using the newly found Marinus element deep below the ocean, they created new cities, lot tougher than previous ones.

Chersey was one of them. It was created mostly using the Marinus element and built upon the destroyed site of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

There were tons of rumors surrounding it's origin, mostly because somebody accidently turned into goo around 12 years ago because he fell inside a decommissioned bunker, that housed some nuclear waste.

Well, that might not have been surprising, if not for the fact that the government's search for nuclear material just 2 years before the case leaded no results.

So, that divided the public into two, those who focused on the fact that the nuclear waste had finally been found and those who wondered whether the government had just be lying and questioned the city's origins.

The case was eventually closed, being labelled as an accidental death though the real attention givers never let it go.

Pushing the history of Chersey to the back of his mind, Vernon parked his scooter in the driveway and went inside his house. Then, he quickly cleaned the house and immediately went to sleep.