Time is holy. Money is sacred. And most importantly, in a world that never sleeps, caffeine makes the world go round.

Alex was only on her 6th Red Bull at 13:00. She sat in her office under Toronto's City Hall where the Path's headquarters was. On her screen was the replay of a blonde little shit wrecking through the corridors she painstakingly paid for with her own money.

Her eyes twitched at the incompetence of her subordinates. They said it was some kid awakening in the scanning facility and some kind of freak accident. They even told her ‘the kid's telekinesis was too strong,' as if she cared about their excuses while watching her money go down the drain with each psychic wave.

You can't be telling me that a bunch of Awakened adults can't suppress a 12 year old's awakening rampage. What did I even pay them for?!

Witch Raven, one of her most trusted corner cutting subordinates, was who Alex sent. As expected, she was successful in containing the little snot nosed kid. But she also took the kid in for herself. Even gave him pay, dental, and benefits, the whole nine yards.

Definitely didn't see that one coming.

On a more important note, it was now 13:20. The perfect time to go for a coffee run. Standing up from her desk, she moved towards the door when it suddenly opened.

"Well shit, didn't expect you to be awake," Raven said. "What happened to your caffeine nap?"

"Lost my mood," Alex said.

"Coffee run?"

"Yup. Now move, bitch."

Raven opened the door wider, allowing her to easily pass through. They moved along the corridor of the underground hub of the Path. Exiting through a revolving door, they came out of city hall and into the streets, which made Alex wince at how bright the night (day) was.

"So," Alex said. "You gonna share that kid?"

"Maybe, what do I get?" Raven said.

"I hate you."

"Feisty, aren't we?"

"Who's paying for my corridors?"

"Not my problem."

"Oh yes it definitely is," Alex said, her voice oozing with seriousness as she gritted her teeth.

"Hey, the kid actually has talent. Blame your subordinate for bringing a ticking bomb into HQ."

"Who's the idiot that brought the kid?"

"Pretty sure it was something like Jonathan or Carl?"

Arriving at Starbucks, a lineup of late lunch coffee goers had formed. By Alex's calculation, and how this was the fastest franchise in the city, it'd take at least 10 minutes to reach the end of the line and then 2 more minutes to wait for her drink. It was 12 minutes of unacceptable waste of time.

Alex walked right up to the end of the line and pushed the customer back waiting to order behind her and Raven.

"Hey, lady, what the hell ya doin'?!" the man behind her shouted.

"I own this place, " Alex said, flipping him off then turning back to the barista behind the counter. "Give me a Caramel Crunch Frappucino, 3 pumps caramel, 3 pumps white chocolate, Venti. And for her, a black coffee, grande. Make it quick."

The barista behind the counter didn't bother charging Alex. She was a regular and the literal owner of the chain. Waiting in the pickup area, Alex counted 2 minutes and 2 seconds for her order to arrive.

With one sip of her drink, the dull throbbing at the crown of her head gradually subsided as they walked back towards city hall.

"So, what you up to?" Alex asked.

"About to head home," Raven replied.

"You registering that kid to the Path?"

"You jealous?"

Alex took a big sip of her frappuccino. "The kid probably thinks you're ugly anyways."

"Still my win.," Raven shrugged. "And Boss, careful with those street crossings. Don't wanna get in trouble with the Knights again."

"Yeah, whatever. They can't do shit anyways," Alex said.

"Bye now.," Raven waved her goodbye and went off in another direction. Her form melded into the crowd, and when Alex blinked once, she was gone. Not even a bat of an eye from this apathetic crowd at a woman suddenly disappearing right in front of them.

Typical downtown folks. But what could she even say? She was one of them.

As she was arriving at a crosswalk, from behind her, a child was running down the street while being dragged by her husky. The crosswalk had just changed to red, and the dog wasn’t stopping. An accident on the street would cause further delays in getting back to work.

Resource access: Air. Resource access: Ether(10). Function: Compress. Function: Solidify. Alter: Shape. Alter shape apply as Wall. Execute: 0.1 ms. Function: moving target trajectory 5, direction: front. Construct and activate.

1 millisecond before the husky could enter the crosswalk, a solid wall of impenetrable compressed air materialized in front of it. It bounced off, completely stopping its momentum and yelping, drawing the attention of the crowd.

The child, on the other hand, had fallen face forward onto the sidewalk. Getting up, she started tearing up at the gashes that the rough surface had left behind on her knees and elbows.

"There, there, don't cry. It's just a little scratch." Alex crouched down to her level and patted the child on the head. Pulling out a chocolate bar from her pocket, she extended it to the almost crying child. "If you want this, promise me you won't cry."

The child nodded and held out her hand. Her silent hiccups from suppressing her tears were too cute for Alex.

Putting the chocolate bar in her hand, the child opened it immediately and took a big bite. While doing so, Alex rubbed her fingers across where the gash had formed on her knees and hands.

Resource access: Qi(5). Resource access: Organic. Predefined Function: Healing. Target: child. Construct, shape, film. Apply on skin layer.

A subtle green glow enveloped the child's skin and hands. She didn't notice it as she kept chewing on the chocolate bar while protecting it from the husky that was trying to get a lick. Soon enough, the child's injuries were completely cured.

"There, now it doesn't hurt no more, right?" Alex asked.

"Yeah! It doesn't hurt!" the child said. "Thank you!"

Behind them, a woman came running towards them. From her expression, she must've been the child's mom.

"I'm so sorry for bothering you!" the mom said, bowing and taking her child.

"It's ok, at least she didn't get hurt."

The mom then looked at the dog, who somehow understood what happened. The dog's ears fully folded back, lowering its head.

"Thanks again, miss…?"

"Alex,." She said, turning around. That whole interaction took around 47 seconds. A waste of time, and the crosswalk was about to turn red in 3 seconds. A couple of kids rushed to make the light, and so did she, except in a more casual walk.

While walking towards the other side of the road, a blaring horn of a garbage truck came barreling down the busy downtown streets. Alex took one sip of her frappuccino as she watched it slowly crash into her.

If this thing hits her, it'd get crumpled sideways and probably ricochet somewhere anyways. The problem was the bystanders witnessing how a garbage truck could bounce around and be completely prevented from causing any casualties.

Oh well.

The knights couldn’t do shit to her anyway.

Suddenly, a foreign magic circle with rune inscriptions appeared below her. Only the knights could've made such a ridiculously traditional spell with old looking runes. But what's important was... she hadn’t even done anything yet!

Alex tried to cast a spell to get out of this situation—her spell pathways jerked and sputtered. She couldn't access the resources to dispel this ridiculous spell. The circle grew brighter and brighter until it filled her whole vision with white.

...

...

...

Slowly opening her eyes, what she saw was no longer the familiar streets of Toronto. In front of her was a medieval-looking throne with a giant red carpet in the middle. Banners lined the walls. Two crossed swords and a lion's paw were embroidered into them. Everywhere she looked were podiums filled with onlookers.

In front of the throne was a line of fully plated warriors that seemed to be around Mid to Late-Resonant stage (3rd step of Earth’s Awakened Hierarchy). There were 3 Early-Harmonic and 1 Mid-Harmonic (4th step). Each of their gold- gilded armours glinted in the light that came from the window behind the throne.

On the throne was a fat man with a golden crown that had a huge rectangular emerald embedded in it. His hair was white and the only hair he had was at the sides of his head.

Beside the king was a woman with long, flowing white hair. Not the kind that looked old, but sleek white that looked natural, as if she was born with it. She wore a flowing off white dress that looked like it came out of the Victorian era with frills and all that shit.

Alex wouldn't get caught wearing something like that. Even the modern feminine dresses that she saw in Aritzia were enough to make her vomit. She did prefer business dresses.

Now, looking around her, four other people were caught up in whatever this was: two boys and two girls. They were all inside a ritual circle that had the same foreign runic inscriptions as before they were hit by the garbage truck.

"Oh heroes from another world. Welcome to the world of Nulfrae and to the kingdom of Dragus! I am Reinglas, the king who has summoned you. Beside me is my daughter, Alizia." The king stood up. "Please, heroes, save our world from the demons of corruption that dwell in the wilderness!"

A loud applause boomed across the whole throne room. Some on the podiums leaned over the railing. Whispers and conversations could be heard from everywhere all at once.

"Wait, hold on," Alex said, holding up her hands and walking forward.

This was met with the guards in front of the throne putting their hands on the hilts of their swords at their waists.

Alex continued anyway, "So you're telling me this fat, ugly bastard summoned me to this medieval magical shithole?"

"Shh!" Tthe girl beside her held a finger to her mouth. "Can't you see their swords? Just shut up and listen!"

"Heroes! The first thing you must learn is that everyone has what our world calls the Spirit Sign. To open it, you must say 'status' and will the Spirit Sign to show itself."

What kind of nonsensical thing is that? That just sounds like something straight out of stupidity that she read from books half a century ago. That's so outdated.

When the four other kids beside her said the word 'status', they all seemed completely baffled at what was in front of them. In fact, Alex could see it too. A blue screen had materialized in front of all four of them, which looked exactly like a status screen, except the numbers were blurred enough that it was impossible to tell what was inside the other four's status.

"Status," Alex whispered, willing the whatever Spirit Sign to come up. And lo and behold, a blue screen appeared in front of her with information that she didn't ask for nor was she familiar with.

[Name: Alex Grace]

[Mana: 8,014,054,771/10,001,412,368]

[Attribute Points: 0]

[Tenacity: 18,742]

[Perception: 16,381]

[Dexterity: 14,928]

[Aura: 17,562]

[Mana Heart: 19,447]

[Mana Brain: 21,896]

[SPIRIT SIGN ERROR: DEFAULT PROWESS ASSIGNED]

[Total Prowess: 20]

Well shit, what is this? Alex scoffed. It looked like the summoning tried to hijack her True Core through a module injection. Looks like it didn’t work.

"And now, each one please tell us your prowess," the king asked as he held up a blue monocle in front of his right eye, interrupting her short thoughts.

"Mine's 26," the first boy spoke up. He wore the same uniform as the others:, black blazer, dark teal trims, grey dress pants, and black dress shoes. The mundane private school was beside City Hall. His hair was slightly messy and slightly long, but not enough to cover his eyes.

Murmurs all around the throne room echoed. Whispers flowed through the surrounding crowd, talking about how impressive that was for being recently summoned.

Frankly, Alex didn't care, but this system was interesting. Was it completely disconnected from what she had back on Earth? It was still interesting how the boy's total prowess was much higher than hers.

"Mine is 24.75," the second boy spoke up. Same uniform as the first boy too, however, this one had dyed his hair blond, while his roots were black.

More conversations echoed around the throne. Apparently, a second one higher than 24 was already a mark of good fortune. Alex didn't dare to miss that detail. It would mean that the natives of this world had summoned 'heroes' before already, and these numbers were an anomaly to them.

"My status says 23.5," the first girl said. Apart from the blazer she wore, her skirt went down below her knees. She was one of those conservative ones.

"25," the remaining girl simply said. Her hair was dyed red and styled into a ponytail. Her blazer was tailored to match her curves, while her skirt was shorter than the previous girl's.

At both times the girls spoke of their prowess, more smiles spread across the whole room. One of the guard’s' eyes even started beaming as he puffed out his chest like he was proud of something.

Annoying. And lastly, of course, she was supposed to say hers.

"20," Alex said.

She obviously had the lowest one. But she hadn’t expected the reception caused by just being a bit off to be so negative. Some even shook their heads in disappointment, and their sighs clearly exaggerated.

But who cares?

The king cleared his throat. "Heroes from the otherworld, I shall present you with two choices. Dedicate your lives to the prosperity of the Kingdom, and you will be trained to be the heroes that this world needs while receiving up to 200 gold per Ter depending on your prowess progress. Or, you may take 100 gold and choose to live in mundanity out in the world of Nulfrae, which should last you 1 Ter."

The first boy bowed and spoke up,. "My king, my name is Drake Hasslecroft. I accept your quest to save this world from the corruption."

What? These kids didn't even listen to what that bastard said. 'Dedicate your lives to the prosperity of the Kingdom.' That was an oddly specific statement in that sentence which could only mean that this fat bastard was telling them to work for him, not for the world.

And without pay?! He mentioned ‘up to 200 gold per Ter’, giving the fat bastard any excuse to cut that down to 0 at any inconvenience or failure.

That was a complete joke!

The second stepped forward and bowed. "This one's name is Alexander Macedon. I accept the quest to save this world," he said.

Their names were definitely not their real names. Maybe their first names were real, but that hads to be one of the biggest lies Alex hads heard. These kids were really playing into the roleplay.

"Hi, mister king. My name is Yumi Wang. Nice to meet you... and-and I accept the quest!" she bowed.

"Tiffany Hu. I accept. Whatever," she said, not even bowing.

The rest of the guards turned their eyes to Alex. Only she was the only one that hadn't accepted yet. From the way their eyes looked at her, they were already expecting her to say, 'Yes, I'll be your slave' willy-nilly.

Sipping the last bits of her frappuccino, she threw out the plastic cup onto the floor before saying, "Hey everyone, just call me Alex."

"And do you accept the terms, Alex?" the king asked.

"I want to know more first before I decide. That's fine, right? And do you guys have coffee here?"

"Coffee? What is that?" the king asked.

"A drink that makes you go zoom. Something that'll wake you up."

"We do not have coffee... might I offer you tea?"

"You're joking, right? Where's the coffee?"

"Lady Alex, we do not have the substance you call 'coffee'. We have tea that hasve similar effects that can wake you up if you so desire it."

"Look here, you little shit," Alex started walking up to the king, blocked by the knights. "Tea is for people that have no ambitions. It's leaf water. Who the HELL drinks leaf water without caffeine?!"

"Lady Alex," Alizia spoke up from beside the king. "We really do not know what coffee is. We can provide you with our strongest tea if you'd like. That is all we can offer."

Interesting tactic for a princess to speak over her own king. Well, who the hell cares. She needed caffeine now.

"Fine! Fine! Give it to me!" Alex said.

A few minutes passed in complete silence.

Alizia and a butler came with a set of teapots and a teacup. Pouring the tea into the teacup, the butler handed Alex the cup. Grabbing the cup quickly, Alex took a sip and immediately spat out the leaf water that she just drank. Worst of all, it tasted like herbal tea. No caffeine.

"What's this?!"

"Lady Alex, it's tea from the mountains of Hadstead. It's hailed as the strongest tea in the world," Alizia said.

"Leaf water doesn't even constitute as a drink!"

The Mid-Harmonic knight drew his sword. "Watch your words, wench!"

"Enough!" the king said. "Lady Alex, if you wish not to participate in the training to subjugate the corruption, you may do so and live as a mundane. Do you wish to do that?"

"Sure, why not." Alex extended her hand. "Now give me my gold."

She wasn't one to pass up free money. If there was no exit to this goddamned magical shithole, she could make one after getting enough money to get the materials. And if that's the case, she needed that money for a start-up.

"L-Lady Alex. Are you sure of your decision?" the king coughed. "Living in mundanity, you would have a low quality of life with the peasants. Think about this for a second."

"I refuse. Now just give me my money." Alex shook her extended hand, asking for the bag of gold.

"My king, it's fine. Due to her prowess being the lowest, she wouldn't be of any use anyway," Drake said from where he sat.

Look at this little asshole speaking up. He doesn't even know who he is talking to. Literally. He just met this king literally 14 minutes and 23 seconds ago.

"Alright... guards, please get Lady Alex 100 gold in a bag and escort her to the castle doors," the king said.

The Mid-Harmonic knight sheathed his sword and held Alex by the arm. But when he tried to move her himself, Alex didn't budge, leaving knight’s eyes wide as he continuously tried to drag her by the arm.

For a second, she revelled in how stupid these people were, relying on the status screen to assess their opponents. That monocle that the king wore while they assessed their prowess was probably something that looked at their prowess without consent too, but it had a fatal flaw. It seemed like it couldn’t see the actual stats of the target.

The fat bastard didn't even bother offering more money for her to stay instead of leaving. If Drake had chosen to possibly leave, they most definitely would have given him a counter offer of more gold per Ter.

And by now, Alex had understood that Ter was simply their yearly measurements. How long was it? That was left for research. She'd find out later.

While she thought of this, suddenly, the knight's grip on her arm tightened enough that she could feel it.

"Get your filthy hands off me," she said as she shook off his hand.

"Then follow me," the knight said. He moved towards the group of four and through them towards the exit of the throne room.

Drake glared at Alex as she passed, but honestly, Alex could give a rat's ass about the kid. The four kids were in for a rough time. Who knows how many more this fat bastard summoned before them? What were the chances of them succeeding with what this world's quest was?

It was unquantifiable.

Exiting the throne room, Alex glanced over her shoulder to see the king. On his lips was a clear smug look as if he had just gotten rid of trash. She wasn't coming back no matter how much they begged.

The correct choice was to get out of this castle, and the only thing on Alex's mind was how was she going to find coffee in this backwater world?