Meanwhile, within the pod.[DING!!!!!][A SUITABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR EVOLUTION HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!!!!!][INITIATING SYSTEM EVOLUTION]Those prompts were being displayed to the currently comatose Aron, who remained unaware of anything that was happening to him. The MANA inside the pod began to be absorbed by every pore of his body, being depleted as fast as it was being replenished, forcing Nova, who was alerted by the situation, to immediately increase the amount of MANA that was being sent to the pod, which ultimately resulted in Aron's body to start absorbing the incoming MANA even faster. This started a game of filling and refilling like an endless well, as Aron, no, his body continuously absorbed the incoming MANA. Nova had a hypothesis of what was happening; she suspected it was either an evolution in Aron's body or something else similar to that, and the more MANA she provided, the faster whatever the system was doing would be completed.She didn't try to intervene in it all, a

Lubyanka Square, Moscow Centre.The entire world was discussing the war between Esparia and Eden. And while it was growing more and more interesting with each new twist unveiled by the media, it seemed that the conflict had moved out of the battlefield and into the boardroom with the unconditional surrender of the instigating nation, Esparia.Now, onlookers were wondering what other demands Eden would be making, as Esparia couldn't deny any of them. That was how unconditional surrender worked, after all. It was becoming quite an argument, and even some betting sites had opened odds on what the conditions were going to be, with most people placing bets on land concessions being one of them.That was something that would also have been being discussed inside FSB headquarters, if they hadn't found themselves in a situation that required most of their attention: an operative of the FSB's Technical Security Department, Vladimir, had gone missing from his home.Many teams had been tasked wi

The moment the system's assimilation was completed, the pod rang with a musical buzzing noise. The rhythm of Aron's heartbeat was disrupted, but immediately mended by the runes, resulting in it beating with more vigor than before. Then, the billions of runes that had been active through the process dimmed and reduced the rate at which they had been absorbing mana, prompting Nova to reduce the amount of mana that was being fed into the pod.With the continual dimming of the runes and the reduction in mana intake, it soon stabilized, and the frantic absorption of mana was over.That told Nova that whatever the system had been doing was over and she released the excess computing power to continue whatever it had been tasked with before, resuming the two universal simulation instances that she'd suspended and the rest of the tasks that were still ongoing.That didn't mean that her abrupt termination of all of the tasks hadn't been resumed without any problems, as Aron had lost more than s

A week later.A week had passed since the negotiations began, and today marked their end. To announce the successful conclusion, as well as what conditions had been agreed to after the surrender, a press conference was being held at the Esparian presidential palace. Due to the end of the war, the reporters that'd left had all returned, and there were a few hundred of them present. Thus, the press conference had to be held on the lawn, instead of the conference room."Today marks the end of the negotiations between Eden and Esparia, as well as the war caused by the Esparians that had been corrupted by money and the pursuit of benefits." Alexander began his speech with the confidence of a person who was sure nothing was going to happen to him no matter what he said. But despite that, he still didn't put the blame on the citizens of the country. Instead, he only blamed the politicians who were behind the decision."A few minutes ago, we signed Emanuel's Surrender A

Aubrey Morgan, his son, and his assistant were in a secure room. "Ares, who are they? Find out everything about them, especially who their owner is," Aubrey said in the room, without even looking at the others.The assistant immediately nodded and headed out the door to relay the order."They seem to be the most likely beneficiaries of this conflict, and are either the ones behind our defeat, or at least connected to them. We'd never heard of them before they became Eden's contractors. At first, that didn't seem important to anyone and we all thought it was just a cost cutting measure, but now they're going to take over Esparia, too. That means they'll be the military overlord every PMC dreams of becoming and can be considered a legitimate military force, with military-grade weapons. They may even be the ones producing them," George said, slightly jealous that, despite their power, they couldn't legitimately have such a massive force under them. Instead, they were forced to break thei