Inside therapy session.Upon hearing Nova's elaborate explanation, Aron released a sigh of relief. Yet, an underlying feeling of strangeness forced him to ask, "But why didn't I experience any bad emotions like self-disgust for the grossly disproportionate punishment I dished out to Vladimir if my personality would have taken a few decades to manifest into what the system planned me to become?"{You triggered the system's emergency protocols when it sensed that your feeling of disgust for yourself and empathy for the man who had made you suffer might have hindered its progress of molding you and put it into setbacks, which would then force it to start from scratch once again. Hence, it suppressed the production of certain hormones to prevent you from feeling those emotions, and since I can't access your brain map in real-time, I failed to discover this happening until after observing your behavior when you sent him for the third round of the itch torture, during which I started monito
While Aron lay in a coma, the world continued to move forward, not waiting for him at all.Inside a heavily guarded and lengthy convoy, Alexander could be seen seated in the presidential car dubbed "the dragon." His eyes remained closed while he still wore his glasses. The car maintained its level of stability despite moving at a very fast speed along some rugged roads, thanks to the advanced suspension system in the car. The system reacted immediately to counteract any changes in the road, making sure that the car always maintained the same stability. It was effective to the point where even if a glass filled to the brim with water was placed in the car, it would not spill even a single drop."Where is Aron?" Alexander inquired when he entered the universal simulation after logging in.{He won't be available for a week as he is undergoing treatment} Nova answered. Her tone was devoid of any ridicule or superiority, as was typical of her."Even he can get sick?" Alexander muttered in
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
"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. You can't do that to me," Tom shouted in horror as the computer began shutting down amidst his celebration. His face stiffened in fear as he scrambled to power it on once again.After it powered itself on, he typed the password as calmly as he could, with his heart praying that he wouldn't input a wrong character.He pressed enter the moment he finished entering the code and clasped his hands in prayer as his eyes focused on the screen, hoping the password would still work."PLEASE NO, PLEASE NO..." he said when he saw the computer powering itself off again after flashing a warning. [Your account has been locked for six hours. Please check your password and try again later.] He lowered his head and pulled his hair in a fit of nervousness and fear, as he now knew he couldn't do anything to stop the computer from being transferred to DARPA. He'd blown his chance in his nervousness, as he either input the wrong password or it might be a one-time password that th
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
"I've become arrogant," Nova thought to herself as she utilized all of the powers at her disposal to simulate everything that had been happening to Aron. Enough computing power to simulate an entire galaxy was concentrated and brought to bear upon a single problem: what exactly had caused Aron's pod to return null data to Nova's probes?With each simulation, a single variable was changed in an attempt to replicate the result she'd received from the pod's sensors at the time she had dispatched the mobile atomic printers into the lab where Aron resided. She had also put the entire floor on lockdown, as among the variables, one showed that there was a risk of Aron exploding.She had already negated the possibility of the sensors being broken, as she'd tested them. The result of her tests assured her that the sensors were working perfectly, leaving only one possibility: the number of things happening inside his body was so high that the sensors had been overwhelmed.Among the many assumpt
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
It took Nova slightly longer to log Aron in, since she needed to upgrade the sequence to fit his newly restructured brain before she could log him in."Arghhhh...." Aron woke up feeling as if he had slept for more than a year. His body felt very heavy as he placed his hand on his forehead and sat up.Nova had refrained from making him feel refreshed, since she didn't have the complete upgraded brain data and doing something without it would be like firing an arrow as a blind person—even if the blind person hit the target, there was no guarantee they would do so on the first shot. Thus, the moment Aron fully opened his eyes and put his hands on his head, Nova wasted no time and attempted to access his brain data.The moment she received access, she analyzed the new data, and after a few seconds, she had completely finished the check and wasted no time in making him feel refreshed. That resulted in him feeling better, but the moment he did, it was like a dam