After silently pondering for a moment, Simon nodded. It was a simple task to tell that Jake was not lying with the methods in his disposal, after all.

"Good, now come with me to the Island Core." Simon said with a nod, beckoning to the cabin that he was readily walking towards.

...

Upon entering the cabin and sitting face to face with Jake, Simon took a closer look at the man's features.

Jake seemed to be in his early twenties, had thin brown hair, and would even look fairly handsome if he didn't appear to be malnutritioned. Moreover, his body was extremely pale and thin, as if he already had one foot within the grave.

Simon also noticed that he maintained a subdued valiant and fierce aura, though it appeared to be tainted - or rather - subdued by more things than one.

To the untrained eye he appeared to be a relatively normal, albeit slightly deranged person. However, Simon knew that it wasn't as simple as it seemed...

Meanwhile, Jake uncomfortably sat still, not daring to move.

"Come on man, I don't eat people. You can call me Sir!" Simon chuckled, somewhat exasperated by Jake's actions, or rather, lack of actions.

Jake nodded solemnly as he replied, "Yes sir! If I may ask, what are your orders for me?"

Simon slowly stood up and stretched his arms, before answering, "Stand up, face forward, and stand still."

Jake quickly obliged and Simon made his way behind the man before firmly setting a palm on his back. Now, his expression grew solemn and his gaze sharp.

Within Jake's body, he could sense a horrifying, viscous black mass that was propagated all over. The black mass was reminiscent of the void, and formed black tendrils that wrapped around the man's organs like a parasite.

Such a scene caused Simon to flinch in disgust.

'How does he live like this?! No wonder he's malnourished and suicidal!' he thought empathetically, as he clicked his tongue.

Jake's situation was truly pitiful - he suspected that if they had met just a week later, he would already be dead. But thankfully, he had met Simon.

Smack!

After knocking Jake unconscious with a quick slap, Simon solemnly took a deep breath, before beginning the process of curing Jake's affliction.

First, he set a palm on Jake's chest and released a precise burst of cold attributed mana, which stopped his already feeble heart on the spot.

As of this moment, the man's blood had already stopped circulating, but Simon remained expressionless as he did so; this was merely part of the curing process, after all.

Then, with the same palm, he cautiously sent tendrils of mana into the heart that had stopped beating.

Now, Simon could see a thin orb within the man's heart, reminiscent of his own mana core. Only, it was rather shriveled and completely motionless. The aura of energy emitting from it was practically unnoticeable as well.

Seeing this, Simon's brows furrowed as he concentrated on this mana core, taking note of every detail of the orb.

This was one of the most important steps in curing the affliction, and he had a limited time to do it. After all, he couldn't allow Jake's body to remain lifeless for too long.

...

Time quickly passed, and soon enough, nearly five minutes had gone by since Simon began investigating Jake's mana core.

By now, he was finally confident in his understanding of Jake's mana core and could not risk waiting any longer. After all, Jake's situation was beginning to get precarious without his heart beating for five minutes.

Simon took a deep breath and gradually summoned forth a ball of mana atop his other palm.

This ball of mana contained primarily nature attributed mana, but other types of mana such as time, hot, and cold mana were also present within this orb. It was only the size of the top of one's finger, but the mana within this orb was extremely potent.

After he summoned the orb of mana, Simon's breathing grew uneven and his complexion paled, but he grit his teeth and took out half a dozen essence crystals from atop of a desk before crushing them and absorbing the mana.

After doing so, he sighed in relief. For now he was not in danger of running out of energy, and the orb had been completed without any issues.

'Now, onto the hard part!' Simon's expression grew even more solemn as he lowered the orb of mana into Jake's chest.

This part of the operation would determine the success or failure of the operation; the life or death of the patient!

The ball of mana morphed ever so slightly as it entered Jake's body, and soon, it had completely entered his chest.

Simon closed his eyes and intently focused on the ball of mana, adjusting its properties and shape many times as he gradually inched the orb closer to Jake's heart. Through every fiber of muscle, through every blood vessel, and through every material that the orb passed, Simon was meticulous in his control of the orb, making sure not to waver in the slightest.

As of this moment, his mind was preoccupied with one thing, and one thing only. The ever lowering orb of mana.

...

Twenty minutes later...

The orb of mana suddenly contacted the shriveled up mana core within Jake's heart and it instantly reacted, absorbing the orb of mana immediately.

Seeing this, Simon held his breath and withdrew his control from the orb of mana as he watched the orb of mana merge with Jake's mana core… He had done all that he could, and it was now time to see the result. If it failed, he had no one to blame but himself.

Jake's mana core suddenly began emitting a blinding light moments after absorbing the orb of mana, beginning to reinflate. Just moments later, it was dazzling and complete, emanating waves of mana which began washing away the tendrils of darkness!

Afterwards, with the final vestiges of his energy, Simon induced Jake's heart and brain to kickstart with a burst of mana.

The lengthy and arduous operation was complete; the mysterious black energy within Jake was beginning to dissipate due to his efforts, and he had officially awakened Jake's talent as a mage!

"Whew!" Simon sighed in relief before crashing onto a chair, groaning as sweat ran down his pale face, his entire figure slightly shaking.

At this moment, he felt like he had been working for days on end without a drop of sleep!

'Man, corrupted essence is truly hard to fix,' he thought with a pained expression.

Indeed, Jake's affliction was known as corrupted essence in his past life.

Corrupted Essence manifests when one forcefully summons mana without the means to do so - relying fully on willpower to utilize mana for a short time.

Typically, this would result in a quick death, as the absorbed mana would be unstable and multiply like cancer cells, quickly overwhelming their host who could not control said mana!

On the other hand, if one successfully awakens hidden talent in the process, they would become capable of resisting for minutes, hours, or even days - depending on the amount of talent that they awaken.

However, despite awakening talent, the afflicted would never be able to overcome the corrupted mana in their lifetimes if left to their own devices!

And so, for a long while, there was no cure to the affliction in his old world; death was the only result which awaited those who were unfortunate enough to receive such an affliction.

But after many tragedies and countless experiments, a miraculous cure was finally found!

The cure involved allowing the corrupted essence to fill the afflicted one's body completely - which basically killed the patient. Afterwards, if the patient was not dead by then, the mage performing the cure would have to kill the patient anyway, so as to allow foreign mana to enter the body seamlessly.

Then, the mage performing the cure would have to send in a precise surge of mana to the patient's still unfinished mana core.

After which, the patient's mana core would kickstart, and begin to refine the corrupted essence into regular essence, or mana!

By then, all that was left would be to restart all the other life functions for the patient, which was quite simple for a mage who could pull off the first steps of the cure.

However, the difficulty of this procedure should not be underestimated...

Sending in the surge of mana required an absurd amount of precision; if the orb of mana was even a hair's width off in any one dimension, the patient would surely die... It was akin to pulling off surgery on a grape.

Even for Simon, such a thing would be difficult to pull off in the past.

But now with his recently gained scientific knowledge, Simon could breach the limits that he once had. After all, he now possessed deeper knowledge about human anatomy and could therefore adjust the surge of mana through Jake's body with a higher level of precision.

After resting for a while, Simon recovered to an extent and looked at the scrawny and pale man who was laying on the ground with the utmost level of satisfaction and pride.

In his previous life, only seven or eight star core mages were known to be able to pull off such an operation. Naturally, he couldn't be more excited over his improvements.

'What a pleasant surprise… As the saying here goes, science really is like magic!' he thought with a wry smile.

He then logged out of the game and pulled the VR helmet from his head, having returned to the real world.

...

By now, the sun was in the process of rising above the horizon, letting in faint rays of light into Simon's dim room; it was dawn time in the real world.

His hair was currently a matted and sweaty mess and his breathing was somewhat uneven. But he couldn't feel any happier at this moment!

After all, by now, he had been in the virtual world for practically an entire day, and had made so many delightful discoveries in the world of Island Ascension Online that he questioned whether he was in a dream or not...

However, the sensation of magic was simply too real for it to be a dream!

Simon stretched as he got up from his bed, and quickly found that he was tired in real life as well.

Though, he was not exactly surprised. After all, the level of concentration that he maintained in the procedure was no joke, which naturally required a lot of energy to sustain; the repercussions of executing such a procedure were not limited to only his energy within Island Ascension Online.

He then went to his kitchen to grab a bite.

…

A few moments later…

Slurp!

Slurp! Slurp!

The sound of excited slurping could be heard in a certain room…

"Ah… These cup noodles are simply heavenly!" Simon exclaimed, while patting his belly, satisfied.

He had just finished a dozen bowls of instant noodles by now.

If a normal person saw how fast he ate, they would undoubtedly be horrified. After all, he had practically swallowed a bucket's worth of cup noodles in under a minute! Even competitive eating champions could not hold a candle to his speed.

However, Simon could not be blamed for doing so...

When he first transmigrated, he was greatly shocked by how tasty things were in this world - it was a completely new experience!

After all, in his old world, people were at each other's necks at all times. Where would they find time for delicacies? As such, food in his old world was generally focused on boosting one's personal strength, rather than for pleasure.

On the other hand, in this world of peace and prosperity, luxury was basically refined to an art; naturally, he would happily reap the benefits of living in such a society!

Plus, he had an appetite that was much larger than typical humans... What was stopping him from eating that much?

...

After finishing up his meal and showering, Simon leisurely laid down on a couch within his living room and checked his phone notifications.

As he scrolled by the messages on his phone, a few caught his eye in particular.

'Eh? Kenny is tryna flex on me because he has 200 xp towards level two?'

Simon was quite amused upon reading his bro's text messages. Though 300 xp was comparable to frontline players, it still could not compare to what he had gotten, which was around 600 xp.

But to be fair, he was an expert magic user from another world… If he couldn't beat regular people when magic was involved, that would just be a joke!

That being said, it was already impressive enough for his bro to compare with frontline players.

And so, he quickly sent out a reply, which instigated a heated discussion…

(Simon): {That's light work! But don't worry, when we can finally visit each other's islands I'll carry you to my level :)}

(Kenny): {F*ck! How much xp did you get for you to act like this? I'll be the one to carry you when we can visit each other's islands! Plus, I bet I'll hit level 3 first, I just have to call you to work tomorrow ;)}

(Simon): {That's too cheap! Fine, do you want to bet? First to hit level 3 gets a week off to play Island Ascension Online. But no summoning me to work tomorrow, that's cheating :)}

(Kenny): {Hell yeah bro, it's on! Oh yeah, did you hear about the latest news about Island Ascension Online?}

(Simon): {No. What is it?}

(Kenny): {Well, there's some ridiculous rumors floating around! People claim that magic proficiency ingame transfers to real life! What a f*cking joke, haha!}

Simon frowned upon reading this text in particular.

'Well, I guess it was bound to happen, but isn't this too soon? Don't tell me that the people in this world are actually that talented!' he thought while furrowing his brow, feeling that this piece of news was incredulous.

He was rightfully surprised upon seeing the message. After all, magic was not something that was easy to grasp in the slightest. In his past life, those who grasped magic by themselves were the best of the best, even among geniuses!

But then, he quickly realized a possibility of why people were so quick to catch on...

Science was widespread, so naturally, residents of this world had a head start when it came to magical comprehension - at least when compared to residents of his previous world.

Plus, this was the age of the internet. Once one person knew a secret, it had the potential to become viral in a single night. How could something as monumental as magic stay unknown for long?

Upon having this thought, he also realized that this world would be more of a challenge to conquer than he initially believed; if he wanted to keep ahead of his competition, he definitely had to study science to further his skills!

At the same time, he was tempted to reveal the truth to Kenny, and he mused over such a decision.

'Some people know of magic already, right? It won't be too bad…'

However, he decided to hold himself back from doing so as he simply didn't know enough about the current situation. He did not want to risk doing anything rash.

After all, Simon was experienced enough to know that a collision between modern society and magic was bound to be violent. Resistance to change was imminent, no matter the change - especially when said changes were this earth-shattering!

Thus, who knew if magic users would be captured and experimented on, killed on sight, or worse?

Moreover, as an experienced mage who had lofty ambitions, he was naturally treading a path that was fraught with many dangers. Dragging his bro in needlessly would simply be cruel and stupid.

He was given a second chance at life and was determined to not let it go to waste! That was why he decided to lay low for the time being, slowly building his strength and waiting for the dust to settle.

After pausing in consideration for a moment, he then sighed and continued texting…

-----

Time flowed like water as the two conversed. Soon, thirty minutes had gone by.