As Ryan was busy cultivating for the better part of the year, Megapolis was quiet and peaceful, in relative terms of course. PI Robotics managed to retrieve and repair the Pirin. Sky Haven went on with their assassinations, as well as recruitment process.

During this period, PI Robotics obtained a tender to supply the Griffinian government with battle robots, so they started mass-producing battle robots, with capabilities only inferior to the Pirin.

While PI Robotics was making battle bots, AVA Technologies, launched a peer-to-peer networking platform. This platform allowed large amounts of data to be stored across multiple small devices, like smartphones for example. With these technological improvements, one could think that humanity was well on its way to become the strongest race that could dominate the galaxy.

For those who really knew of the storm that was to come, they were busy preparing for an apocalypse. No one ever heard from Dr. Alan Paige ever again. It appeared as if he just vanished into thin air!

However, the truth was that his consciousness was still in the Megapolis PI Robotics Datacenter. This whole time, he focused on changing the source code for the operating system of the battle bots. No one detected the changes, because they were done at the lower level. For the entire part of the year, he was plotting his return! He also read all the emails being sent through the company network, and he made adjustments to his plans based on what he was seeing.

Time moved along, and as Ryan started his cultivation of the Roc Chasing the Wind technique, an email was sent on the PI Robotics network. The recipient of the email was not known, but the contents alarmed Dr. Paige’s consciousness. The email was sent by Joel Hartmann’s secretary, and she instructed the recipient to ‘wrap it up’, starting with Michael Avariz.

Of course, everyone who could have read the email would be able to tell it was a trap. Dr. Paige’s consciousness tried to figure out what to do, and ended up resolving to go and warn his friend. However, since he didn’t have a body, and using the Pirin to go there would alert his enemies of his presence. Therefore, he decided to steal one of the early prototypes in the research center, and after transferring his consciousness, he linked it to the Pirin.

He did it to make sure whenever he was in trouble, he could summon the Pirin at any time. Some moments after he transferred his consciousness to the robot, he decided to increase the robot’s energy by putting on more battery packs. Afterwards, he went out of the research center through the back exit, and then flew off towards the airport. Since it was so early in the morning, no one noticed the robot leaving. The only people who were in the research center were the guards, but most of them were fast asleep.

After reaching the airport, he hovered in the air for a couple of minutes. He wanted to make sure that there were no flights that would be disturbed by his own. Having made sure, he headed towards Aloha Island at full speed.

Michael Avariz had woken up early in order to feed the cattle, and do some other tasks. Actually, he had been awake and failed to go back to sleep, thus he decided to do the tasks while he was at it. He had managed to do most of the tasks, but he still wasn’t feeling like going back to sleep. He headed towards his garage, and as he got in, he took out some blueprints from a drawer in a cupboard by the corner.

There was a slight knock on the door to the garage. Michael was startled by the knock, after all, no one knocked whenever he was working. Ryan and George would just go inside and start doing something. Marjory didn’t like going inside the garage, and she would call him out whenever she needed something.

Feeling quite startled, he put the blueprints on the table and headed towards the door. After opening the door, he looked into blue lights, which could have been eyes.

“Hello old friend, long time no see”, began the object with the blue lights.

Michael was surprised, and he began to edge backwards.

“Don’t worry; I’m not here to harm you. How long has it been?” asked the object as it walked into the garage where light was abundant. As it walked into the light, Michael saw the robot. It was gray in color, and was sort of humanoid, with broad shoulders and short legs. It also had a PI Robotics logo on its abdomen, and a red star showing on what would pass as its forehead.

“W-what are y-you?” asked Michael, stuttering.

“It’s me, Alan. Have you forgotten? And here I was thinking we were going to be friends forever.”

“Alan Paige? Why aren’t you here in person then? Sending a robot--”

“I’m actually here in person, by the way.”

“What? Don’t tell me--”

“Yes, I did. Can we stop talking about this? It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“What happened?”

The robot walked around and stood by the table, looking at the blueprints spread out.

“Remember when we made our first robot? John was so excited he went and invited government to come and see the magnificent robot. It could fly, intercept missiles, conceal its digital signature as well as deflect bullets! The look on those idiots’ faces was priceless.”

Michael sighed. He responded, “That was one of the best times I had ever since John started PI Robotics. We pulled an all-nighter to make that robot fly, the component responsible for propulsion kept malfunctioning. John managed to figure it out, and we fixed it.”

“Since we were always having fun, with John making sure we didn’t starve, why did you end up leaving? I always wondered the reason, until I discovered that PI Robotics was supplying weapons to both the Griffinian government and the Misis group. Not just that, they were also selling weapons to the mafia, led by the infamous Lopez! But you knew didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How was I supposed to say it? Besides, I was simply suspecting John’s right hand man. However, I couldn’t tell John since I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me! I simply decided to quit, and when John asked, I told him I wanted to rest. The reason I joined him, was so that I could make an impact on the world. After seeing that the impact was negative, I decided to give up! My son grew up to start his own company and he became a billionaire. I was satisfied!”

“There’s also something you didn’t know, Michael. There’s a powerful group that was controlling everything behind the scenes! The reason I’m here is because they are coming after you! You’re not safe!”

“Wait, why me? I didn’t do anything!” said Michael, with a frown.

“They want to use you as bait, to get to me! Even if I hadn’t taken the bait, they would have killed you anyway! You have to leave with your family! None of us are safe here!”

As they were speaking, outside, there was an air force jet flying towards the farm. The jet hovered in midair, and then fired three missiles in succession, towards the garage! However, before they arrived at their target, a large purple-colored vortex appeared and swallowed the three missiles!

The pilot was flabbergasted at this site.

“This is Alpha One. An unidentified phenomenon is interfering with the mission! Backup is requested with immediate effect! Alpha Two do you re--”

Before he finished speaking, a purple beam flashed in the dark and hit the plane!

KABOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!

The jet exploded leaving bits and pieces raining from the sky! Meanwhile, Michael and Dr. Paige rushed outside to see what was happening, after hearing the explosion. Minutes later, George, Marjory and June came out as well.

Dr. Paige scanned the entire area, and he realized that they were surrounded!

“Listen Michael, don’t panic. We’re surrounded! They moved faster than I was!”

As he finished speaking, soldiers wearing weird looking metallic suits came from the woods, the fields and surrounded them.

Michael’s heart started racing as he realized there was someone missing! “Where’s Ryan?” he shouted in a panic.

“I don’t know! He wasn’t in his room when I went to check on him!” replied Marjory.

“Oh no!”

Earlier, before everything started happening, Ryan was sitting on Cloud’s peak, deep in a trance. Myra sensed something flying top speed towards the farm. Because it was quite far, his divine sense couldn’t determine what it was. He decided to go and see what was going on.

He looked at Ryan and determined he was safe, then placed a shield array just to make sure. Afterwards, he then took a step forward and vanished, appearing just above the farm. A robot whistled past him, directly landing on the ground, after which it scanned the entire farm, and then headed to the garage. It didn’t even notice him, considering he was using the illusory dream technique.

Myra kept hovering in the air, waiting. Some minutes later, a jet flew past him and stopped in midair, before launching three missiles towards the garage where Michael and the robot were having a conversation. At this point, Myra could not hesitate. He focused his ki, and his eye sockets turned from pale blue to purple. A purple vortex appeared right before the missiles hit their mark!

WHOOOOOSSHH!!

The missiles went into the vortex, and it closed up. Before the pilot could escape, Myra concentrated again and fired a purple beam towards the plane. The beam hit, and the plane blew up, causing Michael to emerge from the garage. Myra realized something was off, then he sent his divine sense to cover the farm. He then saw that the entire farm had already been surrounded! If he could frown, that’s the expression that would have been plastered on his metallic face.

Ryan on the other hand, was sitting while being in a trance. In the mini-dimension, he was observing the golden roc’s movements. It had been a few months since he had been watching the scene. However, for some reason, he never felt hungry. He kept sitting there watching the movements. The scene kept replaying itself over and over again. Despite the promise of an enlightenment, Ryan could not figure out anything out of the ordinary, besides the giant primordial bird he was watching of course.

He looked exhausted, even though he was just sitting there watching. As he was about to give up, he realized something about the entire situation. ‘What if I am wrong?’ he thought. ‘What if the scene is playing backwards? That would mean that the giant bird is accelerating first, and then gliding afterwards. But why? And how?’

Despite wracking his brain to think about it, he couldn’t come up with any solution. He couldn’t even see anything that would help with cultivating the roc chasing the wind technique.

‘Maybe the secret is in the name? A roc is chasing the wind, and then using it to glide? What is so special about it?’

He kept asking himself questions, and time flew by without him realizing it. It felt like half a year had gone by inside the dimension. He didn’t even notice that he never felt hungry or thirsty. By this time, his eyes were more bloodshot, and he was feeling tired. Half a year had gone without him sleeping, well, technically speaking he appeared to be asleep.

‘The secret is in the name? Or maybe it’s about the wind itself? ’

As he thought about this, he realized something had changed in the scene! It appeared as if there were threads in the breeze that the bird was chasing. Only he could see those threads! His eyes shined brightly and they shone with a glint of determination.