‘This is… Earth?’

James looked around himself incredulously at the high-rise buildings… which are mostly ruined beyond recognition.

‘Wait. That’s my home… or at least where it used to be.’

“Sir Feng, we have thoroughly searched and cleansed the area, all the Corrupted have been cleared and we have retrieved the remnants of the capsule devices as you commanded but there is still no traces of humans anywhere.”

Feeling his body move out of his control, Feng replied coldly.

“Understood, lead two squads to transport it back across the Bridge to be studied by the mages. The rest will follow me and continue the search.”

‘How… ARRGHHH-’

A tearing pain surged through James as he felt himself separating from his(?) body and rising above himself, he noticed his body looked… older before he felt himself been forcibly sucked through what felt like a tiny straw.

“UUGGGHHHH!”

“FENG!”

The intense soul-wrenching pain abruptly ceased and Feng heaved a deep breath as he shot up amidst concerned cries.

“L-let me… catch my breath, I’m ok.”

Lifting his hand and rassuring Rania and Alicia who were pressing up against him in deep concern, Feng shakily sat up and gazed at the innocent-looking bottle in his hand which was the root of this.

‘Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to make a try to modify an unknown legendary potion recipe… oh well. Time to get the annoying windows out of the way then.’

Potion of Foresight (Unknown Modified Recipe)

Type: Potion

Quality: Legendary

Effects: While normally meant to grant the drinker with the gift of combat sixth sense, heavy modification has created unknown effects but the results should be beneficial.

Description: An ominiously glowing red potion modified from a deciphered Redcloak recipe which clearly states the product is meant to be blue. The original fallen angel feather core ingredient was replaced with multiple fallen angel feathers and brewed with its heart as a catalyst.

New Legendary Skill Obtained: Foresight

*ERROR* Skill exceeds current system parameters, unable to measure impact *ERROR*

(Passive)

*ERROR*

*Unknown* *Error* Quest Unlocked: Glimpse of the Future

*ERROR – Unknown author detected*

The last hour is nigh. The snatching away is soon, the seals are breaking, the tribulation is coming. Will you stay and bear witness to all who are left behind?

Prerequisites:

*ERROR*

Difficulty:

*ERROR*

Objectives:

1) Remain.

2) *Hidden*

Rewards:

*ERROR_TOO_MANY_ROWS* Eternal Life *ERROR_TOO_MANY_ROWS*

Failure:

*ERROR_TOO_MANY_ROWS* Eternal Life *ERROR_TOO_MANY_ROWS*

System Warning

*ERROR* You have overloaded the system with an unknown energy. Lockdown activating. *ERROR*

Tampering of a foreign nature has been detected, lockdown mode activation denied.

Alerting system administrators… *ERROR* System command confirmed.

Syncing in process.

All systems notifications and windows are locked till syncing is completed

“What the hell!”

“Feng! Are you hurt?”

Staring at the long list of notification windows full of error messages, Feng looked at the previously annoying notification window as it slowly and ominously faded from view and desperately tried triggering his status window, inventory and spamming observes only to see nothing at all.

Feng felt his heart rate rise as a horrible thought crept into his mind.

‘What about the log out function?!?’

Frantically calling the log out function while the girls stared at him confused and worriedly, Feng finally relaxed as the familiar count begun.

10…

9…

“Girls, I’m alright. That just took a lot out of me and I just need to return to my world to rest. I’ll be back as soon as I’m recovered so please go back to what you were working on and don’t worry!”

Stretching his hands out to pat the heads of the two girls he grew so close to over the past few weeks, Feng struggled to keep a calm smile on his face even as his mind internally struggled.

‘Could this be the last time I see them if this system screw-up is unfixable? No… there’s no need to worry about these things, Apex Corp won’t launch a faulty product… But what the vision… and the quest… what if… no that’s impossible… This is just a game, nothing at all to do with real life… Right?’

1…

*DING*

“What do you mean there’s no problem with my capsule or account? There were clearly error messages printed all over the notifications I received.”

“What do you mean you don’t know about hidden quest and it’s all generated by the AI for fairness?! Ugh. Forget it. This is going nowhere. Bye.”

Clicking off his phone and tossing it to the side, James felt his raising temper cool slightly as the pair of slender arms encircling him tightened and she soothed him.

“Calm down James, maybe it was just a temporary error that was fixed by the AI so they don’t have any trace of it on record. Why not try logging in again and maybe everything will be working fine!”

Shaking his head slightly, James grimaced and hesitated before he finally stated the reason why he kept away from Ascension for the past two days.

“That’s not it, the vision was so real… and… I been feeling different… stronger… and after that incident I could swear that I can feel mana flowing inside me like in the game.”

Feeling her gentle hands touching his face, he looked up and stared into her eyes as she spoke.

“Hey, it was probably some system illusion which your brain then filled in the details ok. And you probably been playing too much, and the feedback caused you to feel phantoms of mana and strength like in the game. Look I have been playing and everything’s been perfectly fine!”

Nuzzling his neck lightly, Leena lightly giggled and teased him.

“Maybe if you stop cheating so much, everything will go back to normal!”

“HEY! I don’t cheat… I just take advantage of weaknesses like THIS!”

Pretending to look offended, James shook off his worry as he playfully tickled his squirming girlfriend and promptly tossed aside all his concerns with a final decision made on the matter.

‘I’ll try and log in tomorrow…’